This is interesting. Just wondered what your reaction is to it, especially Tex.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... n=20130430
FYI
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Hi Linda,
I've been afraid that someone was going to ask for my opinion on that controversy, so FWIW, here it is:
I've been following this issue for a while, and I'm still not sure just how seriously to take it. but one thing is for sure — I totally agree with Dr. Mercola (and many others) that Monsanto has somehow managed to obtain a patent on a basic life process for which they never should have been granted a patent, and they will continue to seek to obtain what I consider to be illegitimate patents on every basic life process they choose to pursue, until they are stopped by a court of law. IMO, the U. S. Patent Office never should have granted them a patent in the first place, because all that Monsanto researchers did was to find a way to speed up a natural evolutionary process based on genetic mutations. Without that license to steal, Monsanto never would have pursued this goal, and none of this would have happened for at least a few hundred thousand more years or so.
That said, the study being circulated by De Dell Seed Company and MomsAcrossAmerica is seriously flawed because the data that they collected from the field of corn on which they based their study was confounded by a glaring problem — it was produced on a no-till field. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the no-till concept, it is such a small part of production agriculture as to be totally insignificant, from a production volume standpoint. Only a very tiny fraction of the world's corn is produced on no-til soils, so that study is in no way representative of modern production agriculture.
And a major problem with traditional no-till production, has been it's extra-heavy reliance on chemical control of weeds and insect pests, because cultivation is not allowed, so insect and weed pests are a serious problem, and cultivation cannot be used to interrupt the buildup. So soil in which conventional no-till production practices have been followed for many years, has a heavy chemical residue buildup that leads to higher chemical uptake by plants grown in those soils. When soils are cultivated, fresh oxygen is incorporated into the soil, and additional soil is exposed to sunlight, and that not only helps to kill weeds, insects, bacteria, fungi, and other pests, but it also helps to speed up the decomposition of chemical residues. Without cultivation, many chemicals decompose very slowly, and residue levels can build up to much higher levels than they would with conventional tillage methods.
Also, with no-till, there is no way to incorporate fertilizers into the soil, so that many nutrients (especially trace elements), can become depleted at all levels below the surface (where most of the roots collect nutrients for the plant), leading to the low nutrient values that the researchers "discovered" in the corn grown on that plot. (That probably didn't surprise anyone familiar with no-till production).
The other problem of course, is that the seed company promoting the study has a huge financial interest in the outcome of this issue in the long run, because Monsanto is squeezing the financial viability out of other seed companies, as long as their patents allow them a monopoly on the seed business.
So as a result of all this, I have to take the nutritional evidence presented by the study with a huge grain of salt, because of that unacceptable confounding issue. I have to assume that they selected this particular field for their study because they weren't successful in finding such data in fields farmed by conventional techniques. That's a very common problem with research projects these days. It's called "creative data selection", and it's designed to promote an agenda, rather than to provide an objective study.
That said, I am concerned about the extremely high use of glyphosate for so many years, and now that Stephanie Seneff and her associates have been studying the effects of residues of glyphosate in food, and have associated it with adverse effects on gut bacteria, that could certainly be a cause for concern. And it clearly points to a need for more extensive study, because IMO Stephanie Seneff is one of the leading neurological researchers today. She has a way of being able to see "out of the box" that most researchers seem to find themselves stuck in. The bottom line is that there is definitely a possibility that glyphosate might be a huge factor in the etiology of digestive system diseases because of it's effects on gut bacteria.
Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases
That's just my 2 cents worth — FWIW.
Tex
I've been afraid that someone was going to ask for my opinion on that controversy, so FWIW, here it is:
I've been following this issue for a while, and I'm still not sure just how seriously to take it. but one thing is for sure — I totally agree with Dr. Mercola (and many others) that Monsanto has somehow managed to obtain a patent on a basic life process for which they never should have been granted a patent, and they will continue to seek to obtain what I consider to be illegitimate patents on every basic life process they choose to pursue, until they are stopped by a court of law. IMO, the U. S. Patent Office never should have granted them a patent in the first place, because all that Monsanto researchers did was to find a way to speed up a natural evolutionary process based on genetic mutations. Without that license to steal, Monsanto never would have pursued this goal, and none of this would have happened for at least a few hundred thousand more years or so.
That said, the study being circulated by De Dell Seed Company and MomsAcrossAmerica is seriously flawed because the data that they collected from the field of corn on which they based their study was confounded by a glaring problem — it was produced on a no-till field. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the no-till concept, it is such a small part of production agriculture as to be totally insignificant, from a production volume standpoint. Only a very tiny fraction of the world's corn is produced on no-til soils, so that study is in no way representative of modern production agriculture.
And a major problem with traditional no-till production, has been it's extra-heavy reliance on chemical control of weeds and insect pests, because cultivation is not allowed, so insect and weed pests are a serious problem, and cultivation cannot be used to interrupt the buildup. So soil in which conventional no-till production practices have been followed for many years, has a heavy chemical residue buildup that leads to higher chemical uptake by plants grown in those soils. When soils are cultivated, fresh oxygen is incorporated into the soil, and additional soil is exposed to sunlight, and that not only helps to kill weeds, insects, bacteria, fungi, and other pests, but it also helps to speed up the decomposition of chemical residues. Without cultivation, many chemicals decompose very slowly, and residue levels can build up to much higher levels than they would with conventional tillage methods.
Also, with no-till, there is no way to incorporate fertilizers into the soil, so that many nutrients (especially trace elements), can become depleted at all levels below the surface (where most of the roots collect nutrients for the plant), leading to the low nutrient values that the researchers "discovered" in the corn grown on that plot. (That probably didn't surprise anyone familiar with no-till production).
The other problem of course, is that the seed company promoting the study has a huge financial interest in the outcome of this issue in the long run, because Monsanto is squeezing the financial viability out of other seed companies, as long as their patents allow them a monopoly on the seed business.
So as a result of all this, I have to take the nutritional evidence presented by the study with a huge grain of salt, because of that unacceptable confounding issue. I have to assume that they selected this particular field for their study because they weren't successful in finding such data in fields farmed by conventional techniques. That's a very common problem with research projects these days. It's called "creative data selection", and it's designed to promote an agenda, rather than to provide an objective study.
That said, I am concerned about the extremely high use of glyphosate for so many years, and now that Stephanie Seneff and her associates have been studying the effects of residues of glyphosate in food, and have associated it with adverse effects on gut bacteria, that could certainly be a cause for concern. And it clearly points to a need for more extensive study, because IMO Stephanie Seneff is one of the leading neurological researchers today. She has a way of being able to see "out of the box" that most researchers seem to find themselves stuck in. The bottom line is that there is definitely a possibility that glyphosate might be a huge factor in the etiology of digestive system diseases because of it's effects on gut bacteria.
Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases
That's just my 2 cents worth — FWIW.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Yep, IMO the real problem is not so much the GMO process itself, but how those genetic alterations are exploited by subsequent events (such as spraying with Roundup).
Speaking of GMO, did you notice the sheep developed by Uruguay "scientists" that glow when viewed with ultraviolet light? I'm not sure what their intended goal was with that project, but maybe they hope to get rich by selling ultraviolet lights to coyotes.
Tex
Speaking of GMO, did you notice the sheep developed by Uruguay "scientists" that glow when viewed with ultraviolet light? I'm not sure what their intended goal was with that project, but maybe they hope to get rich by selling ultraviolet lights to coyotes.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Glyphosphate in the US food supply might help explain this?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... VP20130429
Kids and teens who are born abroad and immigrate to the United States are about half as likely to have asthma and allergies as those who are born in the U.S., according to a new study.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... VP20130429
Kids and teens who are born abroad and immigrate to the United States are about half as likely to have asthma and allergies as those who are born in the U.S., according to a new study.
1987 Mononucleosis (EBV)
2004 Hypomyopathic Dermatomyositis
2009 Lymphocytic Colitis
2010 GF/DF/SF Diet
2014 Low Dose Naltrexone
2004 Hypomyopathic Dermatomyositis
2009 Lymphocytic Colitis
2010 GF/DF/SF Diet
2014 Low Dose Naltrexone