another Monsanto problem

[kcsunshine]

Probably causing all the cases of kidney failure in dogs also.

 

[Buster]

Okay. Just to be clear, the actual study's abstract reports that the organ failure may or may not be (as in "cannot be ruled out) directly related to the GMO aspects of the corn. So, Monsanto's GMO corn may not be the culprit. It might be the poisons that the genetic modifications made the corn resistant to that actually does the damage...

"We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded."

That doesn't let Monsanto off the hook, of course, since it is their poison we are talking about. But I'm not ready to jump to the conclusion that GMO products, themselves, cause organ failure.

ETA
Knowing the Huffington Posts penchant for hyperbole, I wanted something a bit more concrete than their blog post.

 

[bibliophile birds]

That is why I only use organic corn meal. But I just recently realized that we still eat sweet corn sometimes. Is sweet corn gmo also?

you can get heirloom sweet corn to grow, but most sweet corn you buy in a store is going to be GMO. they have modified it to intensify the sweetness because the molecules that give corn it's sweet flavor start deteriorating as soon as it is picked. the only way to make industrial sweet corn viable was to pack it with SO MUCH sweetness that it would last from field to plate... which, in industrial farming, is a long time. that's why organic sweet corn is almost impossible to find.

heirloom sweet corn is going to taste a bit bland at first if all you've had is GMO sweet corn because it doesn't have the added sugars. once you've cleared that fake flavor out of your memory though, it's wonderful.

 

[patandchickens]

First let me say I do think that Monsanto is an enormous amoral MENACE.

However, I am withholding judgement (and pretty skeptical about) this new "study". It is not an actual study per se, just a complicated reanalysis of Monsanto's own numbers, in an UNREFEREED JOURNAL. That last thing is a big red flag. Not everything big-surprising-alarming that comes out in an unrefereed journal is incorrect, but a huge proportion is. There is SO much reward of all various sorts for publishing in "real" (peer-reviewed) journals, and publication in a non peer reviewed journal does so relatively little for one's career, that you only publish there if you cannot get your paper *accepted by* a referreed journal. Which conspiracy theorists may like to think Monsanto is able to control, but a number of unfavorable-to-Monsanto papers DO get published in real peer-reviewed journals, so I do not see that as being plausible.

I gather (I have not read this paper, nor do I expect to) that this paper uses complex funky statistical methods to massage the data into something the authors purport to show <whatever>... it is awfully easy to misuse statistics to look like whatever you want them to, especially when you start doing weird things with them.

Not to say that GM corn *doesn't* have bad effects, who knows... but I do not think that this paper is particularly evidence for anything.

JMHO as a former research biologist,

Pat

 

[me&thegals]

I haven't read the article and cannot comment on the science. However, I would like to point out that most sweet corn seed today is actually hybridized. That is not the same as GMO. It is hybridized to achieve "triple sweetness." It makes me laugh. Will we eventually get seed advertized as "sweet to the 10th power"? Anyway...