One aspect of the Prop 37 issue is that it is an area where the Left may be stated to be “anti-science.” This is why this was highlighted in Science Left Behind. But there’s a problem with this narrative: the survey data for it is weak. There are broad suggestive patterns…but the reality is that the strongest predictor of skepticism of genetically modified organisms is lower socioeconomic status.
View the original article here: San Francisco supported Proposition 37!
By asking ourselves why cancer might exist, we can get a glimpse of life in a bygone biological age.
Cancer, it seems, is embedded in the basic machinery of life, a type of default state that can be triggered by some kind of insult. That suggests it is not a modern aberration but has deep evolutionary roots, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that it is not confined to humans but is widespread among mammals, fish, reptiles and even plants. Scientists have identified genes implicated in cancer that are thought to be hundreds of millions of years old. Clearly, we will fully understand cancer only in the context of biological history.
View the original article here: Cancer can teach us about our own evolution
Although [my] need to have a baby seemed to come from some emotional and primitive place, I wanted to be organized about my approach. I scheduled a “preconception” appointment and asked my husband about his thoughts on genetic screening. As a genetic counselor working in a prenatal setting, testing guidelines were imbedded in my mind – and I knew very well what testing options should be available to me. My husband thoughtfully asked, “If we are both carriers for cystic fibrosis or something else, does that mean that we are not going to have a baby?”
The term “toxic knowledge” has been used to describe genetic information that individuals may regret learning, following a prenatal genetic test (Bernhardt 2012). With the flood of new testing options, I am concerned about the potential increase of toxic knowledge and how this will play out in people’s lives. How will it change the pregnancy experience? The relationship between parent and child? The way people view themselves?
View the original article here: Guest Post: Information Detoxification
View the original article here: GM-free Scotland: Anti-allergen milk… with added allergens
[W]hen the human genome project began it was assumed that, due to the complexity of human beings we would have a lot of genes, certainly many more than a lowly worm. No offence to round worms but we are way more complex. I mean they only have 970 cells, compared to our 60 trillion. So how come we only have 30% more protein-coding genes than a simple roundworm and why is so much of our DNA junk?
The non-coding or ‘junk’ regions can help switch genes on or off which, in turn, influences whether a cell makes a certain protein or not. Non-coding DNA can recruit machinery in the cell which can either promote or hinder the process of turning a gene into a protein. The non-coding DNA can also be actively modified by a process called methylation, which switches off genes. Methylation can occur at any point in your life and may represent a way by which our environment and lifestyle can actually change our DNA. This is one of many ways our underlying genetic code can be modulated and is called an ‘epigenetic’ alteration. Such epigenetic changes might go some way to explaining why genetically identical twins, who have lived quite separate lives, often become less alike as they age.
View the original article here: The Junk in Your Genetic Trunk
The Department of Justice has announced that Monsanto Co. is no longer the target of an antitrust investigation, saying it will halt its probe into the seed industry and will not take action against the biotechnology giant.
View the original article here: Justice Department ends Monsanto antitrust probe
The idea that every cell in our body contains identical DNA is incorrect, with scientists discovering that genetic variations are widespread throughout the body’s tissues. The findings, say the researchers, have profound implications for genetic screening as they directly challenge the longstanding belief that the cells which govern our body’s functions have the same DNA sequence. A paper detailing the new research by scientists from Yale and Stanford appears in the journal Nature.
View the original article here: DNA fluidity has “profound implications” for genetic screening, say Yale Scientists
Last Friday, the great blogger Matt Novak (who you should read often) uncovered evidence that Nikola Tesla, writing in 1935, had expressed his support for Eugenics. Here’s what Tesla wrote in an article about his predictions for the year 2100.
“The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit…”
View the original article here: Tesla, Eugenics And Rationalizing Dehumanization
Say the words “personalized medicine” to people from various walks of life, and you’re like to get one of about four different reactions.
A. “Personalized medicine? What’s that?” (Usually spoken by 99 percent of patients.)
B. “Personalized medicine will bankrupt the country with expensive new diagnostic tests, and overrated targeted drugs.” (Usually spoken by health economists.)
C. “Personalized medicine is overhyped, a load of bunk.” (Usually spoken by grizzled pharma industry vets who remember the genomics crash of a decade ago, and have a financial interest in preserving the status quo.)
D. “Personalized medicine will revolutionize healthcare, moving us away from reactive sick-care and more toward predictive and preventive strategies focused on wellness.” (Usually spoken by the subset of true believers in science and the biotech industry.)
You can make arguments, buttressed with data, to support any of the last three positions. But none of these positions quite captures the truth. We are in the early days of the personalized medicine movement, and don’t know how the story will unfold.
View the original article here: Stanford’s Mike Snyder Starts Living the Personalized Medicine Story
Pet dogs left paralysed by spine damage have been able to walk again after a pioneering treatment. Injecting cells taken from the dogs’ nose into the injured part of their back helped regenerate the damaged done to their spine. Following the treatment, the animals were able to move previously paralysed hind legs and coordinate movement with their front limbs.
Prof Geoffrey Raisman, chair of neural regeneration at University College London, said: ‘This is not a cure for spinal cord injury in humans – that could still be a long way off. But this is the most encouraging advance for some years and is a significant step on the road towards it.”
View the original article here: Dogs paralysed by spine damage are able to walk again following pioneering treatment
We are now two months into L’affaire Séralini—the publication of a maize rodent study by French scientist Gilles-Eric Séralini and seven co-authors, which has been vigorously dissected by the media and scientists on all sides of the genetically modified organism (GMO) debate.
The study concluded, controversially, that rats fed corn genetically modified for herbicide resistance (NK603), with or without the herbicide, Monsanto’s Roundup, developed grotesque tumors—findings that contradict known studies, dozens of them, published to date.
The immediate and consistently acidic reaction by most scientists was compounded by the ire of mainstream science reporters miffed at the Séralini team for not providing journalists with an advanced copy of the study, publishing an anti-GM book on the same day that the study was released and for promoting similar studies in the past that purported to ‘prove’ the dangers of GM foods that were later discredited as scientifically weak.
The French and Russian governments quickly launched investigations into the safety of NK603 and Russia and Kazakhstan placed temporary bans on its imports. Six leading French academies quickly reviewed the study and issued an unequivocal condemnation: “Hyping the reputation of a scientist or a team is a serious misdemeanor when it helps to spread fear among the public that is not based on any firm conclusion,” the academies’ statement said.
After an expedited review, the French food safety authority ANSES, concluded that the study “did not cast doubt on previous assessments of [the safety of] NK603,” although the agency called for large-scale studies on “insufficiently documented health risks.”
Food and Chemical Toxicology, which published the study in September, recently released more than three dozen response letters from top scientists in its November issue and a response from the Séralini team. Among the highlights:
Alexander Y. Panchin, Russian Academy of Sciences: Analyzed and dismissed the study because of its lack of statistical significance in the mortality rates or the number of tumors in rats.
Andrew Cockburn, University of Newcastle, contended the study had no “logical hypothesis” and does not “meet current standards of scientific adequacy.” He questioned “how this paper passed review in its current form and the impact of this for the normally high standards adopted by your Journal.”
Frederick Schorsch, European Society of Toxicologic Pathology (ESTP), cited numerous methodological deficiencies, including the misinterpretation of lesions, the bungled presentation of pathology results, the absence of reference to ‘good practices’ in toxicologic pathology and the mistreatment of animals (which showed immense tumors) in what appeared to be an attempt to make a political point.
David Tribe, University of Melbourne, further summarized a range of reactions including reviews by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) and German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), which were universally condemnatory.
There were requests that the paper be retracted. Mark Tester, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, University of Adelaide, noted that Seralini’s research is anomalous. Previous peer-reviewed rat feeding studies using the same products (NK603 and Roundup) have not found any negative food safety impacts. The Japanese Department of Environmental Health and Toxicology released a 52-week feeding study of GM soybeans in 2007, finding “no apparent adverse effect in rats.” Earlier this year, a team of scientists at the University of Nottingham School of Biosciences released a review of 12 long-term studies (up to two years) and 12 multi-generational studies (up to 5 generations) of GM foods, concluding there is no evidence of health hazards.
More than two dozen scientists from around the world co-signed a stinging rebuke of the Séralini study, concluding: “We appeal to you to subject the paper to rigorous re-review by appropriate experts and promptly retract it if it fails to meet widely held scientific standards of design and analysis, as we believe it fails to do.”
Séralini and his seven co-authors mount their own defense in Food and Chemical Toxicology. They dismissed most of the criticism as coming from industry sympathizers or corporate scientists, claiming they had “no right to review the results” because of their alleged conflicts of interest. They produced a chart to respond to some of the criticisms, and offered more substantive responses on some issues, for example defending the choice of a rat strain prone to tumors. They reiterated their refusal to release their raw data, yet concluding, defiantly, “GM NK603 and R cannot be regarded as safe as long as their safety is not proven by further investigations.”
Some scientists (although few geneticists), almost all of them from the activist-scientist anti-GM community, have come to Séralini’s defense. Two anti-GM science groups, the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER) and the French Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering (GRIIGEN), which partially funded the study, rebuked some of criticisms but generally mounted an ad hominem response over what it maintained were ad hominem attacks against Séralini.
The activist sizable anti-GM NGO and journalism communities, which have been the study’s most vigorous defenders have been stunned by the critical reaction to Seralini’s study and his attempt to manipulate media coverage. On the defensive for the first time on this issue, they came together to compose an “open letter,” apparently fearing that the public tide may turn decisively against GM critics—which in fact may be happening if the rejection of California Proposition 37 is any indication. Their tactic: frame mainstream scientists as corporate apologists and dismiss the overwhelming and unprecedented reaction by the science journalism community against Séralini’s tactics as manufactured by “corporate influence.”
“When those with a vested interest attempt to sow unreasonable doubt around inconvenient results, or when governments exploit political opportunities by picking and choosing from scientific evidence, they jeopardize public confidence in scientific methods and institutions, and also put their own citizenry at risk,” the letter concluded. The polemic concluded that both the peer review process and the public debate are “rigged in favour of [corporations and] backed up by systematic suppression of independent scientists working in the public interest.”
In a just-released Nature commentary about the Séralini paper, Francois Houllier, President and Chief Executive of France’s public research Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), asked, “How do we address the questions about the impact of GM crops, and how do we prevent this kind of negative reaction?” He proposed a laser focus on rigorous science, including an emphasis on more public finding for risk-benefit analyses—a position generally rejected by anti-GM activists—as well as “proper academic standards.” He specifically called for allowing research data to be inspected and outside experts to comment on the results—standards notably lacking in the handling of the Séralini paper).
Houllier also noted the vehemence of the anti-GM activist community, citing a GM grapevine rootstock study that was publicly funded with no intention to develop a commercial variety, but nevertheless vandalized.
Considering the science-resistant views of many in the anti-GM community, it’s questionable whether Houllier’s appeal to reason will have any impact. A thoughtful post on the blog New Antropocene by an Australian research scientist highlights the skepticism. “[R]igour is by all means valuable and something academic research should strive for, however none of this has much to do with the proceedings of Séralini et al. (2012), the author wrote. “The paper clearly had a preconceived agenda that had nothing to do with improving our understand of and human application within the known universe.”
The author continued: “Of course we want to know that the food we eat and give to our children is of the highest quality and safe, thus it seems plausible to conclude that the individuals behind this paper attempted to cash in on these rational fears by appealing to expert authority without submitting the basis for that authority to the critical review of the expert community! They took a short cut to maximise their impact—something that has, as Houllier states, undermined confidence in GM produce. This is unfair to the wealth of human knowledge as well as potential human well-being and entirely motivated by personal gain. … Rigour is not the point here at all; but instead it is academics knowingly subverting the course of public awareness of scientific understanding for personal gain. What needs to happen is more rigour in how science should be communicated to the public.”
A recalibration of the ethics and practice of science journalism may be in order, the author suggests. “Science communication needs to live by the principle of fair weight, not equal weight, to various ideas,” he writes. In other words, giving “equal time” to discredited, suspect or unscientific ideas may damage public discourse.
Jon Entine is senior fellow at the Center for Health & Risk Communication at George Mason University and executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project.
They will carve a bird with an oversize breast and legs too puny for walking. After more than a half-century of genetic engineering, today’s mass-produced, sterile turkeys look and taste nothing like the rich-flavored, long-legged birds enjoyed at Thanksgivings from the original feast in 1621 through the 1940s.
“The turkeys we eat have been created in a laboratory and, quite frankly, are monsters,” said Roger Mastrude, founder of Heritage Turkey Foundation, a California-based non-profit advocacy group credited with saving heritage turkey breeds from extinction.
View the original article here: Rare-breed turkeys make a Thanksgiving comeback
Those who fight against genetically engineered crops are fast becoming a fringe group. Despite years of hard scientific facts, they persist. After failing for 16 years to prove that biotech foods are any different than nonbiotech foods, they got a ruling Nov. 6 from the perfect judge of chemical validity — the California electorate. Fortunately, they lost.
California’s Proposition 37 ballot initiative, dubbed “The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” would have required manufacturers to label all food items that contain genetically engineered ingredients. On top of the already onerous general election cacophony, Californians were treated to a multimillion-dollar media battle with Hollywood stars, scientists and food-industry giants loudly vying for and against such labeling.
View the original article here: California does right thing, won’t mandate labels for modified food
Michele R. Simon, a lawyer and paid writer and spokesperson for the Yes on 37 campaign argued that it lost due to “Lies, Dirty Tricks, and $45 million,” pinning its defeat almost entirely on being outspent by industry using “propaganda and dirty tricks.”
However, I believe she missed an opportunity to assess the mistakes committed by the Yes on 37 campaign, along with the proposition’s inborn errors. I would like to offer an alternative view on the reasons why Proposition 37 failed, and make some suggestions that labeling proponents might want to take to heart.
View the original article here: Why Did Proposition 37 Fail?
The Christian Institute Techniques which would create genetically modified babies should be “urgently opposed”, a bioethics group says. Josephine Quintavalle, of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics campaign group, warned: “This is not about curing disease in an existing human being, it is creating a new kind of embryo and the alterations you have made will pass on to future generations. You are playing around with the building blocks and restructuring how human life is created.”
View the original article here: Oppose GM babies, bioethics group says – The Christian Institute
The stance of the Barack Obama administration on genetically modified foods (GMOs) has been under great scrutiny for many years, and it’s been a rollercoaster ride to be sure.
Obama of course famously promised to label genetically modified foods in an emphatic speech on the campaign trail, but that promise has of course not come to fruition. Obama didn’t stop there, however.
He actually did a 180 on the issue, making GMO freedom and transparency activists quite upset when he announced appointments of former top Monsanto executives Tom Vilsack and Michael Taylor to two of the highest food system posts in the United States.
View the original article here: Obama Official Comments on Administration’s GMO Labeling Stance
Russia needs to enter a five-year moratorium on the use of GMO food products and growing of GMP plants. This is required to enable preparation and adoption of laws to control the content of GMOs. Otherwise, after the entry into the WTO, Russia will be at risk of losing its own seeds and livestock breeds that will be displaced by transgenes.
View the original article here: Russia needs to defend itself against WTO’s GMO
Genetically modified foods are a hot button issue for a lot of people. Just a few weeks ago, California voters said no to a proposition that would label all GM foods in stores. Proponents of the proposition—Prop 37—point to big mega-companies like Monsanto, which poured millions of dollars into ads encouraging California voters to reject the measure. Prop 37 advocates labeled the proposition as the “Right to Know” initiative and claimed that consumers should know when their food is genetically modified.
The subtext to all this is that some people believe GM crops are evil. And the proposition, like almost all discussions of GM foods, turned political quickly. But what will it take to change people’s minds about GM foods?
View the original article here: What Will Convince People That Genetically Modified Foods Are Okay?
How did the word biotechnology become so dangerous? Mention it in a group and people look at you with suspicion. Mention the word in your social blog and you get a quick reaction that negates or attacks it from almost anybody.
Biotechnology is defined by experts as, “any technique that makes use of organisms or parts thereof to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms, for specific purposes.”
Given that definition, I ask, who is afraid of biotechnology? Ancient civilization was not. There are many recorded stories that tell us ancient folks were not. They used biotechnology, its principles and applications to modify and improve agricultural products.
View the original article here: Who is afraid of biotechnology?
