
Can We Trust Monsanto with Our Food? - acheron
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-we-trust-monsanto-with-our-food
======
zzzeek
This very brief article doesn't really cover much at all, only covering that
we generally know that a GMO food won't kill you if you eat it. While there
are a minority of individuals who needlessly worry about this, this isn't
really the issue. It certainly does not address the key issue of whether or
not Monsanto should be leading the field.

The real concerns involve sustainable agricultural concerns such as pesticide
resistance or overuse, gene contamination, and freedom of research, and
specifically if Monsanto the company has really shown themselves to be the
most responsible steward to retain near-monopolistic control over the
execution of these sensitive practices, as well as a vast proportion of the
world's seed supply.

For lots of in-depth discussion on these issues, I recommend this series by
the Union of Concerned Scientists:
[http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-
food-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-
system/genetic-engineering/) Articles specific to Monsanto are here:
[http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-
food-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-
system/genetic-engineering/promoting-resistant-pests.html)
[http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-
food-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-
system/genetic-engineering/spreading-gene-contamination.html)
[http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-
food-...](http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-
system/genetic-engineering/suppressing-research.html)

Disclaimer: I am not a farmer, or a scientist, or someone who knows anything
at all. I am merely pointing out that this article says nearly nothing useful,
and referring to a series of articles by a reputable, if not opinionated,
organization of experienced scientists and researchers.

~~~
moens
Also, while reading these, take the time to watch "Kingdom of Men" again to
get a feel for what the real issue actually looks like. Living organisms
appear (IMO, and subtly in other research) to be able to detect code base
tampering, and reject it. How do they reject it? Infertility.

I _am_ a farmer and it is difficult as hell to create a non-GMO farm (non-GMO
contaminated mulch and compost, non-GMO animal feeds, non-GMO source animals,
non-GMO seed). The OP is correct in all points about Monsanto's power over
seed production, but misses what SciAm (and almost everyone else) misses:

 _Genetic material is code being used in a production environment!_

As such it needs to be protected. Code contamination (forks) need to be
registered publicly and isolated with extreme prejudice from the production
environment. We didn't write the code, and as far as I am concerned, I feel
that Monsanto as a policy maker (by default or by lobbing) and any of the most
advanced geneticists are script kiddies on a Galactic scale. We will get to
adequate understanding it time, but that time is not now. Who gives a fk if
you or your grandmother can live a longer or more pain-free life if the result
is a global genetic seg-fault? I don't.

My answer is to set up my own isolated farm, as free of GM as I can make it.
As I see it, existing organisms do have a genetic conversation (via viruses
and other single cell organisms) and will resist and correct some amount of
genetic contamination. Honestly I have my doubts that even this will work, but
its the most I can do.

Food for thought.

~~~
jeena
I'm not sure I follow, you say "Genetic material is code being used in a
production environment!" as far as I understand it we have been researching
for decades and haven't found real problems, at least not more then with older
alternatives like radiation and chemicals to speed up the production of
genetic changes.

It confuses me that people are ok with, like the article calls it, the shotgun
approach (radiation, chemicals) but not with the surgeon approach (using a
scalpel and replacing only the genes we want to), I honestly don't understand
why.

~~~
moens
I am not saying that we should eliminate genetic research. I am saying that we
need to isolate genetic modification from the general genetic pool until we
understand what we are doing. Until half a year ago "we" (geneticists) thought
that upwards of 80% of the genome was junk DNA... oops, I guess not. I think
that we have to be a little more cautious. A lot more cautious.

If (as I feel is the case) genetic material is code, and we (all Earth based
life) is a production environment... I just cannot express how sloppy I feel
we have been in the last 20 years. Policy, research, implementation... its not
like we don't know how to run a clean software environment, how to do safe
development... but in the genetic world? Hack, reverse engineer, install trap
doors, holy fuck, we brought down a root level dns server? Cool! We are
awesome! We must be geniuses!

We are 13 and loving it.

~~~
jeena
I just wanted to say that we do far more dangerous stuff with the radiation
and nobody demands we should isolate those until we understand what is going
on. But when it comes to GMO people suddenly are terrified, that is what
confuses me.

~~~
hga
To amply on jeena's point, we used to do this by exposing seeds to e.g. cobalt
60 gamma rays, and breeding the surviving mutants that seemed promising. If
you eat all but I assume the very best sushi in the US, the rice is probably a
Calrose, do a search on calrose radiation (funny, the Wikipedia article
doesn't mention this at all, then again I'm not 100% sure current day Calrose
is derived from those earlier varieties).

~~~
moens
Yeah... I was not aware of this. Another food source I will have to
investigate. Chickens, I have found, love rice.

~~~
hga
Look into the Green Revolution, e.g. start with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution)
; if you're growing or using a cereal that's from a dwarf/semi-dwarf plant
variety, before modern genetic engineering it probably had untold horrors
committed on it to achieve higher yields.

------
forgottenpaswrd
I believed Scientific American was a scientific magazine.

Instead I find this as a shill article complete void of data or any other
information whatsoever. It seems like a paid placement article for me.

In science "you don't trust anything", you make experiments and get data.

Personally I am fine with GMO provided 1 thing: You label your food as GMO,
and then if people decide they want to be guinea pigs of new developments with
their own money so be it.

But they don't want letting people to choose. In the US you can't choose. As
the article says "hey, it is making Monsanto lots of money so it is very
good".

~~~
maratd
> Instead I find this as a shill article complete void of data or any other
> information whatsoever.

I don't see any data in your comment either. Shall we classify it as a shill
as well?

It's pretty clear that the article has a single argument. We have been
genetically modifying foods for thousands of years and there is no fundamental
difference between what we're doing now and what we did before, other than the
tools we're using to do it.

How can you provide data for that?

> You label your food as GMO ... In the US you can't choose

WholeFoods is advertising all over their paper bags that they will begin doing
this. That said, everything consumed by human beings in the last few thousand
years is GMO. Especially our livestock, which has been forced down an
evolutionary path that is not sustainable in nature in the slightest. If we
become extinct for whatever reason, you will not find chickens and cows
roaming about. They will be gone and they will be gone very quickly.

~~~
malyk
> That said, everything consumed by human beings in the last few thousand
> years is GMO.

And most people in the anti/label-GMO movement know this an acknowledge that
to be the case and love that. What they DON'T love is the intentional
irradiation/gene gun/cross species GM techniques that have been employed in
the last 30ish years. On an evolutionary scale there hasn't been enough time
to determine if modern GM crops (specifically the cross species variety) are
deleterious or not. That's where the concern lies.

~~~
maratd
> On an evolutionary scale there hasn't been enough time to determine if
> modern GM crops (specifically the cross species variety) are deleterious or
> not.

I agree and what we need is version control. If at a later time we do find
that we went down the wrong path, we should be able to revert to a prior state
with a click of a button.

I would be quite shocked if Monsanto and the others weren't sequencing all of
their products, in all of their iterations. That will allow us to revert to a
previous state if necessary.

------
ideonexus
GMO crops hold incredible potential to feed a world population that continues
to grow by leaps and bounds. It has the power to do that with reduced
pesticide use, taking pressures off of endangered species, and by bringing
crops to parts of the world where they will not grow. There is ZERO evidence
that GMO crops have any detrimental health effects, and as hackers we have to
stand up to this anti-science nonsense[1].

As for Monsanto. After the Organic Seed Growers brought a class-action suit
against the company for unjustly suing innocent farmers whose crops were
inadvertently cross-pollinated, I found it incredibly damning that the judge
had to throw the case out because the organic farmers could not produce one
single example of this ever happening[2]. Nevertheless, this case being
dismissed for lack of a victim has actually been used as more proof of
Monsanto's control over all branches and departments of government by the tin-
foil hat brigade.

[1] [http://ideonexus.com/2011/12/05/gmo-foods-and-the-
promise-a-...](http://ideonexus.com/2011/12/05/gmo-foods-and-the-promise-a-
second-green-revolution/)

[2]
[https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B83aJv4L7U-iYzYyMzQxOTktZjY5...](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B83aJv4L7U-iYzYyMzQxOTktZjY5Mi00MDA1LWE0NjgtNjg2YTgzY2MxMDAy/edit)

~~~
stefantalpalaru
> as hackers we have to stand up to this anti-science nonsense

As hackers we have to question everything instead of being true believers (in
science or anything else).

~~~
splawn
Perhaps its a semantic thing, but isn't questioning everything instead of
being a true believer the basis of science?

~~~
stefantalpalaru
In theory, yes, but in practice it's highly unlikely that the vast majority of
people would be able to duplicate experiments and verify results. And I'm not
talking just about the "I fucking love science" crowd. Even people working in
labs will have a very hard time finding resources to repeat an already
published (and presumably correct) scientific experiment instead of doing new
publishable work.

For the rest of us it all boils down to trusting those held in respect by
their peers and that is a belief system. Occasionally reinforced by shunning
the nay-sayers as "anti-science"...

~~~
hga
You don't have to reproduce the results to implicitly verify them. As I
understand it, the normal pattern is that if the results are important,
researchers will do stuff based upon then, and if the results were wrong their
experiments won't go right. Eventually they try reproducing the original to
figure out what's wrong, and that can lead to people deciding the original was
wrong.

If the results aren't important, they don't tend to get built upon, they
mostly just matter for someone getting tenure, the next grant, whatever.

------
Blahah
Crop engineer here (the humanitarian kind, not the for-profit kind). Dammit
Nina Federoff, that's one poorly written article. All the facts she states are
true, but her thesis (that the myths are disproven by GM crops' increasing
market share) is stupid.

If anyone wants to ask any GM crop technical questions, or wants any
references, I'll do my best.

~~~
nissimk
What's more dangerous: manipulating genetics of crops or spraying roundup onto
the food crops?

Isn't the most common genetic modification the one that makes the plants
immune to roundup?

Wikipedia seems to say that glyphosate is harmless to humans in small doses,
but the talk page references the combination of glyphosate and TN-20 which is
included in roundup and this link is about the human toxicity of that
combination:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23099315](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23099315)

------
dreen
(disclaimer: im a farmer)

GM food isnt toxic but GM food company lawyers are. the article mentions being
sued as a result of cross-pollination in the intro and never speaks of it
again, but thats the real GM crop threat.

~~~
criley2
Can you name any cases at all where farmers were sued for cross-polination
claims? As a farmer in the industry, this shouldn't be hard, right?

There is one notable example where a farmer intentionally and willfully
planted seeds that he knew were Monsantos, but I'm unaware of any pattern of
litigation against farmers for the actual unintentional use of Monsanto seed.

~~~
freehunter
This is one area where I commonly see farmers with this worry being told "yeah
but that has never happened!"

We worry about a lot of things in computer science that has never happened and
may never happen. There's common discussion several times a year on HN about
the ethical rights of artificial intelligence or lab-grown brains. It's still
important to worry about things that haven't happened and may never happen, if
only to ensure that they really do never happen.

It's completely plausible that a company could sue over this farmer's fear.
Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen, or that we
shouldn't worry about it.

~~~
hga
I don't think it's "completely" plausible, e.g. look at how much bad press
they're getting for unfounded claims of this.

~~~
freehunter
Bad press doesn't mean everything. Microsoft still reaps profits from
undisclosed Linux patents from suits against Android handset makers (although
they promised not to sue Linux developers in a previous deal with Novell).
Monster Cable still sues small companies for using the word Monster, even
though they get a ton of bad press for it.

If the financial hit from the bad press is outweighed by the financial gain
from whatever is causing that bad press, which do you think a company would
pick?

~~~
hga
Which is why I focused on the sweeping claim of "completely", which is similar
to the word "everything".

~~~
freehunter
"Completely", sure. That's too much. "Completely plausible", on the other
hand, means something else altogether. Completely plausible means it could
conceivably happen. It's entirely within the realm of possibility. Not saying
it _will_ happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

At any rate, I think you and I are in violent agreement and aren't actually
disagreeing, so we'll leave it at semantics.

------
WiseWeasel
Terribly written opinion piece; the author apparently forgot to kill all the
strawmen they erected, let alone provide any kind of serious treatment of the
issue. Despite the author's attempts to shroud it in a veil of balanced
reporting, this article is unworthy of discussion on HN.

~~~
zsombor
The author is a scientist working in the domain and not in employ of Monsanto
or any other major GM market player today. She wrote 3 books on the subject,
with extensive footnotes and references.

If anything this a summary treating the subject at the level of depth that can
be expected of a short article. Not reporting but a summary, please read her
books & papers if you are actually open to those details you request.

------
kenster07
I would hope that an article from "Scientific" American would cite
"scientific" studies which back such claims. As it stands, this article is
more bro-science than real science, and it's a damn shame.

~~~
qwatsi13579
That article is in agreement with the National Academy of Sciences.

------
geuis
This is an opinion piece. I'm not qualified to say whether the claims and
counter claims made in the piece are accurate or not. But be aware, since it's
an opinion piece there are no linked references or research in it to backup
the claims it makes.

------
jivatmanx
>Humans began genetically modifying plants to provide food more than 10,000
years ago.

There's a difference between selecting and breeding specific plants in your
corn crop, or crossing corn with a slightly different variety of corn, and
crossing corn with a fish, ginkgo tree, or bacteria.

~~~
7rurl
They are different in degree and method, but fundamentally they are the same
thing. In the end they are both humans causing the genes of a good crop to
change over time. Direct genetic engineering is going to be faster, but the
end results could still be the same as indirect breeding and hybrids.

~~~
jivatmanx
A species, the lowest taxonomic classification on the tree of life, is defined
by the ability to crossbreed. [0]

Previously, any crossbreeding between plants, by necessity had to belong to
the same species. Since this is the lowest taxonomic classification, the vast
majority of the genome was shared.

Now, a plant can be crossed with any other species on the tree of life. That's
a significant difference.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species)

~~~
maxerickson
All you need to say is that without modern methods of direct gene alteration
(and perhaps mutagens), organisms had to be able to breed to have their genes
crossed (fertile offspring make the cross more interesting). Talking about
species just muddies it up.

Of course, GMOs can also pass the tests of successfully maturing and
reproducing.

------
malyk
I'm scientifically minded. I've loved science all my life. I'm decently well
versed in many areas of science. GMO crops concern me because there is so much
that we don't know about their effects and we don't really have an exit
strategy if it turns out that they are, in fact, dangerous.

From my point of view we don't have enough data to be able to make a
determination one way or another, so the only logical way forward is to be
cautious. At the very least that means labeling whether or not our food
contains food that was genetically engineered in the modern sense (gene-gun or
irradiation, primarily).

The evidence we do have about modern GM crops is almost completely provided by
the industry itself. In my opinion, there is enough circumstantial evidence
from studies done by third parties, even if those studies aren't perfectly
executed, to be wary of unleashing GM foods onto the global population. We
shouldn't be so cavalier when we are dealing with the foundations of life. We
don't fully understand the genome and we require food to eat. Those two facts
should be enough for us to tread very carefully down this path. Let's do the
science (beyond animal feeding studies). Let's find out. But in the meantime,
assuming that everything is above-board from the very people who are going to
benefit from the introduction and adoption of GM crops seems irrational when
the potential harm is so great.

------
tokenadult
I see several comments are decrying this interesting commentary article from
Scientific American for not providing detailed citations for such basic facts
as

"Humans began genetically modifying plants to provide food more than 10,000
years ago."

(This has been well understood ever since the Young Earth Creationism view of
the age of the earth was set aside.)

"For the past hundred years or so plant breeders have used radiation and
chemicals to speed up the production of genetic changes. This was a genetic
shotgun, producing lots of bad changes and a very, very occasional good one."

(One example of this that is very familiar to me is the variety of sweet,
pink-fleshed grapefruit grown in Texas, which was developed by irradiating
grapefruit seeds.)

"Most early alarms about new technologies fade away as research accumulates
without turning up evidence of deleterious effects. This should be happening
now because scientists have amassed more than three decades of research on GM
biosafety, none of which has surfaced credible evidence that modifying plants
by molecular techniques is dangerous. Instead, the anti-GM storm has
intensified."

If someone wants to disagree with this aspect of the article, the thing to do
would be to cite evidence that there is any danger to GMO technology. As I
type this, no one commenting in this thread has yet done so.

"Insect-resistant GM corn also decreases human and animal exposure to
mycotoxins, highly toxic and carcinogenic compounds made by fungi. The fungi
that produce mycotoxins follow insects into plants; insect-resistant plants
have no insect holes for fungi to enter and therefore no mycotoxins."

This is a fact new to me that I learned from the article kindly submitted
here. All living things are in biological competition, and most living things
are toxic, by natural selection, to some or many of the other living things
that might eat them. GMO technology allows human eaters to enjoy safer food.

"Farmers don't have to buy Monsanto seed, nor is anyone preventing them from
saving and replanting any seed they want, except for patented seed they've
signed an agreement not to save and plant. Farmers buy seeds from Monsanto and
other ag-biotech companies because their costs decrease and their profits
increase. If they didn't, farmers wouldn't buy them again."

Most of my uncles and cousins are farmers. The quoted statement is true.
Farmers buy products if the products offer a good safety and effectiveness
profile for sustainable farming. Agricultural products that don't work don't
get a lot of repeat business from farmers. The people who are still farmers in
the United States feed the entire country they live in and have enough surplus
production to feed much of the rest of the world. Farmers in other countries
have also enjoyed increased productivity as a result of agricultural research
and free enterprise in agricultural products. The whole developed world is
seeing rising life expectancies and reduced disease burdens at all ages,

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-
why-we-die-global-life-expectancy)

so whatever is new about agricultural practices in the developed world seems
to working well so far.

~~~
WiseWeasel
It's ridiculous to say that because we've been using genetic modification
techniques for three decades without catastrophe, GMOs are safe. GMOs
encompass a large and expanding range of techniques and implementations, and
it's never too late for someone to screw up and give the entire field a black
eye.

The question I have is largely of containment, given the potential delay
between the time a GMO product is introduced to the market, and the signs of
health problems appearing. If by the time a serious problem is discovered, the
genetic material in question has spread to the entire gene pool for that
species, then it becomes extremely difficult to address. If the unwanted
presence of a modified gene prevents farmers from labeling their product
organic, or exporting to certain countries, as was recently the case with
Oregon wheat farmers and Japan, then it's currently having some very real
consequences for people which shouldn't be dismissed.

I'm all for progress; I'd just rather let others be guinea pigs when possible,
and always keep an exit strategy.

~~~
zsombor
Actually what the article says is that we have been using genetic
modifications since the dawn of agriculture. Four hundred years ago carrots
were not orange, broccoli did not exist. Countless varieties were produced
using aggressive methods inducing mutations as well as selection by humans
over the accidental mutations.

None of these new breeds were subjected to the same rigorous standards of
verification and safety as the produce labeled as 'GMO' today. Worse all new
varieties produced with the same forced shuffling are similarly not tested
with the same standards as GMOs are.

There have yet to been someone poisoned by 'GMO' varieties whilst there are
plenty of such accidents in case of 'classic' breeding. A very good book on
this subject is "Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically
Modified Food", that by no accident was written by a scientist and not an
activist.

~~~
hga
Heh, based on a hint by zsombor below that the author of this item has written
3 books the general subject, I discovered that she's the first author of
_Mendel in the Kitchen_ : [http://www.amazon.com/Mendel-Kitchen-Scientists-
Genetically-...](http://www.amazon.com/Mendel-Kitchen-Scientists-Genetically-
Modified/dp/030909738X/)

------
AsymetricCom
"What are the facts? Monsanto and the other big ag-biotech companies have
developed reliable, biologically insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant
commodity crops that benefit people, farmers and the environment, and are
nutritionally identical to their non-GM counterparts."

Whoa boy, there goes any credibility that article had. To be fair, at least
they are upfront about where they're coming from.. This article probably tells
us more about SA than MON.

