Anti-GM wheat protest halted by police

[Blind groper]

Svartalf

i suspect you have not read terribly much in the way of toxicity information relating to pesticides???

My apology for saying this, but if you think that article is damning, you do not know what the word means.

If you intensively study any chemical, including "natural" molecules, you will find things that are noteworthy in terms of toxicity. For example : pyrethrum - a natural insecticide widely used by alternative groups, is listed by the EPA as a suspected carcinogen. Such statements mean very little. They relate to possibilities. There is always something. The more a chemical is studied, the more "somethings" there are. Glyphosate is one of the most studied chemicals in history, so a lot of "somethings" are listed. In spite of this glyphosate is the safest herbicide available, which is a very big part of the reason it was used in genetic modification.

Monsanto was sued for saying it was as safe as salt, which was definitely a reckless statement. But I can guess why. The mammalian oral LD50 was 5 grams per kg, which is near enough the same as salt.

[Svartalf]

You mean like DDT was much, much worse?
It's not a matter of 'worse', it's a matter of 'bad'... I do suppose that an organomercuric compount is rather more toxic than formaldehyde... I still don't want to drink formaldehyde.

[redunderthebed]

Sadly, the luddites are too often successful.
Golden rice, which has the potential to save millions of lives, more than 10 years after its creation, still cannot be used where it is needed, due to the zealous opposition of luddites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice

luddite, my foot... those GM crops go with excessive use of chemicals that are toxic to much more fauna than just the pests they are supposed to keep away (many crops are bred for one trait : pesticide tolerance)
To boot, they are generally supposed to be sterile, but aren't quite so, which means the genome can spread to areas where it is not desired, and of course there's the problem with monsanto trying to extract royalties from farmers who want to keep seeds from one year to the next, if those seeds have their 'proprietary' GM thing, even when it has arrived there by contamination rather than on purpose.

GM crops are akin to rabbits foxes that have plagued Australia once its there its there for life you cannot have any other crop than GM its essentially poisons the land and renders it useless to anything other than GM crops. Also it has being shown that no amount of barriers can stop GM pollinating with non-GM crops of the similar species. (i.e wheat soy etc)

There are issues other than fear of so called Frankenstein technology. The main one for me is the potential for large corporations to monopolise certain brands of crop which can only be grown from purchased seed and to gain an even bigger stranglehold over the food chain.

+1 Already happening monsanto and co are already patenting the building blocks of life that they had nothing to do with other than discovering them.

Yes there is potential for GM crops to feed the world however the fact that monsanto etc have no interest in that apart from making a buck makes that impossible and is the main reason i oppose GM.

[Blind groper]

You mean like DDT was much, much worse?
It's not a matter of 'worse', it's a matter of 'bad'... I do suppose that an organomercuric compount is rather more toxic than formaldehyde... I still don't want to drink formaldehyde.

Svartalf

Not wanting to appear patronising, but allow me to remind you of the basic law of toxicology.
"The dose makes the poison".

in other words,
1. All substances are toxic in large enough dose. Even water.
2. All substances are non toxic in small enough dose.

Glyphosate is highly unlikely to cause you any harm, ever, because it is never taken into your body in a high enough dose to have any harmful effect. The poisons you should worry about are those that you imbibe in larger amount. Like alcohol, tobacco smoke, saturated fat, sugars etc. Glyphosate by comparison is not even on the same planet.

[Svartalf]

Tell that to people who're suffering from heavy metal poisoning... Over time, tiny doses can accrue if the organism is not able to get rid of the toxin, not to mention the fact that you don't need a lethal (or potentially so) dose to find yourself suffering from deleterious effects... and even if the dosage is not enough to do any harm whatever to a human... we still have the honeybee endangered, and it's been linked to our use of pesticides, like roundup.

[Blind groper]

Actually, the honey bee decline has nothing to do with glyphosate. Apparently, the pesticide that affects it the worst is nicotinoids. These are either nicotine used as a spray, or chemically modified nicotine. Nicotine is a totally 'natural' insecticide produced by tobacco and a few other plants to prevent insects chewing on their leaves.

[Svartalf]

Last time I checked, we've known for a rather long time what nicotinoids do to insects, and messing bees' sense of orientation did not use to be among them... as a nerve toxin, nicotin tends to be a bit more direct.

[Blind groper]

Bee colony collapse is being investigated. http://www.epa.gov/opp00001/about/inthe ... neybee.htm

Let me quote from this the suggested causes.

"increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honeybees);
new or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema;
pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control;
bee management stress;
foraging habitat modification
inadequate forage/poor nutrition and
potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above."

You will note that glyphosate is not one of the suggested causes.

You may ask which pesticide is the cause. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 224653.htm

As the reference says, it is imidacloprid, one of the nicotinoids. Not glyphosate.

[Svartalf]

Yep... and a source of mine, French and radio broadcast so I have trouble getting you links, that does follow the bee problem rather closely as they feel loss of that pollinisations vector may be a lot more trouble than we'd like reported a few weeks ago that one of the problems, a plague of bees losing their orientation ability, and ending up unable to find their hive again, and to dance indications to rich food sources if they find it has been linked rather conclusively to exposure to chemicals used on crops... (thoug I don't remember if it was glyphosate or some other)

[Blind groper]

Take it from me, Svartalf, since I have also been following it, that it was nicotinoids.

In fact, common sense will tell you that if an insect species is declining, and the cause is chemical, it is much more likely to be a chemical designed to kill insects, than one designed to kill weeds.