I only had to see " Monsanto" in the first line for the BS detector to start humming.
Monsanto
Haliburton
Wal Mart
Bush
Cheney
Rove
Howard
It's a Pavlovian reaction for some.
Why are many on the irrational left so tiresomely predictable?

They feed rat poison to rats.

Engineered crops don't hurt people.

If GE crops kill rats and don't hurt people, isn't that the ideal thing?

But then Greenpeace would complain about "endangered rat species" and hand out leaflets with cute pictures of rats...

But check out this link:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3018/

Turns out, the scientists paid by the Amsterdam-based multinational Greenpeace saved their butts by accepting *all* of the scientific evidence presented to governmental bodies.

Their only quibble is freakin' statistical analysis.

And it looks like Greenpeace money buys shoddy work, see: "Lies, damn lies and statistics," Dr. Christopher Preston, Discipline of Plant & Food Science, University of Adelaide, March 29, 2007, AgBioWorld, http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2675

There's eco-freaks, and then there's just plain goofy cr@p.

Even so, they're in serious violation of the International NGO Accountability Charter, which Greenpeace signed. Signatories are not supposed to back junk science. See, http://www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org/download/ingo-accountability-charter-eng.pdf

I've often reminded of the phony cancer scare and product banning connected with the sugar substitute cyclamate. Researchers applied a paste of this stuff directly on the internal organs of Canadian lab rats in quantities equivalent to a person drinking something like a thousand diet soft drinks a day and, lo and behold, cancers developed. So, they got a perfectly good sugar substitute banned for no good reason except that it hurt western business--which is what all the environnmental movement is about. No one was able to reproduce that cancer study, but the ban stayed in place. Ban it for Canadian rats, but let people use products with normal consumption. Using their standards, we should ban water because too much of it can kill you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclamate

Here's a simple solution.

If you allow me (Aaron Edmonds, cereal and oilseed producer) to grow GM crops, as a farmer I do solemnly vowe to only ever supply biofuel producers and never to sell to another human mouth ...

Consumers are sending a dangerous signal to the world's farmers:
'We want you (farmers) to produce less; we want food prices to continue to hyperinflate; we accept the need for Tortilla riots in Mexico, rice wars in Indonesia and staple supply crises in Nigeria; and focus on biofuel end uses ...'

Hmmm .... Crazy world. Nobody is arguing the world is perfect except for consumers. The bubble will be pricked one day and it won't be a familiar shock. Watch meat prices rally strongly this year.

So being consistent should we not have the dodgy rat study proposed here first a contrarian GM study like Global Warming Swindle movie. Maybe it was cosmic rays on the rats/

Why suddenly get all scientific ? Appeal to peer review ? hah - surely a conspircacy.

Luke,

Glad you brought up global warming, cinema and particle physics. You forgot to mention Atlantis and the Trilateral Commission.

Oops! Were we discussing something else?

How many Eco-Freaks does it take to change the topic? Any one of them.

Now, back to the topic.

The data the Greenpeace paper relies on show that rats fed *high* doses of engineered corn had no ill effects, while those which ate low doses had random ill effects within the normal range.

So, eating lots of engineered stuff will protect you against random normal things that occur when you fail to eat lots of engineered stuff.

Makes no sense to toxicologists, nor to statisticians. Except to statisticians hired by Greenpeace, who hork up a Type I error anyone who's taken Stats 101 knows better than to do.

Nope I'm going be consistent with the blog's position - it's big end science so must be done by well paid estblishment creeps. I'm backing the non-scientific outside edge cosmic ray approach that the effect only manifests itself at low dosage rates where at high dosage rates the non-linear effects cancel out. So there given we can't be sure of the dosage rate that is applied in the field that not only this technology but all GM technology be banned. So all GM technology has known side effects at low doses.

Type I errors - wow - that's a bit sciencey for someone who pretends not to understand basic physics and proportions.

There have been some discussions on this Monsanto maize in the Swedish GP forum.

One scientist from an agricultural institution pointed out that Swedish organic farmers are not opposed to Bt proteins , and it could be used in organic farming as this lowered the use of pesticides.

This was news for me!

The connection between Monsanto and pesticide manufacture seems also have been ended as Monsanto seems to have sold out the chemistry part of the company.

Finally, this person from the Institution asked why GP opposed the use of GMOs as it lowered the pesticide/herbicide/ insecticide use in agriculture. However, Greenpeace never responded to this.

Ann,

Bt has been used by organic farmers for many years, and continues to be popular with them. It's produced by Japanese chemical giant Sumitomo.

Monsanto sold off most of its chemical assets, and most Roundup herbicide, now off-patent, is produced by Monsanto's competitors.

Greenpeace will not respond to an inquiry about the reduction in chemical use attributable to the use of engineered crops for one simple reason: it would embarrass the group to concede any environmental benefits of these crops.

Thanks Schiller,

Good info...

Ann: Schiller is so selective

It took me about half a mo to find this link

http://www.nufarm.com/2002Archive

then

www.monsanto.com.au/layout/about_monsanto/monsanto_au.asp

re the www on hazchem in Oz etc, a bit of experience helps