Agriculture

Science says GMO foods are safe

The scientific consensus says that GMO foods are safe for humans, livestock, and the environment. There is no need to avoid them.

USDA announced new guidelines for the organic food label

USDA announces new guidelines for groceries that have the “organic food” label. This article reviews what that means for consumers.

Organic foods — are they safer and healthier?

We review whether organic foods are actually safer and healthier to consume than conventional foods. Organic foods may not be worth the cost.

Glyphosate (Roundup) causes convulsions in nematodes! What?

And here we go again, another paper that attempts to link something terrible, in this case, convulsions, to the weedkiller glyphosate, also known as Roundup. Except this is about nematodes or roundworms.

I seem to be writing about roundworms a lot lately, I wonder why. Oh wait, I remember. Quacks were pushing a drug, that treats roundworm infections, to be used against COVID-19. Of course, you all remember ivermectin.

Let’s look at glyphosate and this new paper, which made me laugh. Then I got annoyed.

Genetically modified corn is safe according to a large meta-review

by Michael Simpson
2022-04-13
Agriculture, Biotechnology, GMO, Nutrition

As I have written, the scientific consensus says that genetically modified crops, like corn, are safe for humans, animals, and the environment. The real science, published in real scientific journals and not anecdotes, beliefs, misinformation, and lies, tells us that genetically modified agricultural products are safe.

A large meta-review of research into genetically modified (GM) corn has supported several findings that there are no safety signals — you can consume GM corn all day long and you will suffer no ill consequences.

Genetically modified crops are one of those modern technologies that many people avoid, mainly for irrational and unscientific reasons. Of course, many people push fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about GMOs using little or no scientific evidence to support their claims.

But I’m here to provide real, published, peer-reviewed scientific evidence that contradicts that fear about GMOs – well, at least about GMO corn.

Glyphosate is not linked to cancer — examining the systematic reviews

I keep reading the claim that somehow glyphosate is linked to cancer, despite numerous large epidemiological studies that have yet to provide evidence of a link that would convince us that the herbicide has any link to any cancer.

One of the major issues with the tropes and myths about glyphosate is that many anti-science liberals tend to conflate glyphosate with genetically modified crops. This leads to a lot of unsupported hatred of GMO plants, despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that says that GMO agriculture is safe for humans, animals, and the environment – a consensus as broad and powerful as the one that states that climate change is caused by humans. Glyphosate is used as a strawman argument to stigmatize GMO crops.

Glyphosate is so hated, I don’t know how many times I write that GMOs are safe, and they are safe — then someone will write back, “yeah but Monsanto is killing us with their cancer-causing glyphosate.” It’s frustrating, but that’s the usual state of my mind when dealing with pseudoscience-pushing people.

But I have actual scientific evidence that supports the claim that there is no link between glyphosate and any of the 200 or more types of cancer. I know some people, especially greedy attorneys, will cherry-pick poorly designed primary studies and ignore the larger systematic reviews and meta-analyses that show no link.

I’m going to give you a brief review of some of the most powerful studies, which are at the top of the hierarchy of biomedical research, that reject any claims that glyphosate causes cancer.

GMO and vaccine DNA – they’re not going to change your genes

by Michael Simpson
2022-03-08
Agriculture, Biotechnology, Genetics, Vaccines

One of the more pernicious tropes in the world of pseudoscience is that the vaccine and GMO DNA are going to magically incorporate into your cells changing you from a human into a sasquatch with ears of corn growing out of your head. Now that would be fun to see, but unless there’s a mad scientist out there trying to grow ears of corn out of a hirsute humane that looks like Sasquatch, it will probably never happen.

And most certainly consuming DNA from GMO foods or injecting DNA in a vaccine is not going to cause anything changes in your genes. You are not going to suddenly turn into Sasquatch.

Now, this article will not discuss mRNA vaccines somehow changing your DNA, because that’s been thoroughly debunked.

As we all know, good science rarely gets in the way of good pseudoscience for anti-vaxxers and anti-GMO zealots. That’s why this old feathered skeptic in the dinosaur clade is here, to make sure the science is clear and to mock the pseudoscience.

Humans have genetically modified crops for 10,000 years — yes, it’s true

The anti-GMO movement says that nature does it better for food, ignoring the fact that humans have been genetically modified crops for over 10,000 years. In other words, some people believe that our ancestors’ foods are somehow better than modern foods. But our ancestors were selectively breeding plants and animals since the dawn of agriculture. They just didn’t know about DNA, but they knew what they were doing.

Strangely, people seem to endow “nature” with a special status that is ridiculous. As if nature was for the benefit of humans, rather than being just plain random events.

Evolution proceeds along a random process where environmental changes select for certain mutations over time (and yes, I’m oversimplifying the process), which is called natural selection. Moreover, there are random mutations that just occur that provide no benefit to the organism, although they might in the future because of some environmental change.

Nature has no goal. It has no guidance. It has no underlying value of good or evil. Unless you believe that some higher being controls it, and at that point, you’re a creationist, claiming that “nature” is better than the alternative is ridiculous.

So, we’re going to talk about how humans genetically modified crops have moved from the early days of waiting for a random, beneficial mutation to the modern world of bioengineering.

GMO DNA transfers to humans – debunking a pernicious myth

I keep reading of an annoying claim that GMO DNA transfers to humans easily, so that’s why we should be scared of it. Some of this belief is based on a poorly designed study that may, or really may not, indicate that plant GMO genes transfer to humans. These “researchers” claim that DNA may survive intact in the digestive tract and show up in the bloodstream.

Someone flunked basic human physiology and cell biology when they made this claim since it’s nearly biologically implausible to consider this to be real. Many of us have actually passed these courses so we are very skeptical.

In case you’ve ignored this area of false controversy, genetically modified crops are foods derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Of course, all types of agricultural breeding induces genetic modification, but in general, GMO usually implies actual manipulation of the genes.

Based on some of the worst science available, the anti-GMO activists have condemned GMO foods as being dangerous. Unfortunately for the anti-science side, there is actually no science supporting these anti-GMO claims, and the vast scientific consensus says that GMO foods are safe to humans, animals, and the environment.

Let’s take a look at this paper that claims that GMO DNA gets into the human bloodstream.

Pesticides cause autism – the scientific evidence is quite weak

Along with the thoroughly debunked “vaccines cause autism,” a related trope is pesticides cause autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The evidence that supports that claim is fairly weak, possibly nonexistent, but that’s what we do here – examine the evidence.

For reasons beyond the scope of this blog and my interests, parents need to find blame for why their children may have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. A few years ago, Emily Willingham, Ph.D., whom I consider to be one of the leading ASD scientific experts on this planet, wrote a hysterical and scientifically skeptical article about all of the popular causes of ASD. Older mothers. Older fathers. Depressed mothers. Fingers. Facial features. Facial features?

Today, I keep seeing the new claim that pesticides cause autism. Time to see what kind of science supports this claim.Read More »Pesticides cause autism – the scientific evidence is quite weak