The open letters to Stanford and University of California raise concern about Vandana Shiva's use of 'anti-scientific rhetoric to support unethical positions'.
Conservatives join hands with Britain’s opposition in Parliament to oppose May's ‘no-deal’ Brexit and Turkey's Erdogan lashes out at US for Syria withdrawal ‘condition’.
EU investigation of the paper by Gilles-Éric Séralini comes as much-needed validation for scientists and farmers in India who have been pushing for GM crops.
The Centre told the Supreme Court that it would take a decision in a month-and-a-half on whether it would allow the commercial roll-out of GM mustard. But the final word rests with the Court.
Apurva Vishwanath
From Munir’s point of view, a few bumps here and there is par for the course. He isn’t going to drive his dumper truck to its doom. He wants to use it as a weapon.
but i will call all of your science unscientific. a science that doesnt look at long term results and a science that merely seeks profit. a science that so speedily produces vaccines and GMOs whose effects cannot be known even in a hundred years. a science that doesnt see human body and ecosystem as holistic and merely looks at certain parts of organisms at certain points in time. an organism as the ecosystem is an evolving and everchanging creature. if u take vaccine for every small flu how will you help your body to devise ways tof ight and strengthen the immunity. chemicals in agriculture, chemicals in medicine are all intricately linked and designed to destroy life processes. science it seems. these rent seeking psychopaths use half baked science to earn profits and they make us all into fools for thinking it is actually science
She is not “unscientific” — she just fights off the corporate quest to “own” natural resources. By calling her unscientific, you’re just enabling a make-believe witch-hunt. The modus operandi of the companies she fights against is easy to understand: Seeds, if patented, which GMO companies do, come within the ambit of IP laws and extend the ownership to the patent owner. Therefore, these companies can lay claim to the produce/harvest of all hapless farmers who use their seeds. It has more to do with unfair trade practices, less to do with science.
Wrong, patents expire. Hybrid seeds are not saved anyways. Farmers will still be free to quit buying the GE seeds any time they want. Your comment is not valid.
Patents can also be extended. Also Farmers who choose not to use GMO are cut out of the marketing and procurement streams – especially the marginal ones. Once farmer lose control of their seeds (even non-GMO planters have been been found to have contaminated seed lines) they basically become slaves to the corporations profiteering off a natural process (seed production by plants). These companies have provided absolutely zero safeguards against their contaminated seed lines spreading their genetic contamination to natural seed lines. Zero protection for those who don’t want to ride the GMO band wagon. Also, GMO companies have pursued even non-GMO farmers precisely using this – their own products’ safety failure. On top of that GMO companies provide no protection once the pest profile changes due to widespread GMO use, not at a farm scale, but at the landscape scale. This leaves the non-GMO farmers vulnerable to unknowns introduced intentionally by the GMO companies. As for the GMO farmers they are already beholden to the seed corporations, and are open to further financial and economic abuse once the primary pest profile changes, and companies eventually have to come up with a new product with higher price (both in seed procurement price and at the ecological scale), just to keep promised yield levels. GMO companies are trying to profit off farmers by creating monopolies and the regulatory loopholes in IPR laws and patents. If GMO companies refuse to take ownership of even natural (inadvertent) contamination of seed lines in non-GMO farmers fields they should be punitively fined and stripped of their operating licence. This is just like industrial polluters, they are genetically polluting agriculture and trying to make money from both users and non-users using the dommercial laws & courts.
Farmers will eventually lose access to non-GMO contaminate seed lines as GMOs become common and pollute natural seed lines (over which GMO corps have zero control either legally or by through design safeguards). They know this model helps them double dip.
I don’t know enough about the views of Vandana Shiva, but anyone who questions GMO products can expect serious attacks from GMO supporters. And those pesticides and fertilizers are not an unmixed blessings. We hear about “cancer colonies” caused by their use.
You hear wrong. There are no cancer colonies. NonGMO farmers also use the same fertilizers. GE crops require less pesticide use.
You must really be unaware of the cancer train that runs from Punjab to Rajasthan in India. I quite agree with Gurnam here.
In this debate, it is very important to separate the science and the business, which unfortunately is impossible today thanks to the aggressive business practices of the GM-seed companies. As long as Monsanto (now Bayer) is secretive and underhand, people like Vandana Shiva are necessary even if some of their arguments are somewhat exaggerated or extrapolated. In an ideal world, there could be very well controlled and transparent research on the impact of GMO in human food on human health, and then we could have an entirely science based argument about it.
In our world, the questions of food safely becomes entangled with questions of profit and trade-secrets. I would rather not eat OGM and stay safe than eat it without having first looked at clear and impartial data. Europeans can because they are fighting to keep it that way. India should too.
Vandana Shiva and her anti scientific views conspire to kileep Indian farmers in poverty and are a menace to the planet. If she ever got her way billions would starve and the attendant expansion of agriculture necessary would destroy what is left of the natural world. Fortunately this kind stupidity is self limiting.
“Modern” “Scientific“ agriculture was started to ensure that the junk food industry in the US has an ample supply of cheap junk raw material to sell their junk wares to the American masses and later to the world. Apart from poisoning the environment this industry is responsible for an obesity epidemic in the US and the rest of the world. My God, I haven’t seen so many fat ( and thick) in a one country. Also all kinds of new diseases now emerge from the US. How a society, a country lives and acts is a direct reflection of the food they eat. And the fact that the US has so much of cancer and other exotic diseases, despite being an advance country, is because of the junk and other pesticide infested foods which they eat.
Don’t try to impose that model on the rest of the world
Yeah, right. The entirety of the GMO community is against her. Included on the list is the disgraced plagiarist Henry I. Miller – who had writings removed from publication as they were just re-hashed plagiaristic re-writes of Monsanto writings he was paid to publish. The list of “scientists” is merely the whos-who of Pro-Pesticide/Pro-GMO agribusiness. Most paid for their positions in one way or another.
This is very clearly a very biased article! The author fails to mention that GMO foods are banned in Germany and most of Europe despite massive pressure from the American govt and companies. The organic movement is getting stronger and proof of this the huge availability of organic wares in most Western European grocery stores. More and more people are demanding organic simply because the trust in modern agriculture with its heavy use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers is not only poisoning the food but also the environment.
The author failed to mention that many diseases, Especially in the US are not attributed to GMO crops and also heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides. Infact Monsanto is now facing multiple multi million law suits for its alleged cancer causing pesticides.
Vandana Siva has done wonders by not only educating and influencing this debate with correct facts. Why is the scientific community afraid of her? Perhaps they that she is right and will expose them
Mr Eric B…, You simply don’t know the truth! Please pray to God that he will make you understand the reality
True Shiva is not very scietific – she is not a scientist and therefore it is not her job to explain the science. Yet scientists must hear voices like her. She knows about environmental destruction and to pretend that she is no valid point is not ok. the letter is condecending and offensive and reeks of being sponsored by biotech companies.
No, scientists have no more reason to listen to her than a math teacher needs to listen to a kid who just got a zero on a math test. She knows squat about the environment and your comment reeks of the ignorance of a guy who relies on the shill gambit.
In view of her long running feud with Monsanto, and past tactics from this company, my comment is not a shill gambit – it is entirely plausible given that Bt is mentioned explicitly in the letter. Your example is self defeating – a good teacher certainly should listen to a kid who failed an exam, in order to figure out what went wrong.
Reeks of being sponsored is a shill gambit. It is a dishonest attempt to spread your bias. Ine that has no factual basis.
I suppose Mosanto is scientific!
now take your screen shot and re-post in GMOLOL, mmmkay, Eric? Perhaps the disgraced Kevin Folta will give your screenshot a like. hahahah pathetic GMOLOL’rs.
I see mike has nothing of substance to offer. Your comment is the disgrace. Perhaps you should try the truth.
The natural instinct of scientists is to first listen to those who have different views. Rejecting views by calling them unscientific is a tendency of leftists and lobbyists pretending to be scientists even though they may have PhDs and serving vested interests.
but i will call all of your science unscientific. a science that doesnt look at long term results and a science that merely seeks profit. a science that so speedily produces vaccines and GMOs whose effects cannot be known even in a hundred years. a science that doesnt see human body and ecosystem as holistic and merely looks at certain parts of organisms at certain points in time. an organism as the ecosystem is an evolving and everchanging creature. if u take vaccine for every small flu how will you help your body to devise ways tof ight and strengthen the immunity. chemicals in agriculture, chemicals in medicine are all intricately linked and designed to destroy life processes. science it seems. these rent seeking psychopaths use half baked science to earn profits and they make us all into fools for thinking it is actually science
She is not “unscientific” — she just fights off the corporate quest to “own” natural resources. By calling her unscientific, you’re just enabling a make-believe witch-hunt. The modus operandi of the companies she fights against is easy to understand: Seeds, if patented, which GMO companies do, come within the ambit of IP laws and extend the ownership to the patent owner. Therefore, these companies can lay claim to the produce/harvest of all hapless farmers who use their seeds. It has more to do with unfair trade practices, less to do with science.
Wrong, patents expire. Hybrid seeds are not saved anyways. Farmers will still be free to quit buying the GE seeds any time they want. Your comment is not valid.
Patents can also be extended. Also Farmers who choose not to use GMO are cut out of the marketing and procurement streams – especially the marginal ones. Once farmer lose control of their seeds (even non-GMO planters have been been found to have contaminated seed lines) they basically become slaves to the corporations profiteering off a natural process (seed production by plants). These companies have provided absolutely zero safeguards against their contaminated seed lines spreading their genetic contamination to natural seed lines. Zero protection for those who don’t want to ride the GMO band wagon. Also, GMO companies have pursued even non-GMO farmers precisely using this – their own products’ safety failure. On top of that GMO companies provide no protection once the pest profile changes due to widespread GMO use, not at a farm scale, but at the landscape scale. This leaves the non-GMO farmers vulnerable to unknowns introduced intentionally by the GMO companies. As for the GMO farmers they are already beholden to the seed corporations, and are open to further financial and economic abuse once the primary pest profile changes, and companies eventually have to come up with a new product with higher price (both in seed procurement price and at the ecological scale), just to keep promised yield levels. GMO companies are trying to profit off farmers by creating monopolies and the regulatory loopholes in IPR laws and patents. If GMO companies refuse to take ownership of even natural (inadvertent) contamination of seed lines in non-GMO farmers fields they should be punitively fined and stripped of their operating licence. This is just like industrial polluters, they are genetically polluting agriculture and trying to make money from both users and non-users using the dommercial laws & courts.
Farmers will eventually lose access to non-GMO contaminate seed lines as GMOs become common and pollute natural seed lines (over which GMO corps have zero control either legally or by through design safeguards). They know this model helps them double dip.
I don’t know enough about the views of Vandana Shiva, but anyone who questions GMO products can expect serious attacks from GMO supporters. And those pesticides and fertilizers are not an unmixed blessings. We hear about “cancer colonies” caused by their use.
You hear wrong. There are no cancer colonies. NonGMO farmers also use the same fertilizers. GE crops require less pesticide use.
You must really be unaware of the cancer train that runs from Punjab to Rajasthan in India. I quite agree with Gurnam here.
In this debate, it is very important to separate the science and the business, which unfortunately is impossible today thanks to the aggressive business practices of the GM-seed companies. As long as Monsanto (now Bayer) is secretive and underhand, people like Vandana Shiva are necessary even if some of their arguments are somewhat exaggerated or extrapolated. In an ideal world, there could be very well controlled and transparent research on the impact of GMO in human food on human health, and then we could have an entirely science based argument about it.
In our world, the questions of food safely becomes entangled with questions of profit and trade-secrets. I would rather not eat OGM and stay safe than eat it without having first looked at clear and impartial data. Europeans can because they are fighting to keep it that way. India should too.
Vandana Shiva and her anti scientific views conspire to kileep Indian farmers in poverty and are a menace to the planet. If she ever got her way billions would starve and the attendant expansion of agriculture necessary would destroy what is left of the natural world. Fortunately this kind stupidity is self limiting.
“Modern” “Scientific“ agriculture was started to ensure that the junk food industry in the US has an ample supply of cheap junk raw material to sell their junk wares to the American masses and later to the world. Apart from poisoning the environment this industry is responsible for an obesity epidemic in the US and the rest of the world. My God, I haven’t seen so many fat ( and thick) in a one country. Also all kinds of new diseases now emerge from the US. How a society, a country lives and acts is a direct reflection of the food they eat. And the fact that the US has so much of cancer and other exotic diseases, despite being an advance country, is because of the junk and other pesticide infested foods which they eat.
Don’t try to impose that model on the rest of the world
Yeah, right. The entirety of the GMO community is against her. Included on the list is the disgraced plagiarist Henry I. Miller – who had writings removed from publication as they were just re-hashed plagiaristic re-writes of Monsanto writings he was paid to publish. The list of “scientists” is merely the whos-who of Pro-Pesticide/Pro-GMO agribusiness. Most paid for their positions in one way or another.
This is very clearly a very biased article! The author fails to mention that GMO foods are banned in Germany and most of Europe despite massive pressure from the American govt and companies. The organic movement is getting stronger and proof of this the huge availability of organic wares in most Western European grocery stores. More and more people are demanding organic simply because the trust in modern agriculture with its heavy use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers is not only poisoning the food but also the environment.
The author failed to mention that many diseases, Especially in the US are not attributed to GMO crops and also heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides. Infact Monsanto is now facing multiple multi million law suits for its alleged cancer causing pesticides.
Vandana Siva has done wonders by not only educating and influencing this debate with correct facts. Why is the scientific community afraid of her? Perhaps they that she is right and will expose them
Well done. It is important for people like her to be exposed to the general public, for what they actually are.
Mr Eric B…, You simply don’t know the truth! Please pray to God that he will make you understand the reality
True Shiva is not very scietific – she is not a scientist and therefore it is not her job to explain the science. Yet scientists must hear voices like her. She knows about environmental destruction and to pretend that she is no valid point is not ok. the letter is condecending and offensive and reeks of being sponsored by biotech companies.
No, scientists have no more reason to listen to her than a math teacher needs to listen to a kid who just got a zero on a math test. She knows squat about the environment and your comment reeks of the ignorance of a guy who relies on the shill gambit.
In view of her long running feud with Monsanto, and past tactics from this company, my comment is not a shill gambit – it is entirely plausible given that Bt is mentioned explicitly in the letter. Your example is self defeating – a good teacher certainly should listen to a kid who failed an exam, in order to figure out what went wrong.
Reeks of being sponsored is a shill gambit. It is a dishonest attempt to spread your bias. Ine that has no factual basis.
I suppose Mosanto is scientific!
now take your screen shot and re-post in GMOLOL, mmmkay, Eric? Perhaps the disgraced Kevin Folta will give your screenshot a like. hahahah pathetic GMOLOL’rs.
I see mike has nothing of substance to offer. Your comment is the disgrace. Perhaps you should try the truth.
The natural instinct of scientists is to first listen to those who have different views. Rejecting views by calling them unscientific is a tendency of leftists and lobbyists pretending to be scientists even though they may have PhDs and serving vested interests.