Puerto Rico: Biotech Island

They go not only where they can grow year round but also where there money can purchase the most bang for the buck.

In some respects it's the modern adaptation of the old Banana Republics where the wealthy powers come into the Islands and claim the bulk of the agricultural bounty for themselves.

Publius....And, after more than 20 years the Puerto Ricans are not all dead? They thrive?? But, how is that possible???

Brilliant if proof of safety is the failure to eradicate the entire population. Have you tracked the health effects among the population or is long term health irrelevant?

The US population has a decade plus of gmo consumption and over that time rates of diabetes, heart disease, childhood cancers, food allergies, etc have soared. Is that related to the diet that includes gmo foods or not? Do we know what the effects are? Do we know what the risks are?

You have been told time and again that your opinions are not welcome until you add links to the gmo human health studies you claim exist. No one wants to hear your disparaging comments about posters or wild extrapolations like life continuing in Puerto Rico is an indication of safety. Add some facts to support the claims that the stuff is safe to eat.

Publius....Could it be that you fearmongers do not know what you are harping about? Is it possible that the world is not the deadly toxic place you feature it to be?

Yeah, we should all be afraid...very, very afraid. If you say so.

Don't you ever tire of looking like a nitwit who can't distinguish fact from opinion? Instead of calling names, show us the human health studies. Where is evidence of safety, beyond life continuing? Where is the science that supports the claims that these have been tested and found to be safe for human consumption?

Save you opinions of the critics for elsewhere, show us safety studies!!

Publius..."In 2007, the reported food allergy rate among all children younger than 18 years was 18% higher than in 1997" OK, an increase but hardly "SOARING" out of control.

Great link and wonderful data, but it makes me wonder what size increase you'd expect in a decade to be significant?

In 2007, the reported food allergy rate among all children younger than 18 years was 18% higher than in 1997. During the 10-year period 1997 to 2006, food allergy rates increased significantly among both preschool-aged and older children.

That's one in every five that weren't allergic before and are now. It seems significant to me.

PR....You are blowing smoke up our skirts, once again, PD (what a surprise!) Let's just take a minute or two to find the facts about this "SOARING" epidemic of morbidity and mortality you terrorize us with...

Yes, there's real terror in me discussing the possibility of negative health risks of a profitable venture, but ads selling potentially fatal drugs are okay because that's just doing business. Gotta love the hypocracy of the corporate creatures.

First a Medicare Trend Study wouldn't be my choice but your pick for this. It's a good example of Enron accounting and statistical ignorance or manipulation can be used by the misinformed or opportunists.

PR..."The prevalence of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and stroke (data not shown) did not change over the study period (P > 0.23 for tests of trend), but the prevalence of diabetes (diagnosed or undiagnosed) increased from 11.8% (1999 to 2000) to 13.7% (2005 to 2006) (P = 0.043 for trend)". Hardly "SOARING", now - let's be truthful!

A quick glance at the figures. Moving from 11.8% to 13.7% feels small because they're only 1.9% of distance them. But the gap is the wrong measure to use, what matters is the increase amount as percentage increase from the original number.

For 11.8 to add 1.9% is a ten percent increase in a decade and that looks significant to me.

The rest will need to wait for tomorrow when each source and set of figures can get a full and fair reading, review and reply. It will be fun to take a close look at the statistics and see what's in all the numbers. It's good to remember that percentage reporting is always a bastion of scoundrels, but they are hardly the only ones who know numbers games.

Publius....You fail to attribute any of the perceived increase to improvement in diagnostic capability during the decade or to heightened general awareness of these conditions.

There's been no lack of awareness impacting cancer diagnosis in the past decade. Earlier detection and improved diagnostics maks survival rates better, but it has not altered the rates of occurrence.

As for the childhood food allergies, the diagnostics are driven by the increased numbers of severe reactions that send panicked parents into the doctors offices. When Boomers were kids whole schools full of kids could eat PB&J sandwiches for lunch and never a problem.

Now whole sections of cafeterias are segregated to keep from killing kids at lunch. That's not an awareness issue it is an epidemic of allergic kids. Nice try at a spin but no cigar Publius.

Wonderful work on the extrapolated rates of increase rochart; it goes to show how statistics can be reported in a way that manipulates the perception of the impact to make a dramatic shift seem like a small change in total percentages. Gotta watch liars with figures!

Publius...Why stigmatize a kid and paralyze an entire school over a peanut allergy?

Why indeed when we can scare the bejeezus out of most of them, minting money on a swine flu vaccine?

Publius...We didn't have a plan so detailed as this, even for coping with nuclear holocaust - the siren sounded and we all got under our little desks, placed our heads between our legs and kissed our precious little asses goodby.

And we rode in cars without seat belts, biked without helmets and played with lawn darts. Having a gift wrapped set of those in a checked bag flying to Iowa, would probably land a grandma in DHS custody, her knitting needles and denture liquid entered into evidence.

Meanwhile America's leaders don't mind having ports operated by Dubai and all the powers of our regulatory, judicial and intelligence combined, can't always sort through the maze of ship registrations establish the ownership, even as oil pours from a decrepit hull onto our shores.

Sup with that Homeland Security? We pat down air passengers and don't know who owns the ships before letting them dock? Do we really want to debate the limits of poor thinking?

As Forest Gump said, stupid is as stupid does; who cares where the stupid stand as they perform unless you're Youtube?

Publius...And he and his parents didn't invoke "Section 504" and expect the entire damned school to eliminate all foods with mustard just to accomodate them.

People who manipulated their individual burdens into a sense of entitlement always give me a cramp. You find them whining everywhere, looking to place blame and secure restitution. But there are times when that's done fairly. I'm a firm believer in giving those with great challenges the tools to overcome their limitations, especially because when we invest in ourselves we are all better for it as individuals and as a society.

It is not too much to expect that accomodations like large text be available for the visually impaired. It is criminal that it is like moving heaven and earth to get those materials for a child who borders legally blind in corrective lenses.

Special needs accommodations is driven by sufficient numbers suffering the same fate. Very few kids can't see the print in their books, so it's a personal problem for the few visually impaired. Just as allergies were rare once upon a time, more affected kids, now makes for more affected parents, looking to be sure their kids get what they need to learn and survive to come home.

At the end of the day we must teach our children about protecting themselves, because the consequences of failure have personal consequences. We need to help them identify known risks from pedophiles to peanuts with the understanding that we set them loose in the world and they need to fend for themselves.

But we cannot expect them to protect themselves against trace ingredients so mingled into the spectrum of packaged foods that a person with my knowledge has difficulty. How is an elementary school child or the mother for that matter to guess that a Vitamin C could be made of corn? They can't.

Addressing the food allergy issue in the lunchroom is a way to manage the symptoms, but it does nothing to address the problem which is the question of why so many kids react to so many foods in numbers that are growing.

Could it be that the allergies stem from reactions to novel proteins in the gmo foods? Who knows, but we ought to see some human health and safety studies, some long term tracking to rule it out. Which brings me back to my single question for you Publius, where are the gmo safety studies?

Publius...Annual deaths to food allergy (100 - 200) are about 3 times more prevalent than, well...uh, than...uh...lightening (62). Worthy of panic and pandemonium in our schools?

That's still a higher rate than swine flu deaths and we've already dismissed the issue of extremists, so examples aiming to paint parents as the problem is worthless. You continue to ignore the same question about what is causing the allergies to rise. Are they tied to the gmo foods and novel proteins? What is the source of the problem?

Where are the human health studies? Where are the allergy tests for novel proteins?

Publius...Are you linking peanut allergy with GMO? Are peanuts GMO? Maybe they should be...

Most GMO foods consumed in America are Monsanto Roundup Ready, glyphosate resistant forms of corn, soy, canola and cotton seed oil. The same herbicide is the most widely used on other "conventional crops" as well. The world's food is largely doused with Roundup.

The herbicide resistant modification carries mutations that relate to glyphosate and lo and behold if peanuts aren't soaked with glyphosate to kick start them and peanuts are planted as a rotation crop for cotton, another Monsanto dominated, gmo crop and heavy glyphosate market.

Like most underground plants, peanuts draw heavily from the surrounding soils and "conventionally farmed" peanuts are sucking up glyphosate like little Roundup sponges.

Once those herbicide rich peanuts are pumped through a factory operation they're on their way to America's tables, without enough safeguards to keep from spreading salmonella Nationwide. Does an intolerance for the herbicide trait or the intolerance for the allowable daily intake of the herbicide come first.

You bet your bippie they're related to pumping more Roundup and Roundup Ready profits.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, instead of being any sort of cause, GMO may evolve to be at least a partial solution? Just the thought of that is enough to permanently curl a Luddite's hair, eh?

I know you Monsanto folks toss around Luddite term as an insult, but it always has me LMAO big time. It just strikes me as the most idiotic talking point the Biotech Brigade PR Boys ever distributed to their clueless minions, it's been overused and abused into purely amusing.

My favorite is a C-Span bit where a dip stick Congressman was making an impassioned plea for biotech saying, Scientist have been tinkering with genes since Mendelssohn and the ignorance of Luddities is threatening the bright future of biotech.

Of course the Congressional Record was changed to say Mendel, so the floor speech could be used, without revealing what dimwitted dolt it was, doing Monsanto's bidding in Congress.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, instead of being any sort of cause, GMO may evolve to be at least a partial solution?

What would be ironic is if the allergy to the food were secondary to the herbicide allergy and the immune system only reacts to the food since it is always the carrier of the herbicide?

wired...For years now, government scientists have been testing ordinary peanuts in the hope of finding one that cannot cause the deadly allergic reactions which kill more than 50 Americans every year.

Now there's a call to action. Yes indeed, a deadly National threat if ever there were one. Now up above when parents wanted special care for their allergic offspring you had no sympathy.

Publius...We didn't have a plan so detailed as this, even for coping with nuclear holocaust - the siren sounded and we all got under our little desks, placed our heads between our legs and kissed our precious little asses goodby. It was simple and routine. Why stigmatize a kid and paralyze an entire school over a peanut allergy?

Nevermind that the government, gave us meaningless routines to perform that protect nothing but the fear that helps serve other interests. The more things change, the more they are the same, eh? What we see once again is a way to parlay a fear into profits under the guise of protection.

And if there's a company who knows how to sell a solution, to a problem of their own making it's Monsanto. They've got the peanuts boosted with the Roundup making it a very profitable crop for them. No sense looking to see if swallowing herbicide ever does wear down the body. Nope, what better improvement than to have a patented peanut designed to sell around that?

United States Patent Application 20040216187 Kind Code A1 Alibhai, Murtaza F. ; et al. October 28, 2004

Preparation of deallergenized proteins and permuteins

Abstract

Modified proteins are disclosed that maintain enzymatic and insecticidal activity while displaying reduced or eliminated allergenicity. Epitopes which bind to anti-patatin antibodies were identified, and removed via site directed mutagenesis. Tyrosines were observed to generally contribute to the allergenic properties of patatin proteins. Removal of glycosylation sites was observed to reduce or eliminate antibody binding. Permuteins are also disclosed which have a rearranged amino acid sequence while retaining enzymatic activity. Deallergenized proteins and permuteins can be used as insecticidal materials, as nutritional supplements, and as immunotherapeutic agents.

Inventors: Alibhai, Murtaza F.; (Chesterfield, MO) ; Astwood, James D.; (Eureka, MO) ; McWherter, Charles A.; (Chesterfield, MO) ; Sampson, Hugh A.; (Larchmont, NY)

Assignee Name and Adress: MONSANTO TECHNOLOGY LLC

The invention relates generally to non-naturally occurring novel proteins which have insecticidal properties, and more specifically to the design, preparation, and use of proteins that have been deallergenized while maintaining their insecticidal properties.

Funny thing that on the one hand the allergy issue is said to be overblown, but Monsanto, who commercializes only the biggest commodity crops on the globe is hell bent on serving the "narrow" segment. Seems more likely growing allergy numbers are big consumer dollars.

Note that the Patent refers to non-naturally occurring novel proteins. Maybe there's some clue about the allergy links in those novel proteins that do not occur naturally. Bodies developed to recognize food proteins not Monsanto's novel creations. Is the answer right there?

Most of all it's creepy to read a Patent Application where the intended use is described as insecticidal and nutritional. Nothing says yummy like a food retaining it's insecticidal traits.

Publius...Determining precise causation is always difficult, for science anyway. Denialists seem to have no difficulty leaping from one unfounded conclusion to the next, though.

Denialists of what? Can't you utter two consecutive sentences without name calling? Let's talk about leaping, because Monsanto's minions have no trouble leaping to a conclusion of safety without any science at all to cite. Leaping from one unfounded conclusions to the next we hear boasts of global benefits, without first establishing it is safe to eat! Where are the safety studies?