Transcripts For CSPAN2 Altered Genes Twisted Truth 20170910

In 2016 and its aftermath. For more information, check out wer site at booktv. Org. Greeting and welcome to todays meeting from the commonwealth chair of california. I am bill grant chair of this program. It is my pleasure to extend a special welcome to club members. At this time, please turn off all cell phones and noisemaking devices. The event is being video graphed and recorded for pod casts so we dont want extraneous sounds. Many tup topics are coming up and i invite you to visit our website at commonclub. Org or call our 24 hour reservation line. Stevens book will be for sale in the hobby after the program and he is happy to sign the book. If you have friends who want to be here this program and were not able to, the pod cast should be online in about a day. Cspan is here to record it for tv. And he is speaking again thursday in palo alto at the community center. You have want to find out more about that go to the szhi. Com i believe. Schi. Com to find out more information. That is a good place if people want to go there as well. I printed out question cards on all the seats and when you fill out the question card, pass them to aisle and pass them up. I will be sitting here and that way i wont have to go up and down the aisle and block the tv people while recording this. Okay, now i will start the program officially. Greetings and welcome to todays meeting of the commonwealth of california. I am bill grant cochair of the forum and chair of this program. It is my great pleasure to introduce steven drucker. He is a Public Interest continue who initiated a lawsuit against the food and Drug Administration, or the fda, that reve revealed the agency covered up scientist warnings about the risk of jumet genetically engineered food. He has spoken at numerous universities including harvard, cornell and columbia and met with government officials worldwild for the uk, canada, france, ireland and australia. He received a law degree from uc berkeley and elected to the California Law review and a Legal Honor Society as well. His articles on genetically engineered food have been published in many forms. His book altered genes, twisted truth how the venture to genetically engineer our food has subverted science, corrupted government, and systematically deceived the public was released in march 2015 with it being hailed as without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 yearsism among the other scientists who praised it is a professor at the institute for biological studies who called it insightful and truly outstanding. He received the luxemburg peace price. Mr. Drucker . Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with such a great organization. I would like to begin by tell me what would you think if at the snap of my fingers everybody in the world suddenly, instantly became aware of all the facts about jgenetically engineered food . If he adhere to the routine we would predict a worldwide wave of enlightenment could cause them to vanish. In addition to reality, all of the opposition has been based in ignorance and the concerns about risks are due to an improper understanding of science. But in reality, in this world we actually inhabit the phenomenon that would vanish is not the opposition to the foods but the foods themselves. That is right. If the actual facts became widely known the entire genetically engineered adventure would collapse. And that is why the proponents of genetically engineered foods have dissorted critical facts. My book documents case after case in which imminent scientists have stooped to deception in order to enable the ge food venture to advance. Basic facts of biology have been twisted and there process of creating genetically engineered foods has been described in order to make it appear far less disruptive and far more precise than it is actually is. And false statements have consistently been issued about the tests on these foods to cover up troubling results. The evidence that demonstrates the distortion of the evidence is solid and solidity has been tested by experts. For instance, a professor of Agricultural Economics at the of missouri stated the evidence in my book is comprehensive and irrefutable. And a professor at the sock institute for bio logical studies hailed the book as outstanding and said quote it disspells the cloud of misinformation that has misled people into believing that ge foods have been accuratery tested and dont entail risk accurately. And the fact that the facts have been misrepresented is concrete evidence of how strongly the evidence weighs against the soundness of the ge foods. If the evidence was supported of the venture safety, there would have been no need to distort it. I think that is a nobrainer. If the facts are on your side, you are not afraid of them. In fact, you are proud of them and it is your joy and privilege to present them. During the next 25 minutes, i will point out some of the key distortions and falsehoods and clear up the confusion they have created. In the process, it will become evdependent there is strong sciencebas sciencebased reasons for reaching new conclusions. Producing new foods with genetic engineering is risky. Every genetically engineered food pose an abnormal level of risk. Three, the safety of those on the market has never been adequately established. And four some of them have already been shown to be harmful. I will explain how the ge food venture is not normally risky from the stand point of biological science but how they have disregarded the hard learns lessons about the risk of altering complex Information Systems. The routine assertion the food is safe and this claim is claimed to be on par with the consensus about humaninduced climate change. There has never been one in regard to ge foods. Whereas every group of experts that examined the data with climate change, many raised cautions about ge foods and several scientific institutions have done so as well. The Royal Society of canada issued a major report concluding a that the default prediction should be the genetic altereration induced unintended and potentially harmful side effects and it is scientifically unjustifiable to regard any ge safe unless the safety has been established through a course of testing far more rigorous than any regulators require. The editors of the lancet, a premier meadical journal expressed concerns about the risk and the Public Health association of australia called for a moratorium on the marketing and planting of ge foods. The scientific experts at the u. S. Food and Drug Administration have likewise recogniz recognized noticed that within the memos from the agencies own scientists expressing concern about the risk for the process and the need for the food it produces to undergo safety testing capable of detecting the potential harmful side effects. The pervasiveness of the concerns is tested by an expert official who studied the input and declared quote the processes of genetically engineering and breeding are different and they lead to different risks. Moreover, the fdas own Bio Technology coordinator noted there is no consensus. But the fda hasnt created an agenda to foster biotechnology. When it issued its policy in may of 1992 after receiving the input it claimed it was not aware of any information showing that foods derived by genetic engineering differed from other foods in any uniform or meaning ful way. And there was overwhelming consensus that ge foods are so safe they didnt need to be tested even though it knew no such consistent existed. They allow the ge foods to enter the market without requiring a smidgen of testing. If they told the truth and exposed the concern of their own experts the subsaharsiacquaint journey would be different subseque subsequent. That is one claim. What about the claim that no ingested product has been linked to a Human Health Problem . That is also baloney. It is starkly at odds with reality. In fact, the technologys very first ingestible product caused a major epidemic. It killed dozens of americans. It seriously sickened between 45,000 and hundreds are still invalids to this day. That product was a food supplement of the essential amino acid tryptofan that contained minute amounts of impurities. Unlike the conventionally produced supplements, one or more of its additions was highly toxic even at extremely low levels. Because none of these supplements had been linked to disease and genetically engineering can create unintentioned disruptions there was the inspection of the process creating the calamity. To do so, they had to issue a string of deceptive statements. Those deceptions have been so successful that despite the evidence points to genetic engineering as the most likely cause of the contamination most people who know of the tragedy are under the illusion the technology has been exonerated and worse because the ge proponents claim nothing has been linked to a Health Problem and most are not aware of the event happening. And that includes most professionals within Public Health i have spoken to. Oblivious to the fact that the very First Genetic engineered item caused major epidemic in the United States. It is important to note that the toxic incident has serious implications for all foods produced through genetic engineering. Those bacteria had not been altered with foreign genes but were endowed with extra copies of some of their own and not engineered to produce anything other than a beneficial substance they orderinarily make. But the forced over production of this normally benign substance apparently put abnormal stress on the organisms that led to the creation of an unintended highly toxic by product and almost every genetically engineered food is being propelled to overproduce one or more chemicals components. The standard claim that the safety of ge foods has been thoroughly established by reliable testing cannot survive scrutiny either especially considering that many well conducted studies published in peer review journals have detected harm to the animals that consume ge food. In fact, in 2009 a systematic review on ge foods that was published in a peer review journal concluded the results of most of them indicate the products may was hepatic, pancreatic, renal effects and may alter biological parameters to which is unknown. Another review that was published until august 10 provided cause for caution. It concluded there was equilibrium between those suggesting ge crops are as safe as their counterparts and those raising serious concerns. The fact that more than 15 years after ge foods first entered the market, half the published studies on them raised serious concerns mt in the eyes of objective science reviewers undermines the claim their safety has been established. This examines the results that occurred before and after that date. For instance, a team of European University scientists published a paper in 2011 in which they reviewed the data from 19 of the feeding studies on ge, soy and corn varieties that had already gone through the regulatory process, were on the market and comprised 83 of the ge foods people have been eating. What they found was disturbing. 9 of the measured parameters including blood and urin e biochemistry was disrupted in the animals that ate the ge food. Moreover, the greatest disturbances were to the kidneys of the males and livers of the females. And the scientists emphasized that because livers and kidneys are the major reactive organs in cases of chronic food toxicity these should be danger signs. The research is reteunely misrepresented. Routinely. The worlds oldest and most Prestigious Institution declared no research has been indicated that the genetic engineering isnt the problem but the gene introduced or agricultural processes. This assertion is false. It was the same level of protein produced within the modified potatoes and the research concluded that some aspect of the ge process itself was significantly responsible for the result because they have ruled out the other possible factors. So it is only through the systematic misrepresentation of the facts by respected institutions and individuals and their willingness to disregard the ominous implications of the evidence that the ge food venture has been able to continue. And this disgraceful activity is being carried out in the name of science when it is actually subverting the basic principles of science. The extent to which the ge food venture has failed to be evidencebased and instead has rested on the denial and disregard of the efrd evidence by the king school of medicine. If the kind of detrimental affects seen in the animals fed the ge food were observed in a clinical setting the items used would be halted to determine the cause and find solutions. What repeatedly happens in the case of ge food is despite increasi increasing evidence of serious adverse test results government and industry continue unabated with the development, enforcement and marketing of these foods as if nothing hap n happened to the point where they even seem to ignore the results of their own research. When it is analyzed from the point of Computer Science the picture is more troubling. This is relevant because genetic engineering and Computer Science are engaged in altering complex Information Systems and Computer Science learned a lot about the risks of making such alterations and learned these risk are not escapable. When the Information Systems they created become large and cop pm plex there is no way to alter them with complete precision. Even when the alteration is a small refinement, the mere process of revising it is such a minuscule manner is likely to destruct one or more of its other parts. Software systems are designed to be linear meaning they are structured so a specific operation only produces a specific result. Operation x should only produce y. However, despite the programmers best interest their systems transcend the limits and behave in a non linear manner. There is a high likelihood some of the parts will interact in ways that were not planned and cannot be predicted which means operation x will not only yield y but might also generate q and z. Consequently, to reduce the potential for unintended interactions Software Designers separate components that shouldnt interact and try to insulate them from such interaction. What they try to avoid is creating code that resembles a plate of spaghetti because they want to avoid writing what they call spaghetti code, a program in which the components are comlexly interacted and you cant really work on one without jostling around some of the other ones. What they instead aim to create is ravioli code. They try to Design Systems in which the components that are not supposed to interact are as independent from one another as the package of cheese and vegetable and separate packages of pasta even though programs have succeeded in designing systems that are far more analogous to a plate of ravioli to a plate of spaghetti and have not been able to eliminate. Before examining how the risks are dealt with, lets compare human Design Systems with those of bio information. Lets compare manmade software with nature software. Human systems are designed to be linear. And although they unavoidably become linear to some degree they are separate systems. But bio Information Systems are inherently non linear. Every action can create a wide range of effects many of which cannot be predicted. In their endeavor to maxinize manageability maximize Software Engineers avoid creating spaghetti code but bio Information Systems are the most extreme instances of spaghetti code and if a human being has been able to create them he or she cannot comprehend the varurous interaction. Despite the knowledge we have gained about the systems and extent our understanding is deficient should be profoundly humbling. The rules governoring how the parts interact are expressed in written form but only a small fraction of the rules of bio Information Systems are known and most of those pertain to the mech mechanics of gene expression. Bio Information Systems transcend the innate and extend throughout the entire organism while extending far beyond our coverage and. In addition to the vast differences in the degree to which humans understand how the two types of systems operate, there are also glaring differences in how they make revisions to them. Software engineers insert new code precisely where they want it without accidentally disrupting the way in which other code is written. Further, no unintended code enters the system. In contrast, bioengineers have been inserting dna haphazardly. Their insertions have been disrupted sections of native dna and unintended pieces of dna have almost always entered as well. So, in revisions precise and mentally disruptive in the case of the human design system, in the case of bio Information System the revision through genetic engineering are imprecise and highly disruptive. In the light of these enormous differences, it would be reasonable to think that genetic engineers should exercise far greater caution that do Software Engineers, but the unfortunate reality is they exercise far less, shockingly less. Software engineers recognize that inescapable risk of altering complex Information Systems and they deal with them responsibly, accordingly when they revise programs they conduct test to conduct whether any problems have been created. Moreover, there is a special class of software for which the testing is extremely rigorous. Is called life pivotal software, software that can cause loss of life if it malfunctions with examples that govern pace makers and xray machines and the ones that serve as airplane guidance systems. In the us and the European Union, not only are such programs required to undergo strict testing before they are allowed on the market, they also must be rigorously tested anytime they are revised, no matter how minor the revision. Of the regulators will not accept arguments that the revised program is substantially equivalent to the former version. Instead there must be a demonstration of safety achieved via systematic stringent testing the, but there is a glaring contrast in how risks are handled with disruptive alterations made to the biggest most complex and get least understood Information System on our planet. The bio technicians dont adequately acknowledge the risk and largely deny them, even the regulators have discounted them and assume theres little need for rigorous testing. The us fda claims g foods are so say they dont need to be tested at all and although regulators in the eu and most other regions have required some testing, its been minimal. For almost 20 years ge foods were allowed on worldwide markets based solely on some superficial showing up substantially equivalent to the conditional counterpart, something never allowed in the case of life Critical Software despite the fact that a toxic tomato could cause far more human harm than a malfunctioning xray machine. Although the eu has finally required safety testing with whole food, the tests are still remarkably lax by Software Standards and even if ge foods were compelled to undergo the same testing mandated for new pharmaceutical drugs it would still fall short of the level of rigor is required when changes are made to life Critical Software programs, so again with human design Information Systems , small revisions to life Critical Systems presumed to entail substantial risk, rigorous testing is required. Bio Information Systems major revision to life Critical Systems are presumed to be safe, lax requirements, lax testing. Moreover, as my book demonstrates, if the kind of rigor required in Software Testing were mandated for ge foods the entire venture would implode. Consequently even this simple Tech Technology sometimes doesnt function properly. Consequences it securely risky. Now you might be wondering and isil scratch my head about it, you might wonder how the people promoting genetic engineering could remain so oblivious to the risks of altering complex Information Systems. The big part of that answer is quite simple. They initially failed to appreciate that they work even dealing with intricate polychlorinated Information Systems in this outlook has hung on and significantly altered their thinking excuse me, i went too far. We will come to that. That was a preview of coming attractions. As strange as it may seem to us now, when that genetic engineering Venture First began in the 1970s, its practitioners presumed genes acted independently and that they are not arranged in an organized manner in the sequence in which they occur is essentially an important. Its been called the beanbag theory of the genome. You have a bean bag and shake it up and all the positions of the beams of change and you still have the beanbag. It doesnt matter what the position it is enough the way the genome was presumed by molecular biologist and even well into the 80s that was the point and even into the 90s and after those presumptions were decisively reputed. They hung on. Action, let me go into those presumptions of the more. Based on the beanbag theory, based on the constrictive understanding of the genome they presume the genome genome is a simple luthier system which the action of a single gene will not impact others or disrupt their normal function thats because they felt that genes act independently, the kind of independent agents not acting in a coordinated manner. This is summarized by denise, a veteran Technology Reporter from the New York Times in an article published july 1, 2007, she stated presumption genes operate independently has been institutionalized since 1976, when the first biotech numbing biotechnology coming was founded and it is the revelatory foundation on which the entire biotechnology industry is built. Together these two presumption supported the belief that a chunk of the common dna could be wedged into a plant genome without inducing disturbance. Because of the behavior of the native genes was largely liquidated and the arrangement was a relevant, there would be no important patters to be perturbed. Accordingly they engender confidence in the provision of genetic engineering by implying this result would be consistently protectable. These influential assumptions which provided the Ideological Foundation for colossal endeavor to transform agriculture have been decisively discredited. Abundant evidence has demonstrated that there is a high degree of coordination between genes and that the arrangement is highly organized and this evidence undermines the claims about the safety of genetic engineering best in her previously mentioned New York Times article, Denise Caruso asserted evidence of a network genome shatters the scientific basis for virtually every official Risk Assessment of todays commercial Biotech Products and genetically engineered crops to pharmaceuticals. Its important to emphasize carusos comments were made without even taking the evidence from Computer Science into consideration. So when that powerful body of knowledge is additionally taken into account, its clear the ge food venture is not only seriously unsound, but downright reckless. What about the new modes of manipulating genomes such as crisper cast nine that are promoted as very precise forms of genome editing, more precise than the former version of genetic engineering. From the standpoint of Computer Science the answer still has to be no. They are more precise, but certainly not precise enough. For instance, these techniques can induce accidental off target offense a fax took further as with the case of the previous mode of genetic engineering in order to transform the altered plant cells into seed bearing plant something has to be done. Of this is important. Genetic engineers are not working with fertile feats, they cant do this stage and probably wont ever be able to. They are taking cells from mature plants and then they are genetically engineering those cells. Even if they end up with a genetic manipulation, genetic alteration he wants they those cells cannot be put in the ground and grown into a plant. So, a very unnatural process referred to as tissue culture has to be employed in which a series of hormone plant hormones and new churches are added and the plant that cell can be coaxed actually forced to grow into a mature plant, but the process through which that happens is not precisely the same as the process to which a seed will grow into a mature plant and in fact its a disruptive process. Tissue culture is known to be highly mutagenic and has been used to create mutations to see if they could find something good and some scientists have referred to the effect it has on the organism as a genomic shock, so no matter how precise the Crispr Technology can be on the manipulation side, as long as they use tissue culture to get their creation into a plant there is no way they can claim as precise. Its highly mutagenic and its irresponsible to ignore tissue culture and most promoters of ge foods try to pretend it doesnt exist and not part of the process. It is part of the process in almost every case, so another level of misrepresentation. From the standpoint of Computer Science, the process of producing new agricultural plants by utilizing these new techniques is in its entirety imprecise and inherently risk laden and the plants must be rigorously tested. Thus, if we cut through the promotional propaganda that has been passed off as science and we carefully examine genetic engineering in the light of our best scientific knowledge, knowledge accrued from biological science and Computer Science it becomes clear that the ge venture is incurably risky and that the risks are unacceptable especially when safe sustainable and well proven alternatives readily available. Thank you very much. [applause]. Thank you. We are listening to Steven Druker speaking on the problems with gm zero crops. I have prepared a few questions that i would like other people in the audience to write your questions out and pass them up to the front. The first question is which foods is sold in the United States are genetically engineered . The short answer is far too many. Even though a fairly small number of a crops relative to the vast number of food crops out there have been genetically engineered and reached market to date, because their major foods that appear as ingredients in most processed foods to date we say in the United States its been estimated between 85 and 90 of all processed food, food you buy the package contain one or another ingredient derived from a gml, genetically modified organism, so the main genetically engineered organisms on the market and north korea north korea north america. Not just the us, but canada. Canada has crops on the market, no labeling. Canadian regulators are almost as bad as the fda. Just a bit better because canadians tend to be more polite and reasonable but on genetically engineered foods is unscientific, so corn which is more commonly referred to as maize in southern parts of the world. Soy, well over 90 probably of the north american soy and corn crop have been genetically engineered. Think of how many different foods, ingredients in soy and corn are in. Canola seeds have been genetically engineered, most canadian crop your canola oil appears in many products and many products that report to be Healthy Foods because they think canola oil is better than other oils, but if its not certified gmo free, which little is then its probably been genetically engineered. Significant proportion of hawaiian papaya crop has been genetically engineered. Very substantial portion of the sugarbeet crop in the us has been genetically engineered, which means if you eat a product that says sugar, but doesnt say came sugar than its most likely came sugar which is in turn most likely genetically engineered. The alfalfa which many of you might think thats not a problem for me, actually it is especially if you try to eat organic Dairy Products because during winter months organic alfalfa is one of the main substance foodstuffs that organic Dairy Farmers feed their cattle and off off a to a very large degree and therefore there is significant risk of cross pollination contamination of organic alfalfa by the genetically engineered alfalfa. Theres probably others. Those are the big ones. Actually, this is a shocker, zucchini. Many years ago a virus resistant genetically engineered version of zucchini was created. Then, most of us were told that it really didnt make it into the market very much, maybe only a few percentage, a very small percentage of the zucchini was affected and most of it left the market. Then a few years ago reliable sources began telling us actually, it appears now that far more genetically engineered zucchini promenade in the market that initially thought and chances are anywhere between 10 and 25 of it could be. Thats pretty significant. Again, i do have all the verification, but that is the trouble. We dont know. Its not labeled on the fda does not even require a manufacturer to inform before it dubs a genetically engineered food on the market so the fda has even a dollar edged it doesnt know for sure all the gmo on our market because its actually gone out of its way to state ignorant as much as they can, so thats why we dont really know. We are to a logic large extent meaning we the consumers in the us and canada have too a large extent been left in the dark and the system was purposely designed to keep us in the dark without labeling, with very inadequate information. Most of the socalled information thats been released to the consumers have been disinformation and its been very very effective. Which countries ban ge crops . Im not up to date on that. Of most european most countries in the European Union dont permit the planting of genetically engineered crops. Spain has allowed some genetically engineered corn. Things may have shifted and thats one area im not completely up to date on. As far as planning, theres a major purge push going on by the biotech Engineering Community and subnational governments especially the uk government to try to get genetically engineered crops approved a poor growing and there is a lot of consumer resistance, so that will be interesting to see how that plays out. There are some countries that are trying to be very strong ge free zones. I believe austria and hungary and the European Union in europe are two of the strongest. Here is a interesting fact. Even though gm zero gmo cannot be gone in most european regions and even though they have been approved for marketing for the human food supply, several have been approved, but its consumer resistance has essentially kept them off the shelves because in the eu genetically engineered food, any foods that contain ingredients from genetically engineered food has to contain labels. They know the consumers in europe are much more educated about the risks than the consumers in north america. One reason is the european media in the earlier days actually reported on some of the early studies showing problems where i was pretty much a media blackout in north america north america, so that goes along way to a treating the difference in consumer attitude, but i think as bout as early as 2000, maybe before there were so much resistance among consumer groups in the European Union, certainly not everybody, but enough that the food manufacturers or distributors realized putting these dudes out is not going to be a good marketing and they made it very clear to the biotech industry and the farmers we are going to carry it so it made a major change. Consumer power is very important i mentioned that because if enough consumers in the us and in canada become more informed and vote with their pocketbook the industry the Food Industry takes note of that. In fact, it doesnt take a big shift in Consumer Habits to make the Food Industry make a shift. I think the thing is it can be as small as five or set 10 shift back and make a big difference and make one brand no longer viable, so im mentioning this because informed consumers have great power, the power of the pocketbook. I do want to say theres a major loophole in europe and that is that genetically engineered soy or corn or cottonseed cake sped to the farm, the ultimate consumer product, the meat, milk , eggs dont have to be labeled. I would not even call it a loophole. I would call it a huge hole in the wall and therefore europeans , consumers who think we have not been eating gmo, they have been eating products derived from gmo fed animals and the head of medicine at the us fda in his memo written on his behalf and behalf of the other numerous other scientists at the center stated that he and his colleagues viewed feeding farm animals high doses of genetically engineered crops which happens and then feeding the meat and milk and eggs to humans raise unique human food safety problems and they thought they should have careful testing of the situation, but there has not been such testing. What Health Effects arise from eating ge corn soybean etc. . I hope i got that right. Well, we dont know fully what Health Effects have been happening because there have not been good testing going on. We know people have been getting sick in the us and illnesses keep increasing. We know many illnesses have increased, you can kind of correlate the introduction of genetically engineered food and the increased use of the herbicide that has gone up in use because so many of the genetically engineered crops have been engineered to be tolerant to applications of herbicide that would otherwise kill them and killed Everything Else that is green in the surroundings except maybe the jolly green giant. He is pretty tough. We dont really know. We do know the kind of there have been as i said liver and kidney toxicity that have been determined to have been induced in genetically engineered crops. We have seen other problems as well, but you have to consider the case of tobacco. Even as late as 1962, people could have claimed theres no evidence that smoking cigarettes has caused any harm to human beings and at the point there wasnt any solid evidence yet. It had not been published epidemiological studies have been underway for many years, but it was until around 1990 9063 or 64 that they work published in there was enough evidence that the Surgeon General required warnings and then we knew there was causeandeffect. Look at the differences, tobacco had been smoked for a lot longer than genetically engineered foods and people who were smoking cigarettes or cigars new they were and they knew when they started and they knew on average how many cigarettes, cigars they had been smoking. Does anyone know precisely when he or she ingested the First Genetically engineered food and what was and have you been keeping a list of the different gmo you been ingesting and what concentrations . Of course not, you couldnt. They are not labeled. I have spoken on panels with epidemiologists and they agree it would be well not impossible at this stage to even conducted studies on gmo foods in north america, just couldnt be done. It was planned to be that way. For one reason, the manufacturers can avoid liability easily took locale long it took even in the case of tobacco to finally start getting judgments and monetary awards against the Tobacco Companies . Think how difficult again will not impossible it would be to prove someone was injured by particular gmo when there are so many out there and again, the burden of proof would be a mass and thats why our food safety laws are precautionary. In the United States, we have the strictest precautionary laws when it comes to Food Additives and those laws cover the additives that are added through genetic engineering. We have the strictest laws on the books. Stricter than the European Union most people are amazed by that because there arent jim owes gmo on the market in the eu and the supermarkets in the us and canada are flooded with them. The us has them everywhere than our laws must be weaker. No, our laws are stronger pet whats we but whats weaker is the will to enforce the laws. As my book indicates, the fda has been violating food safety laws since 1992 in order to assure genetically engineered foods onto the market and without any requirements for any testing. According to law, these foods should have been tested. Thats the law, but again the law is one of the greatest injuries that has been caused by the ge food venture is the injury to scientific integrity and integrity to regulators in the us and canada and other countries and hopefully, there wont be a great deal of human injury that results, but the laws of the eu were supposed to be precautionary. The us supposed to follow the principle and my book shows it has not been. The Us Government by law, our laws are straight with cautionary. Every genetically engineered food by lies presumed to be unsafe until demonstrated safe and the standard of proof is very high. It has to be a demonstration of reasonable certainty of no harm. You cant even factor in benefits according to the law. Risk benefit balancing in the case of Food Additives is actually contrary to law in the us. You do that in the case of pharmaceutical drugs, but its inappropriate to do in the case of food. Food is overthecounter. Everyone eats food. It should be saved to a reasonable certainty of no harm. Im going over all of this because there wasnt time to bring it out in the main body of the talk and i think its apropos and you should all know it. What about the herbicides the ge crops can tolerate that other plants cannot . I touched upon that briefly to one thing i think that is very important to note and many activists and critics of ge foods actually get misled by this and first, they focus too much on the herbicide, roundup in particular. Ran roundup is monsantos brand of herbicide, the most widely sold and used herbicide in the world, im pretty sure. Monsanto has been claiming that its completely safe, no problem and recently experts in europe have stated they feel there is enough evidence to show it saved possible human carcinogen. State of california has taken a similar position. Monsanto can come up with other scientists who claim no, the data does not show and we dont figure is a carcinogen. There is a huge debate going on now about is it or is it a carcinogen. When it was ad mministeadmin the same dose it would have been if corn was eaten. That should have driven it off the market along with that particular corn and all the other ge corn. What happened . Instead to a major assault upon the research, the researchers, and nature pressure put upon the Editorial Board of that journal it came out monsanto was orchestrating that attack getting socalled independent scientists to do its dirty work but there are memos uncovered in the lawsuit showing monsanto had a heavy hand in it and a year after the study started it was retracted. Before the retraction occurred, and it may not have occurred until this event, a former executive of monsanto was added to the review board of that journal. Was it cause and effect . Sounds fishy. And again, this is a case of slight of hand. Okay . Now, that study was the solid toxicological study. It showed the round up and engineered corn was toxic to the rats was solid study. It could not be assailed legitimately. Then the journal editor was faced with the situation if we are going to retract it what are the grounds for retraction . It was a toxic study. It was long than the initial study and all the other studies have been some tumors developed. Now, according to research guideline, if tumors develop in the course of a toxicilogical study is their duty to report the tumors. That is what the researchers did. The grounds for retraction are that the carcigen, they didnt try to determine if the tumors were cancerous, they just reported it. Inconclusive results are not official grounds for attraction. You will nod find that in the guidelines for governing retraction. So then i think this is all the stories in my book. I think the editor then had to come up with something else. But the fact remains in the media, you will see the debate is on cancer. Well this was shown not to have caused cancer. The thing is it did cause damage to livers and kidneys and that was a sound toxiciloologtoxicol. The guidelines are if parts of a study is invalid, and this wasnt but even if it is unreliable, you retract that part and maintain the valid parts but didnt do that. They retracted the whole study. This is showing how science has been subzeverted in order to ke a happy face on the genetically engineered venture. You will read in the New York Times they talk about the cancer study and it wasnt demonstrated and they ignore the evidence of toxcity which was solid and shouldnt have been retracted. That is just a little taste. Go ahead and answer all the questions you have. Ohio kno any thoughts about ge salmon okay for market this week . Yeah, the fact it was genetically engineered we should presumed there are unintended side effects that could occur that could be harmful. That is upon the consumption that the expert panel from Royal Canada Society stated there should be. That is sound science. With the salmon, the focus is on other issues environmental ones, which there are, but just the fact it has been produced through genetic engineering alshaba should be setting off flashing lights. There are risks, should be extensive Food Safety Testing using feeding studies, using animals eating the fish for long term. There probably will not be. Where are the bodies . There should be abundant result of death in animals. Police produce the study from uc davis. It is interesting. First, where are the hall human bodies i just went through. Where are the Animal Studies . A veterinarian looked at really the superficial analysis of the animals before they will be slaughtered. Correct me if i say anything wrong. I just got an end note in my book. You can find a very good critique of that study at gm watch. It has been criticized. Those animals are being fattened up for market and only a short amount of their life has been taken into count. And those are not the intensive studies that would be done analyzing tissue under the mi o microscope. Those are also not controlled studies. Here is one thing. If critics of genetically engineered food brought out studies that were that weak they would be pilloried. Everybody would blast it. Yet very weak studies that proport to find safety are put through or i mean are put on a pedastool like the study that has been mentioned. Here is another important fact. Cows have very different digestive systems than hall human beings. How many of you chew your cud . You dont. Cows have more than one stomach. Their digestion is different. They would make bad lab animals. That is why rats and mice that have similar digestive systems to ours are used among other things. Even if they have been to precise studies and dissections and looking at the tissues the way that are done done in tox logical studies it will not be compelling evidence these foods are safe for human beings. I will not go more deeply into it but refer you to the critique on gm watch that summarizes the criticisms other scientists have leveled. I answered that one. What role because bayer purchasing monsanto play in gm planting in europe . It will probably create increased pressure to do it although many of the major Bio Tech Companies announced they were giving up on the European Market because there is such consumer resistant. Whether they were really giving up or just waiting for an opportunity to push ahead i dont know for sure. But i think we will just have to wait and see. Whatever the merger of bayer and monsanto i think we can predict will not be a good thing for the consumer and the environment. What can i as a consumer do to protect myself . Move to norway. You have to get informed. There are a lot of good books about it. My book is not a guide on how to avoid genetically engineered foods. It should be a strong inducement to do so. But there are many good guides. The organic Consumers Association has a lot of good guides on their website. I think they try to keep that updated to give you a little shoppers guide it is for responsible Technology Keeps a good updated one. I assume the nongmo project has many good websites and center for food safety very informative you can download how to sharp intelligently. It is easy to get the Research Done online. What is difficult is to follow the advice because the food supply in the u. S. And canada is loaded with gmos and you have to really read labels. It is a pretty daunting thing and especially at restaurants it is harder. It depends on the level of rigor you want to apply in avoiding. M if you have Young Children or grandchildren you should be especially careful in their case because childrens physiology is in a development stage, it is a very delicate situation. It takes a lot less of something toxic to create a problem for a little child generally than it does for a grown adult. So if you cant be fully rigorous for yourself try to make sure there is more rigor for the children and the loved ones in your life who are children. I would say that is highly important. Innon gmo product is voluntary and increasingly found on foods. That gives a pretty high level of confidence there are not genetically engineered foods. Many people make the mistake thinking if that product is it is on organic. Just means no gmo but could have had pesticides on it. You have to look for the organic. If it says usda organic, it should mean not genetically engineered but there doesnt have to be testing and because of the contamination through cross pollination it is possible, and in fact it has been documents and over the generations even organic cramps have contamination. The Gold Standard would be Certified Organic and non gmo project verified. That is the Gold Standard right now in north america. I think wait. Oh, are all organic foods nongmo . I answered that. Ideally, yes. In practice, there has been significant contamination. Are there any countries that dont allow ge foods to be sold i answered that one to the best of my ability. What about the concept there isnt enough food supply to feed the global population without ge foods . That is baloney and they are feeding us baloney and that will not feed the third world. Listen, it is just ignoring the data. Okay . In 2008 a major study was released and it has been cosponsored by the world bank hardly a radical organization. Hundreds of experts, scientific experts in numerous countries around the world participated in it. It was assessing the future of food an assessment of Agricultural Technology and the future of food and it went on for a long time and when the results were published they made it very clear because one of the questions was what role should or could genetically engineered food play and they determined it wasnt have a role to play for the foreseeable future. At the press conference announae announcing that study they were asked do you see any role at all for genetically engineered foods and he said the frank answer is no. The simple answer is no. And the cochairman made a similarly strong statement. There have been studies released by the un for food revying many projects in Subsaharan Africa employing organic or near organic techniques that are showing tremendous results. Results better than any genetically engineered food has been able to achieve. What that major study suggested as the Main Solutions especially for the developing world they call them agro ecological techniques meaning good old farming without industrial inputs, without synthetic pesticide and herbicides and without gmo and with greater intelligences. Many societies have lost a lot of traditional knowledge or didnt have good enough knowledge in some cases. There is a lot of experimenting in different ecological niches and amazing results will be reported. Near organic techniques on small farms again if the industrial methods come in, usually small forms consolidateidate so they emphasized small independent farms with eco logical technique and have been shown to be the most productive. You can produce more nutrition per acre doing it that way than with the Big Industrial farms. What the Big Industrial farms are good at is producing mono crop. One uniform crop planted on a massive amount of acres. They are efficient at producing more of the crop but not the nutrition. The smaller farms have a synergy of many different kind of crops and much more nutrient density harvested per acre or hector depending on the labeling system you want to use than the Big Industrial farms. That has been a well verified fact. So again, we do not need genetically engineered foods. What we need is just a small amount of the Massive Research that has been directed to genetic engineering since genetically engineered foods have started being developed in the early 80s. There would be so much better knowledge and so much more food being produced in the third world because very little money relatively speaking is still being given to organic and ec ecological. The bill and Melinda Gates foundation should stop funding the development of genetically engineered foods. He is the richest man in the world or used to be but he is one of the richest and his wealth has come from Software Development and yet he is using a significant part of that substantial massive fortune to fund the technology that is violating the basic principles of Software Development. I mean it is one of the most ironic of the ironic situation and there are many ironies in the gm organization. I think if bill or Melinda Gates were to read my book there would be a turn around. Their inention its are good and they are hoping to do good for the third world but they have been misinformed. If they were to learn the facts and examine genetic engineering i think there would be a major experience. He is a veracious reader. Maybe some of you have a contact. Tell him to read by book. I think that mind have one of the greatest turn arounds in the history of agricultural. Stair wewell where are we with Legal Process against monsanto . Well, there is at least one lawsuit underway against monsanto with the information showing how they were orchestrating most of the attack against that study that was retracted eventually. By the way, because that study was solid, because was a solid study it was republished in another peer review journal. The Royal Society dismissed that. That is the kind of unethical behavior being practiced by the worlds most prestigious scientific organization. I am not sure that process is on behalf of people who claim to have been injured by glyphosate and specifically by roundup. There may be other lawsuits but i am not aware of that. There is an ancient saying sp and am stand affswath ultfoot beswiumps and it may be old fashion but i believe that. It may take a lot longer than we like. It has taken agonizing longer than i would like but aventua y aventually eventually the truth will triumph. All the facts i shared with you and in my book and very good books on the topic one is gmo myths and truths. Excellent book. You can download a copy for me. It is not the narerative story mine is and does abont give th history but my book and that book compliment each other because it goes into the research more than i do. If you can only read two books nan mine and gmo myths and truths. If you can only read one, flip a coin. What kind of testing would be allowed to let the tomato to market . Who would do the testing . First the testing should not continued to allowed to be conducted by the researchers hired by the industry. It has been shown that lead to fraud. Studies have shown if independent researchers look at the data they are much more likely to find problems than if the researchers hired by the company do. So, that should be a major change throughout really testing on any chemicals, Food Additives that are specific to gmos. Hire people to do the testing double blinded. Who is one they have . Keep it all doubleblind. And all the results have to be completely reported. When the testing is under control of the private corporations if they dont like the results they just dont publish them and usually have the researchers sign the agreement they dont have the right to basically publish it. All the decisions are made by there monson and whoever. But if you are not publishing the negative results that is not science. As i mentioned, even some of the studies that have been published had negative results were overlooked and only discovered when the independent teams reviewed the them. As my book demonstrates and as i mentioned and hope i made it clear they would have to be at least the same kind of testing, rigorous, long term testing c i culminating in human trials on the part of gmos as in the face of pharmaceutical drugs. It should be stricter but even that would down the industry because think about it. That level of extensive testing is enabled because Drug Companies can take out patents and for the first many years so many years that their drug is on the market they have a patent on it and they can charge high prices before it goes generic. There is only so much you can charge for a soybean or ear of corn. There is a natural economic constraint in the case of the Food Industry all how long and extensive the testing can be. There is no way for the genetically engineered food venture to be scientifically reliable and yet economically viable. Okay . Cannot be specifically reliable and at the same time economically viable. So, again, that is why the industry fights so hard to have minimal testing and tries to attack so viciously any research that indicates there should be stronger testing because it would be very expensive and they dont want it. Is wheat a gmo crop . To the best of our knowledge, it is not a gmo marketed crops. It has been experimented with in the lab. My understanding is there is pressure to get it out but unless it has escaped test fields which may have happened it is not officially marketed. Lets all have our attention on it never becoming one. Given the gmos drift on to conventional crops how do we know they havent drifted on to organic crops . We know they have. There have been shipments of Certified Organic canola seeds that were tested and found to have a significant level of contamination. Those were rejected and sent back. So we know that can happen. I dont meat because it isnt healthy to humans. Am i safer than those who eat meat . That is kind of not on topic. Many people would think that it is healthier. Many would give arguments it is not. I myself am a vegetarian but i am not an expert on this. I just know i like to eat that way but i have many friends who are very healthy and Health Conscious that eat meat, high quality meat, and they are careful and for them it works. I think everybody should study. People have different nutritional needs. But i think one thing is clear. The current industrial system of raising meat is wrong, harmful to animals. These big confined animal operations are sinful and they are torturing the animals. They are not able to live out their lives as animals. They are treated as units of production. To the extent animals are raised for slaughter they should be raised in a humane way. And that means a fundamental change has to be made throughout most modern systems of industrialized agricultural. If the animals are raised humanly it will drive up the cost and means people will eat less meat but that was the way it used to be. Chicken and beef used to be much more expensive. It is much cheaper now at the cost to the environment, potentially to Human Health Cost and i think to the human soul because of the way in which those animals, and they are sentiment beings, they are being treated so carelessly as i said for those of us who believe in sin it is a sin. If you dont, then it is just very, very wrong. When i say sin i mean it is really wrong and they should consider the pain to which they are subjecting those animals. It is very wrong. How does monsanto play into this . I think we discussed it in a dirty way. Okay. I think i went through most of them. Did i miss something . I am bill grant, cochair of the medicine form. We thank you for your comments today and thank our audience here as well as listening to the recording and now the commonwealth of california is adjourned. Everybody stayed attentive and i appreciate it. Appreciate it. The book is for sale in the lobby and he will sign them in the lobby. You are watching booktv television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at booktv. Org. And now on booktv, we want to introduce you to sam sorbo whos written a book called theyre your kids an inspirational journey from doubter to selfadvocate. Are you a teacher . I am. How did you become a teacher