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Added more information on Method

I added a couple of sentences explaining some important factors about introducing new genes to plants. The important of what type of promoter to use, codon usage and deactivating the genes. Legendarygottyline (talk) 06:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate attention to the dangers of GM foods.

This article doesn't appreciate or acknowledge the dangers of GM foods, or even accurately portray the ones listed. For one, Arpad Pusztai had many experiments, and even though they could have been wrong, they were repeated by others with similar results.

Also, the methods of gene transfer aren't fully portrayed, thus eluding the truth. They do fire genes from a "gene gun" but that isn't a full representation of what actually happens. They coat the genes on thousands of small shards and fire them at a pack of cells hoping one will penetrate, and not completely destroy the cell. Then they use a method to kill out all the cells without the gene, but this and the fact the cell was ruptured can have serious negative side affects. Also, the genes can replace other genes or make others not function properly. There is real no science in this process, its aiming a gun and hoping you get a really lucky shot.

I have many other gripes about the lax attention to the dangers of GM foods and the means by which they are created. My only reference is "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffrey M. Smith.

I was more amused by a whole article essentially worded in the POVese currently popular without a single editor having a heart attack. JimScott (talk) 20:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

So you base your argument on one non-peer reviewed source called "Seeds of Deception." Was "Sowers of Discontent" sold out? How about "Flowers of Doom?" or "Fruits of Agony?"--216.227.89.35 (talk) 19:24, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Jeffrey Smith is not a reliable source.
Here's a good fisking of some of Smith's rants: [1]
Alternatively, here's a good explanation of how Smith works: [2]
If you have been suckered in by Smith, you have my sympathies, but I would strongly recommend reading various different sources, and updating your opinion in light of the evidence; rather than cherrypicking whatever best suits your preconceptions, and then distorting it further to suit your argument. (If only Smith would take the same advice!)
This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia article; it is meant to contain accurate text which reflects the consensus of experts and the balance of available evidence from reliable sources. This alone explains why the article says something very different to what Smith says.
bobrayner (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


Here are some reliable sources for dangers --> Finamore A, Roselli M, Britti S, et al. Intestinal and peripheral immune response to MON 810 maize ingestion in weaning and old mice. J Agric. Food Chem. 2008; 56(23):11533-11539.; Malatesta M, Boraldi F, Annovi G, et al. A long-term study on female mice fed on a genetically modified soybean:effects on liver ageing. Histochem Cell Biol. 2008; 130:967-977.; Velimirov A, Binter C, Zentek J. Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice. Report-Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth. 2008.; Kilic A, Aday M. A three generational study with genetically modified Bt corn in rats: biochemical and histopathological investigation. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2008; 46(3):1164-1170.; Kroghsbo S, Madsen C, Poulsen M, et al. Immunotoxicological studies of genetically modified rice expression PHA-E lectin or Bt toxin in Wistar rats. Toxicology. 2008; 245:24-34.
Further the lectin GNA that Arpad (a world expert in lectins) used was not toxic to humans or rats and should not have produced anything extraordinary. The statement that his study was inconclusive is based on opinion rather than good science.--99.237.112.21 (talk) 00:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Terminator seeds

Hi, I think there should be some info in the article about terminator seeds. Ie. genetically modified seeds that don't germinate and thus don't create new seeds, which means that new seeds have to be purchased each year from the company that makes these mutant organisms. cheers, Jamie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.68.137.227 (talk) 15:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

See hybrid seed. New seeds have to be bought every year regardless of GM modification. Terminator technology was developed at least in part to address the concerns of its irrational opponents - if something can't breed, there can be no gene transfer. Yet now the same people that claimed that gene transfer is a big problem claim that terminator technology is a problem. By the way, almost everything you eat is an unnatural mutant, created by nuclear irradiation and/or chemical mutagenesis. The only difference with GM food is that in this case we actually know what we are doing, not introducing random changes and hoping for the best. --Tweenk (talk) 06:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

www.actionbioscience.org

I removed the recent additions to allergies as the sources were not reliable, particularly for what was written. This reference might warrant some further discussion though: Genetically Modified Foods: Are They a Risk to Human/Animal Health? by Arpad Pusztai. Also I could not find the article referring to the butterflies, but it could be alluding to this study. AIRcorn (talk) 03:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

They don't necesarily help feed the poor

Read the article but didn't see it, well here's the source and quote: "Q: Supporters of GMOs say that they’re essential if we are going to be able to feed the planet?

Gillés-Eric Séralini: That’s ridiculous. For some time now, GMOs have been pesticide-producing plants protected by patents that are a mainstay of intensive agriculture. For the last 14 years they have been used to prioritise animal feed for rich countries ahead of food for the children of the poor.

Patented seeds increase famine and raise prices, as we have seen in their use to produce agrofuels.

Guy Riba: GMOs are a solution. But they are not the only one. What we should be fully promoting is selection by genetic markers. We can exploit and track natural diversity better within one species." http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/spip.php?article287 (I know the site may seem a bit biased but the one actually giving the information is an expert and his reasoning does seem sound) Also, it should be noted that even if you succeed in giving the plant the intended traits it could also give it unanticipated ones (good or bad).Props888 (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

It's just more POV which has somewhat flaky economics and completely overlooks the fact that some GMOs have been created specifically for humanitarian purposes - to feed the poor. bobrayner (talk) 19:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

scholarly studies on GM food effects

Notes that reference 109 is now a broken link.

Here are some scholarly reports on the effects of GM foods: Finamore A, Roselli M, Britti S, et al. Intestinal and peripheral immune response to MON 810 maize ingestion in weaning and old mice. J Agric. Food Chem. 2008; 56(23):11533-11539. Kroghsbo S, Madsen C, Poulsen M, et al. Immunotoxicological studies of genetically modified rice expression PHA-E lectin or Bt toxin in Wistar rats. Toxicology. 2008; 245:24-34. Malatesta M, Boraldi F, Annovi G, et al. A long-term study on female mice fed on a genetically modified soybean:effects on liver ageing. Histochem Cell Biol. 2008; 130:967-977. Velimirov A, Binter C, Zentek J. Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice. Report-Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth. 2008. Kilic A, Aday M. A three generational study with genetically modified Bt corn in rats: biochemical and histopathological investigation. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2008; 46(3):1164-1170.--99.237.112.21 (talk) 00:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Development

I wondered why there is no mention of Monsanto's "New Leaf Potato" in the table of genetically modified crop plants. Even though it is not presently being marketed, McDonald's and other fast food chains used these potatoes for making french fries during the late 90's until consumer outrage forced them to stop the practice between late 1999 and early 2000. Rhoadeka (talk) 03:08, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I removed the following as there are way too many. I have pasted them here in case some need to be recued. David D. (Talk) 22:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Article is infested with pseudoscience

The article is unreadable and is essentially a marketing piece for organic farming. It contains numerous quotes from material published by unscientific groups with obvious agendas to promote organic produce, such as Soil Association, Center for Food Safety and Organic Center. It contains entire sections devoted to health risks, even though no real evidence of any such risks has been ever produced and they remain pure conjecture. The section on the EU "ban" is dishonest: the EU did not have a blanket ban but instead delayed the licensing process without any reason; and it focuses on some irrelevant Wikileaks cable in order to suggest that US has an ulterior motive, or that its government is taking bribes. The section about allergens does not mention that GM food is actually tested for allergens, while non-GM food is not. --Tweenk (talk) 07:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


The section "Alfalfa" seems to me to be particularly one-sided - i.e. not a Neutral Point Of View. This section reads like propaganda from the anti-GM activists not an entry in an encyclopaedia. 50% of this section contains stuff/quotes from the "organic farming/sales community", " organic farming groups, organic food outlets, and activists", two anti-GM politicians and the " Center for Food Safety." What about some information from the other side of the argument? Where are the detailed reasons why the USDA allowed GM alafalfa to be grown? Where are the quotes from the farmers who grow the 96% of alfalfa that is not organic and who presumably benefit from advantages of GM alfalfa? Where are the quotes from the pro-GM politicians, from Monsanto and from the GM seed distributors? SylviaStanley (talk) 09:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The section "Legal issues with Roundup Ready Alfalfa in the US" in the article "Alfalfa" seems to much a much more objective description. I propose we replace what is here with the section from "Alfalfa." SylviaStanley (talk) 16:58, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If you can find a source for "quotes from the farmers who grow the 96% of alfalfa that is not organic and who presumably benefit from advantages of GM alfalfa...quotes from the pro-GM politicians, from Monsanto and from the GM seed distributors" I am sure that you could enter that information. I don't see a problem with the alfalfa section that would warrant its removal. What you may see as propaganda others may see as merely organic farmers defending their position. Gandydancer (talk) 21:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
We don't need to keep adding quote upon quote. The majority of this section should be moved to the controversies article and just a short summary explaining the facts (no quotes or opinions from either group) left here. AIRcorn (talk) 00:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree. If we add more and more quotes the section on the Alfalfa legal issues, it will become the biggest section in the article - significantly longer than the similar section in the Alfalfa article. I think your proposal to move the majority of this section to the controversies article is the most logical one (It has always seemed surprising to me that Alfalfa is included in this article anyway. I would guess that 99.9% of Alfalfa is used as feed for cows, cattle and the like).SylviaStanley (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Moved the bulk to Genetically modified food controversies#Alfalfa. Trimmed the block quotes and reduced the section here to a paragraph. AIRcorn (talk) 01:33, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Nice job Aircorn. However I think your description here is a little too short. It reads to me like the USDA plucked deregulation out of the air. I think the article should include that, the Supreme Court overturned the District Court total ban on GM alfalfa planting because there was no evidence of irreparable injury. They ruled that the USDA can always allow partial deregulation before an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is published (Iowa State University - Recent Legal Action Involves Genetically Modified Crop). However, the USDA chose not to allow partial deregulation as the EIS was almost complete. Their 2,300 page EIS was published in December 2010. It concluded that GM alfalfa was safe and the USDA then deregulated GFM alfalfa in January 2011 (USDA - Roundup Ready® Alfalfa Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)). — Preceding unsigned comment added by SylviaStanley (talk • contribs) 14:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I am not really familiar with this case so just used what was already here. A better explanation of why the USDA approved planting after the Supreme court ruling would be good. I don't like the way we say that their ruling was somewhat unclear without saying what the ruling was either. If you can improve it I say go ahead, just keep it brief in this article and go into more detail in the controversies one. AIRcorn (talk) 22:09, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
OK Will do. SylviaStanley (talk) 08:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Biotechnology-derived foods was redirected here (after AfD)

There is some sourced material there [11], which may be relevant, although it uses WP:Parenthetical referencing. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Should this move to genetically modified crops?

Virtually all of this article concerns crops. No animals have yet been commercialised as GM food. Cotton, one of the major crops main use is as a fibre not a food. Non-food crops like biofuels, Amflora, flowers etc could and should be covered by this article. Many issues regarding GM crops are different than those regarding GM animals. Any GE animal issues would still be covered under Genetically modified organisms. AIRcorn (talk) 05:31, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No. I've heard "GM food(s)" tons of times, but "GM crops" is a term I've never heard before. For a topic that's so widely known among the general public worldwide, I doubt that a name I've never heard would better fit WP:COMMON than a name I've heard plenty of times. Nyttend (talk) 07:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Okay. I will put in a requested move. It is not so much about common name, but the best way to cover the issue. GM crops are not always food, although currently all GM food is a crop. If it isn't going to be moved some form of split will be needed. AIRcorn (talk) 08:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

environmental impact

This article cites a university report that links GM crops with the reduction in Monarch Butterflies. Probably want to include some of the latest research on the environmental impact.--124.182.103.253 (talk) 22:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/03/researchers-gm-crops-are-killing-monarch-butterflies-after-all


Breeders' and Geneticists' perspective

The plant breeders' and geneticists' perspective is one of the things missing all the time from news reports and publications like this. For example, on the allergy issue, it is probably impossible for a disease resistance gene to cause allergies when it is transferred to another crop. When your transfer storage proteins (like those in the mentioned Brazil nut) to another seed or nut, yes, you can anticipate the potential for allergic reactions to be transferred to that crop species.

For some crops, we plant breeders and geneticist need to insert GMOs for some of the toughest diseases and insect pests. There aren't any alternatives within the species or related species for some viruses, fungi, and bacteria. And transfer from related species is sometimes extremely difficult if not impossible unless one uses biotechnology. Everyone can debate all they want, but if you want to one day pay $20-30/lb for bananas, or some other fruit and vegetable crops, then we will just quit using GMOs altogether. For poorer countries dependent on some of the staple food crops, it truly makes sense in areas where these diseases or insect pests are and have been rampant for years.

SLN Breeder — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.140.162 (talk) 21:08, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I like your topic and data you posted. You have really detailed data and facts. In the method I have question about last sentance. Since I haven’t done much research on GMO food, is it true that all transgenic gene should be able to denature by heat before human consumption? How about genetic fruits or vegetables. Majority of them are consumed fresh ? Or is it some specific gene that can’t be consumed by humans and therefore that product need to be coocked? I know that avedin in rice binds to biotin and therefore nned to be coocked to lose its ability to bind biotin. Does it it mean all transgenic genes can cause similar issues? If it does that how public will know what to consumed fresh or cooked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gshikula1 (talk • contribs) 16:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Planned Addition

I am a GGC student performing this as a student project. I plan to add a History section to this article which includes dates and factual information about Genetically Modified Foods. I also plan to add 2-3 illustrations that proceed along the lines of this article. Jahmal.council (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC) 168.28.23.1 (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

OK; sounds interesting. Please take care to use sources! bobrayner (talk) 16:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Today I added a small history section but I really need help! I am open for any suggestions if anyone wants to help me. I believe it is historically accurate, but I also believe it need more facts. Please help if you can. Jahmal.council (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it really does need a lot of work. Do you have an instructor? Where are you getting the information from? You'll need sources. Thanks for helping with Wikipedia. Gandydancer (talk) 20:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
You may be able to mine information from other pages. There are history sections at Genetically modified plant, Genetic engineering and Regulation of the release of genetic modified organisms. They should at least provide you with resources. There is also Timeline of genetically modified organisms, although it is lacking citations. It would be good to eventually have a History of genetic engineering page that could be {{main}} linked from all the GE pages. One thing you need to do is to add sources along with the information for verifiability. Can you access journals? They are the best sources to use. There are books you could probably get from the library too. If you need help with any technical aspects of adding citations let me know. AIRcorn (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I have attempted to discuss this situation with this student's adviser but s/he did not respond to my post. I feel that this student was warmly welcomed and given helpful information on how to make a good contribution, which has been ignored. The addition is poorly done and unsourced - I have deleted it. Gandydancer (talk) 20:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

There is a lot of good information in this article, I like what you have added! I really like the section on health risks, maybe you could expand the table into a small narrative for people like me who don't like reading figures. Maybe you could expand on the FlavrSavr tomato, eco friendly pig, golden rice, and maybe say something in the intro about the benefits of GM foods. To give people an idea of what biotechnology is, and why it’s important, you could say it could be an efficient way to feed nutritious food to developing countries, and disaster victims. Also, since Monsanto plays a big role in GMOs, maybe you could make a mini-section on them, so that people would know what they do, and who is in charge of the company. Also, maybe under the “methods” section, you could divide it into sub-sections, titled with the name of that technique, and detail each of the different types of biotech techniques. I didn’t even know what biotechnology was until I took that class with Dr. Timpte, so a lot of people will need more information to get an idea about genes are transferred like through microballistics. Natalietadpole (talk) 22:20, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I added some information on the controversy page, it is the last paragraph.I would like to know others take on what i wrote.Mendez1993 (talk) 08:21, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I am planning on adding information on the controversy section. There is a website that has much information about the controversies on GMO foodMendez1993 (talk) 07:01, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mendez. For the most part your addition is not appropriate as written. It is as though you have written a short essay and inserted it at the end of the other controversy information. You open with several broad statements with a ref that is questionable. Then you move into labeling which would be best put in another section. And then you have added information that belongs in the health risks section. Also, be careful that your refs exactly back your statements such as and it causes stress for animals.[95]. Your efforts are appreciated and I hope that you will try to improve the addition. Are you a student? Gandydancer (talk) 12:49, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Mendez's essay was deleted. If s/he is a student also, they are not doing very well... I can understand needing help with an edit, but there is no excuse for ignoring the talk page when established editors have taken the time to offer suggestions. Gandydancer (talk) 19:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Making this more global

The tag heading this article indicates that this article is too biassed towards the United States of America. It was said on the programme Today on BBC Radio Four on May 2 2012 that there had been a conflict between two rival sides over genetically modified food - this was definitely taking place in Europe, so this could be added to the article to make it a little more global. I shall happily modify the article if I can find the details. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I have done a little research and found a little more on the protest reported on the "Today" programme in May 2012. I can add more details if I have anything further. At least this gives us news from somewhere east of the Atlantic. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 08:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Genetically modified animals

The Genetically modified animals section seems too broad for the page that it is within. The parts that seem to broad are: the list of 6 classes of transgenic animals; the example animals (goats with spider silk and glowing pigs) that are not intended for consumption.

I suggest that it deserves it's own page, or the content could be added to Genetically_modified_organism#Transgenic_animals. I think that the section on this page should be kept to genetically modified animals that are in some way intended to be consumed, as this is a "food" page, not a general GMO page. ThanAngell (talk) 21:12, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Article Title

The correct term for this and the correct title for the article is Genetically Engineered Food. The term Genetically Modified is a political term and calls into question the impartiality of the article. It is also ambiguous. Is there any question that triploid seedless watermelon have been genetically modified? Tyrerj (talk) 23:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Why is "genetically modified" a political term? What's your basis for saying that GE is correct? (It gets less ghits, for a start) bobrayner (talk) 23:52, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

what is not new about genetically modified(GM)food? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.243.16.7 (talk) 04:07, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

comment in article "(why are we suddenly using the term GMO when the page is only about GM foods??) "

This comment points out something I have been thinking about. Here are the issues:

a) some people have health concerns about food produced in genetically modified plants (what happens to their bodies when they eat it). There are questions here about safety, regulation, labelling, etc. of the food product itself.
b) While many GM crops are ultimately used for food, others, like cotton and corn, are also used for other things like fabric or fuel.
c) some people are worried about what GM crops do to the environment, which can be broadly broken down into effects on targeted organisms (resistance) and effect on non-targeted organisms (butterflies, gene-flow)
d) some people are in general concerned about methods of industrial agriculture in general (monoculture, use of chemicals) and concerns about GM technology may be best fit into the way it perpetuates industrial ag

From the title of the article, I (and apparently others) expect it to deal only with (a). But since there is no article on GM crops per se, (b)-(c) have been dealt with in this article. Also there is nowhere a description of GM agribusiness in general -- what it is, who the players are (companies and farmers), how farmers use GM technology in practice, which would include explaining why farmers have so widely adopted it, and describe how its products are used... but this article, so inaptly named, does a lot of it.

There are two other wiki articles Genetically modified organism and Genetically modified food controversies.

I am not sure how to best deal with this. I think I would like to propose that we rename this article to something like Genetically Modified Crops, (very open to other ideas!) And deal with (a) only briefly here since there is a whole article on that topic. And put this article into sensible harmony with the GMO article.

What do you think?Jytdog (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I just ran into that problem when posting some info re Bt cotton. I think Genetically modified crops would work just fine. We do discuss GM animals in the article but that could go elsewhere. Gandydancer (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm doing it!Jytdog (talk) 22:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Ack! Tried, and cannot because the page exists (redirects here) and there has been more than one edit. Moving the page to that name requires administrator assistance and the "request move" page has a big backlog. So instead, I am going to propose that this page be split, with all the agriculture-related stuff moved to GM crops and the GM food stuff remaining. Later I may propose to merge the remaining page with the GM Food Controversies page. Here we go! I'll post the split request in a minute.Jytdog (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Final note -- decided to just be bold and do the split instead of proposing it.Jytdog (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

The articles this discussion should concern:

The concept of genetically modifying organisms (especially crops/food) is a fairly controversial topic, so I would imagine that the articles get a fair amount of visitors. That said, I want to point out some issues to the articles that could be fixed. I've assigned numbers to each suggestion/issue, so that they can be discussed in separate sections.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yutsi (talk • contribs)

Quick comment. I have been checking page hits
First as a reality check
the Katy Perry article avg is about 17,000 hits per day http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/katy%20perry
More seriously the article on China has about 20,000 hits a day http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/china
Of the articles you mention....
GM foods is highest ballpark avg 2200 http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/genetically%20modified%20food
GM organisms avg is about 2000 http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/genetically%20modified%20organism
genetic engineering is about 2000 as well http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/genetic%20engineering
GM food controversies has been big of late but still avg only about 1000 hits (recent increase may be Seralini press release, California referendum.. I'd like to think it is because I have concentrated information there
http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/genetically%20modified%20food%20controversies
GM crops is pretty small, maybe 500 average. As I note below, I don't think people actually care about agriculture.
They care about food and the contoversies. Right?
http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/genetically%20modified%20crops
Regulation of the release of genetic modified organisms is the smallest, maybe 70. I think the title of this article is terrible but have not tackled renaming it.
http://stats.grok.se/en/latest60/Regulation%20of%20the%20release%20of%20genetic%20modified%20organisms
The title name is fine. There are regulations that govern approval to work with GM organisms and regulations that set the protocols and restrictions while they are being developed and tested. This article is about the regulations governing the release of these organism into the environment. I was working on a parent article and will release it (unfinished most likely) to mainspace soon. AIRcorn (talk) 02:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
So.. not sure if that meets your idea of "fair number of visitors". :) Jytdog (talk) 17:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Frankly my dear... If an article gets 10 hits a day on average IMO it earns its place in WP. This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia, not a tabloid rag. Not every word in a dictionary gets looked up every single day, and some of the most valuable entries are exactly the entries that one has difficulty finding anywhere else, sometimes because nowhere else bothers to publish them. Let's not fall into the trap of "I wish people would stop pestering us for X; we don't stock X; there is no demand for it!" As long as we can produce articles with intrinsic substance and significance and with a decent presentation of information and relevance, our only reaction to a low hit count should be to check whether it could be better presented to strike the eye of potential readers. JonRichfield (talk) 08:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
sarcasm my dear! I think you misunderstood my point. I have spent hours working on these pages - I want them to accurate because I believe wikipedia should always be excellent, regardless of whether the topic is "popular". You got more to my point with your last remark - and that is, how used are these pages? Relative to "popular" topics, and relevant to each other? Why is the regulation article - the one I would hope people read and learn about a lot, so rarely consulted? And my comment about "not sure if that meets you definition of fair number" - I really meant that - I have no idea what Yutsi had in mind when he said that. I like data and hard numbers so I put them out there.Jytdog (talk) 01:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Crossed wires my dear, I suspect. The nearest I came to deliberate acerbity was in rejecting any idea that a low hit rate was a priori a basis for questioning the justification for an article's existence. Sure, if large numbers of people read important topics, that looks good and we should aim for it, but for a lot of really vital technical topics it is fashionable to raise Cain chanting meaningless slogans in the streets, but God forbid that anyone should actually take time learning what it really is all about. (GMO-hatred is not the only such topic, mind you!)



Issue 1

hi read this — Preceding unsigned comment added by Purebuzzin (talk • contribs) 11:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Additional note. I just read the WP:SELFREF and I don't agree that anything here violates it. It is 100% OK to say "this article refers to X" What is not OK, is to write, "This Wikipedia article refers to X". That does not occur. The policy also teaches away from self-references that would not work in other media, for instance, in print. None of the instances do that either. So I disagree that anything violates WP:SELFREF. Jytdog (talk) 00:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for raising these issues. I have done a lot of work on this suite of articles over the past few months. When I came upon them, they were a real mess. By "mess" I mean things like:
(i) the same matter was discussed across all these pages. At great length, sometimes verbatim but often one stretching out randomly in X direction and another in Y direction. Most of the overlapping material concerned the controversy - namely, people emphasizing studies, especially from the Seralini group, that endeavored to show that GM food is very risky and regulators as not being strict enough.
(ii) the same study would be cited three or more times in a given article, described differently and with the reference formatted differently, making it appear that there were many more studies than there actually were.
(iii) there was not a lot of actual content. For instance there was really nothing about how farmers use GM crops or why they matter to farmers. But farmers are the ones actually buying the GM seed and using them. And the GM food article, remarkably, said almost nothing about what food you find in the store is GM. Again, remarkable.
I think that the articles were messy for three reasons:
a) fact: there is a set of people, anti-GM people, who are emotional about these issues. They are worried and angry and want other people to be motivated to help change the current system. (I still don't know much about the demographics or size of that group. Something on my "to-research" list)
b) fact: There are a few "segments" of material, each of which is fairly complex in and of itself, that read on each other, again in complex ways. The 'segments' can be divided up as the articles are -- the underlying science (genetic engineering article); broad examples of application of genetic enginering (GMO article); agriculture (GM Crops); what you actually might eat (GM Food), regulation of GMOs and food (regulation), and the whole controversy (which touches on all those and more).
c) judgement by me: a lot of the people (not all!) who are the most emotional, and most motivated to edit wikipedia, especially in what I call 'drive by" editing (don't have a logon but edit from an IP address, one or two times maybe) are also (gulp) ignorant about a lot of the complex matter. I don't mean "ignorant" pejoratively, just that they don't know stuff and I don't think they care to know. (see iii above) There is also a lot of half truth "information" about these matters that is passed around in that community. For example, much online discussion of Monsanto vs Schmeiser is wrong - and was wrong in several places in Wikipedia.
Therefore, when I cleaned these articles up by separating matter, getting NPOV sources, editing POV text to make it NPOV, etc, I tried to also signal very very explicitly to readers and editors what they could expect to find in a given article. This is to try to help prevent readers from expecting to find -- or wanting to add -- something about environmental damage from GM Crops in the article on GM Foods. The way things are configured now, nothing about environmental pros or cons of GM crops belongs in the GM food article, because that article is about actual GM food - the stuff you eat. What is GM food, exactly? That is what you should have learned after reading the GM article. And you should know that there are articles on other, complicated matters, that you need to read as well if you want to understand the whole picture.
I realize that this explicit guiding language is not normal wiki style. But because of the above, I think is essential to retain these explicit guideposts. Otherwise the articles will moosh back together again.
Two regular wiki editors, arc de ciel, and aircorn, have also raised concerns about this as well -- see User_talk:Jytdog#CommentJytdog (talk) 17:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Another user, Semitransgenic has objected to this paragraph - deleting it and noting "remove editorial remarks, use dablinks at the top of the page to tell readers of other relevant content". Happy to see a proposed example!Jytdog (talk) 15:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't support this kind of in-article editorialising, dablinks (hatnotes), or an infobox would be a better method, the tone of the lead in general needs addressing. Semitransgenic talk. 15:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
It is not editorializing in the sense of giving an opinion. If you want to provide sample hatnotes I would be very interested to see them! What do you mean by "tone"?Jytdog (talk) 15:52, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
starting a paragraph with words like "nonetheless" etc. veers towards MOS:OPED. Lead prose should ideally be pragmatic, just provide an accurate summary of the key/notable content found in the main body of text. Semitransgenic talk. 16:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

If nothing else could we get an answer to this issue. The paragraphs that this concerns are these ones. AIRcorn (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I am OK with how this was handled at Genetically modified food controversies if you want to implement, aircornJytdog (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
No problem. It is not looking like this is going to be closed soon. AIRcorn (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Issue 2

  • To the extent that these sections remain, I agree that they could be sorted that way - it would be better. In general I have tried to eliminate these sections, slowly, making sure that the matter is incorporated into the suite of articles. I understand that this is best under the MOS.Jytdog (talk) 17:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The external links sections should be trimmed to just websites that contain an overview of the whole topic (i.e a website about GM mice should be on the GM mouse page, but is not needed on the GM organism one) but are not suitable for inclusion in the page itself (i.e a large list of GM crops like here. The less the better in my opinion and would be more than happy to see them trimmed. I however do not think that they should be separated based on their alignment. AIRcorn (talk) 01:57, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Issue 3

  • I don't really understand this point. Perhaps you could explain better. My POV: People's concerns about GM food are what drove the mess and what drives a lot of the ongoing editing. I have done my best to carefully sort things out. In my mind, GM food per se (what is it?) should be handled in the GM food article, and controversy around it (and many other surrounding issues), in the controversy article. Regulation of it and GMOs that produce it, in the regulation article. Crops that produce it (and other things) in the GM crops article. GMOs in general, and genetic engineering in general, in those articles. These topics are inter-related, for sure. They need to mention and reference each other. But the topics are separable. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Some overlap is inevitable, but it should be reduced as much as is practicably possible. I don't particularly like controversy sections in articles and would rather see the issues mentioned in the appropriate section. Although I concede that this might be hard to maintain in these articles. What should happen if we have a controversy article is that the GM food should have a controversies section linked with a main template to the controversies article. It should include a couple of paragraphs outlining or summarising the main points associated with food. The GM crops should have the same except its paragraphs should focus more on crops and so on. AIRcorn (talk) 02:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The hard thing about your proposal, aircorn, is that opponents of GM food very rarely have a single focus and it is very hard to sort out the "heart" of many objections. Many seem to care most about industrial agriculture (many angles on this... so-called "corporate control of the food supply", messing with "nature", chemical use, etc. Others really seem to care about riskiness of the food they eat. Others seem more focused on corruption of regulatory agencies. And all those issues very much overlap and feed into each other. And there are problems that touch on everything. The key issue can be broadly captured under the rubric of gene flow/contamination. People worry about gene flow from GM crops to other crops and to weeds (environmental concerns and food-safety concerns, especially with pharming crops, and economic concerns for organic farmers); people worry about harvested crops being mixed (a la starlink); people worry about litigation from gene flow or contamination (mostly based on misunderstandings of Monsanto v Schmeiser). So I ended up with one big honking controversies article. Happy to hear thoughts about how to rationally separate!!13:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Answered below AIRcorn (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Issue 4

Issue 5

  • I disagree very strongly. People care about what they eat -- what goes into their bodies. GM Foods needs its own article. GM Crops are agriculture -- most of the information you need to know in order to understand them, has nothing to do with food. Much of the material now in the GM crops article was originally in the GM foods article and I pulled it out and put into the GM crops article, and then expanded it. It still needs more expansion in some sections as noted in the article. Farmers don't buy GM seed, thinking about food. They buy them because they make sense to farmers as businessmen. The companies don't make GM seed, thinking about food. They make them so that their customers --farmers -- will buy them. It's agribusiness. It's not about food. (I am not saying that is a good or bad thing -- no moral judgement - it is just the way the world is). It is absolutely true that the companies have to satisfy regulators in order to do business, because some (but not even most) of the product directly becomes food and so it must be safe enough to eat. Most of the product goes to feed livestock and poultry (which then become food). Much of the product is used industrially and never becomes food (cotton, corn for biofuel, potatoes for starch used industrially. etc). It is true that some GM crops used directly as food have failed because farmers' customers didn't want to buy it as food (the New Leaf potato failed because farmers' target customer, McDonald's, didn't want GM potatoes for french fries, even though they satisfied Americans' desire for perfect-looking, unblemished food). But GM crops is its own topic. Look how long that article is already! And the GM foods article also requires expansion itself.. not even close to describing all the food you find in the store that is GM.Jytdog (talk) 17:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Keep them separate. Not all crops are food (cotton is one of the most common GM crops and it is a stretch to label it food, plus you have Amflora and biofuels that are being developed) and with the development of the GM salmon soon not all food are not going to be crops. It still needs some work separating the two, but the crop/food split is a good one at my mind. I would bring back the GM plant article at some stage too, and make it a parent one of the crop one for much the same reasons, there are some important GM plants used in research that are not and never will be grown as crops. AIRcorn (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I have no quarrel with most of your points and the proposed separations of topics seem reasonable to me, but I am mildly puzzled as to why you exclude cotton from food plants as a topic. I don't eat much fabric or cotton wool myself, any more than I can help anyway, but I have eaten a lot of foods prepared or canned in cottonseed oil and have probably eaten more products of cottonseed cake than I know about directly, and a good deal more meat from animals that have eaten large quantities of cottonseed cake. Once you remove the gossypol, either artificially, or genetically, cotton is quite an important food plant. And beware what you say about hemp and poppies too! Just an obiter dictum... JonRichfield (talk) 08:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Not too familiar with cottonseed oil, although I knew it existed. I mostly think of cotton as the fibre. Cotton would probably have to be mentioned in both articles, along with maize and the other food crops. Am working on organising a kind of heirachy now, so hopefully we can get the split better organised. There needs to be a Genetically modified cotton article created, plus one for tobacco, Arabidopsis and other important plants. AIRcorn (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Right. That is the sort of thing I had in mind in my comment below when I spoke of "adjusting or even radically changing the suite of articles in the light of matters emerging..." JonRichfield (talk) 16:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks John! I am very aware that cotton is used to make cottonseed oil -- in fact I have been trying to get the Andrew Weil website to change its stupid page on cottonseed oil which is not accurate. http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400361/Is-Cottonseed-Oil-Okay.html See the Cottonseed_oil#Concerns_about_fats_and_toxicity that I edited to make accurate. And I do list cottonseed oil in the Genetically modified food article. In my comments above, I was not trying to exclude the use of cottonseed oil as food; I was just making the point that the cotton from GM cotton plants -- along with many other products of GM crops -- are not used for food. Sorry to have created a misunderstanding. Jytdog (talk) 13:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
No problemo. All such misunderstandings should only be so easily fixable ;-) JonRichfield (talk) 17:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: To forestall almost inevitable accusations of POV, if not actual corruption by evil multinationals, I have no material, contractual, or commercial interest in any form of GM that I know about. Idealistically and intellectually I am deeply interested in the matter and deeply alarmed and disgusted at such examples as I have seen so far of, for example, large scale plantings of crops with genes for defensive production of single substances for pest control; such abuses rank with the early days of misapplication of antibiotics, both in human medicine and in agricultural and veterinary practice.
Interesting comment! I like the comparison with antibiotics. GM seed with stacked traits are now 25% of the market and growing steadily (http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/43/executivesummary/default.asp), so things are snapping into a line of intelligent use quickly....Jytdog (talk) 13:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I was not aware of that trend. It is encouraging, though of course it is just a hint at the depth of responsibility that we bear when tinkering with such powerful tools. If we are not careful we shall simply turn a vital biotechnological opportunity into an exercise in the fostering of super-pests. JonRichfield (talk) 19:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
That said however, I regard GM as a field on a par with computing, the control of fire, printing, and the development of modern science in terms of historical importance for the future. There is no way that we could rationally justify ignoring or sidelining it. The question of how to present it, including how to split the topics into manageable articles is what matters, as already indicated in several of the contributions to this RFC. I have no particular quarrel with the proposed titles as presented, as long as each is coherently written and adequately cross-linked to the others. Questions such as what readers care about putting into their bodies are far less important than questions concerning the clarity and perspective of each article. Since the articles are in inevitably not independent, there must necessarily be some overlap, but this is hardly a new problem and requires no new techniques in dealing with it. Concise cross-reference plus clear reference to the main article for each topic is naturally important, but hardly challenging.
As I said, I have no quarrel with the proposed split, but I also would have no problems with adjusting or even radically changing the suite of articles in the light of matters emerging during their authorship and editing. JonRichfield (talk) 09:05, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Principles in using subarticles

Hi

IMO, any time we have subarticles, there should be a standard, brief paragraph in the "head" article (ideally taken from the lede of the subarticle and edited for concision if necessary) and a link to "main", and then keep an eye on those standard paragraphs for changes so that they stay short and plain. Ideally, no statistics would be in those standard paragraphs, otherwise when new data emerges we have to go back and update the data in many places which will inevitably lead to missing things and the overall suite falling out of sync within itself and with reality. I feel that we should try hard to avoid having long sections in different articles that cover the same matter. This was the state in which I found articles within this suite several months ago and most of my work has been consolidating overlapping material into clear, NPOV, well sourced discussions. Having a suite of articles covering various aspects of complex matter is indeed common in WIkipedia, but it is also commonly handed badly IMO. For instance in the suite of evolution articles, the main evolution article has a history section that is very long (7 paragraphs that fill my screen)... and there is an entire much longer subarticle on the history (about 10x longer). I glanced over the two texts and they don't tell the same story or even use the same refs.... this is not a happy thing for an encyclopedia and we should avoid doing this. This is for me a very important principle and I hope we can discuss it. Jytdog (talk) 13:58, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Organisation and consistency is the bane of Wikipedia. This seems reasonable though. AIRcorn (talk) 00:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
sorry you have thrown me off.. do you mean lack of organization and consistency are the bane (i.e. a source of harm) or do you mean that pursuing them is a bad thing? sorry, i don't know you that well and this was confusing...Jytdog (talk) 01:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
It was meant slightly tongue-in-cheek. Due to its nature Wikipedia tends toward inconsistent disorganisation (anyone can edit after all). It is amazing that it works as well as it does. Providing order is an admirable thing, and I will help out as much as possible, but at the end of the day you are going against the natural inertia of the project and no matter what you do, if you want to keep it organised it is going to take constant watching. AIRcorn (talk) 02:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I totally hear you on that. :) I intend to watch for a long time. But I also want to structure things as much as possible, with explicit markers "This goes here, that goes there" - to help keep things in line.Jytdog (talk) 03:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't see you getting consensus for the self references (issue 1 here). I would suggest using the hidden text function. Simply type<!-- Add appropriate comment here -->. It will only be seen by editors when the click the edit button. See this for how it might work. AIRcorn (talk) 03:39, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

(starting tabs over) Hi Aircorn... so far nobody has gone to the mat on the the self references. With respect to the objection raised in Issue 1, I wrote above, that if you read Wiki's self-reference policy, it is clear that these texts do not violate that policy. Nobody has responded to that so I assume nobody disagrees. My sense is that you and arc de ciel have objected on more stylistic grounds... but neither of you has gone to the mat on this. Is this indeed important to you?

But let's go back to the subject matter of this section. I have been trying to lay down a principle that sections for which we have big subarticles should just be very brief stubs - 1 paragraph taken from the lede of the subarticle, so that we don't end up with long, weedy descriptions of a given issue in different articles that extensively overlap with each other and with the main subarticle... which leads to inconsistencies and disorganization that you have described as a bane of wikipedia (and I heartily agree!). I thought we had kind of agreed on this... but you just recently expanded one of these stub sections with a bunch of material copied from a subarticle. So what gives? How shall we do this? I have been tempted to go into some of the articles you have created and apply this "stub principle" (for instance you have a section on "regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms" in your "regulation of genetic engineering" article that is my mind is waaaay too long and should be just a stub, as we have a whole article on "regulation of the release of genetically modified organisms") but i have held back from stubifying that section until (and only if) we reach consensus here.Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

No one needs to got to the mat. We have consensus so far (me, Arc and Yutsi against you so far) not to use them. Is it important to me? No other things are more important at the moment, but one day I would like to get the articles up to Good standard and that is not going to happen with those instruction paragraphs in the lead.
I think we slightly misunderstood each other above. I agree that there should only be short summaries in the head articles, but we have a disagreement over what is short. I think that there needs to be enough information in the parent article that the reader will get a good overview of each topic, they should not be obliged to go to another article to find this. They should only have to go there if they want to find more details. Basically each article should stand on its own and stubby sections are not going to allow that. Three to four paragraphs covering the regulation and controversies should be enough, but anything less and the article is going to be incomplete. AIRcorn (talk) 21:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for talking! OK, on the guide paragraphs.. both Yutsi and Arc based their objection on their understanding of wiki policy, and as mentioned, I don't see how these run afoul of the self-reference policy. You seem to be basing your objection on that too, when you say that an article with these paragraphs, will never be Good. But what is the basis for that? Please explain...
Thank for zeroing in on the "stub" issue. I really appreciate it. So to you the key principle is that the article should stand on its own with respect to providing a good overview and that a compact stub is not enough. I had thought that the stub does provide an overview, but what I am hearing is that this is too high level for you -- it is not a "good" overview. So you want more of the story in all the articles. Whew that is all a tall order for complex matter like this. It helps me understand why you want longer "stubs." OK I need to think about this a bit! I will write again in a couple of days, this requires thinking and if I come into alignmnent with you, some major resetting for me. Thanks again.Jytdog (talk) 22:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
The Good articles have a set of simple criteria that they have to meet in order to gain that status. IMO they are a great base that every article should aspire to. One of those criteria is compliance with WP:Lead, which I don't think the navigational paragraphs meet. Another one is broadness, which is why I think we need more than one paragraph stubs in important sections. AIRcorn (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really watching the articles right now, but I just wanted to confirm that the objections I raised were indeed answered. It doesn't "feel good" from my own style perspective, but I don't know of any style guideline that rules it out. Also, I think that the general organization Jytdog has put in place is a good one; as he said, my concerns were only about the way they were disambiguated. It seems that people adding the same citations repeatedly is common in this group of articles, and this organization would probably help a lot. Arc de Ciel (talk) 03:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Overall structure

Let's have a focused discussion on overall structure. This is part of the topic mentioned above but only part. Let's map it out. It would be really great to do this with some kind of software that allowed us to draw things, but I am ignorant of how to do that. So I will take a shot at this using words alone.

Here is my perspective

  • genetic engineering (head article; should describe history and techniques and a high level overview of uses)´
  • GMOs - this should work be organized by the biological taxonomy of the kinds of organisms that have been modified and briefly state the purpose of the modification --> subarticles on various GMOs
  • GM crops - describes the agriculture and agribusiness of GM crops. Not about food, about crops. --> subarticles on various crops (many will be same subarticles of GMOs above)
  • GM foods - describes what foods we eat are GM. Not about agriculture, about food. This is by far the most trafficked article in the suite (fact), because people care about what they eat (opinion).
  • regulation - should be a brief, standard, subsection of each of the articles above, and describe the general principles of regulation, and provide an overview of each countries' current regs (right now lacks international agreements like Cartagena Protocol - needs to be added) --> subarticles on each country's history of regulations and international agreements
  • controversy - should be a brief, standard subsection of each of the articles above, and describe all the aspects of controversies around GM crops and GM food --> subarticles? I struggle with this. Part of my goal here is to give the full controversy full voice in one place, so that it is not inserted into every article on every genetic engineering topic, and gets clear, NPOV discussion someplace where everybody can find it.

All this done with the principle of subarticles mentioned above...Jytdog (talk) 14:00, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with pretty much everything here. Although I would think you would have to cross reference food in the crops article and crops in the food one. As far as the controversies go I would have a section solely on the health concerns in GM food and one solely on the environmental concerns in the crops one. Then I would have a section over-viewing the other concerns. I think the length of the controversy section should depend on the article. GE, food, crops, plants, animal, organisms should probably get their own section with a good overview of the issues relevant to each topic and a {{main}} to the controversies article. The sub-sub articles can probably just get away with a link provided in an appropriate section (e.g. in Bt brinjal it says in the first sentence of controversies "There are many controversies surrounding the development and release of genetically modified foods, ranging from human safety and environmental impacts to ethical concerns such as corporate control of the food supply and intellectual property rights" in the lead of the controversies section). The rest of the section just details the issues with the titles topic and does not dwell on the overall controversies. For the controversies article itself I would keep the public perception as the first header, then have health concerns, environmental concerns, regulatory concerns (including labeling), religious concerns and Intellectual Property concerns (including corporate control). Most should fit into one of these broad categories. It may become necessary to split health and environment to separate articles to reduce the size. AIRcorn (talk) 00:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Let me get this straight. You would have a pretty long section on controversies in (for example) the food article - in that one, focused on health. Then, again in the main controversies article, you would have another fairly long section on health (which is all about food)?Jytdog (talk) 01:53, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Depends what you mean by pretty/fairly long. I was thinking two to three, possibly four paragraphs (maybe a bit more in the controversies article). The health section in the GM controversies is well beyond fairly long already, especially if you add in Pusztai and Serilini. For example the GM food could be presented like:
  • History
    • [main to GM History]
  • Process
    • [main to GM Techniques]
  • Plant based
    • [main to GM Crops][see also to GM crops]
  • Animal based
    • [see also to GM animals]
  • Regulation
    • [main to GM Regulation]
  • Detection
  • Health concerns
    • [main to GM health concerns (if split from controversies)]
  • Other concerns
    • [main to GM controversies]

I like the smallification of text!! didn't know one could do that. Funny that you have "animal based" - there is no GM food from animals (yet). but in theory i see what you mean. But i disagree really really strongly that "GM crops" is main for plant-based GM food. GM crops is about agriculture. its not about food. why do you think gm crops is about food? more to say but that stopped me - one thing at a time!Jytdog (talk) 03:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Should have been see also like the animal one. AIRcorn (talk) 03:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Seems to me acceptable.Fox1942 (talk) 14:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Long term Roundup herbicide or Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize extremely toxic & carcinogenic PMID 22999595

Séralini GE, Clair E, Mesnage R, Gress S, Defarge N, Malatesta M, Hennequin D, de Vendômois JS.

PMID 22999595

Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize.


Food Chem Toxicol. 2012 Nov;50(11):4221-31. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005. Epub 2012 Sep 19.

Abstract

The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1ppb in water), were studied 2years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2-3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5-5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3-2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls which occurred up to 600days earlier. Biochemistry data confirmed very significant kidney chronic deficiencies; for all treatments and both sexes, 76% of the altered parameters were kidney related. These results can be explained by the non linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup, but also by the overexpression of the transgene in the GMO and its metabolic consequences.


PMID 22999595 [PubMed - in process]

Full Free Text:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2012.08.005

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf

--Ocdnctx (talk) 19:15, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Main discussion at [[Talk:Genetically modified food controversies#Long term Roundup herbicide or Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize extremely toxic & carcinogenic PMID 22999595]] AIRcorn (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

NPOV in lede

The lede currently has the line "Critics have objected to GM foods on several grounds, including safety issues,[4] ecological concerns, and economic concerns raised by the fact GM plants (and potentially animals) that are food sources are subject to intellectual property law." This line should be balanced with a proponents line that mentions scientific consensus on safety, increased yields, lower chemical use. Either that or the line should be removed and issue dealt with at Genetically modified food controversies instead. BlackHades (talk) 11:31, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a good suggestion. I think that either alternative would be better than the status quo - either balance the existing coverage in the lede, or take it out of the lede altogether. bobrayner (talk) 12:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
There is a scientific consensus on safety and on lower chemical use? According to who? Aside from the fact that stating in general terms rather referring to a particular item makes little sense. So no at first glance that doesn't look like an improvement to me at all.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes there is a scientific consensus on safety. Please take a look at Genetically modified food controversies page where it's mentioned repeatedly. Lower chemical use is mentioned as well. BlackHades (talk) 22:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
BlackHades is not correct. There is scientific consensus on safety of GM food that is on the market, but not on all possible types of GM food that could exist. There is consensus that Bt crops reduce use of insectidial agrochemicals. There is consensus that glyophosate-resistant GM crops INCREASE chemical use. And by the way, increase/decrease use of chemicals is mostly brought up in an environmental sense and when it is, that is an issue about farming, not about food. Sometimes it is brought up with respect to agrochemical residues on food, and when it is, it needs to be discussed clearly.Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
That is precisely what I meant. That food currently on the market has a consensus on safety. I never meant that ALL potential GM food would be considered safe. BlackHades (talk) 23:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
:) Good! Say what you mean. :) Jytdog (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
It is different statement though, instead safety of GMO food, we only have a supposed scientific consensus about the safety of consumption of currently marketed GMO food. --Kmhkmh (talk) 23:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
This is pedantic. "safety" means "safety for consumption". And the scientific consensus for safety of currently marketed GM food is real, not supposed. Please don't bring pseudoscience to this board.Jytdog (talk) 23:59, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Well I'd like to see a real source for that (I looked over the discussion at controversies and didn't see one), such claims about scientific consensus are always problematic. There are other safety issues than consumption (such as interbreeding, uncontrolled spreading in the wild. I agree that most people would associate safe with safe to it, however I see no reason why the article can't be precise here.--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:44, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I see, you are using "safety" broadly to encompass health and environment. Again, there is scientific consensus on safety of consumption for humans. If you did not find those sources you did not look - there are seven in the them in a row in the 2nd paragraph of the lede of the controversies article. Frankly I have not paid mind to the concept of environmental safety and the articles may be weak on discussion of the consensus on those issues. Jytdog (talk) 13:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that strictly speaking those sources do not really prove a scientific consensus, but that show merely that many members of the scientific community consider them safe. One of the sources does make an explicitly makes statement regarding a broad consensus, but that's a blog and apparently simply based on personal experience/impression than an actual examination. As far as comparisons are concerned currently this strikes me much more like a "nuclear energy is safe" form of "consensus" (that statement could have been sourced in similar fashion at least few years back) rather than the consensus on global warming. That's least my (layman) impression based on the sources I've looked it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:21, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
P.S.: Since I'm no expert GM food, I can't really claim to have a some representative overview of all authoritative publication on the subject, but I'm still rather wary regarding "scientific consensus" on safety (for consumption) claims, since it doesn't take me 5 minutes to find scientific publications claiming otherwise. To give just one example:
"'Most studies with GM foods indicate that they may cause hepatic, pancreatic, renal and reproductive effects and may alter hematological, biochemical and immunologic parameters, the significance of which remains to be solved with toxicity studies". Critical Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods, Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, Volume 49, Issue 2, 2009. See also GMO Myths and Truths.
So all we actually seem to know (or what the supposed consensus on safety probably only really stands for) is that there's no evidence that you will get immediately sick (or sick within a few years) by the consumption of GM food. That however polemically speaking is true for smoking as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
It will have to be phrased properly. You can't really say consensus is that the food is safe, just that consensus is that the currently commercialised crops are as safe as the conventional used ones. Also the current crops don't increase yield, they decrease yield loss. A small but important difference. AIRcorn (talk) 23:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes it would have to be phrased carefully and properly. Probably somewhat similar to the way it's currently being phrased at Genetically modified food controversies. BlackHades (talk) 23:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

General response to topic: nothing can be in the lede, that is not in the body of the article. Currently there is no discussion of the safety of GM food or any of the other stuff that BlackHades suggests, in the body of the article. Which I am kind of happy about as inclusion would mean that this article would start to look exactly like the controversies article... but on the other hand, I could totally see there being a section on Food Safety in this article. SO i oppose expansion of the lede (unless the body is first expanded). I do not think that the line can be deleted as controversy over perceptions of safety is one of the most notable things about GM food.Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I would support an expansion on food safety. I feel the "controversy" section should be expanded just slightly more than the one line it is now. Not too much obviously, but explain very briefly on a few key aspects of the controversy. If a proponent line isn't added or the "critics" line removed, then the other option would also be to make the current line somewhat more neutral. BlackHades (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I struggle a bit with the endless desire for explicit balance. Specific GM foods have been marketed since 1994... they are mainstream and real. Those are the facts and the paragraph in the lede immediately before the one you singled out, states those facts. It is also true that "some critics" have issues with the facts and would like to get GM food off the market and they emphasize supposed safety risks to justify that. See what I mean? I think it ~would be~ straightforward to add a few words to the preceding paragraph about 'regulatory approval' to add "balance" without needing to add gobs of content to the article.
Also I wonder what you could actually say, definitively, about the safety of GM food, in a section on Food Safety. I would be curious what you could come up with. What I fear, is that you would want to replicate a lot of content that is in the Regulation of the release of genetic modified organisms article on substantial equivalence and a lot of other stuff that is going to seriously clog this article up. What would you include in such a section?Jytdog (talk) 00:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm been looking into how this is handled in other scientific pages that are controversial like global warming which is a featured article. It seems that page devotes an extensive amount of space detailing the controversy surrounding global warming even though it has a separate Global warming controversy page. So I wonder if this page shouldn't do the same and be expanded a little more. I know there are fears by some that if we tried to do that, the page will become bloated, but it seems global warming handled it quite well and became a featured article. That page also doesn't mention the controversy surrounding global warming in the lede even though it has a section devoted to it in the body. So I also wonder if it's even necessary for the critics line to be in the lede at all. It does however mention the scientific consensus on both the lede in global warming and Global warming controversy which is interesting. Would there be any objections to simple removing the critics line? If there is, then we should work toward making the line more neutral. We should also be discussing whether to expand the "controversy" section more and also whether we should be inserting the position of scientific consensus on the lede of this page. BlackHades (talk) 00:58, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll respond to you if you respond to what I already wrote to you above. :) and as i already wrote in my initial response, the controversy is one of the most notable things about GM food and it belongs in the lede.Jytdog (talk) 01:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
A more condensed version of the lede currently in Genetically modified food controversies should be under the controversy body section of this page. That explains the controversy for and against GM food as argued by proponents and opponents. It should highlight key arguments by both sides but in a short precise manner. Probably something half the size of the lede in Genetically modified food controversies. Followed by including a one line proponents and one line critics line in the lede of this page. BlackHades (talk) 01:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't really see the comparison to the global warming case until I see the same sources (regarding the scientific consensus). As far as the expansion is concerned, I don't mind a slight expansion of the current controversy section, but at least if we want to keep Jytdog's current structure I see his argument for limiting that. In addition I agree with him, that he controversy is indeed one of the most notable things about GMO food at during its first 2 decades (might change in the future).--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
The exact same science organizations that have stated anthropogenic global warming is real, would be the same science organizations that have stated GM food on the market is as safe as conventional food and furthermore that there is no record of anyone having adverse health effects due to GM food. Which includes the two most recognizable science organizations in the world the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences. This has also been confirmed by health organizations by both the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization. To my knowledge, there isn't a single major scientific organization in the world that have stated GM food on the market has been proven dangerous. So to sum it all up, yes there is a scientific consensus on the issue of GM food being as safe as conventional food. BlackHades (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
BlackHades, please outline the content you would like to add on Safety. Please don't belabor the general point anymore that there is scientific consensus (what will matter are the exact statements we make and the support provided for them).Jytdog (talk) 13:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
A statement by a science organization (or several) does by no means automatically indicate a consensus of the scientific community. In the case of global warming for instance there are comprehensive academic publications, which examine the question whether there is a consensus or not (for instance Oreskes). Also "proven to be dangerous" is rather different claim from "proven to be safe" and we're discussing the latter and not the former.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:10, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
REALLY. It is not productive to argue high level points like this - all it does is make people frustrated and waste a bunch of time and space on Talk page. What matters are specific proposed statements and the support brought for them. Can we please get on track? I asked BlackHades to either propose an outline or even better, specific text, with sources, for a new section on Safety. Let's wait for that.Jytdog (talk) 14:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
That's fine with me.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I did make an outline. You haven't stated your position on it. Do you agree with my suggestion? If so, we can start working toward it. It doesn't necessarily have to be a new section on safety. It can be a expansion of the current controversy section that includes safety. "A more condensed version of the lede currently in Genetically modified food controversies should be under the controversy body section of this page. That explains the controversy for and against GM food as argued by proponents and opponents. It should highlight key arguments by both sides but in a short precise manner. Probably something half the size of the lede in Genetically modified food controversies. Followed by including a one line proponents and one line critics line in the lede of this page." BlackHades (talk) 19:22, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, that is reasonable approach. You are probably going to have add sources for some of the statements.Jytdog (talk) 20:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
OK, I did itJytdog (talk) 00:31, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Nice job. I was trying to find some time to put something together. Thank you for saving me the hassle. :P BlackHades (talk) 13:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

"Broad scientific consensus"

I was afraid of this line being transferred from the other article with the same insufficient sources and actually even topping by an almost satiric use of source (California voters dismissing labelling as source for scientific consensus? Please .....) Let me restate, what I've already posted earlier in the discussion:

--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:47, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, the AAAS releases says very clearly "Moreover, the AAAS Board said, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and “every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.”" How can you say that just one of the sources says this explicitly? The consensus is based on a) understanding what the specific genetic modifications are and thinking through what possible toxicities could arise from them (the consensus is, the modifications are well understood and nothing there gives rise to concern) and b) actual tox studies done on them, the resulting parameters of which show no statistical differences from conventional food counterparts. As for the quote you bring; just like in the field of climate science, there are scientists who are outside the consensus, in the case of GM food, folks like the authors of that review and Seralini. The analogy you make with smoking is kind of bad faith. We have identified a lot (not all, but a lot) of components of cigarette smoke and there are many known toxins/carcinogens in it that cause immediate and long-term harm, and we have loads of clinical data showing that immediate and long-term exposure to cigarette smoke is bad for you. Jytdog (talk) 15:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I didn't say there is only one source, I said it took me only 5 minutes to find one. And as far as climate science is concerned, I already explained why it is false analogy (and the sourcing situation there is rather different), an imho much better comparison would be with nuclear industry, but be that as it may.
As far as the science organizations you 've mentioned are concerned are concerned. Why don't you source them directly. Why do we such odd sources as the reuters article on prop 47. Why do we do we have science blogs from journal rather than a peer reviewed article in that journal? In its current form that really doesn't add up.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
I just went and reviewed your comments above and I see where you said "this is not like climate science" but I did not see where you said why -- you just said that it is not, as far as I can see. Sorry if I missed something. The point of the range of sources was to show, well, a range of sources. We have the AAAS which cites a bunch of other authoritative bodies. We have the WHO which provided a compact answer for the public in its 20 questions. We have a scientific review article. We have the US National Academies of Sciences book. We have a university extension office summary of the science, again aimed to the public. We have the blog from Pamela Ronald who operates in a unique space -- she is a leading advocate for organic food and sustainable ag, and she thinks GM crops can play an important role in that space. And we have the Associated Press (not reuters) article; AP is a mainstream press source, and the reporter cites the scientific consensus in her own voice, not embedded in a quote from one side. Again, shows the consensus. I don't think think any of these are unreliable sources. They show the consensus on the food safety of currently marked GM food. If you want to impeach any one of these sources, please be specific. We could indeed directly cite the various reports cited by the AAAS release, but there are already seven sources cited and that is already overkill.Jytdog (talk) 16:29, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for full protection

I have requested full page protection due to edit-warring. I would hope no more reverts take place since one user is over the 3RR limit and the other at 3RR. I also hope no reports will be made to 3RRN. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 03:59, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Dr. K that seems hasty. First, we have not broken 3rr on any specific edit. Jjavier2 is a new user and is trying to improve the article, and I am trying to work with him on that... see my edit notes and my comments on his talk page. I do not think the page needs to be locked down.. not yet. Jjavier2 has not responded to me yet - my hope is that he does and this does become dialog as it should. Please give this a chance.Jytdog (talk) 04:05, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I think you may have to consult WP:3RR a bit more closely. Any revert counts as a revert. It does not have to be the same edit. Quote: An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period. According to that, you are at 5RR and counting. You really should stop reverting and engage in talk instead. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 04:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
oh poop! I did break it. Thanks for explaining that. You do see that I was trying to talk to Jjavier2, right, on his talk page? I am not sure he even knows what an article talk page is. Jytdog (talk) 04:13, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
No problem. I am glad I could help. I hope the other editor engages in talk, otherwise a report may have to be made about his reverts. I may have to issue a formal warning on his talk since he did not reply here. Thank you for your response. Best regards. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 04:17, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for keeping an eye out for us all! Jytdog (talk) 04:19, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
You are very welcome. That is very kind of you. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 04:22, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed the following from the controversies section:

In the early 2000’s hundreds of various products, including Taco Bell’s taco shells got recalled after a concern that these products caused an allergic reaction in humans. [[12]] was the named given to the genetically modified corn used in the products. In 1998 the United Stated Environmental Agency approved Starlink, but as an animal feed only. They were using Starlink in hundreds of various products we consume without them ever being approved on people.

Controversies has its own separate article. Genetically modified food controversies. The controversies paragraph in this article is meant to be a short general brief overview of that article. It should not be dwelling on such specific incidents without cause. There is no reason that makes it necessary to mention the Starlink corn incident specifically, and be the ONLY incident given weight over all incidents mentioned in Genetically modified food controversies. Is it more noteworthy than the Pusztai affair? Séralini affair? Or any other incidents that exist in Genetically modified food controversies? None of these have any weight in this brief general overview of Genetically modified food controversies in the paragraph of this article and neither should the Starlink corn incident. BlackHades (talk) 09:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Corrilation between introduction of GM foods and Significant rise in deaths and diseases

Substantial information missing in the introduction of this issue. The "Edit" link is available for the sub sections, but one is not available for the paragraphs at the top. It says:

"There is broad scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food.[4][5][6][7][8][9] However, critics have objected to GM foods on several grounds, including safety issues....."

It says "critics have objected to GM foods on several grounds," at this point no evidence is offered. Here are some circa 2013:

We now have overwhelming evidence that GM foods are not substantially equivalent to the non-modified version, and are in fact responsible for significant number of deaths and diseases including but not limited to the cases of Autism, Bipolar, Infertility, Intestinal leakage, malnutrition, obesity, toxicity, allergies, Thyroid Cancer, Kidney Injury, Diabetes, Deaths from Intestinal Infections, Deaths from Alzheimer's, Deaths from Senile Dementia and more. There is broad scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops have caused these aforementioned diseases and deaths.[1][1][1].

At Monsanto's request, the EPA arbitrarily raised the toxicity limits of glyphosate from 6 to 20 parts per million in 1987 without testing. [2] Glyphosate (Roundup) continued to exceed the already arbitrary raised 1987 safety levels when Monsanto won an ridiculously unprecedented exemption from any future tracking from the EPA for Roundup Ready Soybeans (1993)[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Behtaj (talk • contribs) 08:02, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for wanting to contribute to the article. However (a) we recently went through a "request for comment" (RfC) from the Wikipedia community on the "consensus" statement on safety, which you can read here - the content describing the scientific consensus was retained, because the sources for the statement are multiple and strong, and the content accurately and carefully reflects them; (b) the text you added to the article is not neutral, encyclopedic language (please see WP:NPOV; (c) the sources you have introduced are generally not reliable, and additionally, fail WP:MEDRS (see for example, this discussion of the Senalfi article that you relied on in your edits (which you do not cite above), here) (d) the content about Michael Taylor violates WP:BLP; I therefore reverted the changes. A bit more on the two sources you cite above: the Swanson piece (your note #1 above): http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/glyphosate/NancySwanson.pdf - this fails both WP:RS and WP:MEDRS - it is a self-published source (see WP:SPS so it is "out" immediately (there is more that can be said about what is wrong with it, but under Wikipedia policy about sources, it is out, and that is what matters most). The other source you brought (your #2) is Lappe's "Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food" - this is pretty old (from 1999) and there are many more recent sources used here; additionally this article is about GM food, not glyphosate/Roundup. Additional quick note -- if you want to edit the lead paragraph for any article in WIkipedia, you have to click the "edit" link at the top of the page - that is not unique to this article. I look forward to discussing your proposed changes further, and most importantly, the sources you relied on. Jytdog (talk) 12:05, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Additional note -- This article is about GM Food, per se (see discussions at the top of this Talk page). Its current purpose, is to provide information about what GM food is, exactly, and what foods on the market are GM. There is another article, Genetically modified food controversies that goes in-depth into all the controversies, which are wide-ranging and go beyond issues of the safety of eating GM food. Controversies are discussed in this article, in a brief section taken from the lead paragraph of the Controversies article. The reason the article is set up this way, is that in the past, this article contained content only about the controversies, and there was no information anywhere in Wikipedia about what GM food actually is, and what foods on the market are GM. That was a big hole in the encyclopedia, and a disservice to readers who want to know that information - now they can find it, simply and clearly. Since that cleanup happened, people do come through and want to load back in lots of content about the controversies, which would drive the article right back into being not useful for its purpose.Jytdog (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Organization

The organization of this article makes no sense whatsoever. Why isn't it organized by plant type or something that actually has some basis in reality? The DNA/protein content of the end product is completely irrelevant, and we don't organize other articles in this way. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Titanium dragon, thanks for your interest! You have started editing today, articles that I work on too. I and others have worked hard to make articles related to GM and other food issues rational and science-based, and I think we have taken them a long way. About a year and a half ago, this article actually said nothing about what foods are actually genetically modified. There is always room for improvement, of course and I for one am glad to see new people come help. The current structure of the article is pretty clear, based on the section headers. First there is some background, and then actual food products are described. Two big divisions - GM produce ("produce" meant broadly) with DNA or protein remaining; GM produce without. In the first of those sections, it starts with the things sold right off the GM plant, without further processing (Papaya, zucchini, touches on potatoes (of which none are currently GM) and mentions the apple which might soon be) and goes to processed GM produce (soy, corn). The second section deals with produce that is processed so much that there is nothing GM remaining (lecithin, oils, sugars, starches). It goes from there to "Foods processed using genetically engineered products" - just chymosin for now but there are others I intend to add. Finally, moving yet further away from the GM ding-an-sich or even GM protein or DNA... "Animals fed on GM produce or treated with BST", and the most far - GM animals themselves (of which there are none, although we may have a salmon one day soon in which case this would need to move up into the first section). So overall it is ordered from the "most present" GM protein or DNA to "least present". A lot of this is antidote to the nonsense you see on a lot of anti-GMO sites (e.g. one of the biggest canards is that high fructose corn syrup is bad b/c it comes from GM corn..which is hogwash. Bad for other reasons, maybe! But not for that.). I think this structure makes sense and is clear and addresses what people are concerned about while being true and science based, and people can find whatever kind of food they are interested in, quite easily. Do you see it now? If not, I am very open to reasonable suggestions about how to organize in other ways. Jytdog (talk) 01:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC) (copyedited to discuss whole article Jytdog (talk) 02:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC))

addition to Controversies today

Today in these difs, User:Onerealman123 added the following

(http://naturalrevolution.org/gmo-resources/scientific-research/ Scientific research journals), however, dispute the findings that GMOs are safe. A long-term toxicology study was conducted on pigs fed a combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize (corn) diet, and their conclusions state that GMOs and the chemcials used to grow them are associated with multiple chronic diseases reported by the (http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf Journal of Organic Systems, 2013). There is also concerns from the (http://aaemonline.org/ American Academy of Environmental Medicine) and their report of (http://naturalrevolution.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Evidence-of-Probable-Harm-and-Safety-Concerns-of-Transgenic-GMO-Crops-and-Food-Products-American-Academy-of-Environmental-Medicine.pdf Evidence of Probable Harm and Safety Concerns of Transgenic (GMO) Crops and Food Products).

Since GMOs were introduced into the food supply in 1995, the rate of (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20159870 chronic health conditions) among children in the United States increased from 12.8% in 1994 to 26.6% in 2006, particularly for asthma, obesity, and behavior and learning problems.

The (http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html Academy of Environmental Medicine) has issued a position statement on GMO food stating, “...several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system. “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation as defined by Hill's Criteria in the areas of strength of association, consistency, specificity, biological gradient, and biological plausibility. The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.” They further state that “because GM foods have not been properly tested for human consumption, and because there is ample evidence of probable harm,” they call on physicians to educate the public and warn their patients to avoid GM foods.

I reverted that addition. Reasons:

  1. small thing that I would have been happy to fix, is that ref formatting is wrong. Wikipedia in general uses footnotes not hyperlinked sourcing like this. Not fatal, just a quibble. I changed square brackets to parentheses to make this easier to discuss.
  2. Big thing, as mentioned in my edit note, is that about a year ago we ended up doing a split and created a very extensive article on Genetically modified food controversies. People come by (and don't stick around) and want to load lots of extra negative information here, but we are trying to keep this section in line with the lead of the Controversies article, as per optimal wikipedia style, to keep all the information about the controversy aligned and up to date, so readers can get one clear shot at it, in one place. Further on that, about a year and a half ago this article contained nothing but various opinions on the controversies, and there was actually no information about what foods actually come from GMOs That is the purpose of this article - to inform readers what foods are actually GMO. That is important!
  3. First paragraph
    1. first source "naturalrevolution.org" is not a RS for anything except maybe itself.
    2. use of "pig study" source violates WP:PSTS and more importantly WP:MEDRS - we preferably don't base any information on primary sources, and definitely not health-related content
    3. while American Academy of Environmental Medicine sounds legit, please see American_Academy_of_Environmental_Medicine#Criticism_of_legitimacy and also here; their position on GMOs in any case is outside the scientific consensus.
  4. 2nd paragraph - only source is Use of JAMA review on obesity], which while a really great source, says nothing about GMOs and its use to support content violates WP:SYN.
  5. 3rd paragraph, see above for AAEM's status; their position is outside the consensus and the long quote gives their position undue weight - please see WP:WEIGHT.

Happy to discuss. Jytdog (talk) 16:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Critic vs analyst and a couple other concerns

Today User:Geraldatyrrell made this edit, with edit note "clarifying concerns section, removing emotionally laden terminology"

I have manually reverted all but the replacement of "safety" with "public health".

The change was from "critics have objected to GM foods on several grounds, including safety issues,[3] ecological concerns, and economic concerns raised by the fact that GM plants (and potentially animals) that are food sources are subject to intellectual property law."

to: "many analysts have objected to GM foods on several grounds, including public health issues,[3] environmental degradation, and economic concerns raised by the fact that GM plants (and potentially animals) that are food sources are subject to intellectual property law and largely owned by multinational corporations."

I italicized the changes. The changes appear to me, to be tendentious and change NPOV language to more POV language - from "critics" to "many analysts" increases the number and plays down that these "analysts" are actually criticizing mainstream science and regulatory procedures. The critics, are indeed "critics". Also, "multinational corporations" is kind of typical activist-y language to describe Big Bad Companies... so I would say that adding it, is an effort to increase the punch, to make it more emotionally laden, not less. (It is also question-begging; patents are ultimately used to make money - why is it shocking that companies would own them? Also, I am not sure that they are "largely" owned by companies - it wouldn't surprise me but I would bet that Gerald has no source for that.) Likewise, "environmental degradation" is much less NPOV that "ecological concerns." It is hard for me to see how these changes make the article more NPOV - they seem to me, to make it less so. I don't see a big difference between "safety" and "public health" and am not sure why the change was made, but it seems to be a neutral word selection issue that is not worth fussing over.Jytdog (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I removed the redundant text from this section, everything I wrote has been parsed and appears below, thanks Jytdog for that Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:40, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, so to it! I am going to start going bullet by bullet you (and others, if they care to join) can deal with each issue separately. I am going to copy your points and then respond to them: Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: "To me, critic sounds laden (negative connotation) and in my opinion, and analyst is a harmless bystander, one who analyzes, hence the change."
So, I wrote that GM is mainstream; these people are criticizing the mainstream, and doing it with purpose. "Analyst" obscures that. And the "many" makes it seem like they are scads. When in reality, GM is mainstream, and there are some critics, at the edges criticizing. That is the reality of the world today. Please respond to that. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Critic still sounds unduly laden to me, I think it violates a NPOV rule in some way because the term critic evokes negative connotation, someone who whines and pouts. There are clearly sources that suggest that GMO consumption is unhealthy and people who put stock in those studies wouldn't characterize themselves as critics. They believe in those studies and so try to bring scientific conclusions to the table only to be dismissed as handy-waving critics. I prefer the term analyst for them because it cuts to the heart of what they are doing, which I think is taking in the full spectrum of evidence and not just what appears directly in front of us. If you have another suggestion I would love to hear it. I am fine if many is taken out, unless there are some surveys out there to quantify the number of critic/analyst/dissenters Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:40, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I see from your user page that you are interested in rhetorical framing. If we are going to be doing this all day, it is going to really suck. agh! Just saying. I think Roger Ebert would not have agreed with your description of what he does did for a living, ditto the great tradition of critical theory; and guys who work on Wall Street would chuckle at your use of analyst. Ditto Freud. And I think Seralini would definitely say he is a critic of the way GM crops are regulated. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC) (roger ebert is dead, rip)
how about "opponents of GM food" instead of "analyst" or "critic"? Jytdog (talk) 05:46, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I like opponents better. It is a shame that you are the only other person weighing in on this dialogue, you're the de-facto point of contact for new editors of this page.Geraldatyrrell (talk) 22:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, Wikipedia wasn't built in a day. There are plenty who watch this page; folks are either busy now or they don't find this interesting enough to weigh in on. If you can live with "opponents" lets go with that and move on, shall we? Jytdog (talk) 09:35, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: "Specifying multinational corporation simply pronounces what these companies really are, corporations that exist in more than one country, hence the ability to buy and sell internationally, use labor in one, sell in another, etc. That is what they are, no?""
A little insulting. :) Of course I know what an MNC is. Again, you did not respond to what I wrote, which is that "MNC" is a buzzword of leftwing critics of companies (you don't hear people who actually work for companies ever use it; the world became flat a long time ago and most big companies have globalized right along with it). My point is that it is on the one hand obvious, and on the other, a cat-call. Adds no value, only bias. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
A little insulting yes, but not of you, and not of all MNCs. Maybe this is just the obvious conclusion of capitalism. I hear your point, in fact I think the point you are making here is quite similar to the point I am trying to make above regarding critics. Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:40, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
This is hopeless. Fine, MNC can come in. I will do it when I am done responding here.Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Don't worry about this one, you have made a good point. Leave MNC out of it, if people want to read about them, they will find there own way.Geraldatyrrell (talk) 22:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: "Companies own patents to make money, yes, but at whose expense. Someone is paying, so who, why, how much. A company can make money in a good way or in a bad way, and it is up to the public to scrutinize. Does Monsanto help the consumer or harm them?"
Here you are steering over a bit into WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, which is part of what Wikipedia is not - the first of the five pillars of WIkipedia (for the whole pillar, see WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a vehicle to "scrutinize" anything. Patents are part of the real world; companies exist in the real world to make money. Criticizing the patent system or capitalism is not the function of Wikipedia, except in articles on those topics, where criticisms are given their due WP:WEIGHT. And I don't think there is a clear and simple answer as to whether Monsanto is overall "good" or "harmful." In our capitalist world, inexpensive food is a very good thing, especially if you are poor. Monsanto helps make that happen. Whatever else one dislikes or even hates about them, that is a fact. And it is not the place of Wikipedia to judge the moral value of Monsanto, in any case. Like I said, we are not here to right great wrongs. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I see what you mean here. It would be fine to include some information about the effects of GMOs, shifts in the economics of the food industry for instance, with supporting sources (although maybe not to this article), but not to apply value statements to those changes. Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
k. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: ""largely"... you win on this one, we can leave it out"
OK, thanks for agreeing (it is not about winning or losing tho...)Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm learning more religion here than I ever learned in church =) Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
:) Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: "Environmental vs ecological: Nobody cares about ecology except ecologists. Everyone cares about the environment, it is where we live, where we make our living. Ecological concerns is a euphemism for harming the environment at large. The word degradation means that it is being destroyed instead of improved, which it obviously is. Can you improve a place by spraying a -cide on it?"
Hmmm, OK you make a good point on "environmental" vs "ecological". I can totally live with that. As for what follows, when you right "which it is obviously is" - again you are showing that you are bring a pretty strong POV to this conversation. Which is totally fine to do, but all of us have to be careful to check that at the door. And be really clear and precise, and bring sources to support what you are saying. Making big, hand-wavy generalizations like the environment "is being destroyed instead of improved, which it obviously is." will not get far around here. (the world is pretty messy. glyphosate is miles and miles safer than the herbicides it replaced; glyphosate-resistant crops have had a major impact in reducing the amount of diesel a farmer has to use to plow his fields, and has dramatically reduced the amount of erosion that goes on since farmers have to turn over the soil less than they used to. Bt crops have led to dramatic reductions in the amount of insecticide that is sprayed - even people like Charles Benbrook acknowledge that. There are trade-offs, always) It is not "obvious" that overall, GM crops have been a bad thing for the environment. "Concerns" is appropriate - there definitely are concerns. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I think I'm getting the hang of this. As an aside, hasn't the GMO age also resulted in higher fertilizer use for crops bred to use more nutrients (maybe this is from traditional plant breeding and not GE techniques)? Also, Bt-crops may have reduced pesticide use on those crops but roundup ready varieties have had the opposite effect haven't they? Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I ~think~ what you in mind are hybrid crops (yes traditional breeding), with respect to their finickyness. You are on the money with respect to Bt has led to less chemicals, and that with the growth of resistance, glyphosate has led to more. yes.Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Gerald: "There actually is a difference between safety and public health. Public means that it is about people."
It is obvious, in my view, that safety is about people in general. But I have not been very happy about the use of "safety" here since it is not clear whether it is food safety or some broader notions of safety of farm workers or heck even the environment; "public health" is better because the original intent was food safety and "public health" is closer. Still not perfect but OK with me. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
We shall use public health until we think of something better. What is the protocol when a point like this one is settled and put to bed? Is there an archive or should we delete it? Geraldatyrrell (talk) 01:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Somebody just goes and does it. As mentioned above I will make a run through on things we have agreed on... wrt to archiving, there are "bots" that people set up to archive talk page sections once they have gone silent for a while; you can see them at the very top of the Talk page in Edit view. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I've clipped the last argument, to save some space here for some new points: Obviously effects of consuming GMO foods and derivatives is important (effect on humans). Shouldn't the article also present the effects of growing GMO crops too (effect on environment). Related to this, is pesticide/herbicide use, and yes there is an article for pesticides, but with so much of GMO technology being the solution to the problem of pests, it seems like the effects of pesticides on consumers and the landscape ought to feature in this article a little. Geraldatyrrell (talk) 02:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
OK, on this one, another Bright Line Rule. On talk pages, please never delete what other people write, without their permission. People will jump all over you for that. I don't mind that you did it here, but please don't do it going forward. Also if you go back and edit your own comment, the best form is to show it with editing marks. Use strikeout markup to strikeout text, and italics to show what you added. And then add an additional signature. Like this:
Sample 1 (before). Pretend this is some really dickhead comment and now I am sorry I wrote it. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Sample 2(after). Pretend this is some really dickhead comment and now I am sorry I wrote it. So much depends upon a red wagon. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)(edit my previous comment, with notation.Jytdog (talk) 05:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC))
Thanks for the tutorial, that helps. I'll think on the additions I mentioned. We should frame out what should and should not be included, I'm sure you have ideas. I'll post on this later.Geraldatyrrell (talk) 22:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Quick note here; we have been working over the lead; the lead should be a summary of the the body of the article, so in terms of adding stuff, the focus should be on the section on Controversies. That section in turn, is a stub, really referring people to the Controversies article (the "see main" hat at the top of the section), and in the best Wikipedia world, would just be a copy/paste of the lead of that article, so that this section, and the main article it refers to, don't drift apart. One of the bad things about Wikipedia not being professionally edited, is that this happens all the time - you have a section on X in article A, referring to a "main" article B about X; Article B was created b/c the section in article A became too long. But then people come by and start adding stuff again to the section on X in article A and never change article B, and you end up with two big discussions on X that are not aligned, use different sources, and even contradict one another. Not a great outcome for the reader.Jytdog (talk) 09:35, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
Jytdog, you've been taking a lot of sources from people and dismantling them handily. In itself this is not a bad thing, the reasons you cite are generally fine. I also have yet to read the Rfc on the subject of scientific consensus, so bear with me. You do occasionally dismiss a source that contradicts the present scientific consensus, which sounds circular to me, is this right? You treat scientific consensus like a brick wall but to me and at least a few others it seems more like a facade. You will probably direct me to the Rfc, which I will now read, but just wanted to bring this up. Are there any other thoughts on this? Geraldatyrrell (talk) 02:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Hm. The nature of scientific consensus is that they form, and they generally remain pretty stable until some killer experiment is done that causes a paradigm shift. There has been no killer experiment yet on the food safety issue. Until that happens, the consensus remains. Right? I think Seralini was aiming for that with his 2 year study. No dice though - holes big enough of to drive a truck through and no hypothesis. On what you and others see; I recognize, very much, that we don't all see the same world. It makes the conversation very hard. It is why I do keep urging you to read, and why I am so delighted that you are willing to. Now, there is reading, and there is reading. There is a user I respect very much, generally, named User:Groupuscule, who wrote what I have described before, as a truly brilliant deconstruction of these sources - you will find it when you read the RfC as groupuscule commented there and provided a link to it. I have said before that this is SO not what we do on Wikipedia - we do not deconstruct sources here - it is a gorgeous essay but a piece of WP:OR that has no place here. They (groupuscule refers to themselves in the plural) of course disagrees and finds it to be totally legit criticism analysis :). Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I see what you did there =) and that Rfc is next on my reading list. In all seriousness I hear what you are saying. CheersGeraldatyrrell (talk) 22:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

papaya mistake

PRSV not PRV.

PRV is a pressure regulating valve not the virus, i would edit it but it seems like i can't... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.1.30.22 (talk • contribs) 16:07, 30 October 2013 UTC

I've made the change for you (the source confirms it). Thanks for bringing this to our attention. —Bruce1eetalk 04:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

tweak to controversies section

As a result of a discussion here my attention was called to the statement "There is no evidence to support the idea that the consumption of approved GM food has a detrimental effect on human health" that was introduced by User:semitransgenic in this edit as a change from "No reports of ill effects have been documented in the human population from GM food." I think that language is too broad and have reverted to the older language. Hope you all agree. Jytdog (talk) 02:43, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree the "No reports of ill effects have been documented in the human population from GM food." line is better. BlackHades (talk) 02:40, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b c Genetically Modified Organisms and the deterioration of health in the United States N.L. Swanson (correlations between increase in neurological diseases and GMOs, Graph of glyphosate and neurological disorders) (2013)(p 21).[13] Cite error: The named reference "mit.edu" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Lappe M Against the grain Common Courage (1998) (p 75).[14] Cite error: The named reference "Lappe M Against" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference NRC2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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