This blog has two main purposes.
The first purpose is to draw attention to attention
to a recent paper, “Genetically
engineered crops, glyphosate and the deterioration of health in the United
States of America” by Nancy L. Swanson, Andre Leu, Jon Abrahamson and Bradley
Wallet, that appeared in the Journal
of Organic Systems, 9(2), 2014 (you can read it at http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/92/JOS_Volume-9_Number-2_Nov_2014-Swanson-et-al.pdf).
This paper seems almost too good to be
true. But are its data and its
statistical analyses of these data correct?
Maybe the greatest weakness of the anti-GMO movement is the willingness
of so many of its supporters to believe anything discreditable about GMOs—and
not all that glistens is gold, least of all in this field. Right now I’m trying to get the paper checked
by professionals (I’m neither a statistician nor an epidemiologist). If it will stand up to the level of scrutiny,
far fiercer than any other type of academic paper has to face, that any work in
this field undergoes, it may well prove to be the smoking gun that will
finally convince doubters of the dangerous effects of GMOs and the pesticides
that accompany them.
The second purpose is to counter the misinformation
and even outright falsehoods that we encounter in pro-GMO propaganda (my
favorite among the latter is “We are only doing what farmers have been doing
for thousands of years”). But in
particular I want to counter their strategy of Pile-Ons. A Pile-On is what happens whenever anything
appears that might be seriously damaging to GMOs. Most recent victims were Gilles-Eric Seralini
and Stephani Seneff, who committed the additional sin of uncredentiality (more
on this in my next post). When word gets
around about the Swanson et al. paper, there’ll surely be another Pile-On, with
the same sin involved. Watch this
space! We’re going to have fun!
Thank you.
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