GM soy produces 10% less food than its conventional equivalent

GM soy is in everything. If soy is an ingredient in packaged food, chances are good that it’s genetically modified. Since wheat prices have gone up, a lot of bakeries now use soy flour as a supplement. This is one more reason to only eat organic, and as much food as you can cook yourself.

Exposed: the great GM crops myth

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent:

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university’s department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had “noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions”. He added: “People were asking the question ‘how come I don’t get as high a yield as I used to?’”

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

The GM crop – engineered to resist Monsanto’s own weedkiller, Roundup – recovered only when he added extra manganese, leading to suggestions that the modification hindered the crop’s take-up of the essential element from the soil. Even with the addition it brought the GM soya’s yield to equal that of the conventional one, rather than surpassing it.

The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska, which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best non-GM soya available.

The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a “decrease” in yields.

But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening.

A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over. (See graphic above.)

Monsanto said yesterday that it was surprised by the extent of the decline found by the Kansas study, but not by the fact that the yields had dropped. It said that the soya had not been engineered to increase yields, and that it was now developing one that would.

Critics doubt whether the company will achieve this, saying that it requires more complex modification. And Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington – and who was one of the first to predict the current food crisis – said that the physiology of plants was now reaching the limits of the productivity that could be achieved.

A former champion crop grower himself, he drew the comparison with human runners. Since Roger Bannister ran the first four-minute mile more than 50 years ago, the best time has improved only modestly . “Despite all the advances in training, no one contemplates a three-minute mile.”

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if GM could solve world hunger, said: “The simple answer is no.”

Bitter? You Should Be!

By Nicholas von Hoffman, The Nation:

Last week Barack Obama, destiny’s tot, suggested blue-collar Americans are feeling bitter about their financial condition, which has been on a bit of a decline during the last five, ten, fifteen, twenty years or so. Rival politicians immediately pounced and they’ve been whaling on him ever since.

How dare Obama suggest people are bitter? Americans are not bitter! Americans are happy, proud, peppy, content and optimistic!

Maybe. But if millions of them are not bitter and/or angry at this point, there is probably something wrong with them.

In his new book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times writes, “Since 1979, hourly earnings for 80 percent of American workers (those in private-sector, non-supervisory jobs) have risen by just 1 percent, after inflation. For male workers, the average hourly wage actually slid by 5 percent since 1979…. the nation’s economic pie is growing, but corporations by and large have not given their workers a bigger piece.” A 1 percent raise in almost thirty years? Still not bitter?

And who is getting ever larger chunks of pie? The Wall Street Journal has isolated some of the most energetic pie pigs: “the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19 percent in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8 percent set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50 percent earned 12.8 percent of all income, down from 13.4 percent in 2004 and a bit less than their 13 percent share in 2000.” You can be sure that a substantial portion of the bottom half of the population is living in small towns similar to the ones in which Obama sniffed out a degree of bitterness.

Even the 1 percent increase in hourly wages over the past generation or so is illusory. During the same period, unavoidable expenses — such as medical insurance, child care and transportation — have expanded explosively. Whatever progress that’s been made in living a little better has been achieved by working a lot harder and a lot longer.

“In a survey by the Families and Work Institute,” Greenhouse writes, “two-thirds of employed parents responded that they didn’t have enough time with their kids and just under two-thirds said they didn’t have enough time with their spouses. The typical American worker toils 1,804 hours a year, 135 hours more per year than the typical British worker, 240 hours more than the average French worker, and 370 hours (or nine full-time weeks) more than the average German worker. No one in the world’s advanced economies works more.”

Compared to workers in other countries, where the standard of living is as high or higher than it is in the United States, Americans, with fewer and shorter vacations, are worked like donkeys. Politicians repeatedly insist on telling the voters that America is the richest country in the world, which is a true enough statement but also provides little comfort to the massive population of under-appreciated workers, in small towns and big cities, who don’t get their share.

Every election season, candidates pretend to tear up as they assure millions of Americans who are working for less — or not at all — with the phrase the Clintons made famous:”I feel your pain.” That empty empathy will get you a bag of groceries in the basement of that church across town.

This year, the politicians are back with their speeches about how they are going to arrange for vocational classes so the voters will be able to compete in the twenty-first century. The first decade of the twenty-first century is already almost over. Time to drop that line, lest the small-town people turn bitter.

Obama is getting drubbed for saying that people, in their bitterness, are looking to God and their guns. If you had to choose who to go to for economic assistance, Hillary or God, who would you be clinging to? As for the guns, American politicians, with their frequently broken promises, are just lucky they aren’t picking birdshot out of their derriéres.

Vitamins A, C and E Increase Mortality! & Other Nonsense From Junk Science

I’d never heard about the Cochrane Library before. Are they just a puppet of Big pHARMa? Sure looks like it from this article. I love these types of reports, because I know exactly what to do: the opposite of what “experts” like these recommend. Vitamins bad? I take more. Low fat diet good? I run to the health food store to stock up on coconut oil, raw butter and cream. Funny, I’m healthy as a horse and haven’t needed to see a doctor in years.

Source: Mike Adams, Natural News.

The latest attack on vitamins A, C, E, selenium and beta-carotene comes from the Cochrane Library, a widely-read source of information on conventional health matters. In the paper published yesterday, these antioxidants were linked with a higher risk of mortality (“they’ll kill you!”), and now serious-sounding scientists have warned consumers away from taking vitamins altogether. But with all the benefits of antioxidants already well known to the well-informed, how did the Cochrane Library arrive at such a conclusion? It’s easy: The researchers considered 452 studies on these vitamins, and they threw out the 405 studies where nobody died! That left just 47 studies where subjects died from various causes (one study was conducted on terminal heart patients, for example). From this hand-picked selection of studies, these researchers concluded that antioxidants increase mortality.

Just in case the magnitude of the scientific fraud taking place here has not yet become apparent, let me repeat what happened: These scientists claimed to be studying the effects of vitamins on mortality, right? They were conducting a meta-analysis based on reviewing established studies. But instead of conducting an honest review of all the studies, they arbitrarily decided to eliminate all studies in which vitamins prevented mortality and kept people alive! They did this by “excluding all studies in which no participants died.” What was left to review? Only the studies in which people died from various causes.

Brilliant, huh? This sort of bass-ackward science would earn any teenager an “F” in high school science class. But apparently it’s good enough for the Cochrane Library, not to mention all the mainstream press outlets that are now repeating these silly conclusions as scientific fact.

Aspirin Causes a Drop in Erections!

Using this same cherry-picking method for reviewing previous studies, I could find evidence to support practically any conclusion I wanted. For example, let’s say that I took a look at 100 studies reviewing the effects of aspirin on erections. And let’s suppose I arbitrarily decide to eliminate all the studies involving men, leaving only studies involving women. I could then announce — with the evidence to back it up — that “Aspirin Linked with Drop in Erections!” Why? Because nobody in the groups I look at had any erections at all. Sure, they’re all women, but that’s beside the point. By arbitrarily removing selected studies from my analysis, I can “prove” just about anything, even if it’s utter nonsense.

The antioxidant study did the exact same thing by eliminating all studies in which people were kept alive and healthy while taking antioxidant vitamins. Or, put another way, the lead researchers on this study purposely eliminated all the studies involving healthy people, leaving only the studies involving people who were about to die anyway (like the chronically-diseased heart patients I mentioned earlier). Never mind the fact that antioxidants might have actually extended the lives of some of these people by a few days or weeks — the fact that they died while being treated with vitamins is enough, it seems, to point the finger at the vitamins themselves.

If a suicidal stock broker leaps from a tall building, and you hand him a vitamin C tablet on the way down, then it’s obviously the vitamin C that kills him, right? That’s the conclusion of this ridiculous study: Take a bunch of patients who are about to die, load ‘em up with antioxidants, and tally the inevitable death toll. Then announce, with great fanfare, your findings that “Antioxidant Vitamins Increase Mortality!”

Much “scientific” research is pure fiction

As you can see from this particular junk science study on antioxidants, the credibility of much of what happens under the guise of “science” is now so awful that I often wonder how many pharmaceuticals the researchers are on. These people literally have to be on drugs to come up with such poorly-designed studies (and to have the gumption to announce their results with a straight face, too!).

Turns out I’m not off the mark. A recent survey in Nature found that 20 percent of science academics use mind-altering drugs for non-medical reasons to boost academic performance. That’s one out of five researchers engaged in illegal drug use! This is a group that takes more mind-altering drugs than a Southern California hippy parade. And then they turn around and come up with “scientific” studies that lack such credibility, even an intelligent child could see right through them.

Actually, it’s worse. Because what we’re seeing in this antioxidant study is not merely bad science, but deceptive science. Bad science is created by bumbling idiots mucking around with clinical trial data, but deceptive science is created by people who have an agenda; people who have decided what outcome they wish to create even before the study begins. And that’s not real science, folks: That’s just subterfuge with an agenda.

Agenda-driven scientific-sounding trickery has now replaced real science in much the same way that politicians’ pronouncements of “the economy is great!” have replaced any real talk about the national debt. The truth is no longer relevant, it seems. What matters is whatever they can pull off and get the public to believe. The illusion of science is now being routinely used to push a particular anti-vitamin agenda. And guess who’s behind that agenda? Big Pharma, of course. There’s no better way to trap consumers in a system of lifelong pharmaceutical treatment than to convince them that vitamins are not merely worthless, but perhaps even dangerous!

The unstated conclusion behind all this, by the way, is that “Drugs are therefore safe.” If vitamins are dangerous, drugs must be the safe way to treat disease, right?

Riiiight. Drugs are safe, vitamins are dangerous, sunlight will kill you, water has no health benefits, fresh spinach is dangerous… need I go on? These are the pronouncements of a system of medical idiocy that has gone so far beyond the limits of reason, they’ve actually fallen off the edge of their own Flat Earth. Next, they’ll be telling us that breaking a mirror brings you seven years of bad luck, or that if you keep a lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket, pharmaceuticals will work better.

Because let’s face it: When facts are no longer relevant, modern “science” becomes nothing more than superstition.

Additional thoughts

I don’t mean, by the way, that all modern science is meaningless. There’s still a lot of great science going on these days. But when I see “scientific” studies like the one reviewed here being published in the mainstream media, I have to wonder just how low the scientific standards have become today. One thing for sure: The “peer review” approach to science is a complete disaster. All peer review does is protects entrenched ideas that should have been tossed out decades ago. Peer review is a way for defenders of outmoded ideas to reject new ideas, and thus protect their careers and egos.

Peer review doesn’t work. After all, it allows junk studies like the one described here to be readily published. All peer review means is that as long as all the peers share the same illusions (or biases), the paper will be published as scientific fact!

Don’t believe what you read in the science journals, folks. At least not without engaging your own brain and thinking for a moment about who’s behind the study and what they’re trying to accomplish. It’s quite clear that on this particular study, the aim is to scare consumers away from taking vitamins. Now ask yourself: Who would that benefit? The answer is rather obvious.

Damage Control: U.S. military groomed TV military analysts: report

Mainstream media reporters feel used? That’s a laugh.

Source: Reuters.

New York – Many U.S. military analysts used as commentators on Iraq by television networks have been groomed by the Pentagon, leaving some feeling they were manipulated to report favorably on the Bush administration, The New York Times said in Sunday editions.

A Times report examining ties between the Bush administration and former senior officers who acted as paid TV analysts said they got private briefings, trips and access to classified intelligence meant to influence their comments.

“Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks,” the newspaper said.

The Pentagon defended its work with the analysts, saying they were given only accurate information.

Many of the commentators also have ties to military contractors who are vested in U.S. war efforts, but those business links are seldom disclosed to viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks on which they appear, the newspaper said.

President George W. Bush has been engaged in a long struggle to halt a drain in public support for the Iraq war, in which more than 4,000 American soldiers have died, and to boost support for his post September 11 war against terrorism.

One case cited by the Times was in the summer of 2005, when accusations were rife over human rights violations at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, where foreign terrorism suspects are held.

The Times said administration communications officials flew a group of retired military officers to the camp on a jet normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney to give their side of the case. Many in the group have subsequently appeared as commentators on the TV networks.

The Times quoted Robert Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, as saying, “It was them (the Bush administration) saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’”

“I FELT WE’D BEEN HOSED”

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who taught information warfare at the National Defense University, told the Times the campaign amounted to a “coherent, active,” sophisticated information operation.

As the situation in Iraq deteriorated, he saw a gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequently was revealed in inquiries and books.

“Night and day,” he told the Times. “I felt we’d been hosed.”

Some analysts said they had suppressed doubts about the situation in Iraq for fear of jeopardizing their access.

Many others, however, denied having been co-opted or allowing their business interests to affect their on-air work, while some said they had recused themselves from coverage that touched on business interests, the Times report said.

The Times said it based much of its report on 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records it secured by suing the Defense Department and which it said described years of private briefings, trips and what it called “an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.”

It said Pentagon documents referred to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman defended the Defense Department’s work with military analysts, saying they were given only factual information about the war.

“The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people,” he told the Times, adding it was “a bit incredible” to think retired military officers could be “wound up” and used as “puppets of the Defense Department.”

Vitamin D and breast cancer risk

Since I’ve been taking extra vitamin D3 along with my daily ration of cod liver oil, I’ve noticed that I have a lot more energy.

Source: Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

A connection between vitamin D level and the risk of developing breast cancer has been implicated for a long time, but its clinical relevance had not yet been proven. Sascha Abbas and colleagues from the working group headed by Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ), collaborating with researchers of the University Hospitals in Hamburg-Eppendorf, have now obtained clear results: While previous studies had concentrated chiefly on nutritional vitamin D, the researchers have now investigated the complete vitamin D status. To this end, they studied 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) as a marker for both endogenous vitamin D and vitamin D from food intake.

The result of the study involving 1,394 breast cancer patients and an equal number of healthy women after menopause was surprisingly clear: Women with a very low blood level of 25(OH)D have a considerably increased breast cancer risk. The effect was found to be strongest in women who were not taking hormones for relief of menopausal symptoms. However, the authors note that, in this retrospective study, diagnosis-related factors such as chemotherapy or lack of sunlight after prolonged hospital stays might have contributed to low vitamin levels of breast cancer patients.

In addition, the investigators focused on the vitamin D receptor. The gene of this receptor is found in several variants known as polymorphisms. The research team of the DKFZ and Eppendorf Hospitals investigated the effect of four of these polymorphisms on the risk of developing breast cancer. They found out that carriers of the Taql polymorphism have a slightly increased risk of breast tumors that carry receptors for the female sex hormone estrogen on their surface. No effects on the overall breast cancer risk were found. A possible explanation offered by the authors is that vitamin D can exert its cancer-preventing effect by counteracting the growth-promoting effect of estrogens.

Besides its cancer-preventing influence with effects on cell growth, cell differentiation and programmed cell death (apoptosis), vitamin D regulates, above all, the calcium metabolism in our body. Foods that are particularly rich in vitamin D include seafish (cod liver oil), eggs and dairy products. However, the largest portion of vitamin D is produced by our own body with the aid of sunlight.