Can't see shit Captain.

7.    Monsanto didn’t check certain sex-based differences in the rats, like hormone levels. But when it came to interpreting the data they were very quick to discount negative findings on the basis that the hormone levels, that they didn’t measure, might be having an effect. The obvious question is: if they thought it was having an effect wtf didn’t they measure it? It says in the guidelines for this kind of research that they are supposed to measure it, but they didn’t!

8.    When the data was analyzed Monsanto didn’t actually use the control groups they had established; instead they compared the different GM groups against each other. Which is another thing that makes the studies pointless.

Think back on the alcohol analogy I wrote above. Your job is to decide whether Brian is drunk. To do this you use a simple balance test. Now, comparing Brian to someone who is stone-cold sober would be a good test. Comparing him to someone who you think might also be drunk is NOT a good test. If they score the same on the test it could mean that they are both sober, or that they are both drunk to the same degree!

9.    Above I mentioned that having only 10 rats per group is far too small. The reason why this is the case is that the smaller the group is, the harder it is to notice that an effect is taking place. In fact with a sample size this small there is actually a whopping 44% chance that a significant effect will simply not show up in the statistical analysis.

Everyone is always saying that you can lie with statistics; well this is one of the ways how. See the stats aren’t actually lying; they are saying they didn’t find anything, and they are telling the truth.  The data isn’t lying, it’s just that there is only a 56% chance that a negative effect would show up in the test. And then it gets worse…

As long as you don't anger the mushroom and the snake too...

10.    The test only lasted 90 days, which isn’t very long in terms of tests of this kind. Now that the grain is out there people will potentially be eating it for YEARS so a 3 month study is not nearly long enough to be safe. The fact is that over 90 days any negative effects would probably be quite small; this is one of the reasons why a larger sample size is needed in the study; it makes it easier to spot small changes before they become large ones.

11.    The independent scientists who reanalyzed the data estimate that when you combine the small sample size with the short length of the study the actual likelihood of Monsanto and Hi-Bred’s “research” finding any harmful effects is only about 30%! So even if the corn was poisonous it’s unlikely that the tests would find anything.

But this is where the independent researchers’ cunning came in.

What the independent researchers did was take the 3 studies and combine the data. This has the effect of tripling their sample size and thus should give accurate results.

What they found was pretty horrible.

In the article there are two graphs that show the difference between male and female biological functions, first in the liver and then in the kidneys. If the GM corn wasn’t having an effect you would expect them to be roughly the same. As you can see, they are not.

What this means isn’t entirely clear. But what we do know is that the liver and kidneys all work on processing toxins out of the blood. This is important because of the nature of the GM crops being tested. You see friends the particular modification that these crops had been given involved them being able to withstand massive overdoses of toxic pesticides.

In other words these GM crops have been engineered to be able to survive being rendered POISONOUS.
Remember the cyanide in the apple seeds I mentioned? I bet you thought I was joking ;)

Yes friends these crops have been engineered to soak up chemicals that are poisonous to insects. The purpose of the 3 studies was to determine whether the seed would retain enough of the toxins to ALSO be poisonous to humans. Based on those studies the corn was cleared for human consumption.

Aren’t you glad that there are government agencies that are looking out for you?

Shamelessly stolen from postsecret.blogspot.com

In fact the question becomes why? Why are these government agencies, who supposedly have no reason for existence other than to protect the public, ignoring these examples of blatantly bad research?

Well it might have something to do with Monsanto paying $8.5 Million to lobbying firms (and that’s just in the US, don’t even ask about Europe and Africa) to make campaign contributions/bribes to influential politicians.

So the next time someone mentions the “hysteria” over GM foods just remember: GM foods aren’t necessarily bad, but the only way to know if they are bad is through good research, and right now that’s the one thing we haven’t got enough of!

Shamelessly stolen from SMBC

[Standard Disclaimer: this post was entirely my own opinion and was not paid for in any way, directly or otherwise, by anyone or anything that stands to gain in any way from the ideas expressed herein.]

Related Posts: