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    Get ready to tear this one apart boys...

    Scientists say new study shows pig health hurt by GM feed

    Jun 12, 2013 2:55 AM - 0 comments
    TEXT SIZE bigger text smaller text

    By: Carey Gillam
    Reuters
    Livestock

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Pigs fed a diet of only genetically modified (GM) grain showed markedly higher stomach inflammation than pigs who dined on conventional feed, according to a new study by a team of Australian scientists and U.S. researchers.

    The study adds to an intensifying public debate over the impact of genetically modified crops, which are widely used by U.S. and Latin American farmers and in many other countries around the world.

    The study was published in the June issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Organic Systems by researchers from Australia who worked with two veterinarians and a farmer in Iowa to study the U.S. pigs.

    Lead researcher Judy Carman is an epidemiologist and biochemist and director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research in Adelaide, Australia.

    The study was conducted over 22.7 weeks using 168 newly weaned pigs in a commercial U.S. piggery.

    One group of 84 ate a diet that incorporated GM soy and corn, and the other group of 84 pigs ate an equivalent non-GM diet. The corn and soy feed was obtained from commercial suppliers, the study said, and the pigs were reared under identical housing and feeding conditions. The pigs were then slaughtered roughly five months later and autopsied by veterinarians who were not informed which pigs were fed on the GM diet and which were from the control group.

    Researchers said there were no differences seen between pigs fed the GM and non-GM diets for feed intake, weight gain, mortality and routine blood biochemistry measurements.

    But those pigs that ate the GM diet had a higher rate of severe stomach inflammation -- 32 percent of GM-fed pigs, compared to 12 per cent of non-GM-fed pigs. The inflammation was worse in GM-fed males compared to non-GM fed males by a factor of 4.0, and GM-fed females compared to non-GM-fed females by a factor of 2.2. As well, GM-fed pigs had uteri that were 25 per cent heavier than non-GM fed pigs, the study said.

    The researchers said more long-term animal feeding studies need to be done.

    Biotech seeds are genetically altered to grow into plants that tolerate treatments of herbicide and resist pests, making producing crops easier for farmers. Some critics have argued for years that the DNA changes made to the transgenic plants engineer novel proteins that can be causing the digestive problems in animals and possibly in humans.

    The companies that develop these transgenic crops, using DNA from other bacteria and other species, assert they are more than proven safe over their use since 1996.

    CropLife International, a global federation representing the plant science industry, said more than 150 scientific studies have been done on animals fed biotech crops and to date, there is not scientific evidence of any detrimental impact.

    -- Carey Gillam reports on agribusiness and ag commodities for Reuters from St. Louis.

    #2
    Interesting. But that is all it is until
    it is replicated. The last paragraph
    holds more weight with me than one
    result.

    Comment


      #3
      Thanks for readin Coleville.

      If you think about this stuff in general it could mean a little more to you. Yes it is opinion, however, common sense opinion is something lacking at times in any scientific study --- from both sides of the fence.

      The liver is the most important organ in the body of an animal. Maybe second to the heart, but far ahead of the brain which is only an information storage center that can be adjusted by each and every human that carries one on his shoulders.

      When the liver is out of balance, it is always due to the food put into that particular animal.

      Maybe these problems found in the livers of cattle would be the same if they were not fed GMO products. Products designed to destroy insects from the inside out in an inflammatory way... or maybe not.

      The hog thing is even more interesting to me as hogs are more similar to humans than bovines. At least cattle have a couple more stomachs to rid themselves of the contaminants through the natural lymphatic system a little sooner in the process.

      So if we go directly to the human consuming grains, and compare the number of humans with gluten intolerance these days to GMO production, we also see a common curve.

      No --- one off --- not a scientific study, just living in the real world of food.

      USA - Problems with beef livers

      30 May 2013


      A high prevalence of Campylobacter in retail beef livers and their antimicrobial resistance raise concern about the safety of these retail products, according to Aneesa Noormohamed and Mohamed K. Fakhr of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.





      In a recent paper in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, they report a study were to determine the prevalence of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli in retail beef, beef livers and pork meats purchased from the Tulsa area and to characterise the isolates obtained through antimicrobial susceptibility testing.



      A total of 97 chilled retail beef (50 beef livers and 47 other cuts) and 100 pork samples were collected.



      The prevalence of Campylobacter in beef livers was 39/50 (78 per cent) while no Campylobacter was isolated from the other beef cuts.

      The prevalence in pork samples was 2/100 (2.0 per cent).



      A total of 108 Campylobacter isolates (102 beef livers isolates and six pork isolates) were subjected to antimicrobial resistance profiling against 16 different antimicrobials that belong to eight different antibiotic classes.



      Of the six pork Campylobacter coli isolates, four showed resistance to all antimicrobials tested.

      Among the beef liver isolates, the highest antibiotic resistances were to tetracyclines and Â-lactams, while the lowest resistances were to macrolides, aminoglycosides, lincosamides and phenicols.



      Resistances to the fluoroquinolone, macrolide, aminoglycoside, tetracycline, b-lactam, lincosamide and phenicol antibiotic classes were significantly higher in Campylobacter coli than Campylobacter jejuni isolates.



      Multidrug Resistance (MDR) among the 102 Campylobacter (33 Campylobacter jejuni and 69 Campylobacter coli) beef liver isolates was significantly higher in Campylobacter coli (62 per cent) than Campylobacter jejuni (39 per cent).

      Comment


        #4
        Rkaiser. What was the non GMO feed ? "One
        group of 84 ate a diet that incorporated GM soy
        and corn, and the other group of 84 pigs ate an
        equivalent non-GM diet." Was the non gm diet
        corn and soy If they are not fed the identical feed
        then what kind of comparison is it really?
        Just wondering if you realize in your day to day
        life what impacts GMO have. Do you drink wine or
        how do you think the bread you eat is baked?

        Comment


          #5
          Kaiser, do you have the actual link?
          please post.

          Comment


            #6
            Doh!! What do you think vvalk? they fed them hay and
            oats to skew the result? You either have to accept
            science or you don't.

            Comment


              #7
              Grassfarmer. Why make that assumption? I see
              the anti GMO studies all the time that skew the
              results this way. It says equivalent, you tell me if
              there isn't ambiguity in the sentence.

              Comment


                #8
                Vvalk please provide links for the skewed studies
                that you "see all the time"

                Comment


                  #9
                  No ambiguity if you know what the word equivalent
                  means.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The following is not ambiguous. I'm sure charliep
                    forgot to post it:


                    “On May 24, 2013 the Plant Health Department
                    of the Belize Agricultural Health Authority (BAHA)
                    discovered suspected genetically modified
                    soybean seeds in Northern Belize.  As a result,
                    samples of the suspected soybean seeds were
                    submitted to BAHA’s Plant Health Diagnostics
                    Laboratory in Central Farm for GMO screening.  
                    The screening tests were conducted on May 28
                    and all the samples tested positive indicating that
                    the seeds were genetically modified.

                    A further set of samples were then sent to
                    Eurofins Genescan Laboratories in the United
                    States on May 30 for a confirmatory test using
                    Polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR technology.
                    On June 5th, BAHA received results of the
                    confirmatory test, which verified the results of
                    previous tests conducted by BAHA on the
                    soybean seeds.

                    No need to say any more about trust, is there
                    now.

                    The greatest weapon of all will be food that
                    sterilizes groups of people.... on purpose. Im
                    pleased if Vilkings are able to recall inherent
                    violence. Pars

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Science, right. If you need help with the big words Kaiser just ask.

                      First the ahem, study.
                      http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/81/8106.pdf

                      Anyway, To tear it apart Mark Lynas does a good job, saves me a bunch of
                      typing but came to the same conclusion:

                      GMO pigs study – more junk science

                      When I saw on Twitter that a ‘major new peer-reviewed study’ was about
                      to reveal serious health impacts from GMO corn and soya, I was intrigued
                      to say the least. Would this be Seralini 2.0, a propaganda effort by
                      anti-biotech campaigners masquerading as proper science, or something
                      truly new and ground-breaking?

                      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – and it would take
                      a lot of extraordinary evidence to confound the hundreds of studies
                      showing that GMO foods are just as safe as conventional, as summarised
                      in this recent AAAS statement:

                      “The science is quite clear: crop improvement by the modern molecular
                      techniques of biotechnology is safe. 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.”

                      So when I found the paper, again via Twitter, I determined to read it as
                      I would a climate ‘denier’ paper which aimed to overturn the scientific
                      consensus in that area – with an open mind, but a sceptical one. I could
                      see that it was already generating news, and the anti-GMO crowd on
                      Twitter were also getting excited about some new grist to their
                      ideological mill. Here’s what Reuters wrote:

                      “Pigs fed a diet of only genetically modified grain showed markedly
                      higher stomach inflammation than pigs who dined on conventional feed,
                      according to a new study by a team of Australian scientists and U.S.
                      researchers.”

                      Really? Time to have a look at the study. It is by a Judy Carman and
                      colleagues, entitled ‘A long-term toxicology study on pigs fed a
                      combined genetically modified (GM) soy and GM maize diet’ and published
                      in a minor Australian journal I have never heard of called ‘Journal of
                      Organic Systems’. (This journal does not appear in PubMed, suggesting it
                      is not taken very seriously in the scientific community. It only
                      publishes about twice a year, mostly with research touting the benefits
                      of organic agriculture.)

                      I skimmed the paper first, and the conclusions seemed doubtful enough
                      (see below) to try to find out who was beind it. So I looked at the
                      sponsors of this journal. They include the Organic Federation of
                      Australia, which seemed odd for a journal presumably aiming to be
                      independent. Imagine the hullaballoo if Nature Biotechnology was
                      sponsored by Monsanto!

                      I also wondered who Judy Carman and her colleagues were. She turns out
                      to be – as I feared – a long-time anti-biotech campaigner, with a
                      website called ‘GMOJudyCarman‘, which says it is supported by
                      GMOSeralini.org. She is a founding member, according to this website, of
                      the scientific advisory council of the Sustainable Food Trust. The
                      Sustainable Food Trust was the UK outfit set up by former organic
                      lobbyist Patrick Holden which stage-managed the media release of the
                      infamous Seralini GMO rats study to the Daily Mail and other credulous
                      outlets.

                      What about the co-authors? One is a Howard Vlieger, who seems to have
                      made some wild allegations about GMOs in the past if this source is to
                      be believed. Vlieger is president and co-founder of Verity Farms, a US
                      ‘natural foods’ outfit which markets non-GMO grain. Despite this, the
                      paper declares that the authors have no conflicts of interest, although
                      it seems to me that he would have a very clear commercial interest in
                      scaring people about GMOs in order to drum up business of his GMO-free
                      offerings.

                      What about funding? The paper states that funding came from Verity
                      Farms, the natural product outfit mentioned above. Carman and her
                      colleagues are also funded by and associated with the Institute of
                      Health and Environmental Research, an Australian not-for-profit which
                      seems to be entirely dedicated to anti-GMO activism. Recent activities
                      have included opposing Bt brinjal in India and CSIRO’s GMO wheat in
                      Australia. Funding sources are not disclosed, although donations are
                      solicited. The paper’s acknowledgements are a veritable who’s who of
                      anti-biotech activism, includin Jeffrey Smith, John Fagan and Arpad
                      Pusztai.

                      So, that’s the context. Now let’s look at what raised my suspicions
                      about the actual study. Well, Carman and colleagues claim significant
                      differences in a long-term study of pigs fed GMO and non-GMO diets. But
                      if you look at the data they present (and the data presentation is at
                      least a step better than Seralini) there are obvious problems. Clearly
                      all the animals were in very poor health – weaner mortality is reported
                      as 13% and 14% in GM-fed and non-GM fed groups, which they claim is
                      “within expected rates for US commercial piggeries”, a vague statement
                      intended to justify what seem to have been inadequate husbandry
                      standards.

                      This picture is even more stark in the data presented in Table 3. 15% of
                      non-GM fed pigs had heart abnormalities, while only 6% of GM-fed pigs
                      did so. Similarly, twice as many non-GM pigs as GM ones had liver
                      problems. Why no headlines here? “Pigs fed non-GMO feed 100% more likely
                      to develop heart and liver problems, study finds” – I can just see it in
                      the Daily Mail. But of course negative results were not what Carman et
                      al were looking for.

                      So we fast-forward to the stomach inflammations. This is where Carman et
                      al got their headline. As Reuters reported:

                      “But those pigs that ate the GM diet had a higher rate of severe stomach
                      inflammation – 32 percent of GM-fed pigs compared to 12 percent of non-
                      GM-fed pigs. The inflammation was worse in GM-fed males compared to non-
                      GM fed males by a factor of 4.0, and GM-fed females compared to non-GM-
                      fed females by a factor of 2.2.”

                      This is statistical fishing of the most egregious sort, and I would put
                      money on the Reuters summary above being lifted near-verbatim from a
                      press release written by Carman et al. Table 3 actually shows that many
                      more pigs fed non-GMO feed had stomach inflammations than those with GMO
                      feed. So 31 non-GM pigs had ‘mild’ inflammation, while only 23 GM pigs
                      had it. For ‘moderate’ inflammation, a GMO diet again seemed to be
                      beneficial: 29 non-GM pigs had moderate inflammation of the stomach,
                      while 18 had it. So that’s 40% vs 25%. Do Carman et al perform a test
                      for statistical significance to see if GMO feed has a protective effect
                      on pigs stomachs? Of course not – that’s not the result they are after.
                      These findings are ignored.

                      Instead, it is the next line of data that they play up: for ‘severe’
                      inflammation 9 non-GM pigs were determined to have it, while 23 GM-fed
                      pigs had it. Shock, horror. You can immediately see how the data is all
                      over the place from the previous results, which also rule out any causal
                      mechanism with GMO feed – if GMO feed is causing the severe
                      inflammation, why is the non-GMO feed causing far more mild to moderate
                      inflammation? It’s clearly just chance, and all the pigs are not doing
                      well and suffering stomach problems: about 60% of both sets had stomach
                      erosion.

                      Yet the paper slyly presents photographs of inflamed pigs stomachs, with
                      non-inflamed and mildly inflamed from non-GM fed pigs, and moderate and
                      severe inflammation presented from GM-fed pigs. Yet 38 of the non-GM
                      pigs, more than half of the total of 73, were suffering moderate or
                      severe inflammation – why not present photos of their stomachs? This is
                      rather reminiscent of how Seralini presented shocking pictures of GM-fed
                      rats with massive cancerous tumours, but did not present pictures of the
                      control rats (non-GM fed) which also developed cancers.

                      Indeed, if you add together the ‘moderate’ and ‘extreme’ categories –
                      which from the photos are not easy to tell apart, involving a value
                      judgement on the part of the vets employed to do the post-mortems – then
                      the non-GM fed pigs have 38 affected individuals (52% of the animals
                      studied), while the GM-fed pigs have 41 affected individuals (56% of the
                      total). Statistical significance? My ass. This is propaganda dressed up
                      as science, which is why it didn’t make a proper peer-reviewed journal.
                      (Update: Andrew Kniss makes this point better, using an appropriate
                      statistical technique, here.)

                      My judgement is that, as with Seralini, this study subjects animals to
                      inhumanely poor conditions resulting in health impacts which can then be
                      data-mined to present ‘evidence’ against GMO feeds. Most damning of all,
                      close to 60% of both sets of pigs were suffering from pneumonia at the
                      time of slaughter – another classic indicator of bad husbandry. Had they
                      not been slaughtered, all these pigs might well have died quickly
                      anyway. No conclusions can be drawn from this study, except for one –
                      that there should be tighter controls on experiments performed on
                      animals by anti-biotech campaigners, for the sake of animal welfare.

                      Thanks are due to the numerous Twitter correspondents who provided
                      insight and links which have been useful in this post. You know who you
                      are.

                      Update: I received the following expert commentaries courtesy of the UK
                      Science Media Centre:

                      Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding
                      of Risk at the University of Cambridge, said:

                      “The study’s conclusions don’t really stand up to statistical scrutiny.
                      The authors focus on ‘severe’ stomach inflammation but all the other
                      inflammation categories actually favour the GM-diet. So this selective
                      focus is scientifically inappropriate.
                      “When analysed using appropriate methods, the stomach inflammation data
                      does not show a statistically statistical association with diet. There
                      are also 19 other reported statistical tests, which means we would
                      expect one significant association just by chance: and so the apparent
                      difference in uterus weight is likely to be a false positive.”

                      Prof Patrick Wolfe, Professor of Statistics at University College
                      London, said:

                      “I am not an expert on animal health, husbandry, toxicology etc, and
                      therefore I cannot comment on these aspects of the study. As a
                      statistical methodologist I can however comment on the data analysis
                      undertaken and presented in the article.
                      “The biggest issue is that the study was not conducted to test any
                      specific hypothesis. This means that the same sample (in this case
                      nearly 150 pigs) is, in effect, being continually tested over and over
                      for different findings.
                      “The statistical tests employed assume that a single test is done to
                      test a single, pre-stated hypothesis; otherwise the significance levels
                      stemming from the tests are just plain wrong, and can be vastly over-
                      interpreted.
                      “Thus there is a higher-than-reported likelihood that the results are
                      due purely to chance. The number of pigs being in the low hundreds
                      (instead of, say, the thousands, as is often the case in large medical
                      studies) can make this effect even more prominent.
                      “Bottom line: a better-designed study would have hypothesized a
                      particular effect (such as changes in stomach size), and then applied a
                      statistical test solely to check this hypothesis. Perhaps another
                      independent team of researchers will go down this path. Until then, this
                      study definitely does not show that GM-fed pigs are at any greater risks
                      than non-GM fed pigs.”

                      http://www.marklynas.org/2013/06/gmo-pigs-study-more-junk-science/

                      Comment


                        #12
                        In other words, absolute crap, lies and
                        deceit.

                        Comment

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