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high residues of glyphosate and AMPA (mean 3.3 and 5.7 mg/kg, respectively). Conventional and organic soybean batches contained none of these agrochemicals. Using 35 different nutritional and elemental variables to characterise each soy sample, we were able to discriminate GM, conventional and organic soybeans without exception, demonstrating “substantial non-equivalence” in compositional characteristics for ‘ready-to-market’ soybeans.


Highlights, provided by the publisher, from that article are as follows:  “Glyphosate tolerant GM soybeans contain high residues of glyphosate and AMPA.


 Soybeans from different agricultural practices differ in nutritional quality.


 Organic soy contained more sugars, protein and zinc, 


 This study rejects that GM soy is “substantially equivalent” to non-GM soybeans.”


Relatedly, Shermer failed to mention that the GMO- associated pesticide glyphosate stimulates breast cancer cell growth, a fact that would have been of interest to     


Food Chem Toxicol    


Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors.


Thongprakaisang S, Thiantanawat A, Rangkadilok N, Suriyo T, Satayavivad J.


Abstract: Glyphosate is an active ingredient of the most widely used herbicide and it is believed to be less toxic than other pesticides. However, several recent studies showed its potential adverse health effects to humans as it may be an endocrine disruptor. … Glyphosate exerted proliferative effects only in human hormone-dependent breast cancer T47D cells,… These results indicated that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of glyphosate possessed estrogenic activity. Glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used for soybean cultivation, and our results also found that there was an additive estrogenic effect between glyphosate and genistein, a phytoestrogen in soybeans….


       nutritionally valuable and morally noble in helping humanity during a period of rising population” is ridiculous considering that genetically manipulated foods          for sustaining humanity. In fact, the risks of destroying biodiversity and of placing humanity’s food supply in        evident and/or easily explainable to anyone with a middle school education or above. Further, given that


274


 Organic soybeans showed a more healthy nutritional 


GM plants are largely designed around pesticide use, for example Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready®” seeds which are designed for use with the corresponding “Roundup®” formulations of glyphosate, and given that glyphosate and/ or its complete formula “Roundup®” has shown adverse effects in various models and human studies, including DNA damage,2 damage,4


and stimulation of breast cancer cell growth,5 the distribution of such chemicals to the American and Canadian population’s food, air, water, pregnant women and babies


mitochondrial damage,3 reproductive cannot be claimed to be “morally noble.”


The best attribute of this article by Shermer is its brevity. The Editors of  published this drivel at the expense of their readership and at the expense of good taste and good science, leaving the trustworthiness of the editorial review process at  not simply in doubt, but in ruin. By failing to reject tabloid- level submissions, and by failing to maintain standards   have demoted their magazine to one that is unreliable as a guarantor of accurate information and scholarly discourse. 


“If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not… To feed the world takes political         1


 American, Michael Shermer claimed without evidence         He claimed that, if not for GMOs, “the planet could sustain only a tiny fraction of its current population.” This statement is patently false. For one, increasing food production is not the solution to solving world hunger. Populations are malnourished and starving not  lack of food access due resource misuse and reckless  export crops at the expense of diverse and sustainable food production by local farmers. So-called “free trade agreements” have bankrupted millions of small farmers and pushed many of the rural poor from their land. In many developing countries, export crops have boomed while hunger and malnutrition have continued or increased; ongoing starvation in the same countries that produce abundant export crops clearly implicates political causes for the food scarcity.2


“Commercial GE crops have made no inroads so far into raising the intrinsic or potential yield of any crop. By contrast, traditional breeding has been spectacularly successful in this regard; it can be solely credited with the intrinsic yield increases in the United States and other parts of the world that characterized the    3


THE ORIGINAL INTERNIST JUNE 2015 (Continued on page 277)


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