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Current status of article, and comments on the ruckus regarding GMO safety

Just a brief note to say that, as a reader, I like the general form and content of the article as it now stands. Overall, the article provides a balanced overview, and directs the reader to further details, both inside and outside of Misplaced Pages. In particular, the paragraph labeled "Controversy" is clear, short, balanced and links to the main article on controversies regarding GMO foods, where the details of, and evidence regarding, the concerns are covered in a much more thorough manner. This seems like exactly the right way to handle complex content on Misplaced Pages.

Furthermore, there are significant GMO controversies that have nothing to do with GM foods, for example the generation of interspecies hybrids for research purposes, safety of laboratory workers, bioterrorism, and gene therapy in humans and other animals. If the community should come to the conclusion that the section on "Controversy" needs expansion, I would think that it would be best to build that expansion incrementally, rather than with a large block of content that is focused on only one side of only one part of the controversy.

All parts of the article can benefit from further improvement by the community, but let's do it in a way that continues to provide a good overview and a reasonable balance. Just my two cents' worth.

John Mackenzie Burke (talk) 15:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words! A bunch of us have worked hard to make the suite of GM articles fit Good Article criteria.. they were a big mess a few months ago, having been over-run by anti-GM activists. I appreciate your comments about controversy very very much... one of the things that I worked on, consolidating the enormous amount of content about controversy across all the articles into the Genetically modified food controversies article - and edited it to make sure it was all well sourced and stated in NPOV, and left behind this "stub" that you reference, in each of the articles. I think there is more content that needs to be included in the Controversies article but have not gotten to it and am very open to more ideas. If you have time/interest please feel free to either add content to the Controversies article about the matters you cite, or if you don't have time, please add a comment on the Talk page of the Controversies article, ideally with a bit more detail to help other editors act on these suggestions (for example I am unaware of controversy about human gene therapy as it is actually practiced... I know there has been some worry about potential uses of gene therapy, but that is different from what is actually done)....Anyway thanks again!Jytdog (talk) 17:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Rejected proposed change

I rejected Bronat03 (talk · contribs)'s proposed change (edit) of:

Because algae consume large amounts of oxygen, it can result in dead zones for fish. This would not only be advantageous for the waters surrounding the pigs,

to:

Because algae overgrowth can result in a corresponding overgrowth of heterotrophs which consume large amounts of oxygen, anoxic dead zones can result. Reducing phosphorus levels in manure would not only be advantageous for the waters surrounding the pigs,

due to lack of a citation.

As a non-subject-matter expert, I was left wondering "is this true? Says who?"

If this is a true statement and it can be backed by a reliable source I would welcome the text's restoration.

I considered accepting the change and adding {{citation needed}} but I figured this article was under "pending changes" protection for a reason, namely, to make sure questionable content gets vetted first. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:18, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

content about hungary added today

as near as i can tell after twenty minutes of digging, that story originated back in July 2011 with this site: http://www.allaboutfeed.net/Process-Management/Management/2011/7/Hungary-destroys-all-GMO-maize-fields-AAF011994W/; a site called "planet save" picked it up http://planetsave.com/2011/07/21/hungary-destroys-all-monsanto-gmo-maize-fields/ and from there it spread to a bunch of places, some of which signalled that they picked it up from planetsave. Trueactivist picked it up in Feb 2012 http://www.trueactivist.com/hungary-destroys-all-monsanto-gmo-corn-fields/ and didn't date it or provide a link back to planetsave, and this week EMA picked it up http://www.ema-online.org/2013/06/04/hungary-destroys-all-monsanto-gmo-maize-fields/ from trueactivist, again without dating it or tracking it back to its original source. Now you even get some sites claiming that this is a second event even though the "new" report is word for word the same as the earlier one in many places. You will find a lot of this really crappy "journalism" and outright plagiarism in the anti-GMO websites. The fullest and earliest report on allaboutseed makes it clear that the Hungarian government action occurred in the context of a new law that had come into effect in March 2011 that banned GM crops, and the government was just starting to enforce it. The later reports (e.g. TrueActivist and EMA) makes the act of destruction seem totally random. Also the original article makes no reference to "burning". ... Jytdog (talk) 16:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Regulation

I would like to modify the comments listed in the Regulation section to document that there are currently over 50 countries that ban GMO products. I will list cite location where I found the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seashell1 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi - I am not sure that is true, but in any case, it would probably not go best here, as this is a very general article on GMOs, which cover everything from cells used in a lab, to gene therapy, which is a medical treatment. Sounds like something you might want to add to the Genetically modified food controversies article. Jytdog (talk) 03:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Statement denying scientific consensus - reverted

User:Geraldatyrrell and I unfortunately have a bit of an edit war going on here.

As you can see from the contribs, Geraldatyrrell made several edits today in the GMO-related articles. This thread is about one in particular.

1) With this dif, he added the following statement after a description of Bt crops, "although many scientists are still uncertain of GMO safety in food crops." with the source, http://www.earthopensource.org/index.php/news/150 Retrieved 22 October 2013

with edit note "neutralizing opinion within the article)"

2) I reverted with this dif, with edit note "(Undid revision 578261463 by Geraldatyrrell (talk) false statement. there is scientific consensus that currnet food from GMOs is safe)"

3) Not following WP:BRD, Geraldatyrrell re-reverted with this difwith edit note "Undid revision 578262182 by Jytdog (talk) please explain what is incorrect about the source I've cited)"

at which point I went to his User page and in this dif left a note, as follows:

++++++ GMO stuff

Hi Geraldatyrrell - you are pretty new here. Please be aware that there is a community of editors who have been working on GMO-related articles for a long time. You are surely aware that there is some controversy around them.

I hope you are aware of WP:BRD - it is great to be Bold and edit an article, but if you are Reverted, Discuss. And do not edit war. Please come and Talk on the pages where you are working! Writing long edit notes is not the same as joining or starting a discussion on Talk - please see the article on tendentious editing]. I don't believe you have looked at the talk pages, but please know that we had a recent Rfc (if you don't know what that is, please see WP:RFC) about the consensus statement on the relative safety of GM food vis a vis conventional food, and the current statement and sourcing were accepted by the community. Editing against the conclusion of an RfC is another form of tendentious editing - the record of the RfC is here. I am writing to you here to try to help you not go down the wrong road - you are a newish editor and jumping into a controversial article and edit warring is not a great way to begin. More voices in the conversation are great - but please do join the conversation. Thanks. 14:30, 22 October 2013 (UTC) ++++++

So, with respect to this content and this source, in addition to what I wrote above about the RfC and scientific consensus, I want to add the following:Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

1. about and a year and a half ago, all the GMO-related articles were choked with anti-GMO concerns, to the point that there was very little clear information about any of the subject articles; it was hard to see what a "GMO" is exactly, the GM crops article was pretty bloated, and there was no information at all, on what foods were actually genetically modified.. and one of the big reasons for this, is that everywhere - everywhere - people had inserted texts like this one, and over time that accreted, like algae filling up a forest pond, until the actual content that the anti-GMO crowd was commenting on, was gone or obscured. We have done a lot of work to clean these articles up, and there is now an entire article devoted to Genetically modified food controversies, which each article retaining a stub noting the controversies and directing readers to that article. The insertion of this content here, is sliding back down toward useless article. The content doesn't belong in that spot anymore than it could go in any of another 100 spots in the article... which is why we have chosen to handle this as described above. That can change of course, but let's talk about it!Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think the article, in its current form, promotes a viewpoint that is uncharacteristic of scientific consensus. In all truth, I don't think there is scientific consensus. When there is scientific consensus presented on this topic I often suspect poor representation of sources or more often a narrowing of the actual argument so that there seems to be consensus. What I mean by this, and I will need to read the rest of the talk page firs , is that I think people are confusing direct and indirect human health effects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Geraldatyrrell (talk • contribs)

Are you talking about the whole article, or the section summarizing the controversies? As I wrote above, the purpose of each of the GMO-related articles, is to describe the thing itself - in this case, to answer the question "what is a GMO"?, so that readers can get a clear understanding of that. Imagine a textbook on evolution that Creationists had gotten their hands on, and inserted objections each step of the way. It would be really hard for students to clearly understand what the fuss was about. That is what GMO-related articles were like, before we cleaned them up. Below, you noted that you are actually going to read the sources used to support the statement about consensus in the Controversies section. Please do read them! Also please do read the RfC cited above. It is hard to have a conversation when we are not looking at the same set of facts and sources. Jytdog (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC) (added to this Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 23 October 2013 (UTC))

1. More importantly, let me answer "what is wrong the source"? I would kind of turn that around, and say, "why do you consider this a reliable source - that anybody would find authoritative?" First of all, this is not a peer-reviewed secondary source or a statement from an authoritative scientific body -- it is a blog posting. Please see WP:SPS. Second, the title of the site itself leads one to believe it will be anti-GMO pro-organic, and digging in, one finds that is the case. Not a neutral source - not the kind of source anybody should bring to the table, for a controversial topic. Third, the author is Claire Robinson, who also runs http://www.independentsciencenews.org/ which publishes great "science" like "there are 'electron microscope organisms' that live in GM food." Independent Science News is part of http://www.bioscienceresource.org/ which is also a pro-organic/anti-GMO organization. So... the publication is not a reliable, NPOV source on this issue. Much less an RS for any content in Misplaced Pages.Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I was unaware of the author's other affiliations, but I would like to point out the many other signers to this article and I ask what you make of them. I think they at least warrant a second look at the claim that scientific consensus has been reached. I will grant that the lead author may be a loon. As a side note, I don't find this source particularly unnerving even though it is obviously an opinion piece, only because so many authors obviously agree with the statement being made.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Geraldatyrrell (talk • contribs)

Not sure what you mean by "unnerving". I want to point that 85 scientists signed this, but there are hundreds who work in academia, in industry, and in regulatory agencies who think this is WP:FRINGE. One of the absurd things in the letter (and, I think, pretty downright dishonestly misleading) is the inclusion of "environment" in the letter. I am not aware of any statements that there is broad scientific consensus that GM crops are as safe as conventional crops on the environment. There is consensus on aspects of that. For instance there was a big fuss over a 1999 paper that had some data showing that Bt might be harmful to butterflies. That was cleared up by 2002 or so and now there is consensus that Bt is not harming butterflies. There is consensus on some specific issues like that. But all those statements about environment are misleading canards. Their point 4 is also a pretty terrible example of misdirection. Epidemiological studies are expensive. They get funded, only if there is some evidence that there is a real problem. Happened when asbestos was emerging; its happening now with BPA; it hasn't happened with GM food because there is no public health crisis that demands attention that can be reasonably tied to GM food - there is nothing that says it would be worth anyone's time and most importantly, money, to do it. (more on that below, in response to your rough question) And point 8 is more misdirection. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a political document - an agreement among nations, driven by political concerns. Jytdog (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

1. finally, as I said, there is is a scientific consensus on this. We had an RfC on the content describing the consensus, and its sourcing, and it stood up, because every regulatory agency on the planet, the AAAS, the Royal Society, etc etc have all said, in one version or another, that currently marketed food from GMOs is as safe as food from conventional organisms. An article from a fringe scientist, denying the consensus, in a blog, cannot stand against the consensus. Please see WP:FRINGE.Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

So there you go, User:Geraldatyrrell. I for one am very happy to see new people come and work on these articles. Please continue to be bold! But please do your homework and bring great sources. And please be ready and willing to talk about the changes, whether or not they are reverted. Misplaced Pages is a community effort. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I have a question, and simply asking may resolve the question faster than if I dig for days: How do GMO proponents resolve the fact that the US has been in the midst of a public health nightmare (diabetes, heart disease, etc.) since the dawn of the GMO crop, and without labelling we cannot accurately exclude GMOs as the cause of these diseases? I know this question is a little rough around the edges but I assume you all know what I mean. Are there any good sources on this issue?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Geraldatyrrell (talk • contribs)

I have saved this for last, because... well, I don't know quite how to respond. First, the answer to your direct question is, I don't know. I am unaware of anyone who has given it serious thought. Second, I am not a "GMO proponent" and I don't really care how they think. I am, however, aware than anti-GMO activists love to pose this, as though it were a reasonable question. You have seemed like a pretty reasonable person, and I understand you are an aspiring scientist.... but the question is a bit more than "a little rough around the edges." There are almost too many things wrong with it to discuss... but 1) http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/statistics/prev/national/figpersons.htm If I look at the graph and then look at the dates, the trend starts going up in 1989. There was a mass approval of GM crops in 1996, so they would not have entered the food supply til 1997. 2) heart disease http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/ahamah-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd/documents/downloadable/ucm_447447.pdf has gone... down. 3) I think you understand that correlation is not causation... but can be a clue to designing experiments. I think (and hope) that is where you are coming from. But you have to look for reasonable experiments to do - some reason why X might be causing Y as opposed to anything from A-W. (although without even a nice correlation of dates I don't know why I am still talking about this, but whatever) I don't know if you understand what the main 2 genetic modifications actually are (Bt and glyphosate resistance) - do you? real question. I don't know how much biology you know, either. But if you understand those two modifications, and think about what happens when you eat food... you are going to have a very hard time coming up with a justification for considering GM food as a reasonable candidate on which to spend your time and money on a study. (this is one of the biggest problems with Seralini's whole deal.. he has no hypothesis for why GM maize would be toxic. It is one of the biggest reasons why the mainstream community doesn't take him seriously.) I also think the epidemiological study you contemplate would be nearly impossible to design and execute so that you could get meaningful data out of it, and again, why would you even do it? I don't think whether we labelled GM food or not would make the experiment any more tractable either, as there are plenty of folks who eat organic. The question is almost as bad as this. (Which folks have tried to put into Misplaced Pages, and was declared unreliable at WP:MEDRS in this thread.) I am sorry I have been somewhat harsh here. But really.. Jytdog (talk) 04:50, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

• I also have a bit of beef with some of the articles cited in the article. A long list of sources reassures a reader that the statement is fact, but that will be misleading when a source is crap. I deleted one because it was essentially an interview with a milling company which is biased for obvious reasons. A few of the other sources seem a bit tenuous to me, and I'll see if I can access them to check them out.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Geraldatyrrell (talk • contribs)

Are you talking about have wondered about that one too, based on the title, but that is one that I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. It was added by folks I trust though. Did you read it yet? Does it talk about the scientific consensus or not? Jytdog (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

content added today to GM crops section

today in this dif, the following content was added by User:CFredkin: "In the 17 years since genetically modified crops were first commercialized, people have consumed billions of meals containing genetically modified foods and not one problem has been documented. In addition, genetically modified crops have been studied extensively by respected scientific organizations who have determined that genetically modified crops are safe for humans and positive for the environment.(ref name="Montagu">Marc Van Montagu (October 22, 2013). "The Irrational Fear of GM Food". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 28, 2013.</ref)" (ref formatting intentionally broken to make ref visible)

This is Ok but redundant content and source, but it does not belong in this section of this article. We have a main article on Genetically modified food controversies and a brief section in each relevant article, taken from the lead of the mani GM food Controversies article. The lead, and each of the sections, make clear that there is a scientific consensus on food-safety of currently marketed GM foods. This article could potentially be used as a source for the scientific consensus statement (although probably not, as we have articles from scientists to make that claim. Happy to discuss! Jytdog (talk) 17:05, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Currently there is no mention of the fact that there is scientific consensus on food safety regarding GM foods in this article.CFredkin (talk) 17:08, 28 October 2013 (UTC) In addition, currently the controversy is mentioned twice in this article - in the GM Crops and Controversy sections. In my opinion, every time the controversy is mentioned a summary of the current scientific thinking/benefits should be provided as well. CFredkin (talk) 17:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I see. We had done what I mentioned above, in other articles in the GM suite - we had just neglected this one. Done now. Thanks for pointing that out! Needs to be edited a bit more to make it more apt to this specific article, but so much that we get dramatically different content. Thanks again! Jytdog (talk) 17:14, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks you for adding content to the Controversy section. However I believe the reference to controversy in the GM Crops section is redundant. If we're going to maintain that redundancy, then I think the scientific consensus should be added there as well.CFredkin (talk) 17:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed! Done. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much.CFredkin (talk) 17:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

addition of "gene splicing" to lead

Two different IP addresses have tried to add the words "or gene splicing" to the lead, as shown in italics as follows: "A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering or gene splicing techniques. " To the person or persons doing this, please know that gene splicing is simply one form, among many, of genetic engineering techniques. It is not some alternative to genetic engineering, but rather a subset of genetic engineering techniques. The edit makes no sense. Please stop making it. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

ENSSER

Editor Arsenal lb made an edit to the article that was reverted (or rejected actually) by Jinkinson with the summary: "Activist groups are not reliable sources. Take this to talk please".

Although I don't agree with completely removing the sentence:

• There is no evidence to support the idea that the consumption of approved GM food has a detrimental effect on human health.

I also believe it should be refactored at least to attribute the statement to the corresponding organization(s) and avoid WP:OR and WP:SYN.

As for Arsenal lb's addition:

• In October 2013 the European Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibilities released a statement stating, “Claims that there is a consensus among scientific and governmental bodies that GM foods are safe, or that they are no more risky than non-GM foods, are false." The ENSSER also states “The claim that it does exist is misleading and misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue.”

I would remove the second sentence and leave just the first one in the article. Jinkinson dismissed this organization as an "activist group" but a Google search returns a great deal of WP:RS and I found no evidence to support this claim. Would you care to expand on your comment? Regards. Gaba 02:32, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

thanks for commenting! i didn't do the revision but i agree with it. quick background - this issue is much like global warming where there is a scientific consensus, and fringe groups who oppose the consensus. it easy to come at it from outside, and be confused. about adding this source and changing this paragraph, this has been discussed.... please see discussion above at Talk:Genetically_modified_organism#Statement_denying_scientific_consensus_-_reverted. happy to talk more but wanted to bring you into the conversation first. Jytdog (talk) 13:48, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jytdog and thank you for the welcome! Instead of discussing GMOs in general (which we should not as per WP:NOTFORUM) lets just stick to the edits and sources proposed. Regarding the statement "There is no evidence to support the idea that the consumption of approved GM food has a detrimental effect on human health", I could not find such a statement in any of the three sources used. Would you mind pointing me where this is stated? As you know, we can not synthesize knowledge into one fact nor can we use our own knowledge as a source.

As for the edit added by Arsenal lb, the source seems to be a reliable one and the quote he used is substantiated by it. I would just change it a bit:

• In October 2013 the European Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibilities released a statement stating, "Claims that there is a consensus among scientific and governmental bodies that GM foods are safe, or that they are no more risky than non-GM foods, are false." As of October 30 2013, it had been signed by over 200 academics from around the world of various scientific backgrounds.

If you have any reason as to why this source shouldn't be used, please present it and we can discuss it. I'll await your reply. Regards. Gaba 15:09, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry the discussion above is a bit wide ranging. But the source is not reliable and especially not for anything health-related as per WP:MEDRS. I will copy paste here what I wrote above: "First of all, this is not a peer-reviewed secondary source or a statement from an authoritative scientific body -- it is a blog posting. Please see WP:SPS. Second, the title of the site itself leads one to believe it will be anti-GMO pro-organic, and digging in, one finds that is the case. Not a neutral source - not the kind of source anybody should bring to the table, for a controversial topic. Third, the author is Claire Robinson, who also runs http://www.independentsciencenews.org/ which publishes great "science" like "there are 'electron microscope organisms' that live in GM food." Independent Science News is part of http://www.bioscienceresource.org/ which is also a pro-organic/anti-GMO organization. So... the publication is not a reliable, NPOV source on this issue. Much less an RS for any content in Misplaced Pages." I see that you work holding down the fort in some areas where pseudoscience is prevalent and you are familiar with the dangers of ideology dressed up as science. Unclear why you appear to be supporting it here! Jytdog (talk) 15:31, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Jytdog let me go by parts:

1. You have not pointed where in the three sources used for the statement currently in the article such statement is mentioned. If there's no WP:RS backing this, it will have to be removed.
2. I fail to see the relevance of the quote you copy/paste here where you discuss other sources. Do you have any reason/source to base your dismissal of this particular statement from ENSSER? If not I see no reason as to why the quote shouldn't be added to the article.
3. Yes, I do work on climate change and intelligent design related articles and I'm doing right now precisely what I do on those: adhere to WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:SYN and WP:RS.

I'll await your comments on the concerns raised. Thank you very much. Gaba 15:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

gaba:

1. The sentence you are asking about is supported by all three sources cited; I do not understand why you are not finding it.
2. I have explained why the source you want to introduce is not reliable under RS and under MEDRS. Please address what I have said and please explain why the source complies with MEDRS.
3. btw, This paragraph is taken from the lead of the Genetically modified food controversies article - folks who are opposed to GM food slathered all the related articles (including this one) with anti-GMO stuff, and what we have done over the past year and a half is to create an extensive article focused on the controversies, and included a "controversies" section in each GMO-releated article (see hatnote at the top of the page) that is based closely on the lead of the main Controversies article. So if this is a battle you really want to fight, that is the place to do it - there is extensive discussion on that Talk. We also had an RfP on these food safety statements, which you can read here. You are going to have to overturn an RfC consensus, to change this. This is bigger than you and me! Jytdog (talk) 16:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to ask you one more time and I'll try to be as clear as possible so there can be no possible misunderstanding.

1. Please present at least one source (more is always better) to back the following statement currently in place in the article:

• There is no evidence to support the idea that the consumption of approved GM food has a detrimental effect on human health

quoting the exact appropriate section in each source that backs said claim. This statement is quite different from the one agreed upon on the RfC you mention ("There is broad scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops pose no greater risk than conventional food.") If you want to introduce a variation of this last statement, please do so. If you want to keep the current statement then you need to present the sources quoting the precise passages that support it.

2. The source is the organization's site which is a perfectly valid source for a statement put forward by that organization. You have not given a single reason as to why you claim the source is not valid under WP:RS. Furthermore WP:MEDRS is about medical sources which have absolutely nothing to do with a source for a public statement. Just in case you need more sources: .

Once again, I'll await your comments. Regards. Gaba 17:35, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

On the "no effects" statement. I didn't ask but did you look at the sources provided? In any case:

1. AMA, first page: "Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature." (first page)
2. NAS, pp R9-10: "In contrast to adverse health effects that have been associated with some traditional food production methods, similar serious health effects have not been identified as a result of genetic engineering techniques used in food production. This may be because developers of bioengineered organisms perform extensive compositional analyses to determine that each phenotype is desirable and to ensure that unintended changes have not occurred in key components of food."
3. Royal society pp 292-293. "Foods derived from GM crops have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people across the world for more than 15 years, with no reported ill effects (or legal cases related to human health), despite many of the consumers coming from that most litigious of countries, the USA."Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have explained why the ENSSER statement is not a reliable source under plain RS and importantly under MEDRS. You have not responded to what I stated, nor have you made an argument as to why this is a reliable source, especially under MEDRS. I look forward to hearing from you on both aspects. Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I just added these quotes to the refs, for future reference.Jytdog (talk) 00:35, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The statement "There is no evidence to support the idea that the consumption of approved GM food has a detrimental effect on human health" is a very broad one and needs to be clearly attributed and sourced. Neither of the sources you presented does this.

1. The AMA quote you posted above immediately follows with "However, a small potential for adverse events exists, due mainly to horizontal gene transfer, allergenicity, and toxicity." This goes directly against the claim made in the broad prior statement.
2. As for the NSA source, please see: p. 128 "..Despite the power of methods suggested by this conceptual approach and their ability to identify GE foods likely to have adverse effects, it is impossible using any method to prove the lack of an unintended effect."; p. 175: "..application of any technique to produce altered levels of or novel food components can result in unintended compositional changes that may in turn result in an adverse health effect." which also contradict the absolute and broad statement mentioned above. A better quote from that book is this I believe: "...the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, have established the background for the safety assessment of GE food (FAO/WHO, 2000; OECD, 2000). In general, these organizations have concluded that GE products are not inherently less safe than those developed by traditional breeding (IFT, 2000)" (p. 131).
3. The JRSM source is contrasted by another publication in the same journal in response to the very article you mention where it is stated: "GM crops consumed... with no reported ill effects – therefore they are safe. This statement is illogical and the conclusion is not valid." which completely trumps that source.

In light of all this, I'd support using only the first two sources for the following modified statement:

• Several organizations including the FAO and the WHO concluded in the year 2000 that GMOs are not inherently less safe than those developed by traditional breeding. In 2012 the American Medical Association presented a report stating that "no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature" since GMOs started being consumed 20 years ago."

This is far more in line with the sources and correctly attributes the statement to the organizations that put it forward.

Now, regarding the ENSSER statement. 1- You have not explained why it is not a reliable source as per WP:RS anywhere in this discussion. I think you might be confused. 2- I've explained above that WP:MEDRS applies to sources used for statements concerning the medical science, it has absolutely nothing to do with a source for a public statement being presented by an organization. 3- You have not mentioned the two other sources I presented for this statement: Phys.org and EcoWatch. Do you also think these are not reliable sources? Gaba 01:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

With regard to your discussion of the quotes - the additional texts you bring in all discuss hypotheticals; the text in our article and that I quoted discuss reality. That said, I agree that a more narrow statement is more supportable. I just went and reviewed the history of the Controversies article to see where the broader statement came in (it used to be more narrow, like the one you propose). It was actually introduced in this edit by a guy who was focusing on a different aspect of this paragraph, and it just slipped right in. I am actually OK with the more older, more narrow statement and will implement it throughout the suite, including here.Jytdog (talk) 02:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

With regard to ENSSER, I have explained. You don't need to underline things; I can read. I am irritated to the point that I am going to walk away and reply more later. Am going to edit now. I will say that you are wrong about MEDRS, which is about "health related information". Please read it. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:36, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, dealing with ENSSER now. Their website is a WP:SPS. The question will come down to the paragraph in MEDRS on statements by scientific organizations, which reads as follows: "Medical and scientific organizations: Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include the U.S. National Academies (including the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences), the British National Health Service, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. The reliability of these sources range from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature." Please note that we have the American Academy for the Advancement of Science cited here, explicitly stating that there is a scientific consensus; AAAS cites in turn the NAS, The Royal Society, and other groups, all of which, with the AAAS are the kind of "reputable major medical and scientific bodies" that MEDRS authorizes for use as sources. I will acknowledge that that there are other scientific bodies, such as ENSSER, and including the Union of Concerned Scientists, Testbiotech, Bioscience Resource Project, etc that do not agree. These are not "reputable major medical and scientific bodies" on par with the ones we use as sources. If you go through ENSSER's website, it is clear that their focus is fighting GMOs; if you look at their board you see they are anti-GMO activitists, including a guy from CRIIGEN, the institute that Seralini set up to fund his anti-GMO activities. This is not a "major scientific body". As you know, consensus does not mean unanimity. Citing the ENSSER document in the lead of the Controversies article or in any of these stub sections, gives WP:UNDUE to a position that is WP:FRINGE. As for the two sites you mention, phys.org picks up all kinds of press releases, and the other is an activist website; I note that no major media outlets reported ENSSER's press release; it was widely touted in the echo chamber of anti-GMO activist websites. None of these add authority to this statement by a non-major scientific body. If you do not agree, we can post the existing content and its sources, and this source, at the MEDRS talk page for comment. Jytdog (talk) 11:57, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for editing the article back to the older and less broad statement, I can live with that. And thank you for editing the other article too, really appreciate that.

The ENSSER website is an WP:SPS just as much as the AAAS and the AMA sites are who also host their own reports . This is not a valid concern, especially because the report was also picked up by numerous news outlets.

You have not quoted anything in WP:RS that would mean we should disregards all the sources I presented. You are reading WP:MEDRS too broadly and incorrectly I'm afraid. We are sourcing a public statement about the opinion on whether there is a consensus regarding the safety of GMOs here, not even close to being medical fact. Here's some more sources in case you want to take a look at them: (that's not counting the dozens of other smaller news outlets that echoed the issue).

As for your concerns:

• "it is clear that their focus is fighting GMOs"", this is your own conclusion and it is inconsequential (and close to being an ad-hominem fallacy). Furthermore I note that in that very section of the article we mention The Non-GMO Project and Organic Consumers Association (this last one is also one of the sources presented above), which are known anti-GMO organizations. So your reasoning of why this one shouldn't be mentioned has no substance.
• "phys.org picks up all kinds of press releases", this is not even a reason (?). Phys.org is a very reputable site.
• "the other is an activist website", again your own conclusion. It is a news outlet that can be used as a secondary source unless you can come up with a valid reason not to.
• "gives WP:UNDUE to a position that is WP:FRINGE", not it does not and no it is not. It simply adheres to WP:NPOV.
• "no major media outlets reported ENSSER's press release", there is no requirement that all statements added to WP should be present in a major media outlet, just that the outlet be reliable and not an WP:SPS.

Arguing that we should not quote the major dissenting voice (so far) about GMO safety in a section specifically about the GMO controversy is frankly a bit silly.

We've been going about this for some time now and it appears we're not getting anywhere. I've presented more than enough sources to warrant a mention of the statement in the appropriate section. If you still disagree I guess RfC is the next step (the talk page of MEDRS would resolve nothing for several reasons the most important being that MEDRS has nothing to do with the issue at hand). Regards. Gaba 13:12, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

1. American Medical Association (2012). Report 2 of the Council on Science and Public Health: Labeling of Bioengineered Foods
2. United States Institute of Medicine and National Research Council (2004). Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects. National Academies Press. Free full-text. National Academies Press. See pp11ff on need for better standards and tools to evaluate GM food.
3. Key S, Ma JK, Drake PM (2008). "Genetically modified plants and human health". J R Soc Med. 101 (6): 290–8. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2008.070372. PMC 2408621. PMID 18515776. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
4. ^ "No Scientific Consensus on GMO Safety." ENSSER. European Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibilities, 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.

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