Organic Food over GMO

DISCLAIMERI'm disappointed to report that Pro's first argument is built on multiple falsehoods taken from non-trusted websites such as NaturalRevolution.com, a well-known anti-GMO campaigner that lacks accreditation and does not cite from trusted sources. This forces me to demolish Pro's house of cards in this round to then present my case in other rounds.Pro's burden of proof consists of proving that all GM food is hazardous and should be banned. To prove that, Pro was expected to offer peer-reviewed researches and experiments.DEFINITIONSGenetically Modified: Containing genetic material that has been artificially altered so as to produce a desired characteristic[1].Food: Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth[2].REBUTTALPro's argument is unsupportedPro seems to be starting off with an argument that could be summarized as:P1- In his study, Dr. Pusztai proved that something about genetic modification causes instant health hazards in GM food. [Pseudoscientific claim that is rejected by academics]P2- Food that is hazardous to health should be banned.Conclusion: GM Food should be banned.In other words, Pro claims that Dr. Pusztai has figured out something rather intrinsic about genetic engineering that causes health hazards. Nevertheless, Pro fails in explaining how Dr. Pusztai reached such a scientific breakthrough, and how Dr. Pusztai's experiment is peer-reviewed and accepted by academics.The Rat experiment of Dr. Pusztai1- Dr. Pusztai's work is classified as pseudoscience and rejected by peer-reviewed journals. It was reviewed by two separate academic panels (Royal Society 1999; Fedoroff and Brown 2004) and proven to have a flawed experimental design and a biased conduct of experimentation[3,4].2- Major flaws reported by the Royal Society, which is a prestigious, academic journal. For one, the same cellular differences could be seen in all groups (GM-fed or not) as opposed to Dr. Pusztai's conclusion, in addition to the fact that the number of experimented rats was very nominal for such an experiment to have any statistical significance[3]. Not to mention that there were no meaningful differences between the experiment and control group and numerous other violations[3].In summary, Dr. Pusztai's experiment is neither academic nor accepted by academics, but a possible case of fraudulence, especially his claim that artificially modifying even one gene results in health hazards.The anti-GMO cotton-plant mythPro argues, "The estimated 10,000 sheep that died in India within 5-7 days of grazing on GM cotton plants engineered to produce their own Bt-toxin pesticide."Rebuttal: This is a myth spread around by anti-GMO enthusiasts without any actual evidence. I shall list a few points to clarify all the problems with Pro's claim:1- Bt cotton is widespread and has not caused such problems. About 50% of the cotton grown in the world is Bt cotton, and no similar reports have come from millions of farmers who plant Bt-cotton[7].2- As reported by the Indian researchers (Karihaloo and Kumar 2009), the dead sheep were affected by high nitrate levels[8] and not a "Bt-toxin pesticide".3- Studies such as (Wang and Provenza 1996) have investigated numerous cases of sheep dying from organic plants because of chemicals such as cyanide, oxalate and nitrate[9]. Hence, GM or not, the cotton could have easily poisoned the sheep.Russian Preliminary Study: Ermakova’s rejected findings1- The study was neither professional nor based on the scientific method. As reported by (Marshall, 2007), Ermakova did not perform any other animal study of this kind and did not follow the scientific method and standard procedures[5].2- Repetition of experiment proved it false. Ermakova’s experiment reported a 10% mortality death-rate, while other repetitions of the same experiment by Brake and Evanson in 2004 did not even result in one case of death[6].The "only" GM Feeding study Pro states, "The only human GM feeding study ever published, which shows that the foreign genes inserted into GM food crops can transfer into the DNA of our gut bacteria."Rebuttal: I'm familiar with more than 10 GM feeding studies, so I'm not sure what study Pro is talking about. After further investigating this sentence, it seems to have been copied and pasted from http://blogs.webmd.com... which is a non-trusted source to begin with.The FDAPro claims, "In fact the FDA has repeatedly warned Congress that GM food can quote "result in unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems".Rebuttal: This seems like a fabrication on my opponent's behalf. The website that mentions it finds it unnecessary to give any citation for that spectacular claim. I tried searching for the exact phrase, and I couldn't find one governmental website that has it. It only seems to be in "vegan" blogs and anti-GMO organizations.Banned in twenty six countriesPro states, "Currently 26 developed countries have banned all forms of GM foods p[sic] and many others have significant restrictions."Rebuttal: According to Dr. Claire Marris who has researched the European boycott, the banning policies of Europe were based on false assumptions about Europeans thinking that GMO is bad for them, when such assumptions were made on their behalf because of erroneous statistics[10]. This proves that such boycott in 26 countries was simply political and based on false demographics. In Dr. Marris' words, "Our research suggests that one reason for this situation is not a lack of public understanding of the science but rather policies that continue to be based largely on erroneous beliefs about ‘the public’. Clearly, there is a mismatch between the way in which institutions comprehend public perceptions, and the attitudes expressed by the participants in our focus groups." Unless Pro provides scientific evidence why GMOs were banned in Europe, then her claim that it was banned is not significant as such boycott was based on anti-GMO lobbying and false demographics.SUMMARYPro promised in the first round to provide "facts," but later presented myths and pseudoscience taken from non-trusted and biased sources. I'm out of character-space so I'll try to present my agnostic position in the next rounds.CITATIONS[1] Oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/genetically-modified?q=genetically+modified[2] Oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/food?q=food[3] Annual Review Plant Biology 59:771–812. Royal Society UK (1999).[4] Fedoroff NV, and Brown NM (2004). Chapter 9 Poisoned rats or poisoned wells in Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods, Joseph Henry Press, Washington, D.C.[5] Marshall, A. 2007. GM soybeans and health safety—a controversy reexamined Nature Biotech. 25:981-987.[6] Brake, D. G. & Evenson, D. P. 2004. “A generational study of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans on mouse fetal, postnatal, pubertal and adult testicular development.” Food Chem. Tox, 42: 29-36.[7] Brookes, G., Barfoot, P. 2007. Global impact of biotech crops: Socio-economic and environmental effects, 1996-2006. AgBioForum, 11: 21-38 [8] Karihaloo JL and Kumar PA (2009). Bt cotton in India – A status report (Second Edition). Asia-Pacific Consortium on Agricultural Biotechnology (APCoAB), New Delhi, India.[9] Wang J and Provenza FD (1996). Food deprivation affects preference of sheep for foods varying in nutrients and a toxin. Journal of Chemical Ecology 22(11):2011-2021[10] Public views on GMOs: deconstructing the myths. Dr. Claire Marris. Online source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...