Monsanto, the real problem with GMOs

Lots of protests worldwide against Monsanto these days. The Genetically Modified crops (GMO, O is for organism-genetically modified crops are a special case of GMO, because you can modify animals also) leader has taken a lot of heat. But most people do not understand the real problem, here I go over it. The protests are okay, but are not for the right reasons.

Monsanto claims to modify crops genetically to improve yields and improve resistance to pests (these are the major two). Then they sell their own pesticides which go hand in hand with their seed. The farmer is bound by contract to plant their seed and buy their pesticides (Glyphosate or Roundup, and others). The farmer signs long term agreements to buy the seed from Monsanto (they can't even replant the seed from their crop).

The Science behind Monsanto (or all GMO crop companies) having done any good is dubious. 

Man's selection of crops, together with natural selection, has improved yields and resistance to pests enough that no one in Europe or Americas died of hunger since about 1500..what is Monsanto improving? The monopoly motivated city folk together with the unscrupulous scientists who work for Monsanto make up all kinds of data to show that their crops are better (higher yield, more resistance to pests). The US FDA falls for all this and the United States, the most important agricultural country in the world since 1800, falls for these people. Thankfully the monopoly of Monsanto in the US is countered by other GMO companies, who with equally bad science, provide a balance. And being a developed country the monopoly is controlled by a smart, agriculture favoring government and a good judicial system. So Monsanto prospered in the US, and the US farmer has not seen many problems, but unfortunately, outside the US, the governments are not that smart and the Monsanto monopoly becomes really oppressive for the farmers.

However, even in the US, there are some problems. The US court system in it's zeal of Intellectual Property protection has ruled against the farmer (see example here) but most farmers seem to be okay planting Monsanto seeds and buying pesticides from it. The stupidity of the Science behind the patents is not questioned-and Monsanto, like Apple, becomes another purveyor of patents and intellectual property rights. An Iphone is a completely different thing from a soyabean seed-one is a luxury, the other a necessity-and we start giving patents against farmers the food supply is bound to go down. The most friendly country for agriculture-USA-has fallen for the machinations of a wily monopolist. That Monsanto, a company which is valued at 50 billion dollars sues an individual farmer (in the link above) to protect it's Intellectual property is more a poke in the eye of the US patent office than the poor farmer-the whole patenting of seeds should not be allowed. The US Patent Office is taken for a ride by Apple and Microsoft, but now even the "farmer friendly Monsanto" is using it to win against farmers in courts.

Smith was very lauding of farmers-he said that they readily and willingly shared improvements in the techniques of agriculture with one another, they were free from the spirit of monopoly and "hiding my secret" which pervades in the city folk. Well with Monsanto, the city folk found a way to oppress the farmers!

Contrary to what many believe, the GMO crops do not have any health risks

300 million americans in the USA and several other large countries in the Americas have been eating these grains for a few decades and they seem to be living on just fine. The ignorant public is swayed by the health risk of GMOs and goes around protesting against Monsanto-the clear data than hundreds of millions of people eat GMO crop grains without major health problems is completely sidelined. The real problem-the bad science behind Monsanto and the contracts they impose on the farmers, is not talked about.

Everything around you is modified (genetically by man) anyway. The apples, pears, oranges etc. you see are selected by man to suit his tastes. Wheat, maize etc. are the same way selected for what we want. Darwin formulated his theory of evolution on this very basis-that in a few generation man could create new species and varieties of all kinds of plants and animals. His detailed "Variation under domestication of plants and animals", which is really the big book (two volumes) from which the data for the "Origin of Species" is taken, gives you a history of all domestic plants and animals, where they come from, etc. concluding that most do not exist in the wild state, and are modified by man be slow selection (and sometimes fast selection) to suit his needs or fancies. The point is-that we have been genetically modifying plants and animals since a long time, and there is little likelihood of us doing much wrong by "combination and permutation" of genes. The varieties of wheat, maize, etc. we see today in our fields are carefully selected and optimized for the highest yields, pest resistance etc..and the funkiness of Monsanto's science is really not needed at all to improve them, simple selection by man will improve the crops, plants and animals much better.

Stuff like exotic gene splicing, of putting fish genes in plants or a dog (which scares a lot of people, even the learned Mr. Nassim Taleb), are not cutting-edge science; they are a foolish scientist trying to create something new. The plant or animal which one creates by 'insertion' of foreign and very different genes will most probably die, and has an even lower probability of reproducing (a necessary thing to create lots of individuals of the species). This is covered well by Darwin throughout his book, and the second volume of it. Hybrids are difficult to form, and even more difficult to breed, is the constant message in his works.

In summary-the seeds Monsanto (and all other GMO crop makers) makes are not better than seeds developed by man without direct genetic modification (by artificial (man induced)  selection; over a few years, you get the same modifications...just that the process is slower, and we have done quite well in agriculture in Europe without GMOs). They do not give higher yielding crops or more resistant crops than what man already had (some minor exceptions may exist). The yields on French farms are not significantly lower than US farms (France has banned GMO), and no matter how much data is published by Monsanto, it should be taken with a grain of salt. If the technology of Monsanto is slightly better, or not better at all (my personal view), then the fact that Monsanto makes these massive contracts and monopolies is a reason enough for farmers not to want to plant genetically modified seeds.

Banning GMO crops is a good thing, and France (among several other intelligent countries) has not fallen for the bad science of this monopolist disguised as a cutting-edge science company, and I hope that other countries will follow suit.

Let the farmer produce without contracts and legal complications-it is the abundance of food which is the original cause of economic development of humanity.

One exception would be getting plants modified for specific illnesses/specific pests, which could have a genetic reason and solution; but that should be figured out by artificial selection by man; and there is not need for farmers to be paying expensive research fees to Monsanto. General statements like "our seeds are more pest resistant" (there are thousands of pests!) and high-yielding (marketing talk) are non-scientific and false.

Some validation for my ideas from researchers-details here.

Update 2023: Have realized now that Genetics is junk science, all of it. GMOs are totally fake. Gene splicing, insertion etc. are just simulations and models. Detailed article here.


Errors of medicine-mercury in vaccines, uselessness of yearly flu shots

UPDATE: After Covid hit in 2020, it has become clear to me that all vaccines are total junk. The immunity via antibody or T cells is a ridiculous theory. The antibody tests go all over the place [they plot them on log scale to reduce the spread!], and they are all relative anyway (lab-lab difference is expected, no standardization). Higher antibody levels do not ensure better real life outcomes.
We need to dump vaccine science for good.

Mercury/Thimerosal in Vaccines

I looked at some data on Mercury (thimerosal) in vaccines causing autism in children. There is lots of data-every researcher in the world has published data to suit whatever they wanted to prove. Mere data taking doesn't lead you to good results-ancient Greek astrologers and all astrologers of even this day try to predict what will happen in the lives of millions of human lives individually by observing the motion of a few dozen planets and stars. They are as convinced about their good and meticulous data taking as these medical researchers are about theirs. Neither has taken a course in logic and reasoning, a course which used to be taught to university students in Adam Smith's times but someone has gone away now, a very unfortunate happening. Good logic and reasoning is highly lacking in medical research, and even in physical sciences (non biological-physics, chemistry, engineering) research to a large extent.

I came to know of two mothers who have autistic kids (in total, 3 kids). The mum of one is a smart woman, and she gave me this observation-when her daughter was vaccinated at 12 months of age, she just turned weird the next day, went completely blank. And she knew then that something has changed.

Mercury (Thimerosal) is already banned in the UK, Japan, Denmark and Russia. It is banned in the States of Colorado and California in the USA.

And the rest of the world is listening to this garbage data produced by medical researchers saying it is safe  to put mercury in vaccines! I am appalled at this!

You don't need to prove something is unsafe. You start with the assumption that stuff like mercury is unsafe-we all know of mercury poisoning from high school chemistry. Why these vaccines even became popular I can't tell, but now that they are, the very fact that mercury poisoning is a well known phenomenon should be enough to first ban these medicines, then decide if they want to release them. The status quo pervades-something which has been going on seems to continue to go on even if the logic of it was and is absurd at the first place.

The US FDA has a big role in this. They are followed all over the world, and it is because of this that in Chile we we still have vaccines with mercury in them. And most other parts of Latin America. Canada is also in this boat-until the US FDA does something, the medical community will forcefully inject these vaccines into your baby's body. There is another issue here of the medical community (American Medical Association, Canadian Medical Association, Chilean Medical Association, etc) using FORCE to make parents vaccinate their babies, which I think is completely wrong, these guys are not good scientists as a group and are claiming to take care of the general population by doing this-and most of these doctors and medical researchers can't even understand the black swan problem (Taleb)---that no amount of observations of white swans proves that all swans are white. But I will reserve this post about my conclusions on the subjects of more importance-errors in medicine like this one of mercury in vaccines.

With mercury, that they are waiting to ban it is amazing. Chile even banned it for some time, but then has started to administer those vaccines again. Thousands of children will get autism before the medical community accepts that they are wrong (the public is not as stupid as they like everyone to believe) and mercury is banned in vaccines.


Yearly Flu Shots

Another error is this flu shot which is given every year. WHO (World Health Organization) has a massive campaign on that-they track the flu virus from country to country, and from one hemisphere to the other, and you are given a vaccine against THAT strain of the flu virus (and some others of the previous years) and it is said that you won't get flu if you take this for that winter. And every year the virus is new. The most popular virus is taken and administered, and you are told that you won't get flu.

What my personal experience, and adding up the experience of people around me who have taken this flu shot in several countries, is that you still get the flu. And the medical community has injected some useless vaccine into your body, charged you or the government some money for it (eventually what is charged to the government also comes out of the your pockets, but indirectly), and you are left with the same risk profile as before.

The science behind this tracking one strain of the flu virus (they have scientific looking names like H1N2 etc) is really stupid. You are immunizing against one strain of virus-and we know that people are still falling ill with flu-because there are other strains, hundreds and maybe thousands of them, which infect the body. You are not able to prevent flu by this vaccine-why are you still promoting it? Obviously the drug companies which make these vaccines have loads of data to support that it prevents flu-but look around you, look at the number of people who fall sick with this vaccine taken, and the ones who do without the vaccine, and you will find no difference! PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THIS FLU SHOT EVERY YEAR! Garbage science, garbage research, money gone down the drain, and for babies, a little bit more mercury poisoning in their system.

Here's how to reduce the chances of getting a cold/flu at the first place.

Article on avoiding vaccines for rare diseases and conditions.