permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Fw: Emergency! Pathogen New to Science Found in 
Roundup Ready GM Crops? now the chickens come home to roost
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 05:37:07 -0500
From: Beginning Farmers <beginningfarmers@GMAIL.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

I'm no fan of GMO's, and believe there are a whole host of legitimate
scientific and social reasons for opposing their deregulation. But there are
a lot of really strange inconsistencies and unanswered questions in this
letter that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. It would have
been nice if the author had sent some of the data he refers to along with
it. If I was trying to get Vilsack or anyone else to take me seriously about
something like this I'd provide as much evidence as I could even if it was
still preliminary or proprietary.

There's pretty good evidence that he's right about is the role of roundup in
increasing disease. Glyphosate has been shown to inhibit the activity of of
5-enolpyruvoyl shikimate 3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), which is part of the
'shikimate pathway'. This pathway is central to the development of aromatic
amino acids which are necessary components in the production of phenolic
compounds (plant defense compounds). And researchers have linked glyphosate
applications to increased SDS disease incidence and severity.

But the existence of a 'microfungus' seems highly unlikely. Fungi are living
organisms composed of cells, and most are multicellular (yeast is an
exception). A 'medium sized virus' is maybe 100 nanometers in diameter. And
the smallest known organism, *Nanoarchaeum equitans *(a thermophilic
bacterium and obligate symbiont)* *is 400 nanometers in diameter. Yeast are
the simplest fungi and are typically several micrometers in diameter (a
micrometer is 1/1,000,000th of a meter, a nanometer is 1/1,000,000,000th of
a meter). A fungus 1/4 the size of the smallest bacterium ever found and
several hundred times smaller than the smallest fungi just doesn't square
with current scientific understanding of microorganisms. Most scientists
agree that an organism would need to be 200-300 nanometers in diameter to
hold the bare minimum of necessary components for cell function (DNA, RNA,
and plasmids).

I'm wondering if he's looking at nanobes. These are filamentous (like fungi)
and about the size he's talking about. The debate about whether or not they
are living organisms is ongoing. They're prevalent in both rock formations
and living organisms and some scientists have presented evidence that they
may contain DNA, though the jury is still out. To my knowledge no one has
ever seen them reproduce as the letter writer claims his 'pathogen' does.
And if this is what he's talking about, they certainly wouldn't be the first
ever identified.

The letter also consistently refers to this 'organism' as a 'pathogen'. But
since the late 1800's the established criterion for determining
pathogenicity is the successful application of Koch's Postulates:

   1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms
   suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy 
organisms.
   2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown
   in pure culture.
   3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced 
into a
   healthy organism.
   4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased
   experimental host and identified as being identical to the original 
specific
   causative agent.

The letter merely offers that it is present in greater concentrations where
disease is present, which is true of lots of things that we actually know
are organisms but are not pathogens. If he'd done Koch's he wouldn't be
talking about 'suspected effects'.

The wheatlage (he misspelled it) example is curious to me too because 1)
there aren't any commercial varieties of RR wheat approved for use in the
U.S., and 2) he is only assuming that the wheat was treated with roundup
which seems like a strange way to do a comparison trial. Wheat fields are
often treated with roundup prior to planting, but are not themselves
treated, lest they die, as they would if they had taken up significant
residual roundup from preplant applications. And to assume that just because
something which may or may not be living is present on this wheatlage is
really poor evidence for this thing as the culprit. Aflatoxin or a host of
other compounds or pathogens could be the cause, and don't seem to have been
ruled out.

So while I'd love to see a gradual phase out of GMO crops (if it was done
overnight American agriculture really would collapse since there is no
longer nearly enough non-gmo seed being produced to cover more than a
fraction of production land) this letter simply doesn't provide very
compelling evidence for doing so. And until its author actually presents
such evidence I think that opposing the proliferation of GMO's should be
based on the ample published scientific research and legitimate social
arguments that we know exist. To embrace one person's speculative and as yet
unsupported theories in making the case will only serve to promote the
widespread contention that our opposition is scientifically baseless,
largely emotional (or even hysterical), and has no grounding in reality.
This is the last thing we want.

Taylor Reid