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The Daily Reckoning | Tuesday, October 9, 2012 What’s in your food? The ugly side of GMOs, Meet Monsanto’s genetically modified rat (not for the weak of stomach), Plus, when modern marvels aren’t so marvelous and plenty more... ------------------------------------------------------ External Advertisement An Apple Farmer’s $300 Billion Discovery Could Be Your Ticket to Retirement He’s owned his own apple farm... He went into a successful timber venture with a young Steve Jobs... He even landed on Forbes 400 richest... But one thing will cement his legacy forever... The company he founded is now about to unveil a long-awaited project in the fourth quarter of this year. Early investors stand to see big gains from this $300 Billion discovery. Full details here.   Quotes of the Day... “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” — Albert Einstein  “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” — Albert Einstein  Dangerous Marvels   Eric Fry Reporting from Laguna Beach, California... Sometimes modern marvels aren’t so marvelous. Despite the best intentions of innovative individuals or companies, their innovations sometimes do as much harm as good...or more. The history of human innovation is a history of unintended consequences. It is, in essence, a history of “ready, fire, aim.” This tendency does not mean one should reflexively distrust every innovation that comes along, but it does suggest that one should not reflexively trust every innovation either. To illustrate the point, let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane...then saunter along Main Street...then make a hard right turn into Tomorrowland — the one from 1967. When your editor visited Disneyland for the very first time in 1967, he was an 8-year old kid with not nearly enough “E-Tickets” to satisfy him. Back then, E-Tickets bestowed access to the best rides inside the park, like the Matterhorn Bobsleds. And for your 8-year old editor, the Matterhorn was the only attraction that really attracted him. But since his ticket book also contained several “D-, C-, B- and A- Tickets,” he had to make do with lesser attractions as well, like the D-Ticket “Mark Twain Steamboat” or the C-Ticket “Dumbo Flying Elephants.” Most of the B- and A-Ticket rides were too lame to interest an 8- year old. Even the free attractions were more entertaining than those, especially General Electric’s “Carousel of Progress” and Monsanto’s “House of the Future.” Both of these attractions paid homage to the marvels of technology. GE’s “Carousel” portrayed a 60-year history of rapid innovation that yielded to a future of limitless possibility...powered entirely by electricity. Even for an 8-year old, the “Carousel of Progress” was so captivating it could have been at least a D-Ticket. Monsanto’s “House of the Future” depicted an ultra-modern “1986 house” full of gee-whiz gadgets and electrically-powered everything. But progress is not only about “Wow, that’s awesome!”, it is also about “Wow, that’s horrific!” Throughout the 1960s, while GE’s Carousel of Progress was busy gushing about the wonders of electricity, GE, itself, was busy flushing tons of carcinogenic PCBs down the Hudson River. The company was also busy rolling millions of asbestos-packed electrical products off its assembly lines. Monsanto, for its part, was enabling farmers to disperse millions of gallons of dioxins across American farmlands, while also enabling the military to disperse millions of gallons of Agent Orange across the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. Dousing Vietnam in Agent Orange must have seemed like a good and novel idea to someone. But this “herbicide” achieved a kind of genocide. It killed nearly half a million Vietnamese, most of whom were civilians, while causing birth defects in half a million babies...all of whom were civilians. Agent Orange also produced a wide range of cancers in the US troops who served in Viet Nam. Oops! PCBs, asbestos and dioxins are just three of the most infamous potholes on the road to progress. But they are hardly the only ones. When Swiss chemist, Paul Muller, developed a new compound that killed typhus-carrying lice and malaria-carrying mosquitoes, the world cheered his “wonder insecticide.” His discovery earned him the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. But Muller’s marvel, “DDT,” did not merely kill lice and mosquitoes; it also pushed several animal species to the brink of extinction. Oops! A decade after Muller received his Nobel Prize, the German pharmaceutical company, Grunenthal, unveiled a new “wonder drug” to treat morning sickness. But this wonder drug, Thalidomide, did not merely suppress nausea, it also produced severe birth defects. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, thousands of babies around the world were born with missing or deformed limbs. Oops! Accidents happen...especially when scientists “prove” ahead of time that they are impossible. Thalidomide, for example, breezed through a battery of animal tests with flying colors...before failing miserably in the “real time” human trial. According to James L. Schardein, an expert in teratogens (birth defect-causing substances), “In approximately 10 strains of rats, 15 strains of mice, 11 breeds of rabbits, 2 breeds of dogs, 3 strains of hamsters, 8 species of primates and in other such varied species as cats, armadillos, guinea pigs, swine and ferrets in which thalidomide has been tested, teratogenic effects have been induced only occasionally.” We know what you’re thinking; “How could thalidomide be toxic to humans if it was not toxic to an armadillo?” We share your disbelief. But it’s true. And as it turns out, animal testing rarely proves anything conclusively. “According to the FDA, a staggering 92% of all drugs found safe and therapeutically effective in animal tests fail during human clinical trials due to their toxicity and/or inefficacy, and are therefore not approved,” states a research paper by the non-profit Medical Research Modernization Committee. “Furthermore, over half of the mere 8% of drugs which do gain FDA approval must later be withdrawn or relabeled due to severe, unexpected side effects.” Given these data, no one should be surprised that more than 100,000 Americans die every year from adverse reactions to prescription medications — making it the nation’s fourth leading cause of death, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Nevertheless, despite the well-documented tendency of “modern marvels” to produce unintended consequences, Monsanto insists its latest marvels, “GMOs,” are completely safe. GMOs, which stands for “genetically modified organisms,” are kind of like Jackalopes — combining the genetic traits of different species to create a “modified” species. But unlike Jackalopes, Monsanto’s GMOs are real...and do not produce photos suitable for a silly postcard from Wyoming. That’s right; the same folks who brought you Agent Orange and other delightful dioxins have created a vast array of food products that are even better than what the Almighty, Himself, managed to come up with. Perhaps He simply lacked the imagination to create a strain of corn that could withstand heavy doses of “Roundup,” Monsanto’s top- selling pesticide. But Monsanto’s genetic engineers suffer no lack of imagination. To borrow a phrase from their Disney counterparts, they are experts in the field of “Imagineering.” But no need for alarm, Monsanto has tested its GMO products numerous times on numerous animal species and has determined that its products are just as safe as safe can be. And yet, some lab rats in France provide evidence to the contrary...and their photos would never appear on a postcard from Wyoming. Admittedly, an animal study that indicts a particular product might be just as invalid as an animal study that “proves” a particular product’s virtues. That said, this particular animal study does suggest that GMO research remains a work-in-progress...and that humanity might be a bit better off if Monsanto conducted a bit more of its GMO research in a laboratory and a bit less of it in the nation’s farmland.   Planning on buying a smart phone, tablet, or HD TV? You may want to wait... Industry insiders at some major electronics companies know something you might not... And if you did know this was happening, you probably wouldn’t want to buy a smart phone... tablet... or HD TV for at least two more months. Find out why in this special presentation. The Daily Reckoning Presents Gambling with the Genome   Severine Kirchner, PhD Question: What’s better for your health, old candy bars or Monsanto’s genetically modified corn? The answer may surprise you. It certainly surprised certain members of the Animal Kingdom. As the worst drought in half a century ravages this year’s US corn crop and drives prices sky-high, Joseph Watson’s herd of cattle is living the sweet life. Due to the soaring price of corn, the resourceful Kentucky cattleman resorted to feeding his 1,400 cows a diet of second-hand candy, unfit to sell in stores. So if your next filet mignon tastes faintly like a Snickers bar, you know whom to blame. Watson says the animals haven’t shown any health problems so far and are gaining weight normally. Clearly, nutritionists, dentists and concerned parents all over the world have been wrong all along: candy is just as good as vegetables...and maybe even better in some cases. Three weeks ago, a team of French scientists linked one of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn to elevated risks of cancer. And this scientific team did not merely discover a link; they published the gruesome photos to back up their claim. Before moving on, let’s back up a bit. A genetically modified organism (GMO), like the seed indicted in this French study, is an organism whose natural genetic structure has been altered by scientists. The scientists extract genes from the DNA of one species and then force those genes into the genome of an unrelated plant or animal. In theory, these “modifications” produce organisms that are “new and improved” versions of the original. Giving credit where credit is due, the folks at Monsanto, Dupont and elsewhere have been at this gene-modification business for such a long time that they’ve created GMOs that can do almost anything: resist drought and flood, repel insects, grow faster and straighter, produce brighter colors, possess a longer shelf life and/or increase nutritional values. But a brighter and straighter vegetable is not necessarily a healthier vegetable. The unintended side-effects of “scientific breakthroughs” often remain hidden for years, sometimes decades. Because GMOs produce no immediate side-effects, most people consider them “safe.” But if an immediate side-effect were the only pre- requisite, mercury, asbestos and lead would also be safe. The human body cannot discern if a gene comes from a “natural” or “engineered” organism. Proteins produced by the GMOs are broken down without distinction by the consumer’s unprejudiced digestive system. Theoretically, therefore, GMOs are harmless. However, some scientists suspect that any change to the DNA of an organism could cause serious side-effects that escape immediate detection. When foreign genes are inserted, the original structure of the plant genome is modified. That means dormant genes could become active, while the function of other genes could change. As a result, the GMO could assemble new or unknown proteins, such as allergens or toxins, or it could potentially increase or decrease its output of existing proteins. The effects of consuming these new combinations of proteins remain unpredictable. In other words, the process of transferring genes from the DNA of one species to the DNA of another species is not exactly like taking a page out of one book and putting it in another. Transferring genes between species can also create unintended typos, insertions, deletions and/or scrambled text. Imagine a kitten playing on a computer keyboard. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Monsanto’s “harmless” new corn seed, NK603, could be quite harmful indeed. Monsanto engineered this corn seed to be resistant to its top brand of herbicide, “Roundup.” According to Monsanto, NK603 is safe and healthy. Lab rats have a different story to tell. KO’s Cancer in 36 Hours! A little-known biotech company is making medical history... but with FDA fast trackreview status for their cancer treatment, this small company might not stay “little-known” for long... So you must move fast if you want to get in on the ground floor of what could be the biggest medical breakthrough in decades... Click here to learn more now. In a study published three weeks ago in the Food and Chemical Toxicology scientific review, Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, France, claims that NK603 GMO can cause tumors and organ failure in rats. Seralini’s research team fed rats for two years a diet containing Monsanto’s genetically modified corn. Results: the rats on the GMO diet died earlier than those on a standard diet. The animals on the GMO diet also suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. After the study’s publication, Monsanto immediately went into spin mode, issuing a press release saying that toxicologists and public health experts had found fundamental problems with the study design. The scientific community has also weighed in on the French study. Some applauded the research, saying it went further than any other GMO study to date. Others criticized the study’s approach, saying the control groups were too small and the number of rats included was too low, making the results unreliable. Some criticized Seralini for failing to reveal the exact composition of the rats’ diets and said that the complete data from the experiment was not adequately represented in the study. The lack of a proper dose response trial was discussed, and the use of a strain of rats prone to cancer was pointed out... Despite skepticism, the study has drawn renewed attention to controversy surrounding genetically modified crops. Shortly after the publication of Seralini, the French government ordered its food- safety agency to quickly review the study and threatened to ask the European Commission to ban NK603 imports. Russia has already temporarily suspended sale of the corn seed produced by Monsanto. The biotech giant is starting to feel the heat in the US as well. A petition urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require labeling of GMO products gathered more than one million signatures earlier this year, and a proposition requiring genetically modified foods to be labeled as such will go before voters in California this November. Not surprisingly, Monsanto stands opposed to such a proposal and has contributed $4.2 million to lobby against it. (If Monsanto’s GMO products are so awesome, why wouldn’t it want the “free advertising” that food labeling would provide?) In the wake of the publication of Seralini’s study, US activists are gaining momentum and renewing their push for the FDA to review the long-term safety of GMO food prior to its introduction to the food supply. Meanwhile, Monsanto is trying to remain unfazed. As the severe drought in the US has forced farmers to cut back on corn and cotton seeds, the company disclosed last week a deeper-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter loss. The company also reduced its earnings forecast for 2013. But Monsanto’s CEO, Hugh Grant, remains very upbeat about the future sales growth of its cutting-edge genetically modified corn and soybean products. “With more waves of innovation and global opportunities than ever before,” Grant proudly declared, “I’m confident that by building off what we accomplished in 2012 we can achieve steady growth in fiscal year 2013 as we continue to deliver sustainable yield to our farmer customers.” Monsanto has targeted an annual percentage profit increase of 17% in 2013 as the company raises prices on GMO seeds and expands in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Sales of corn seed engineered to produce insecticide should rise from 36 million to 38 million acres in 2013, from 27 million acres, according to Monsanto. These are very ambitious sales targets for products that purport to be “harmless” to humans, even though they appear to be quite harmful to other mammalian species. It could take years to determine conclusively whether particular GMOs are, indeed, carcinogenic. Meanwhile, you might want to keep in mind that the GMO products nourishing Monsanto’s sales growth could prove very harmful to the company’s long-term health. Regards, By Severine Kirchner,  for The Daily Reckoning --------------------------------------------------------- Here at The Daily Reckoning, we value your questions and comments. If you would like to send us a few thoughts of your own, please address them to your managing editor at joel@dailyreckoning.com