Scientist Challenges Monsanto: $10 Million If You Can Prove Me Wrong About GMOs

[nationalize the fed]

Shiva Ayyadurai is offering to give the Monsanto company a $10 million building if they can disprove his claims about GMO regulations.

Nov 19, 2015: One of the world’s largest GMO producers has been challenged by an MIT graduate who claims there are absolutely no GMO safety assessment standards. He earlier alleged that GMO-engineered plants accumulate high levels of formaldehyde.

MIT graduate Shiva Ayyadurai’s offer is simple.

If the Monsanto Company can disprove his claim that there are “no safety assessment standards” for genetically modified organisms (GMO), he will give the agro-giant a $10 million building that he owns in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That’s how strongly the inventor believes in the alleged danger of unregulated GMOs.



Nov 19, 2015: One of the world’s largest GMO producers has been challenged by an MIT graduate who claims there are absolutely no GMO safety assessment standards. He earlier alleged that GMO-engineered plants accumulate high levels of formaldehyde.

Ayyadurai - who engaged in a well-publicized spiritual ceremony with actress Fran Drescher and holds the first U.S. copyright for “email” - confirmed the details of his $10 million challenge via an exclusive interview with Patch on Thursday.

Ayyadurai’s multi-million dare to Monsanto - one of the world’s largest producers of GMOs - revolves around his alleged discovery of the accumulation of high levels of formaldehyde in GMO-engineered plants, and his resulting shock that “acceptable standards for testing” do not exist...snip
http://patch.com/new-jersey/montclair/scientist-challenges-monsanto-10-million-if-you-can-prove-me-wrong-0

[Cosmic Kitten]

1. kick and rec

[Dont call me Shirley]

2. I'm 50 and I can KICK KICK KICK KICK and REC!

[Buzz Clik]

3. Here's the actual language:

“If Monsanto can disprove the fact that there are no safety assessment standards for GMOs, the conclusion of our fourth paper, then I will give them my $10 million building.”

Should be interesting.

Monsanto is about to walk away from Roundup Ready crops (due to increasing weed resistance to glyphosate). They might just be willing to take this challenge.

======

On a related note: are there "safety assessment standards" for the non-GMO versions of these crops?

[passiveporcupine]

7. "Monsanto is about to walk away from Roundup Ready crops

(due to increasing weed resistance to glyphosate)."

Is that why they are walking away, or is it because of new studies showing glyphosate causes cancer?

[Buzz Clik]

8. That does not make sense.

Glyphosate continues to be a huge money maker for them, and they are not abandoning it. Just the roundup ready crops.

[passiveporcupine]

9. From what I've read, they are denying the study results

I haven't seen the news on this in awhile. I probably read it hear or on reddit though.

Here is a link about it, but they are saying it's safe and the study is wrong.

In March, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), issued a statement (also published in The Lancet) that re-classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. It was a surprise to some in the scientific community because every major regulatory agency had determined that glyphosate, an herbicide often paired with genetically modified crops, was not carcinogenic.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/07/24/why-do-regulators-conclude-glyphosate-safe-while-iarc-almost-alone-claims-it-could-cause-cancer/

I was hoping more info would come out on it, as I have some roundup, and have been wanting to use it on my gravel drive, but after reading about the cancer scare, decided not to until more info available. I'm not worried about it for myself as much as for my animals and local wildlife. So I'm glad I found this link. I think it's more of the GMO madness stuff.

[Buzz Clik]

11. And from Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-cancer/

What evidence is there for a link between glyphosate and cancer?
The IARC review notes that there is limited evidence for a link to cancer in humans. Although several studies have shown that people who work with the herbicide seem to be at increased risk of a cancer type called non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the report notes that a separate huge US study, the Agricultural Health Study, found no link to non-Hodgkin lymphomas. That study followed thousands of farmers and looked at whether they had increased risk of cancer.

But other evidence, including from animal studies, led the IARC to its ‘probably carcinogenic’ classification. Glyphosate has been linked to tumours in mice and rats — and there is also what the IARC classifies as ‘mechanistic evidence’, such as DNA damage to human cells from exposure to glyphosate.

Kathryn Guyton, a senior toxicologist in the monographs programme at the IARC and one of the authors of the study, says, “In the case of glyphosate, because the evidence in experimental animals was sufficient and the evidence in humans was limited, that would put the agent into group 2A.”

Lots of room to criticize that classification, but there's no doubt that I don't want Roundup on my food, and Roundup Ready food crops increase that possibility.

[newthinking]

12. Like tobacco

There is much effort to confuse and slow scientific inquiry in this arena.

[Buzz Clik]

13. That's your analysis of the Scientific American article?

An attempt to confuse?

Wow.

[newthinking]

14. Not scientific American: Manipulation of knowledge material, studies, and it's effect

on our ability to provide clarity.

I am not making the case one way or another just saying that an environment where corporations have so much influence over the scientific community and money to spend producing confusing research and promoting poor research it is extremely premature to assume that the science in this area is mature and accurate.

[Buzz Clik]

17. Fine. Perhaps you are correct on some levels.

But, by the time scientific studies emerge after a decade of intense review and repetition, we have a pretty clear concept of reality.

And, reality right now is that the carcinogenicity of glyphosate for humans is much in doubt with NO evidence to support it. To claim otherwise is to be guilty of exactly what you are suggesting: intentionally confusing scientific results because of an ulterior motive.

[passiveporcupine]

18. From what I read,

anything in excess can be deadly, but the amount of danger in glyophosate is less than salt, so do we just stop using a product that is safe in it's "current level of use" because if you amplify it, it can cause cancer?

You do realize that you will find all kinds of things in naturally grown foods, like lead, arsenic, heavy metals...lots of things in the soil, without humans adding anything to it. And some of the toxins we eat in minimal amounts are actually needed by our bodies.

I think, until a study comes out that actually shows a proven correlation to it's use and elevated cancer results, I'm not going to panic.

This is just one study so far. If this product is really dangerous, there will be more done to prove it. Not by Monsanto, but by others.

[Buzz Clik]

19. +1

[passiveporcupine]

20. Sounds like we are two sceptics of a feather.

[Archae]

4. Science and logic doesn't work that way.

This is his claim, now it's his turn to back it up.
That's how real science works.

I could claim there is an invisible, intangible flying saucer up in orbit causing the right-wingers to act erratically.
Prove me wrong!
Obviously, with logic, you can't.

And this guy is a conspiracy theorist and a fake.

http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email

[newthinking]

5. He wrote a paper on it.

Though we don't see the paper in the article.

Wikipedia is a bit more neutral in it's treatment of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_Ayyadurai

There is an argument that while he may be overly pleased/protective of his email system he may actually believe it does represent the spiritual begining of the modern email system that end users use.

Not saying that is accurate.

After reading more on this it sounds like it was not actually he but the Smithsonian that made the claim and that indeed he did piss off computer pioneers, some who can be quite purists and dogmatic (in my own experience). But then MIT did fire him which says something.

Guess I wouldn't be quite ready to trash someone without better evidence. Scientists are often character assassinated for not following the fold and Universities can be quite a conformist club on their own.

[Joe Chi Minh]

10. ... can be ? It's a totalitarian ethos where science is concerned : too many

tenures to protect.

As Max Planck variously averred :

'A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.'

and :

Sciences advances one funeral at a time.

[HuckleB]

15. It's not his field. He didn't do any research. It's a pay to play journal.

These pieces cover this quite well.

http://foodscienceinstitute.com/2015/11/10/do-gmos-accumulate-formaldehyde/

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/gmos-and-making-up-your-own-science/

http://www.thefarmersdaughterusa.com/2015/07/that-time-fran-drescher-tweeted-about-gmos.html

The OP really should take this down. It's not any different than conspiracy theory stuff. It's really quite sad to see this type of stuff get so many recommendations at DU. We should be better at evaluating science than that.

[HuckleB]

16. He didn't invent e-mail, and his claims indicate a serious problem with him as an individual.

Last edited Fri Nov 20, 2015, 02:15 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/11132917842/how-guy-who-didnt-invent-email-got-memorialized-press-smithsonian-as-inventor-email.shtml

[shadowmayor]

6. Let's wait and see

I'm betting Monsanto won't even touch this as the press is bound to be bad for them. BUT, I think he has about as much chance of losing his $$ (or building) as Michael Moore did when he laid down a challenge ($10,000) for any veteran to prove they had served weekend duty with Shrub while he was working on a campaign in Alabama! His offer still stands.