next a conversation with purdue university president and former indiana governor mitch daniels. that's followed by a debate on genetically-modified foods and a look at how bees are being used today by the military. next a conversation with purdue university president mitch daniels. the fomer indiana governor and budget director spoke with viewers as part of our special series on universities in the big ten conference. this is about 45 minutes.

sgl this week we continue our series with university presidents in conjunction with the c-span buss big ten college tour. this morning the c-span bus is on the campus of purdue university and west lafayette, louisiana. now joining us from purdue's campus is its president mitch daniels, the former governor of indiana. thanks for being with us this morning. >> welcome to purdue. >> thank you so much. sorry i can't be there in person. want to start out rather broadly and just ask you to name, what do you think the greatest challen challenges are facing higher education right now? >> to prove that the value we have always associate d with a college degree is still there and that it's worth the money that colleges and universities are charging for it. here at purdue, we talk about higher education at the highest proven value. that may sound obvious, that's the way we buy everything else

in life. we look at quality compared to the price we pay. that's not what's been going on in higher education. higher charges for diplomas that are of more and more suspect quality. so as entirely understandable and appropriate students and families are beginning to look much more carefully at the costs they are being asked to pay and starting to ask the right questions about what am i u getting for that. here at purdue, we take that very seriously. we're working on both the reduction of cost and improving of the quality that we know are graduates have always received from a rigorous purdue education. >> i want to get back to college costs, but let's talk about purdue a little bit. you have frozen tuition for 19 months after 36 years of increases. what did you cut or freeze to make sure students have that sort of break or that freeze? >> it's true that we have frozen

it for the year that just passed, the year we are in now. that freeze will continue at least a third year. and that's simply was a way of, number one, saying to ourselves and our students that we really take seriously the importance of a student's income level being able to access purdue's education if he or she is up to our standards. having drawn that line for ourse ourselves, we accommodated in hundreds of ways. we gathered suggestions from staff and faculty on campus. up to this point, it's not proven difficult. we have not done anything that i consider particularly transformative. we are glad we have been able to make that improvement. two consecutive costs in the room and board and some action we took this fall on the next expense item which is textbooks. >> that's definitely a big

concern of anyone in school right now. i do want to ask you about the larger picture though. why is it that the cost of college tuition continues to rise so rapidly and particularly continues to outpace the rate of inflation? >> not just the rate of inflation, but the rate of even health care. there are multiple causes, but part of it is simply colleges raise costs because they could. first of all, the government was flooding the market with grants and loans. colleges found they could pocket that money and raise their costs to students and their families typically weren't much better off as a consequence. until recently, the market was as the economists would say inelastic and universities found they can raise prices and not

only did customers so to speak, those buy iing the product not move somewhere else, but they assumed a more expensive school meant somehow a better school. nobody had proof around to know if that was true or not. all that was in the mix, but it needed a change. it is changing, i think, rather quickly now here at purdue. we embrace that change. and hope to be on the front edge of it. >> our guest is mitch daniels. he's the president of purdue university as well as the former governor of indiana. this morning if you'd like to call in and join our conversations for students, the number is 202-585-3880. for parents, 202-585-3881. educators, 202-585-3882. and indiana residents, 202-585-3883. first caller this morning is

john in louisiana. he is a purdue graduate. go right ahead, john. >> caller: yes, i graduated from purdue university in 1966 so i'm coming up on my 50-year anniversary. i was just looking at your numbers on your tuition, and i remember when i was there it was $149, i believe, every semester for the tuition. you could have room and board and i lived in the residence hall there is until i went into a fraternity for less than $1,000 a year. . i think it was $700. i managed to make it through by just working. i didn't take out any loans or anything like that. it's just interesting when you see what people have to pay. but my question would be, are they getting more for that money now? i got. a bachelors degree. i spent 28 years in the air

force. had a wonderful career flying airplanes. i'm just wondering what are those students today getting that i didn't get when i u went there paying less than $1,000 a year to go to the school. >> you're asking exact lit right u question. one that didn't get asked much until recently. the great equation of life really is value. we seek it in everything we do, everything we buy. the equation, of course, is quality over cost. so we're working on the cost in ways i describe. in higher ed, at least at purdue, we accept the responsibility to prove the value of our product. we teamed up last year with the gallop organization and produced the index. it's the largest single survey ever taken. it will be taken at least another four years of college graduates. for the first time, we have real

rigorous measurements of how they are doing in life. not just in terms of their paycheck, but in terms of their well-being and health and so forth. and we believe it's part of our job to know how our graduates are doing, what people are getting for the experience of a purdue education and to try to learn how we can make that quality higher and higher over time. so not surprising, i hope boilermakers stack up very well compared to other graduates. our job is to drive the quality up, keep the cost down. >> next we'll go to dan in west lafayette and is a parent. >> caller: good morning, mitch. the benefit of having one of the problems of keeping the tuition

the same year after year after year is the fact that the money for your basic staff, your clerical and boot staff and service staff, they have had a substantial raise in five years. but cost of parking has increased greater the amount of raises that these folks have had. what plan do you have to bring these long-term employees that have been there 25, 30 years up into the real income brackets they ought to be at? >> well, we hope to do better. there were raises this year. we expect we'll continue to do that. try to at least people help keep up. i have to tell you, our first responsibility is to the students who come here and their participants and family. we're not an employment bureau. as much as we love those who work here and want to support them. our first job is to try to be effective and efficient in everything we do. and that will continue to be

priority one. but i personally favor those dollars we can apply to a higher personnel cost being ko concentrated those at the lower income levels. but there are all kinds of competing priorities. the need to attract and keep the best faculty in the world, that sort of thing. you're raising a really good point, dan. one that we think about a lot. our job, really, is to reconcile all these priorities and always keep students first. >> i promise i won't go too far into the political weeds. before you came to purdue, you were governor of indiana for eight years. i'm curious what you have learned from being a university president and your feelings on higher education policy? >> i am probably learning more than anybody on this campus. there's no short answer to that. but i guess i have learned what i always suspected that today's

students at least here at purdue are incredibly purposeful, highly u motivated and very, very smart and well prepared. or they wouldn't have gotten here in the first place. so we're completely dedicated to their success in life. as i said earlier to delivering that at a price they can afford that a student at any income level can afford. and then monitoring their success later so we can be better tomorrow than today. >> elwood, indiana, james is on the line and he is a parent. >> caller: good morning, i have a question relating to the relationship between purdue and iupui. my daughter went to purdue for an engineering introduction as a high school senior. when she mentioned going to iupui for engineering, she was

told not to go to a community college. that seems like a disconnect because purdue used to be very, very well known. but you don't see purdue banners anymore. what happened? >> right, james, well, first of all, you're quite right u. indiana university, purdue university at indianapolis is not a community college. we have one of those. it's a full fledged university. a lot of research happens there. it's a combined and unique joipt venture, so to speak, between or two big ten universities. i don't know who told your daughter that or called it that, but that was erroneous and misleading. we do recognize that indiana university has the supervisory authority at iupui, but i have heard a number of complaints

lately that the visibility of purdue's very extensive offerings there has become harder to spot and we'll raise that with our friends from iu. >> a question from twitter now. what's driving tuition increases more, availability of cheap loans, lack of supply or slashes in state funding? >> i think they all played some sort of role. here in indiana, this state is in the top quarter in terms of sustain i sustaining of higher ed spending over recent years. plus here in indiana, we have one of the top few student support that a student grants for programs anymore. but there are places where higher ed spending has been cut by astonishingastonishing perce. there are bigger issues.

the caller mentions the effect of all the money that's flooded in through grants and loans. that's been documented to be playing a part. there's also been a so-called arms race to provide nonacademic offerings. who can build the biggest climbing wall. i believe that's probably run its course. we're in favor of great facilities, good food, what have i learned? i generally start with the food. college food is supposed to be terrible and all the same, but it's unbelievably good and varied right now. so bringing some sort of moderation to some of that nonacademic core spending is an essential part of an answer. >> next caller is in greenwood, indiana. jim is on the line. >> caller: hi, mitch. >> hi, jim. >> caller: i'm a tour guide at

the state house. you were always very friendly with the visitors. now that you're at purdue, i still talk to people and i guess you're the same way with folks up there. i had a father from california who came to purdue and just casually stopped by your office. you were not in, but he said you followed up and called him back. and a lot of the students seem to be meeting with you personally. how do you find time to meet all these people on a one-on-one basis? >> well, jim, i made it a priority. i did in the last job when i felt that i worked for everybody in the state and they deserved a chance to see their employee, so to speak. it's really about learning, how to do the job well. somebody asked me to make a new year's resolution when i first got here. i said, okay, i want to meet 5,000 students face to face this year. i know i surpassed that by some number. i have dinner a lot with

students in the evenings that are not otherwise occupied. go to the gym several days a week and anywhere i can run into them. it's fun, of course, it's really a wonderful aspect of the job like this to be able to get to know so many young people, but it's really about learning what's on their minds, what's going on in their lives, how this university can do the best job of preparing them in life. so i just -- i have always considered it part and parcel of any job i had. you have to mark off enough time to make sure you're going it. >> let's go to austin, texas, where laura is on the line and she's a parent. >> caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i want to ask a question that's probably going to be a little bit of a curve. right now, the university of texas violates federal immigration law by allowing illegal immigrants slots at the university. i'm wondering what purdue

university does to follow the law and make sure educational slots chrks are a limited resource, only go to legal residents and u.s. citizens? i mean, education is expensive. and in this country, if you don't have an education, you are not going to succeed or not succeed easily. and even if if you have an. education, i have four degrees and i'm unemployed. i can't find a job. i'm worried for my son. i want to make sure that other universities take this seriously. those slots should be going to u.s. citizens and legal residents. and i hope that purdue takes federal immigration laws seriously enough to make sure that that happens. i'd like your comments on that. thank you, sir. >> yeah, want to thank you, laura. we do take our legal obligations in this area u and every area very seriously and do everything

we know how to make sure that nothing -- no mistakes are being made and nothing is slipping through at any point. i have to tell you, however, that a significant percentage of the students on our campus are international students. they are here fully legally of course. we consider this in the global world our students will lead and are about to enter. we consider this a valuable part of their education. we try to keep it in a reasonable proportion, but a student coming to purdue university is going to meet people from virtually every country on earth. can be a very enriching part of the academic offering. so these decisions, as we see them, are not one dimensional, but they do start with abiding by the law. >> earlier this year purdue announced the creation of a competency degree program that lets students progress at their own rate as they master skills. i was wondering if you could

talk about why that's so important and what kind of students you're hoping to target with that particular offering. >> we're still living in higher education with vestiges of the system that's been around literally for a millennium. many people believe that if higher ed is going to prove its value and continue to justify in an internet world young people picking up moving for three or four or five years and spending a lot of money to do it, we're going to have to divide u better ways. for some disciplines, it doesn't make sense to work on the old calendar, lock everybody into two semesters to four years. if a student can prove that they have mastered a given subject matter, they ought to be able to move ahead now and take an exam

then. so our entire college of technology is transforming itself to operate on that basis. students who are smart enough and diligent enough will be able to do two things. one, move through at their own rate and possibly more quickly than before. two, demonstrate along the way proven competences. no employer will have to guess what that grade in a certain subject meant. the student will have demonstrated mastery of a specific skill or topic and the employ employer, if they want, can go look at the test or the project that proved it. i have to tell you, simultaneously, we have another endeavor going. on here to change those degree programs that can be to three years. and the pioneering school, i'm happy to tell you, was the school of communications.

here at purdue among the alums we're very proud of is founded the c-span. we all have benefitted for decades. he's a boilermaker. and how fitting that the school that he allowed us to name after him was the first to step forward, five of our communications majors so far, can now be completed in three years if the student is ready to put in a little extra time, a little extra work in the summer. >> related to the points you just made, i take it then you don't believe that it's still necessary for a student to go to college for four years? >> in some cases, it is. we have one of the finest engineering schools on the planet. it will be -- there are a few who manage, but most of those degrees are going to take four years. often here in that field of study is coupled with a work

experience. the index tells us it can be one of the most valuable parts of a college education is to have some sort of an internment or extensive work experience in the area of study. so there are plenty of degrees here that will take and should take at least four years. but there are others, which again with a little extra work in a semester or two, possibly some work done over the summer, online education offers a lot of new possibilities here, can be finished in less than four years. if we can do that, two good things happen. one, the student and their family gets a higher education at a lower price. secondly, they get out in the world and have an extra yearover or more to earn money and build a future. >> another parent on the line. betsy in colorado. >> caller: hi, mitch. i am a former hoosher.

thank you for bringing your business skills to purdue. it's fantastic to see the progress. i have a 12-year-old so if you could just hold those rates now, that would be help fful. i'm looking for ways to inspire her to want to come to purdue. tell me about innovation and technology and things that would get my 12-year-old excited about purdue. >> first of all, i hope all young people -- i hope all the 12-year-olds in america are interested in technology and in science. this is where our future will have to be built. we really need every young person possible at least conversing with these topics whether they build a career in technology or not. secondly, we need more women. we're working hard on that in engineering and the scientific discipline. so really excited if your 12-year-old daughter is looking that way. you know, here at purdue, we

have a long tradition in engineering and in science and one of the proudest in the world and students come from all over the world because of it. we have made a strategic decision to invest even more heavily in this area. we think it's our responsibility of the nation that needs at least 10,000 more engineers alone not to mention scientists of other kind. if we're going to be competitive and have a higher standard of living for our kids, then the ones we enjoy today. and secondly, it's what we think we're good at, doing more of what you're good at is a good business principle. so by the time your daughter is ready to be a boilermaker, we'll have a stronger, larger and more prominent engineering and science program specifically then we do now. >> our guest is mitch daniels, the president of purdue university and the former governor of indiana.

our next caller is darsell in north carolina and is also a purdue alum. >> caller: good morning, president daniels. i was wondering what have you done since the late '70s, early '80 with day veridiversity issu. i was one of the first people of color that i guess we should have had a part of illinois's near chicago because i felt we were somewhat mistreated. two items and issues i'm concerned about the university. what are you doing with mental health issues to make sure that students are healthy because of your rigorous program? second question, which most participa

parents want to know, placement for alums after they u graduate. how long can we use your service? when i was there, you had the 6-point system and now it's transitioned to the 4.0 because i did some other investigations and going to universities on the east coast what a 6.0 system was. but that was really integrity of students who go there and their mental health. i was in your upward bound program in high school and sort of transitioned to the university life, but i found it was dilt for me because i was gregarious and wanted to get along with everybody on the planet. i know there were some problems there. i can say i'm a semiproud boilermaker because i do name drop. but i'm really concerned of the

mental health of students attending. >> thank you. it's a very important and legitimate concern. college life, especially at a rigorous school like purdue, lots of change since you were here. much more extensive and i think sophisticated mental health and counselling services being part of it. one thing that hasn't changed is it's a very rigorous school. another issue that people raise about higher education is grade inflation. there are colleges out there where the average grade is so high, what does it take to get a b? that's not true at purdue. the average grade here has barely moved since apparently you were a student. i tell our students that's a great thing. when you emerge from this school with a solid record, the world will know that you earned and you learned something, which it's beginning to doubt about

the diplomas given at too many universities. when you have that kind of school, there are a lot of pressure on our students. we try to learn more about that, take that into account. here's one other thing. i have talked to thousands of them. boilermaker alums, they will tell you that routinely that when they arrived, some professor would tell them, look around, you won't all be here. the school was proud of its rigger and saw it as a duty to weed out student. s. we don't look at it anymore. it's harder to get into now than it's ever been. we have the most qualified student body, in terms of grades and test scores and so forth. but we take it as our responsibility to see every student succeed. so whether it's the counselling you ask about or all sorts of activities we have to spot

students who might struggle and bring whether it's tutoring or other tools to benefit them quickly, that's the way we look at it now. we just announced this week we have the highest graduation rates ever. we have the highest so-called per sipt rates from say freshman to sophomore year ever. and so trying to be as supportive of our students while still rigorous is the purdue way. >> another call from west lafayette. ron is calling in and he is a parent. >> caller: good morning, your leadership skills are extraordinary. so proud to have you with west lafayette. >> ron, not as proud as i i am to be here, but thanks for saying. >> caller: do as much as you can to hold the cost down.

i know it's difficult. i know it's very difficult. but do what you can. >> well, ron, we will. and i want to say on this subject. there's a lot of attention and it's completely appropriate on cost and the way they are passed on to students and their families. it's really important to say that another reason to be really careful about costs here is so we can invest money in making purdue stronger all the time. i talked about the growth of the computer science college. it takes investments, by the way, to change the way we teach and to make it possible for students to finish in three years or to switch to a competency-based degree. so we plan to make those investments here at purdue and have an action plan to do so. we're out to double the number

of our students who study abroad. it wasn't very high. it hapt historically been too high and we have made a huge jump in the last year there. so it's partly about keeping the doors wide open to families of all income levels. it's also partly about investing to make sure we are a university of the future. if there's going to be a shakeout in higher education, which there are signs it's already started, we intend to be one of those universities who takes these challenges seriously and meets them head on and makes the changes necessary to absolutely 10 o, 20, 30 years from now be able to say, come to purdue, and you will get value for the money you spend. >> i want to ask you really quickly about sports. as "usa today" reports, purdue is just one of seven schools to not report subsidizing athletics if you're looking back at numbers from 2012.

i was hoping you could talk to us about why that's so important and how purdue stands out among other schools. >> i'm a huge sports fan. probably as big as you'll find in a job like mine. it does enrich the life of the campus in so many ways. i sure get out and support our student athletes all i can. but i did say to the trustees when they approached me about this job, i did say to the athletic department and the community, there are three things that here at purdue come above the line. one is standards of conduct. we have to have the same high standards of character and conduct for the star wide receiver as we do for any other boilermaker on campus. two, a student athlete has to mean it. real students taking real courses getting honest grades. and three, pay for yourself. only 1 in 60 undergrads is

skilled enough to be on one of our athletic teams. and it wouldn't be right, in my opinion, to ask the other 59 to pay more money to subsidize the athletic department. having met those standards, we want to win. our teams are really competitive across our 18 sports. we have a football program on the rise. we have a basketball team coming that i'm real excited about. top ten women's volleyball team. a lot of good stuff going on. it does start with character and genuine student athletics. our athletes have had a higher grade point average than the student body at large for years here. and then as you say being self-sufficient and finding a way to do this without needing subsidy from the nonathletes

opinion. >> next up is jonathan who is a student in west lafayette, indiana. >> caller: good morning, thank you to your service to purdue so far. i look forward to continue to read after i u graduate in may. my question is in relation to shared governance at purdue. a lot of the big ten schools there's a strong diverse in the ways students have impacts. my question is, how is purdue enhancing that? such that 30,000 undergrads only get one to help. >> well, the voice of the students are important. i u said earlier i have met thousands. i'm sure i will be talking to many more. one answer is i consider it a part of my job. i hope i'm fostering that same interest in all the people here at purdue's faculty,

administrators and others. we do have -- not every place does, but we have a student on the board of trustees at any one time. that goes back a few decades now. and i got to tell you now having been inside the board of trustees, that student input is invaluable. there's a perspective that a current student brings that even the most vigorous and diligent board member cannot have. soed i have lots of interactions with student groups. tonight i will be with 100 of our campus groups, getting their input. i'm sure we can do more, and we'll try to find ways to do more, but we do take seriously the thought and the feedback we get from students here. it's one of the most important elements of our overall decision

make i making. >> i do want to ask you in january. a student fatally shot and stabbed another student there on campus. i'm curious if there are new safety measures if place that students on campus this fall are seeing in light of that tragedy. >> a host of them, we immediately after the event commissioned faculty led group. they produced a host of suggestions from improvements to our alert system, our alarm system. a lot more locked doors. operating on many fronts to make what was statistically one of the safest places in america safer. the thing i have to say is the murder was sentenced last friday. the prosecutor, the judge and the murder himself all stated in

unequivocal terms this was a premeditated act, not an act of insanity. and those are -- if that's going to be an extraordinary rare event, i don't know how you can reduce the chances of such a thing happening to zero. in this case, it was one life lost, horrible tragedy. just glad it wasn't more. given the nature of this particular perpetrator, he just had had one thing in mind and unfrptly he plushed it. >> we go to brookfield, wisconsin, with a purdue alum. >> caller: good morning, president daniels. . . my question today was how do you differentuate running a state and a university. i'm curious the differences in stress are, that kind of thing.

>> first of all, i u don't use terms like running. i didn't imagine i was running the state of indiana. i was possibly trying to make -- it's government operated, and i think we did a lot to improve that. but the state really is the sum of the energies and the activities, the businesses, that it's citizens start and lead and operate. and i always saw the job there as try ing ing to create the conditions where the important part of life, private lives of people and private sector could flourish. it's a little like that here too. i'm not running this place. i'm trying to make its institutional apparatus work that our faculty can do the best teaching they k the world changing research that they do and that our students have the maximum chance as we have been discussing to learn as much as possible and go out and be

successful citizens. there's a difference, of course, when you try to lead for results or manage, let's say, for results in the absence or the apparent absence of competition. you have to find other ways to motivate and measure and then reward people. but in the end, there is a competition and higher ed is starting to see it now. if it didn't until recently, you can see it now and that competition brings improvement. it will here as it does elsewhere in life. >> another question from twitter now. one of our followers writes, would it be better to go to trade school or community college over a university degree? why take on so much debt? >>s that very good question. i personally believe that there are many, many young people for whom this is possibly a better option. or at least a better first

option. there are some important and necessary, and by the way, good-paying jobs in society that don't necessarily require u a four-year college degree. what we know, i think, to a certainty, though, is everybody who wants to be a productive contributor and self-sufficient person in this world, every young person needs not only to finish high school, but to go beyond it. it could well be to learn a skilled trade. it could well be to go to a community college at least as a starting point. the value, i think, young people need to embrace is learning will be lifelong and may take these different pathways, but they better count on it not stopping. but rather being renewed and refreshed and extended later on. >> a couple facts about purdue university if you were watching

at home and curious. enrollment is 38.788. that includes 29,440 undergraduat undergraduates. one more question for you i would be remissed not to ask. it is political season around here. any chances you have your eyes on the 2016 field? >> i'm sorry the question was? >> it is political season. any chances you have your eyes on 2016? >> my eyes, no. only as an attentive citizen. no, i got my hands full and thoroughly thoroughly absorbed and stimulated and trying to build the best value in higher education on the great foundation that i found on arrival. so the answer is no. >> one more quick question from

twitter as well. from your research, what is the typical salary of a graduate from your university? >> well, it's higher -- it depends how many years out of school a person is. what we know from the purdue index now with some accurate measurement is our graduates significantly outearn the average college graduate. we know they have less debt. by the way, today's students have significantly less debt than they did two years ago, and we hope we can keep that trend going down. we know our graduate who is had any debt at all, if they graduated, had almost never have had a hard time paying it off. the students we have to worry about is those who started purdue, had some debts and didn't graduate. some of them -- and it's just a

few percent, but some of them do have some problems. but the average boilermaker we now can say with some authority from the surveys we were just recently taken is much more likely to have a job, to have a good-paying job, to have a job they are fulfilled in and to be thriving in multiple domains of well-being than those who went to other schools. it's our job to push all those numbers further up for the generations ahead. >> we'll leave it there. mitch daniels, purdue university president and former governor of indiana. thanks for being with us this morning. >> enjoyed it, thank you. >> on the next washington journal, diane okay lee of the national institute on retirement security discusses how prepared americans are to potentially outlive their retirement savings. after that, mickey mcintyre of compassion and choices looks at laws in place across the u.s. this comes in light of a

29-year-old's decision to end her life following a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. plus your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. washington journal is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend on the c-span networks, friday night starting at 8:00 eastern on c-span, our campaign 2014 debate coverage continues in prime time. on saturday night at 8:00, the first down ral for former "washington post" editor ben bradley. and sunday author harold holder on lincoln and the power of the press. and friday night at 8:00 on c-span 2, chris tomlinson on the story of two families, one white, one black, and the slave plantation that bares their name. saturday night at 10:00 on book tv, james mcfer son on the confederacy's president. and sunday live at noon, our

conversation with michael korda. friday at 8:00 on "american history tv" on c-span 3, one of the first african-american labor unions. the brotherhood of sleeping carporters. and saturday night at 8:00, propaganda and america's view of the japanese during world war ii. and sunday afternoon at 4:00, a 1936 film on tb in america. find our television schedule at c-span.org. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400 or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation, "like" us on facebook and follow us on twitter. next a debate on the safety of gmos. joul hear from consumer advocate jeffrey smith and biotech entrepreneur gregory stock from

the vail symposium in mid-march. this is two hours. >> our guest on my far left is jeffrey smith. he's an international best selling author and film maker. . he's the executive director of the institute for response technology and a leading consumer advocate promoting nongmo choices. his books include seeds of deception, which is the world east best seller on gmos. for those who are interested, jeff will be speaking this saturday at noon at true nature healing arts. i'm sure you can find that on the internet. gregory stock, who is to my immediate left, is a biotech entrepreneur, best selling author and public communicator. he's a leading authority on the broad impacts of advanced technologies in the life sciences.

he founded the program on medicine, technology and society at ucla school of medicine in 1997 and served as its director for ten years. while leading a broad effort to explore technologies posed to impact humanity's future and reshape medical science. dr. stock has catalyzed debate about the social and public policy implications of molecular genetic. one of you please raise your hand when dr. stock is here and ask what that means. and about how to most effecti effectively translate progress. among his books, "redesigning humans: our genetic future." with that, let me turn this over first to jeffrey smith and we'll look forward to your

presentation. >> thank you. how many of you ski? i'm in the right place. so forgive me if i have raccoon eyes today. i was in vail for the first time. how many of you are farmers? let's hear it for the farmers. how many are gardeners? how many eat? now make a note of it. there's more people that ski than eat here. strange place. we're going to talk about genetically engineered foods. soy, corn, sugar beets, alfalfa and papaya, you can ask me to say that slower during q&a. now the reason they are on our plates is because of a sentence in the fda policy from 1992. and that sentence says that the

agency is not aware of any information showing that gmos are significantly different. therefore, no safety testing is necessary. no labeling is necessary. so companies like monsanto, who had previously told us that agent orange and ddt were safe, they can determine on their own and maybe get it right this time, that their u gmo seeds and the crops they produce are safe. now it turns out that that basic sentence, which is, in fact, the basis for the u.s. policy overseas, it's for the state department, et cetera, et cetera, it was a lie. it was complete fiction. we didn't know about it in 1992, but we found out about it in 1999. because 44,000 secret internal memos from the fda were forced into the public domain from a lawsuit. not only were they aware u that

gmos were significantly different, it was the overwhelming consensus among their own scientists that they were different and of high risk. that they could create allergies, toxins and nutritional problems. they repeatedly urged their superiors to require long-term study. every time they read the policy, they noticed that more and more of their science was removed from that policy till one person wrote, what's become of this document? it's basically a political document. it doesn't deal with the unpredicted side effects. the person in charge of policy at the fda, the political appointee, was michael taylor. monsanto's former attorney. the fda was given instructions by the white house to promote bio technology. they created a position for him. his policy ignored the scientific consensus at the agency and then taylor became monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist. now he's back at the fda as the

u.s. food safety czar. now, is it true that gmos are dangerous? well, unfortunately, one of the scientists at the fda predicted correctly that, without required safety studies, the companies would not even do the normal studies that they would do because they're not on the fda list. so we have very few safety studies, but enough for the american academy of environmental medicine to evaluate and discover that the rats and that the mice that were fed gmos had gastrointestinal disorders, immune system problems, organ damage, accelerated aging, reproductive disorders and dysfunction of regulation of cholesterol and insulin. they said this information is not casual. it is a causal relationship based on standard scientific criteria. and on that basis all doctors should prescribe non-gmo diets to every patient. this came out in may 2009. in november of that year, i went

to the aam conference with a video camera and started to interview the doctors who had been prescribing non-gmo diets. up until this point i had been representing scientist around the world. independent scientists who found that the entire approach to genetic engineering of food was completely premature. that we did not yet have enough information about genes, dna, the inversion process, to safely introduce it and expose it to the entire population who eats, which is most of you. and we could not release it with confidence into the environment with the self-propagating pollution of the gene pool without lasting effects of global warming and nuclear waste because it becomes a permanent background to the genetic pool. the only thing that lasts longer in genetic pollution is extinction. so i was interviewing these

scientists and translating their concerns so that everyone could understand. and anything i wrote in book form was looked at by at least three scientists. and when i spoke, i, you know how scientists speak. they may say, converging lines of evidence suggest that i might be chilly. nothing is definite. but when i started asking these doctors at this conference, they did not speak like scientists. they said gmos cause inflammation. gmos cause my allergic patients to have more allergic reactions. one woman said that she prescribes non-gmo diets to every patient and everyone gets better. now, i was skeptical. for years people would come up to me and say, i react to gmos. when i take them out of my diet, i feel better. and my skeptic brain was saying, how do you know? but maybe it's true, but probably not. how do you know? i was looking for sort of background scientific trends.

but not individuals who would react or not react. but here were doctors, so i was skeptical. i said to this woman, what percentage? she said, 100% get better. well maybe 98. so i asked her again how many patients do you have that you prescribe non-gmo diets to? she figured it out, 5,000 over several years. can i come to your office and talk to your patients? she said, sure. i went there with a video camera. somebody was 25 days into a non-gmo diet, they had lost ten pounds, their skin condition was clearing up, their crohn's disease had cleared up, irritable powell in six weeks. another doctor invited me to their office. so many dramatic improvements. then i started asking rooms like this how many of you have removed gmos and noticed an

improvement in your health. and i've been to 95 lectures in the last two years. and every single time i ask this, the most consistent reaction is gastrointestinal getting better. there's also headaches, brain fog, energy issues, weight loss, allergies, asthma and also behavioral problems with kids, autistic problems. now, when i ask people, as i did in the doctor's office, how did you avoid gmos? they're not labeled. and they often say they buy organic or they reduced processed foods. as soon as they buy organic or reduced processed foods because i'm representing the scientific community i throw up my hands and say, too many co-factors. maybe it's the diet. probably it's the diet. but is it the non-gmo aspect of the diet. is it the reduction of the chemicals that are not used in organic?

is it a reduction of the chemicals that are not found in processed foods? but at the same time i started visiting farms and veterinarians who had taken livestock off of gmo corn or soy and put them on non-gmo corn or soy and the animals got better in the same problems that the people reported getting better from. and there were no co-factors. so the danish pig farmer said in two days his massive uncontrollably diarrhea that he'd been facing for two years disappeared in his pigs. they called it diarrhea, in the chicago office it was called irritable bowel. you can match them one after the other. then i talked to veterinarians who dealt with pets. when gmos were introduced gastrointestinal problems and immune problems. they would tell their patients -- pet owners to take their animals off the gmos and they'd get better. i have videos of pet owners repeating the same thing.

now we see a pattern in the animal feeding study, gastrointestinal a immune, reproductive organ damage et cete cetera. people getting better from these same diseases and disorders when they remove gmos from their diet. pets and livestock get better from these same diseases and disorders when taken off of gmos and these same disorders and diseases are on the rise in the u.s. population paralleling the increase in the use of gmos and roundup which is the herbicides sprayed on most gmos. now there's a big variety of disorders and diseases that i just talked about. how is it that gmos might impact weeds. if you look at gmos there's two main traits. the pesticide producing corn and cotton. they produce a dt toxin which breaks open little holes in the stomach walls of insects to kill them. then there's herbicide tolerant crop s mostly roundup ready whih

is designed to absorb roundup and we eat it. if we look at the characteristics of these two toxins, it can explain the variety of these diseases and disorders. so let's start with roundup, about 85% of the cropsous there are sprayed with roundup or hosh ba sides so the crop doesn't die because it's genetically engineered with a viral gene that's been inserted. roundup was the subject of a review paper last year. and the authors linked it just looking at the biochemical properties, to cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, autism, parkinson's, alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, anorexia, aggression and depression. they just came up with another article two weeks ago linking it to gluten sensitivity and celiac

disease and death by kidney function. now the way roundup works is it chelates or binds with nutrients with trace minerals and making them unavailable to plants, making them unavailable to us. so that's one of the actions in our body that it can deprive us of important nutrients. it's also a potent antibiotic. how many people here have heard that gut bacteria is important for health? okay. it's like a gut bacteria revolution in the medical conferences where i give lectures these days. there's many, many talks on gut bacteria. gut bacteria is critical for digestion and immunity. now, roundup is an antibiotic. it kills bacteria. but it's selective. it kills the beneficial gut bacteria but not the e. coli, salmonella and botulism. so it might cause an overgrowth of the negative gut bacteria. and that was confirmed in laboratory studies and is linked

to possible botulism outbreaks, et cetera. when it messes up the gut bacteria, that can affect the immune system, the digestive system. it can produce something called zonulin which can cause leaky gut, holes in the gut walls. and if you have holes in the gut walls, undigested proteins can get in there causing immune reaction, inflammation, allergies, autoimmune disease, it's also linked to cancer, alzheimer's parkinson's and other diseases. roundup blocks a certain pathway called the shake and make pathaway. doesn't matter what the pathway is but monsanto says humans don't have the shake and bake pathway, so it doesn't matter if it gets blocked because it doesn't get blocked in us. but our gut bacteria uses the pathway to produce transcript to fan which is the precursor to serotonin and melatonin. this could explain the mood changes and sleep issues and

depression that go away when people get a proper diet and have enough tryptophan. so there's plenty of specific details that roundup does including endocrine disruption which it can messup the reproductive capacity possibly linging to birth defects and it also is linked to cancers. so just roundup in high concentrations in our food can link to all of these different diseases. but it has a strong competitor in the bt toxin. now, the toxin breaks little holes in the stomach walls of insects to kill them. it wasn't supposed to have any impact on human beings, but a 2012 study found that it did, in fact, break holes in human cells and the conclusion said just like as in insects. now, if it breaks open little holes in our stomach walls, our intestinal walls, it also can create the leaky gut that we just talked about. now, not just -- it doesn't just allow the undigested food

proteins to get in there but also the bt toxin and the roundup. so in the blood of canadian women that were tested, they found bt toxin and roundup. in fact, in pregnant women it was in 93% of their blood and in 80% of their unborn fetuses. now, if it gets into their blood, another study with mice showed that it caused damage to the red blood cells. so it might be causing damage to our blood cells. then when it gets to the unborn fetus there's no well developed blood brain barrier, so it might get into the brain. we have a hole-poking toxin that might be in the brain of the offspring of this generation. now, another -- i talked to a scientist, several scientists who talk about the bt toxin in the blood saying it probably would wash out very quickly. now, if it washes out very quickly, why would 93% of the pregnant women in canada have bt toxin in their blood if it washes out quickly?

they must have some constant source of bt toxin. the author speculated that the bt toxin probably came from the milk and meat of animals fed bt corn. i think there's another plausible explanation. in a 2004 study they found that part of the roundup-ready soybean gene, that's the soybeans that can be sprayed with roundup, transferred into the dna of the bacteria living inside our intestines. and that that bacteria was unkillable with roundup. this suggests but doesn't prove that when the gene from genetically engineered crops transfers to gut bacteria, it continues to function producing genetically modified proteins continuously 24/7 inside our digestive tract. now, they didn't study to see whether eating a corn chip could

turn your intestinal floor into living pesticide factories. what do i mean by that? corn in the united states is produced with bt corn and roundup-ready corn. now, the gene that produces the bt toxin is in the corn. what if it transfers to the gut bacteria and continues to produce the bt toxin? that might explain why 93% of the pregnant women tested had bt toxin in their blood. because they are producing it continuously inside of us. now, this was never confirmed, this was never tested. which is a tragedy. because we're feeding it to the entire population. but if you just look at the qualities of the bt toxin and roundup, it could explain all of the different reports we're hearing from now thousands of physicians prescribing non-gmo diets.

i've actually counted about 5,000, 6,000 in auditoriums where i spoke when i asked for a share of hands as to how many are prescribing non-gmo diets. in 2007, 15% of americans said they were avoiding or reducing gmos. last year 39%. so we are seeing a change and a lot of it is the concern by the medical community. now, unfortunately, the biotech industry has earned a reputation among observers as being underhanded and, let's say, not so appreciative of the facts when scientists discover problem, according to "nature" and other publications and interviews i've done with those scientists, they're typically attacked often fired, sometimes gagged or lose their funding, lose access to seeds, they'll be demoted.

so much so that there are very, very few scientists willing to do research in this area. and we have tracked very consistently the reaction by the biotech scientists in attacking these independent scientists and denying or distorting their evidence. when you look at industry-funded studies, however, they're designed to avoid finding problems. we call it tobacco science. i sit with scientist and go over the research done by the industry, and they point out exactly how this thing would mask this effect or this thing is not tested or they don't use the modern techniques. and if they do find problems, they just explain it away with often nonscientific explanations. so during the q&a, if you want to know more specifics about how they rig their research, there's some very humorous and entertaining descriptions that everyone can understand.

now, fortunately, by educating people about the health dangers, many of us have seen a revolution that's occurring. non-gmo-labeled products are the fastest growing label in the united states. the products that were labeled non-gmo in 2012 grew faster than any other category in terms of sales of all the 35 other health care wellness claims. last year the second fastest. in europe we saw a solution to the gmo issue not from political enactments but from consumer education. and i'll -- what i want to do is i'll talk a little bit about the way out of gmos with q&a if you like, but i want to show you some pictures for the visual learner. because some of you will take home more of what's going to be on the screen. i'm just showing some of the

photographs, not the peer-reviewed published studies, et cetera, just the photographs. here on the left side is a normal intestine of a rat, on the right side the change in the architecture and cell walls along the intestines after eating a genetically modified potato. this is a stomach lining. this is a potato that's not current on the market. see how the stomach lining is about twice as big? this is after eating a genetically modified potato. this was almost certainly due to the generic process of genetic engineering, not the particular gene that was inserted. because the process causes massive collateral damage in the dna, and causes unpredicted side effects like this. in india, thousands and thousands of farm workers who deal -- who pick the cotton that produces the bt toxin are reporting itching, rashes and other gastrointestinal or immune system problems. i went to a village in india

where they allowed their buffalo to graze on bt cotton plants for a single day. all 13 of their buffalo died within two or three days. many had been eating john gmo cotton plants after harvest for eight years. rats that were fed genetically modified soybeans their lives are on the right, you can see the difference compared to the lives of rats that were fed non-gmo soybeans. rats that were fed gmo soybeans their testicles changed from the normal pink to blue. i normally take time and drink some water so that this slide can take its toll, but i don't have much time left. i gave a talk at the european parliament where a senior researcher at the academy of sciences. she's are russian-speaking rats. she fed them genetically modified soybeans starting two weeks before they got pregnant, more than 50% of their offspring died within three weeks compared to 10% in the control.

the offspring were also smaller on average than the control that ate the johnnon-gmo soybeans. a study in france showing massive tumors and early death. i'm sure my colleague will try to pick that apart and i'll be happy to pick up the pieces and reinstate the scientific importance of this study. here's pictures of pig stomachs after they were fed genetically modified feed on the right. it's hard to see in this light, but they saw severe irritation and they also showed 25% larger uteruses and other studies showed significant ulcerations. now i'm going to flip through some of the evidence, this does not guarantee causation, but it gives you an idea that if gmos are causing a problem and if we're feeding it to the entire population and if the problems are significant enough so that when people get rid of gmos they're feeling better, we would

expect to see something like this. so this is deaths from senile dementia tracked with the use of glyphosate which is the active ingredient in roundup. this is the death of parkinson's disease tracked with glyphosate and corn. if you take out the trend line, this is the trend line before the gmo factor came into play. you see that it looks like that. this is the number of hospitalizations for acute kidney injury, end-stage kidney disease, kidney and pelvis cancer incidents, thyroid cancer incidents, liver and bile duct cancer. and if you look at the cancers

that are increasing in the u.s. population, those that are in the red, some of which we just mentioned, they're the target tissues for glyphosate or roundup. this is the diagnosis of hepatitis c, this is high blood pressure in the u.s., this is autism. this is low birth weight babies. hospital discharge diagnosis of inflammatory bowel. there's a similar one for irritable bowel. chronic constipation. deaths due to intestinal infection. hospital discharge diagnosis and pair it onitis. obesity in the u.s. population. rheumatoid arthritis. celiac disease in a canadian hospital in an area where they increased the planting around

it. now obviously there are other factors that support some of these diseases, but the correlations are rather shocking. they're very parallel. so what i would love to do is come back in about 21 minutes, after my esteemed colleague and competitor has a chance to try and rebut all of this information and give you a sense that gmos are easy -- or safe to eat, so let's be able to pick apart the argument in great detail. i want to thank the vail symposium for this opportunity, this rare opportunity for this debate. thank you so much. aup aup. >> i want those of you in the front row to notice our computer stand here. with that stead, dr. stock. >> so i'm actually not going to

try and rebut these things at this point in a case by case basis. this is the most absurd fabrication that i have ever listened to. and i didn't know anything about jeffrey smith before i agreed to come to this and, actually, i assumed that, you know, that it was less distorted than i'm really listening to. this set of graphs here, for example, about, oh, it's suggestive. i can do the same set of graphs with use of the internet to try and claim that the use of internet was potentially responsible for all of these things. anything that is increasing over time would show that out. and what i heard here was that gmo crops are the most extraordinary poison that ever existed. they're responsible for all sorts of diseases. and yet, you would have all of the major scientific organizations and medical organizations be in some sort of

an extraordinary conspiracy to deny this. it denies all of these institutions. and we have here someone who is actually profiting by -- or is in groups that are profiting by the gmo controversy and who has absolutely zero scientific training. not a hoot. and talks about speaking before medical audiences, speaking before scientific audiences. and we'll get into that in a moment. but we can discuss some of these details. so i ask you to just sort of suspend your judgment on some of this stuff. and what i want to do is to try and talk a little bit about the context of these changes with gmos. only one aspect of the way we're using technology and the changes that are taking place today. and so i want you to step back and some things that are absolutely fublment lly fundame

history of life are occurring right now. there are two revolutions that are without precedence. the first is the silicon revolution and what is really occurring there is that we're taking the inert materials around us, the silicon, silicon dioxide, and we're breathing a level of complexity into it that rivals life itself, and that's why we have all of our amazing gadgets and such that they're almost intelligent. this is just the first baby step in that direction. we're animating the inanimate world around us. if you project forward a little bit, it's mind boggle to even thing what will be possible in a short period of time. and it's not surprising that this is creating a certain angst about technology. the second revolution that's occurring, every bit as profound, which is made possible by this first revolution, is the biotech revolution. and what's happening there is

that life through us, through our cerebral court isys, through all of our devices is learning the processes, understanding at an intimate level the processes of life at such a level that we can begin to intervene and tweak them and adjust them in ways and that's something that's a central part of all the possibilities of medicine and biology and life sciences that are arriving today. it's a step that nothing will ever be the same. it's like life is beginning to control its own future and we're starting to alter the world around us to where it becomes almost intelligent. and this is blurring a lot of boundaries. the kinds of things that are occurring are the boundary between the born and the made, between life and the nonliving. here is synthetic life created by craig venter, a designed bacterium. here's claudia mitchell, the line between our tools and

ourselves. she's using this prosthesis and controlling it with her mind through just thinking about how to move it that excites the nerves on her chest which are then translated into movement of her arm. and this is just the baby steps of what's occurring. here's a guy named hugh herr. did you print up the links that i sent? i don't know. anyway, great, there's a video of him at a ted conference. you got to look at this. this guy was a climber that got frostbite. he was caught in a blizzard for three days. both of his legs were amputated. these prostheses, which are extraordinary he can negotiate from seven feet to eight feet in height. he's a great climber before and now he says he's a much better climber. he said he would never go back to climbing with legs. it's extraordinary. watch that video. and we have pharmacogenomics.

we aren't just using trial and error and poisoning ourselves. here's embryonic stem cells that are being repurposed in various ways to create tissues and various aspects of therapies that are interesting. so this is a journey to who knows where. and it's moving very, very rapidly and it's happening right here and now. and the kinds of questions we're really dealing with, gmos are a tiny one, is the cutting edge of life going to shift to another substrate, not carbon and nitrogen and biology but silicon and all of its ilk, which if you project forward 50 or 100 years, what are they going to be capable of? but right now we're talking about biology, and the next

frontier isn't what they thought in the '60s out there in space somewhere, 2001, a space odyssey, it's ourselves. it's this inner journey into what we are and what life is. and it's a very jarring thing. it's very amazing what's happening. so it comes up genetic engineering, in general and with foods, is this something we should worry about really with gmos? i'm going to give you a few examples. first of all, there's a lot of gmo angst. i think that jeffrey wasn't going to eat some of the foods that are out there because maybe there's -- some of them were created through -- had gmo possibilities. and there's a lot of angst about all sorts of things and we'll talk about it. but it is warranted? now, the areas where you could have potential concerns about gmo -- and by the way, gmo is not a thing. it's a process. it's a technique by which you can create certain kinds of

plants. and that's why it's not regulated in the same way by the fda. i'll get to that in a moment. it's not something that you can detect that, oh, this is an item that is a poison. it's a process. so there are some things that are societal and that are environmental. big business, agri-business, all these sorts of things much bigger than gmos. gmos is a small part of that. we may have a lot of issues with the way the world is organized today with multinationals and such, but that's separate, above and beyond the issue of a specific technology. so i'm not going to get into that in detail. there's environmental issues and there are much bigger fish to fry in that realm as well. you can make a strong argument that by increasing yields you really are very much in a positive way affecting the environmental footprint of agriculture, which were in a state where, if you tried to go

back to a pregreen revolution agriculture, we could have the kind of starvation and such that were feared back in the 1960s. what i want to talk about is two other things. health, the issue that, my god, this is a poison that's responsible for every ailment that we seem to see. and once again, i've never heard such nonsense. 5,000 patients have all been cured by getting off of gmo ingredients of some sort of another. a doctor is absolutely certain about that. and somehow the whole world is ignoring it. and the other is spiritual. there's the big thing. what are the limits of what we're doing? and how do we feel about it? and what does it mean in the sense of being human? and that's where jeffrey really comes from. the maharishi yogi university and the sense of the spiritual place of man.

and that -- of humans. and that's what we're really talking about. so when we're talking about anything, it's a matter of cost and benefits. and here the costs would seem to be extraordinarily high and the benefits almost nothing. but for whom? that's a real question seems to me there are two sets of people. one is the person there on the left. many of us kind of fall in that affluent category. and the other are people on the right who are actually just scrabbling along trying to survive, okay? and it actually makes a difference, some of these things, because you solve very real problem. so let's talk about some of the possibilities here. one, bt cotton, this bacillus that's used which jeffrey pointed out is, oh, my god, that's horrible. then why are organic farmers using that as their selective pesticide on everything? so if you're worried about that,

you better really be careful about sprays on organic foods. so, you know, this reduces pesticide use by about 40%. and you know, that's an abstraction for us, that's, you know, really, is that important? you can't see it very well, but if you're one of these little kids that goes around with a backpack on his back all day long spraying pesticides in the field, and the little white stuff on his stomach is pesticides, so he's like swimming in the stuff. and not to be using as much of that is a big deal. i don't see a problem with that. here's xsanthomonas, a banana wilt disease. it turns out that's affecting a huge percentage of the crops, the banana, that's a staple of a significant element of the population in africa. about 100 million people. and the only way or a very good path to trying to prevent that

disease, which you see causes this kind of oozing and destroys the banana crop, is to engineer in from rice that is protective against that disease. here's another example. flood tolerant rice. here at the bottom we have rice with a protective gene here that is able after flooding like in bangladesh to continue to produce significant quantities and yields versus the stuff on the right. and that was developed at uc davis by pamela ronald. so flood tolerant rice. citrus greening disease, something that's wiping out the citrus crops in florida. nobody knows how to deal with it. one avenue is to engineer in some resistance. actually the people who are the citrus farmers there are very hesitant to do this because of the campaign that's been waged about the dangers of gmos and you can see here what the oranges look like after they

have been infected with a disease bacterium that's associated with a cilla that lands on that. it's wrecking the orange crops there. papaya, there's no way of avoiding this ringspot virus. so in a short period of time in most diseased papaya in hawaii have been protected from the virus by this resistant. and when you eat papaya, if you can find non-gmo papaya, it has about a thousand times the titer of virus in it that these gmo papaya have. then there's golden rice. which adds vitamin a to rice. because vitamin a deficiency is a huge problem. and i have actually seen no evidence that there's a safety problem, a health problem with rice. it's so safe that, in fact, it's

opposed because it might be a wedge crop that could somehow get people used to the idea of gmos. so when you are thinking about the real danger of genetically modified organisms, let's think about what really is a danger. i can assure you that the issue is not how something was made. it's what was actually made and whether it's safe or not. and the danger is not -- and i'll tell you what the background is in a moment. maybe some of you can guess. but the danger isn't food that is actually being engineered or being created by very well meaning scientists, very well meaning. you can think they're misguided, but they're trying to do something. and as far as the testing that occurs on these crops, there is no testing on non-gmo crops which have a variety of crosses and genetic alterations, all of

the crops we have today are not the natural original crops that existed. so the basically not only is there a great deal of testing much more so than in other aspects of the food supply, but it's voluntary. if you don't think you want to be affected by it, then just eat food that's labeled as non-gmo. it's called organic foods. just stick to organic foods. by the way, it would help your health anyway not to eat processed foods. we all know that. so you can improve your diet. what about people who actually would like to modify organisms in order to really cause us harm? bioweapons. bioweaponry, things of that sort. which is going to have nothing to do with this debate. for example, what if you were to take smallpox, which has now been eradicated but still exists and engineer it so it could be

transmitted through the air, airborne, not probably an impossibility. a pretty serious thing. in case you don't know what that would be, here's a photo. you can't see it very well. but here's a young girl with smallpox. that's kind of what smallpox does. so these are the kinds of things in genetic modification that you really need to worry about. so i'm not worried about gmos at least in terms of food. i find the logic for them to be completely unconvincing and, in fact, virtually every scientific organization that has any credibility absolutely agrees with that. there are any number of health risks that are actually real and that we should be worrying about including, you know, cancer, heart disease, stroke and it is, to say the least, it's a joke it's such a stretch. the idea that these diseases are somehow all caused by gmos. it's not as though they weren't

epidemic prior to gmos. so look at these other things. flu. do you get a flu vaccine? 50,000 deaths a year sometimes. as high as that. 34,000 car accidents, suicides, a lot of them. what about just people who are having a bad diet? it's not like we don't know what we should be eating. more leafs, more vegetables, less meat, getting some exercise. these are the things that are the really going to do in our health for most people. what about dietary supplements. complete relatively unregulated, all sorts of contaminants, mercury, that should be heavily regulated or environmental toxins, something that i work in. i have a company that it is selling a genetic test or it's testing, it's finalized, a genetic test that tests individual's susceptibility to low levels of mercury, things you can get in amalgam fillings or fish, certain kinds of large

predatory fish, ahi tuna if you're eating it, but if you're in a genetically susceptible sub population which is about 20% of boys, you can have delayed development in attention and memory and learning of about three to five years. so this is something serious. i mean, there are real things out there that are associated with the environment that are a problem. or look at this. this is organic chemicals that are used in bottles, all sorts of things. there's the production of them that's gone up from 1940 to the present. just exploding. there is almost no testing of them. and you can bet that a lot of them are either carcinogens or there are problems associated with them. so it's not as though there is not a cost by focusing on something that's really an absurd issue because we have limited resources. and when we're testing and focused on one thing, we're taking our energy away from other things that are more real

and more present in our lives. as for gmos, you know, here are the organizations, world health organization, national academy of sciences, european food safety authorization, american medical association, no problems with gmos. are all of these part of the conspiracy that a person with no scientific training has just suddenly uncovered and is telling us all about? and if that isn't enough for you, here are a whole bunch of other organizations. and these are not organizations with some scientific-sounding name. these are real medical and protective organizations. in europe, which is very anti-gmo, in australia, all over the world, here's the epa, which we pay attention to when it comes to global warming or something like that. they say, would not pose an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment. and i can come up with dozens of these. the australian and new zealand food safety group. we have identified no safety concerns for any of the gm foods

that we have assessed. is this reasonable that something that is this extraordinary a poison here, this is just fear mongering, this is nonsense. and all of these organizations are just ignoring it? but jeffrey smith knows the truth. here's the editorial in "science" magazine. "science" magazine, the magazine of the aaas just wrote an editorial that was about standing up for gmos. this is nobel laureates. these are people that have extraordinary reputations. the president emeritus of the aaas, the president emeritus of the royal society. these people have no ax to grind. their careers are made. they're not in the pockets of several industrial groups that are, you know, developing these things. and here's jeffrey smith. now, there's a picture of him supposedly flying. he's a yoga flier, i don't know, he was probably hopping, and if

you can actually do that, that would be a great demonstration, but advanced meditators. zero formal science, zero medical training, and yet he pretends to go around and talk to medical groups as though they're listening to him like that. it's a joke. he runs an anti-gmo cottage industry. and believe me they're profiting from this controversy. so when it comes to conflict of interest, it's not these other people. it's the group of gmo activists that are profiting from this. attended maharishi transcendental. argued that yoga fryers would lower nationwide stress, reduce unemployment, raise gdp, improve health, reduce crime and make the country invincible to foreign attack. this is not science. and i'm not saying there's anything wrong with transcendental meditation. i think it's really great and people find great value in it

but it's not science. and science is not about people, it's a process. and it's a whole process. and in fact, if people were engaged in this sort of thing, this deceptiveness, they would be drummed out that's very clear. because individuals in science love the argue with one another about evidence and about -- that's what peer review is all about. i didn't know about jeffrey smith. i looked up "genetic roulette." i read -- i didn't read the whole thing. i read part of it. it sounds very disturbing. the argument just don't stand up to scrutiny. they're ridiculous. okay? and you can make it, throw around a lot of words and make it sound like it's very deep and very profound, but i suggest you get the book. buy it, and when you read it go online to this academic review.org site which is two

scientists, and they go through a point by point refutation of these points with suitable peer reviewed arguments, with other publications, and i think that if jeffrey were scientifically trained he simply could not make the arguments that he's making at least doing it and feeling that it was honest. and i'll just show you one example. i could have picked many, but i don't want to get into the he said, she said because you know, you actually -- it's very difficult. i'm very scientifically trained. i'm not very familiar with all of the arguments in terms of gmos, although i've educated myself recently about them. i'm certainly, you know -- i really wouldn't care how it comes out. if gmos were a problem, i'm fine with that. they're not. so here's an example. i just pulled this out. it takes a lot of energy even for me. but so the claim is rats fed bt 63 that's the corn bacillus, had

multiple health problems. there's no question about that. strong statement. this is straight out of his book. rats were fed that for 90 days. that's great. monsanto study. she showed significant changes in blood cells, livers, kidneys which might indicate disease. sounds disturbing. experts demanded follow-up. there's a cover-up going on, though. well, that's disturbing especially when there are like 90 of these or 70 of these in the book. but if you take a read through and look at the website. peer review analyses, which aren't cited, refute this. and the person that did this was seralini at the fringes of the scientific community has very poor quality of this. and the food authority not a captured organization, i assure you, they looked for comment and what did they find. the analytic presumptions were misleading, differences weren't

relevant. no new safety issues and no revision to the finding that this corn was safe. and there has been -- there are 600 studies that look at the safety of these gmos. in fact, so much is required that only big business can develop gmos now. because it costs about $150 million and takes maybe five years to get something through to where it could be marketed. so that has been the effect of all of this. it creates, means that it requires big industry. so no, gmos don't bother me. and why? because i find the idea of a gmo conspiracy at that level, at that magnitude as just not credible and if it's not credible, i mean, if you want to believe it, then fine, but if you don't think that's what's going on in virtually every medical organization around and scientific organization then it requires very good evidence to reject the body of evidence that's exists and to cause these

organizations to say there is safety in these products. and that doesn't exist. secondly, this is a hauntingly similar debate to me about things that i'm very familiar with, inhave it ro fertilization, which my own daughter was a prd of in vitro fertilization. it was said that this would be like monsters would be created. the kind of arguments that were made when this first occurred were very, very similar sounding. it happens with every new technology. and it just has shifted and shifted. and with gene therapy. even with evolution. listen to some of the anti-evolution arguments and they have some of the same sorts of qualities to them. dna. this is a constituent of every living thing. we ingest dna. we break it into fragments. of course we have fragments of genetics in our guts and transgenes, ones that are moved from one organism to another, of course they're there.

they're 0.0001% of what's there, but the dna in one organism and another organism, it's not something different. we share half of the genes with cauliflowers because that's what we are, all life processes are the same. viral bacteria genes, we're exposed to these things all the time, not only in our guts but all around us. the large kinds of life forms, mammals are a tiny fraction of the life on this planet. it's mostly bacterial. so this is stuff that we're very equipped to deal with. and, in fact, as far as insecticides almost every vegetable that you eat contains natural insecticides. why is that? because vegetables are in a life and death struggle with insects. of course they make insecticides. so the problem with insecticides that get used and sprayed on it

is that you're getting it all over the farm workers and everything or on the surface of these things. insecticides are something -- i'm wrapping up. so gmos are the most tested of plants, most don't receive it at all. in terms of arguing any specific thing, it's kind of -- well, here's the modification to the genetics that we get. of course they get modified. that's what evolution is all about. for things that sound interesting if you don't have a biology background if you're not trained but they're really very standard. it's bit like whack-a-mole, you can argue about one thing but something else will pop up. it's easy to make these assertions and you can spend all your time trying to argue about it. the real issue is is this morally wrong? i would suspect that jeffrey actually feels in his heart of hearts that it is wrong and many people feel that way. we shouldn't play god.

we shouldn't reshape the natural world around us and, in fact, i would bet that the radicals, the zealots and the anti-gmo crowd, that what their biggest fear is not that you're going to have a bhopal like accident and people will get killed by gmos because that would actually destroy that industry. it would be the perfect path. i mean, it would probably not recover from that. the real fear is, like with other technologies, that actually we will get so used to it, it will be used in a variety of ways that are very beneficial and within a generation, it will just seem natural like ivf. who would ever argue that ivf is going to create monsters? even leon cass who opposed it a the beginning said, well, i was kind of wrong on that. that's what the big theory is. and if you really wanted to run tests and there were this magnitude of problems associated with these poisons, it would be

front headline everywhere because i can tell you any number of scientists who would like to show that, it would make their careers, give them nobel prizes. so gmos are simple. loss of identity for us, what does it mean to be human, abhorrent changes, perverted values, this is what this is all about and big slippery slopes. okay? and of course we're concerned because, look at this. here is what we did to the wolf. look at this fine creature here, the gray wolf. in just a few hundred years in many cases but a few thousand years entirely, this is what we created. look at all those. i mean, and that was using very low tech tools of just natural breeding. very transformed. and now high tech tools. and guess what? we're going to apply them not just to plants and animals all around because that's what we do with technology. what about us? we're already doing selection to

avoid cystic fibrosis and if you had the capability of altering genetics, there are about 60% to 70% of people that say they would enhance the physicality or the mentality of children if they could with genetic engineering. so this is where this is going. of course there's a lot of angst about it. but frankly, the idea that we can stop is absurd. it's not like there's one little technology that is causing all these weird things. this is happening across a broad technology front. it's not one genie that's maybe out of the bottle. it's hundreds of them. and new ones emerging every day. look what's going on with the internet and sharing and the way people are being replaced by devices that are now doing work. things we thought only yesterday only we could do. this is big stuff that is happening. and here's what's really going on. and this is thucydidi the

bravest are those with the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, yet notwithstanding they go out and meet it. that's really the charge that we have today for us and our children and their children is how we deal with these incredibly chal ens and amazing and difficult technologies that are really altering our sense of who we are and what we are and what life is all about. that's where i think the situation is with gmos. thank you. [ applause ] >> i want to give each of the speakers an opportunity to rebut one another before we open it up to the audience. i do want to ask one question, though. i think in many things we presume we know what we're talking about, whether we're for or against. so if the two of you could start with the definition of what a gmo is. i'll observe that throughout

human history so long as we've been domesticating animals and plants that we've modified them. i want to know what's different about genetically modified organisms and how that's defined and, secondly, how long they've been around. jeffrey, i'll start with you. >> well, i refer to it as laboratory techniques -- laboratory techniques that insert genes typically from other species rather than sexual reproduction. so you can mix and match between species. they've taken spider jeens agen put them into goats in hopes they can milk that to get spider web vests. they have pigs with cow hides. so these are examples of crossing between different species. >> so it's very unclear what gmos are. in the definitions that are used because there are many things that are considered to be, you know, natural plant breeding

that actually are moving around genetics in a wholesale fashion that's a little less precise than if you move a small -- a few genes and their promoters around. but, you know, they've been called genetically modified organisms. there are -- so but the using the techniques of molecular genetics essentially to hone the process so that we can actually do things which are, you know, very common. for instance, many drugs are created by putting in a gene into a bacterium that then produces that and it's a much purer way than going into an animal, for instance, and taking insulin by purifying it from the organism. so there are all sort of aspects in medicine where we do the same sorts of technologies, but it's not really labeled as gmo. so i think it's very unclear and it's quite nebulous.

for example, is a gmo an animal that is consuming gmo produce, for example, does that then become genetically modified in some way. i mean, would you eat animals that are fed off of that? so there are all sorts -- to me, the slippery slope is when you come in and -- i'm sorry, i'll give you a chance to answer right afterward, is when you come in and you sort of use this kind of nebulous term and speak of it like it's a thing when it's really not. it's a whole set of processes that are used to create various kinds of biology, new biology, different strains. there are many other processes of creating them as well. and then sort of use that in a very selective fashion. >> let me give jeffrey an opportunity to answer the question that was asked. we'll do some rebuttal here. i will observe that dr. stock

went a little longer than jeffrey. >> he spoke 18 minutes longer. i do want to spend some time. >> i do want to open it up to the audience. i'll give you a few more minutes. >> perhaps you can yield me your time for rebuttal because you literally spoke 18 minutes longer than i did. i made so many notes. you made so many mistakes. >> talk as much as you want. >> yes, thank you. first of all, i'm not morally against genetic engineering. i'm not against human gene therapy as long as it's not inheritable at this point. my line, my boundary is in the food supply affecting everyone who eats or releasing it outdoors where we have no ability to recall it. now, i looked with great interest at your presentation, and there were many things in here that are the standard talking points of the biotech industry created in some places by monsanto's pr firm. and i've had an opportunity to

spend years looking at these things with scientists around the world. i actually take advantage of the fact that i'm not a scientist because i don't predispose that i know the answer from my training so i ask many scientists. then when i hear from one scientist, i run it by the other scientist and i can explain why academics review really a junk science site. we'll talk about that in a moment. you mentioned bt and said if you're scared of bt, then you should be concerned about organic because organic uses bt toxin as a spray. bt toxin as a spray washes off and biodegrades. bt toxin in crops is produced at thousands of times more concentration than is sprayed on. it doesn't wash away. it doesn't biodegrade. it has properties of a known

allergen. in fact, there was an understanding, an assumption by the environmental protection agency and the industry that bt toxin was completely safe for humans but the science advisory panel of the epa looking at my studies and farmer studies, farmworker studies said she's animals and humans are reacting appear to be reacting to the bt toxin, therefore, more study is necessary before you can declare it completely safe. they ignored their own panel what which was the most experts in the country without ever doing a research that was recommended. you pointed out that flood tolerant rice was gmo. that flood tolerant rice was not genetically engineered. it was created by other

breeding. you talked about we eat plants all the time. we eat dna all the time. well, there are reasons why plant genes don't transfer to gut bacteria. see, gut bacteria transfers genes all the time back and forth. plant genes don't tip ukly transfer into bacteria because they don't have the similarity of the genetic code. most of the genes inserted into gmos are from bacteria. so that barrier to gene transfer is eliminated. if plant genes end up in bacterial geneses, they tip beingly won't function because the on switch, the promoter doesn't work. if you plant take a plant switch from plant and put it into the back tear yashgs it doesn't work. the promoter used with gmos works in bacteria. there are two other three other reasons that get technical as to why normally if you eat plants the genes won't transfer to your gut bacteria.

all of those natural barriers are removed with gmos. the only time they ever looked at it they found gm genes and human gut bacteria even though they said it would never happen. if you look at the assumptions that were used in the industry in 1996 when they first introduced large scale soy and corn, i list them in my book. will are so many assumptions have proven to be wrong. and this is one of the concerns that i have. professor said it used to take one class in a semester, now it takes a whole semester. because we don't -- it's so much more complicated than we thought. we haven't yet understood the language of the dna sufficient to make manipulations at this level and release them to the entire population or outdoors. they discovered a new code in the dna recently. they discovered genetic effects.

they're still doing tests on gmos and the most common result is surprise effects. they sort of exposed something called double stranded rna which is using the gmos to honey bees. they figured it was a control. it would have no effect. it changed 1100 genes and their expression in the honey bee. completely changing the regulation of this insect that wasn't supposed to be faektd at all. yet, they're already putting out double stranded rma gmos into our environment. you see, there is a clock or a stop watch that goes off when they're doing gmo research. and one is the patent. the pat enlt has a certain life. now it may take 50 or 100 years or 200 years to understand the functioning of the dna to reliably and safely manipulate it for the benefit of the health and environment. but the pat eblt went out and there is a time limit as well. so of all the independent

scientists i interviewed aren't world, i've been to 40 countries, they all agree that whether they're against gmos or for gmos, they all agree it was released long before the science is written. based on economic interests and political interests. the process itself, i don't agree is irrelevant. because the process of genetic engineering causes mass collateral damage, hundreds of mutations up and down the dna, far more than conventional breeding. and they don't evaluate it. so some independent scientists looked at monsantos corn after it was on the market and found a gene that was silent switched on. and that gene produced an allergen. so you may have an allergic reaction. someone you may know may die from eating the corn. it is genetically engineered as containing an allergen. the process of genetic engineering caused a switch on that dorm anlt gene and the change of 43 other genes as well

as the shape in the change of proteins. soy has a seven fold increase, up to seven fold increase in a no allergen. again, this wasn't intended. this was the background side effects of the process of genetic engineering. the process used to create the soy and corn we eat. we talked about environmental toxins just now. one of the characteristics that i didn't mention of roundup or exact ingredient is it messes up the detox fiction system in the body. cyp enzymes. normally if a toxin in comes in, they can usher it out of the body. but roundup messes that up. meaning that all of the other environmental toxins you take into your body will be amplified and increased in their impact on us. whether it's from what we eat, vaccines, from the environmental exposure. it can all be amplified. in fact, there was a research study that came out linked roundup as it is sprayed on sugar cane before harvest in sri

lanka to this huge death rate based on kidney failure. because of the way it amplified the effects of arsenic. now as far as being a conspiracy theorist, i don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. i have the quotes from the scientists around the world and the organizations around the world who agree that genetic engineering is a dangerous and side effect prone science. so, for example, the canadian royal society said the default prediction of gmos should be unpredicted side effects. and i can put up a similar list like you of the organizations that have a different opinion. but i've also talked to some of those organizations that agree with you, greg, and i was alarmed at how unscientific their thinking was. i was recently in new zealand having an hour long interview with the food standards australian new zeile land. they're not for animal feeding

studies. they're for human feeding studies. they're not even wanting to use the most up to date means of evaluating what mutations have taken place and what new proteins might be produced in the food supply. and i mean their response as to why are bizarre. i said why don't you want to use animal feeding studies? sometimes animal feeding studies don't reveal a problem. granted, sometimes animal feeding studies don't reveal a problem. but thousands of published animal feeding studies do show problems that aren't found from simple chemical analysis. but they ignore it. i said why don't you do an analysis on all the proteins being created by the gmos like they do now in laboratories for experiments? they said oh, you don't want to collect that data. because we don't have enough data to evaluate it, we don't want more data. it was completely circular logic. and many of these organizations have come under attack by nongovernmental organizations as

being manned by the people assigned by the botic industry. the food safety authority is numerous scandals because people make the decisions on gmos are monsantos people, just like the fda. so the last thing i want to refer to, there is more details. it gets into specific details. but it's beyond, i mean i love the opportunity to respond because there was so many things in there that i spent 18 years interviewing scientists about and it's like that's the -- you know, it was the misinterpretation that was presented just now which is so easy to show there is no scientific legs. and that's what academics review did. they spent years looking at my book and misquoted my book. so they actually lied about what my book said in order to knock it down. finally, i say here are the

arguments, here are the ways they deal with information that they find uncomfortable. okay. they ignore you. they attack you. if it gets to a point where you have evidence that they cannot deny, that they cannot win on a scientific basis, that's when they personally attack you. and so they spent a lot of money investigating my past and they came up with the fact that i like to dance, that i meditate, and that i don't have a scientific background. nonthe less, i interviewed scientists for 18 years and have my findings peer reviewed by scientific committees. they distort information to assume that i'm aligned with people that i have, you know, my clients et cetera. and this concept of profit motive, i have an mba and making far more money in the business world before dedicating my life at this point to protecting

humanity from the dafrpers of gmos. i actually, if i wanted to make money, i would not be in this business. if anyone knows nonprofits, just say that we're in it for the money, right. however, if you would like to make a donation, talk to me afterwards. thank you very much. >> i want to open it up to questions. that's part wave we do here. but did you go a little bit longer than jeffrey did in your initial presentation. let's give two or three minutes and then open it up. >> instead of getting into a lot of details that are very difficult to understand, let's talk about a single thing. a claim that was made. first of all this idea i interviewed a bunch of scientists and everybody is in agreement this was really premature that, is absolutely not correct. because i talk to everybody. and they think you're a whacko. okay? and they don't agree with that. okay. i mean that's just -- well, it's

talk about people in the scientific community, okay, you raise a lot of ire. i was not aware of it. but when -- so let's just take a simple thing. a simple thing which is the claim that you made that physician that you spoke to indicated that virtually 100% of her patients were basically cured when they stopped eating gmo. >> i didn't say cured. >> got better. >> yes. >> got better when they stopped eating gmos. i've dealt with physicians and that's a very, very strong claim. and frankly, when i deal with the medical community, i find it very difficult to get anything significant about any ailment that i have and get consistent treatment and interaction over a period of time, especially in the united states. the medical system is in a real shambleses. so to me, i can't even fathom how you would get that kind of data from a doctor that they would attribute, first of all,

5,000 patients is a huge, huge medical practice. and that you're going to sort of have this effect associated with going off of gmos. i find that and an extraordinary claim. and, you know, i'll just leave it. i would like you to amplify on that. that, to me, represents the state of this being a poison that is very, very dramatic and is in everybody's face. and, yet, there are a lot of people that i think you would agree are, you know, not -- they don't really -- they're not in the industry lab, in some ways. some of the people i mentioned and yet are very, very accepting of gmos not being a problem. so let's take that number. >> to answer that question -- >> okay. yeah, the doctor said it's not just gmos. she does a lot of things. she does intake form. and in the film gin etic

roulette, it is emily linlder sheshgs describes this. she said yeah, i don't just predescribe these diets, i do whatever works. that she attributes as one of the main levers. i can't stand for -- i can't vouch for how important the gmo removal was for all of her patients and repeating information from her. i made a bold step to start to repeat information from doctors and not just scientists. now there are so many doctors reporting this and starting to collect them. so i'm absolutely sure that there is some people who remove gmos and don't get better from what they're suffering from. but if it damages gut bacteria, it causes leaky gut, suppresses digestive enzymes, misses up the cyp enzymes, et cetera, et cetera, then it may get in the way of the body's own natural mechanisms and becomes part of her practice that she considers to be very valuable. >> let's open it up to questions

in the audience. again, let me recognize you if you would. charlie, let's start on this side. i'll ask two questions here, give charlie a second to get to this side. we'll run back and forth. >> thank you for a very interesting presentation tonight. and i do believe that diet and lifestyle does contribute to our health. eat organic food. not eating red diets and antibiotics in food. i'm 69 years old. i heard a doctor in the community over the years and a lot of it i don't believe. we have been told the agent orange was safe, that love canal had nothing to do with chemicals. and so i'm very skeptical about

the scientific community. my question is i would like to eliminate gmos from my diet. i eat organic. what can i do as an individual to help get foods labelled as a no n non-gmo to be hesitant to allow this labelling for some reason. and it's probably because of the money behind monsantos and conag. what can i do as an individual to get foods labels. >> was everybody able to hear the question? >> very quick response. and then i turn over to jeffrey. i think he would be expert in this. basically, i think you shouldn't be eating any processed foods. xlu that list which is a limited list of fruits and vegetable that's have possible gm -- that possibly could be gmo. eat organic foods.

and i think you're in good shape. that but maybe there are more details in that. >> organic products are not allowed to use gmo's intentionally. there is also products labelled non-gmo. a non-gmo project is the uniform standard used now by 16,000 products and 1500 companies. we have a shopping guide at nongmoshoppingguide.com that lists those 16,000 products and also available on i-phone for free at shopnogmo. download the app. and in there we have the at risk ingredients which are the derivatives of soy, corn, cotton seed oil, sugar beats, alfalfa which is food for animals. and there is also animals that have been fed gmos we don't consider them general et ukly modified, but even the fda

center for veterinary medicine said there are unique risks to health for eating milk and meat from animals that are fed gmos. as far as getting labelling goes, there's an interesting announcement that you're not aware of that there is a ballot initiative on the colorado ballot that will be there in november for you to vote for all products that are genetically engineered and sold in colorado to be labelled as such. now already the industry has started to unleash a torrent of lies, disinformation. they're going to try to tell you that labelling will cost you $400 per person per year. there are 64 other countries that require these outright. none of them increased their costs. many of the company that's sell the gmos have taken them out or labelled them in other places. they tell that you labelling is bad for farmers and small business and bad for people. they're going to tell you it's poorly written. that it is special interests, et

cetera. this is how they got 51% in california to vote against labels and 51% in washington to vote against labelling even though 93% of the population was in favor of gmo labelling. >> we grow crops in missouri. it's impossible not to grow them. if we don't use gmo seed, the seeds don't get pollen yated. we have really no choice but to grow gmof we don't grow it, it gets pollen ated and we grow it anyway. so my question is with all of us

farmers growing gmo all across illinois and the midwest where all the crops are grown, where is all this non-gmo product coming from? it's almost impossible to grow. >> let me restate the question. i think people had trouble hearing it. the question is basically that farmers who are trying to grow non-gmo crops have gmo seed blown into the fields so they sprout gmo crops. how do you grow them when you're rig not to? >> let me amplify on that. i think the challenges are very real. because what you're talking about in terms of eliminating gmos and not just labelling organic foods which are really non-gmos is really completely redoing the distribution and the food distribution system if you really want to eliminate gmos. you know, any truck has been for moving around any gmo variety of food that goes from one field to

another. you need a separate food distribution system, especially when you get into products that are, you know, that are site of orange inis not mapped into it. they're mixed together in various ways. you have to keep everything separate. i think it's almost impossible and it's a huge, huge, it would be an enormous undertaking to completely do that. >> so there is a new booklet that i can tell you about later about how to protect your farm from gmo contamination. but your point is well taken. this is one of the problems about gmos because they spread. so organic may have contaminated soy or corn. even non-gmo verified where testing is required still has a .9% con tam nance. you change the gene pool of the non-gmo species, the same species, in other words, corn to corn. but also the relatives. so canola is related to other

vegetables. so this is one of our concerns from the environmental impacts of gmos. >> you know, i have a question for you in terms of i heard of zero tolerance for any gmo. is that something that you would subscribe to? how do you handle something like canola oil, for example, corn oil that comes from the gmo corn? you would consider that to be gmo? >> so zero tolerance actually is not possible right now in canola, for example, in corn. if the non-gmo project had no tolerance, no farmer would bother growing it for the same fear that you have. because they figured if one, you know, if one colonel is general et ukly engineered they would lose the premium and all for not.

so right now we have to think about what is practical. as far as oils, the oils don't have the dna or the proteins. and so some people consider them completely safe even if they're made general et beitically engi beans. a recent study found the roundup ready produced soy bean oil has high levels of roundup in it. but the non-gmosoy bean oil does not. also the process of genetic engineering has such massive collateral damage that compounds produced in the crop may be different. so there may be some fat sol ubl tochlin' that results in the process of genetic engineering that ends up in the oil. and we have seen compositional differences between gmo and nongmo. >> let me take one more question if someone has one over here. then we'll move over to the other side. carol? carol, wait for the microphone to get to you.

>> he mentioned something earlier about tobacco science. i'm really interested in the scientific basis for both -- for what both of you are saying. i'd like you to address that toeb thing. >> the question has to do with jeffrey's reference to tobacco science and asking for an explanation about that. how that fits into this discussion. >> how many people heard of bovine growth hormone? it's a genetically engineered drug injected into cows. so fda said doesn't matter about the bovine growth hormone. 9 90% is destroyed during pasteurization. they pasteurized the milk at 120 times longer than normal. and they only destroyed 19% of the hormone. so they added powdered hormone to the milk at huge quantities. then pasteurized it for 120 times longer than normal under

the conditions they destroyed 90% of the hormone. and when the fda reported that 90% of the hormone is destroyed, they never referred to the fact that was under those ridiculous conditions. we analyzed in the book in detail pulling out excerpts from expert reports showing that blasted their studies to avoid finding problems. here's how you do it. i used the wrong statistical methods, wrong protection methods, they explain away problems. they do things that no other scientific body hefer done when they find a statistically significant event. they'll just -- like the example greg pointed out. it is completely unscientific and we show exactly why. and we quote the experts in that. >> so i would assume that this is -- this would refer to the

idea that the tobacco industry for so long was in such denial about the very clear and obvious dangers of tobacco smoke. the same thing happened with mercury. this went on for many, many decades. and there was a lot of resistance and a lot of internal effort to try and do that. i can just tell you in terms of the fda, i don't know the particular studies here, but i dealt with the fda when it comes to pharmaceuticals. and this is a very, very conservative safety sensitive organization. so much more. it's incredibly frustrating to deal with them. the reason for it is kind of obvious. here are a bunch of bureaucrats. and if they speed something to market, they maybe get a little pat on the back. it's not a really huge career advancing step for them. but if they allow something that turns out and we've seen it with the recall