editor-in-chief of cns news.com, will also be looking ahead to director philip mudd, of counterterrorism, will join us to talk about some anti-terrorism issues post up that is it for today's show. hope you have a great saturday. we will see you back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> next, a debate about the genetically modified foods. the director of the white house

let him initiative to fight childhood obesity. then a house hearing on airport safety. the a debate about the safety of genetically modified foods with jeffrey smith. this is two hours. >> jeffrey smith is a national best-selling author and film maker. he is the executive director for the institute of responsible technology. his book includes seeds of deception come exposing industry and government lies about the safety of genetically engineered food you're eating, which is the best bestseller on gm owes -- on gmo's.

gregory stock, to my immediate left, dr. gregory stock is a biotech entrepreneur, best selling author and public communicator. he is a leading authority on advanced technology. he founded the -- at ucla school of medicine in 1997. served as its director for 10 years. a series of high-profile lectures, dr. stock has categorized and brought to the debate about the public policy applications. one of you ask him what bio informatics means. among his books are redesigning humans, our inevitable genetic future, engineering the human drum line, and the book of questions.

we look forward to your presentation. [applause] >> how many of you ski? i'm in the right place. forgive me if i have recognized today. i went to vail for the first time. how many of you here are farmers? let's hear it for the farmers. [applause] how many of you are gardeners? how many eat? make note of it, there are more people who ski than eat here. [laughter] let's talk about something that is in our food and you may or may not know about it. soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, zucchini,

yellow squash, and papaya. the agency is not aware of any information showing that gmo's are significantly different therefore no safety testing is necessary. so companies like monsanto, who i previously -- imperiously told us that ddt was safe, they can determine on their own and maybe get it right this time that there gmo seat and the crops they produce are safe. it turns out that that basic sentence, which is in fact the basics for the u.s. policy overseas, the state department, etc., etc. -- it was a lie.

it was complete fiction. we did not know about in 1992, but we found out about it in 1999 game 40,000 secret internal memos from the fda were forced into public domain from a lawsuit. not only were they aware that gmo's were significantly different, it was the consensus among their own scientists that they were different and of high risk, that they could create allergies and nutritional problems. they repeatedly urged their superiors to require long-term study. and every time they read the policy, they noticed that more

and more of their science rose removed from that -- was removed from that document. the person in charge of policy at the fda, the political appointee was michael taylor, monsanto's former attorney. the fda was taken instructions to promote that technology. they created a position for him. taylor became monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist. now he is back at the fda as the two safeties are -- food safety czar. 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 are not on the fda list. so we have very few safety studies. but enough for the academy of environmental men sent to evaluate and discover that the rats and the mice that were fed gmo's had gastrointestinal disorders, organ damage, accelerated aging, reproductive disorders, and dysfunction 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 recommend non-gmo diets to all patients. this came out in 2009. i went to the a.m. conference with a videoconference -- with a video camera. i had been representing scientists around the world, independent scientists found that the entire approach to genetic engineering of food was completely premature, that we did not yet have enough information about genes, dna, insertion process to safely introduce it and expose it to the entire population who eat, which is most of you. and we could not release it with

confidence into the environment with the self propagating portion of the gene pool without the effects of global warming and nuclear faced because it is the background to the genetic will. so i was interviewing the 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 saw folk, converging lines of evidence suggest that i might be chilly. nothing is deficit definite. but when i meet these doctors at this conference, they did not speak like scientists. they said gmo cause inflammation. gmo's cause my allergic patients to have more allergic reactions. i was skeptical.

for years, people would come up to me and say i react to gmo's, and when i take him out of my diet, i feel better. and my skeptic brain was saying how do you know? maybe it's true, but probably not. how do you know? i was looking for a background trend. but here were doctors. this woman, what percentage? she said 100% get better, maybe 98%. >> i asked her again, how many patients do you have that you prescribe non-gmo diets to? she said about 5000 over the years. someone with 25 days into a non-gmo diet, they had symptoms disappear in three days. kids with terrible that pain had disappeared.

another doctor was invited into their office and i interviewed their patients. so many dramatic improvements. then i started asking rooms like this have many of you have noticed improvement in your health and every civil time i ask this, the most consistent reaction is guessed it -- gastrointestinal getting better. energy issues, weight loss, allergies, asthma and also behavioral problems with kids, autistic problems. when i ask people as i did in the doctors office, how do you avoid gmo? they are not labeled. and they often say they buy organic or reduce processed food. so soon as they buy organic or

reduce processed food because i'm representing the scientific community, i say there are too many cofactors. maybe if the diet. is it the nine gmo aspect -- the non-gmo aspect of the diet? is it the chemicals that is usually found in processed food? at the same time, i started visiting farms and veterinarians who had taken livestock and offer them gmo corn or soy and they took him off gmo corn or soy and they were getting better from the same problems that the people were getting better from and there were no other cofactors. on the farm, the pig had diarrhea and in the opposite called irritable bowel. they would tell their patients -- tell their pet owners to take

the animals off of gmo's and they get better. i have video of several legendary areas and pet owners repeating the same thing. now we see a pattern. people getting better from these same diseases and disorders when they read more -- when they remove gmo's from their diet. these same disorders and diseases are on the rise in the u.s. population. there is a big righty of

disorders and diseases. how was it that gmo's might impact of these? gmogmo if you look at's there are two main traits. there is the pesticide producing on and cotton, producing d.c. toxin that make little holes in the insects to kill them and then there is a nervous side that is rounder pretty that is designed to be treated with round of artists -- roundup herbicide and it is absorbed. . into the food. roundup, about 85% of the crops out there and prayed with round up. roundup was the subject of a paper last year and the authors, just looking at the biochemical

property to cancer, obesity, diabetes, alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, and eric sierra, and depression. -- anorexia and depression. they have linked it to gluten sensitivity and silly activities and death by kidney dysfunction. the way roundup works is it binds with nutrients with trace minerals, making them unavailable to plants, making them unavailable to us. that is one of the reactions in our body that can deprive us of important nutrients. it is also opposing antibiotics. how many people here that got back area -- that gut bacteria is a port and for health? gut bacteria is google for the digestion and immunity.

it kills bacteria but it is selective. it kills the beneficial bacteria but not the e. coli, some in noah, and botulism. so it causes an overgrowth -- salmonella, and botulism. so it causes an overgrowth. when it messes of thegut bacteria, that can affect the immune system, the digestive system, cause leaky gut, holes in the gut walls. undigested food proteins can get in there causing immune reaction, information, allergies, autoimmune disease, and has led to cancer or parkinson's and alzheimer's and other diseases. roundup also blocks a certain pathway, a metabolic pathway. monsanto said humans don't have the pathway so it doesn't matter

if it gets blocked because it does not get locked in us. but our gut bacteria is a precursor to serotonin and tryptophan which is our mood changers. there is plenty of specific details that roundup does, including an apron disruption, where it can mess up a reproductive capacity, possibly linking to birth the cap -- birth detects -- birth defects. it has a strong competitor in the bt toxin. it wasn't supposed to have any impact on human beings. but a 2012 study found that it

creates in human cells just like in insects during if it breaks up a little holes in our intestinal walls come it also creates the leaky gut that we just talked about. it doesn't just allow the undigested food proteins to get in there. but also the bt toxin and the round up. so in the blood of canadian women that were tested, they found bt toxin and roundup. in pregnant women, 93% of their blood and in 80% of the blood in their unborn fetuses. another study with mice showed that it caused damage to the red blood cells. so it might be causing damage to our blood cells. and then when he gets the unborn fetus, there is no developed blood brain barrier.

i talked to a scientist, several scientists, who talk about the bt toxin in the blood, saying it would probably. . wash out very quickly if it washes out very quickly, why would 93% of the pregnant women in canada have bt toxin in their but if it washes out quickly. it must have a constant source. it probably came from the milk in animals fed bt corn. i think there is another plausible explanation. in a 2004 study, they found that part of the roundup-ready gene transfer into the dna of the bacteria living inside our intestines. and that that bacteria was only tillable with roundup. this suggests that doesn't prove

that when the gina genetically engineered crops transfers to gut bacteria, it continues to function. genetically modified proteins continuously, 24/07 inside our digestive tract. they didn't see whether eating chip could turn your intestinal for into -- corn in the united states is made with bt corn and with round of corn. what if it transfers to the gut bacteria and continues to produce it? this was never confirmed. this was never tested.

each is a tragedy. because we are feeding it to the entire population. but if you just look at the quality of the bt toxin and roundup, it could explain all of the different reports we are hearing from now thousands of physicians prescribing non-gmo diets. i have counted 5000 or 6000 and not in torrance in conferences and i asked for a show of hands of how many are prescribing non-gmo diets. in 1987, 13% said they were avoiding gmo's. last year, it was 39%. unfortunately, the biotech industry has earned a reputation as being underhanded and let's say not so appreciative of the facts. when scientists discover

problems, according to nature and other publications and interviews i have done with those scientists, there are typically -- they are typically attacked, often fired or gagged , they lose funding, lose access to seeds. they will be demoted. so much so that there are very few scientists willing to do research in this area. and we have tracked very consistently the reaction by scientists in attacking these independent scientists and destroying their evidence. when you look at industry funded studies however, they are designed to avoid finding problems. we collect about the science. i sit with scientists and go over the research done by the industry and they point out exactly how this thing -- it is either not tested or they don't use modern techniques and if

they do find problems, they just explain it away with often nonscientific explanations. so during the q and a, if you want to know more specifics about how they rated their research, there is an adoption. by educating people about the health dangers, many of us have seen the revolution that is occurring. non-gmo label products are the fastest-growing. it grew faster than any other category in terms of sales than any of the other 35 health and will thus claims. in europe, we saw a solution to the gm of issue -- the gmo issue, not by political and enactment but from consumer education.

i will talk a little bit about gmo's if you like. i'm just showing some of the photographs, not the peer-reviewed published studies. just some of 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 the stomach lining. this is a potato that is not current on the market this was almost certainly due to the genetic process of genetic engineering, not the particular gene that was inserted your massive collateral damage in the

dna and causes unpredicted side effects like. in india, thousands and thousands of farm workers 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 were they allowed their buffalo to graze on bt confines for a single day. all 13 of their buffalo died within two or three days. many of them have been eating non-gmo harvest plants for up to eight years. rats on genetically modified soybeans. rats that were fed gm soybeans, there testicles change from pink to blue. i gave a took at -- i gave a talk at the european parliament. more than 50% of their offspring

died within three weeks compared to 10% in the control. there is a study that was done in france showing massive multiple tumors, organ damage, and early death. i'm sure my colleague will pick apart and i will be happy to pick up the pieces. here are pictures of pigs stomachs after fed genetically modified seed on the right. it is hard to see in this light, but it is severe irritation and show 25% larger your uses --

larger uteruses. not to flip through some of the cause estimates. this does not guarantee causation. but if gmo has a problem and we are feeding it to the population and if it is significant enough that we take people off gmo's and they're getting better -- this is death from parkinson's disease. this is number of new cases of diabetes diagnosed annually. if you take at the tram line, the gym a factor came into play. this is the number of hospitalizations for two kidney injuries.

end-stage kidney disease. janine and elvis cancer incident. thyroid cancer incident liver and bile duct they are the target tissues for like a sake or roundup -- four glycocate or roundup. this is autism. this is low birthrate baby. hospital discharge diagnosis for inflammatory about. death due to intestinal infection.

hospital discharge and notice of peritonitis. ob speculation in the united states. celiac disease in a canadian hospital in an area where they increase the planting of soybean and canola. the correlations are rather shocking. they are 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 gmo's are easy, are safe to eat. we will be able to pick apart the argument in great detail. i want to thank the veil supposedly -- vale symposium for this opportunity. [applause]

>> before i turn this over to dr. stock, those of you particularly in the front row, i need you to notice the computer stand here. with that, dr. stock. >> hi am not going to try and rebut these things at this point on a case-by-case basis. this is the most absurd fabrication that i have ever listened to. i didn't know anything about jeffrey smith before i agreed to come to this. i assumed that it was less distorted than i am really listening to. this graph is suggestive. i get the same sort of graphs from the internet with what is potentially possible for all of these things, everything increasing over time.

but what i am hearing is that gmo crop are the most extraordinary poison that ever existed among 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 a extraordinary conspiracy to deny this. it denies all of these institutions. and you have someone here who is actually profiting gmo by the controversy and has zero scientific training and talks about speaking before medical audiences, speaking before scientific audiences. we will get into that in a moment. so i will ask you to suspend your judgment on some of the stuff. what i might do is to try and talk a little bit about the context of these changes.

with gmo's there is only one aspect. i want you to step back. some things that are absolutely fundamental in the history of life are occurring right now. there are two revolutions that are without precedent. the first is the silicon revolution. what is really occurring is taking the inert materials around us, silicon, and reading a level of complexity to it that rivals like itself. that's why we have all of our amazing gadgets and such. they are almost intelligent and this is just the first baby step in that direction. what we are doing is animating the inanimate world around that. if you project forward a little bit, it is mind-boggling to even think what will be possible in a short period of time.

it's not surprising that this is creating a certain angst about technology. the second revolution that is occurring -- everybody is profound, which is made possible by this first revolution, and that is the biotech revolution. learning the process, understanding it 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. that is something that is the central part of all the possibilities in medicine and biology and the life sciences that are arriving today. it is a step that never will -- that nothing will ever be the same. life is beginning to control its own future and we are starting to alter the world around us to where it becomes almost intelligent. this is blurring a lot of

boundaries. the kinds of things that are occurring are to the boundary between the born and the made, between life and the nonliving. here is a synthetic light treated by craig venter, a designed bacterium. here is kanye mitchell, the line between our tools and ourselves. she is using this prosthesis and controlling it with her mind through just thinking about how to to move it which excites the nerves on her chest which

translates into movement of her arm. and this is just the baby steps of what is occurring. here is -- did you print up the list that i sent there is a video of him at a tech conference. you have to look at this. this guy was a climber. he got frostbite. he was caught in a blizzard for three days. with these trustee sees, he can go from four feet to 9 p.m. hide. now he is a much better climber. he said he would never go back to having legs [laughter] what's the video. here is embryonic stem cells that are being repurposed in various ways in order to create tissues and various aspects of therapies that are interesting this is a journey to who knows where. and it is moving very, very rapidly and it is happening right here, now. and the kinds of questions we are really dealing with, is the cutting edge of life and silicon and all of itself.

if you project 50 or 100 years, what will they be capable of? but right now, we are talking about ideology. the next frontier isn't what they thought in the 1960's, out there in space somewhere. it's ourselves. it is this inner journey into who we are and what life is it is a very jarring thing. it is very amazing what's happening. so it comes up, genetic engineering in general. is this something that we should worry about really with gmo's? i am going to give you a few examples. first of all, there is a lot of gmo angst. i think jeffrey wasn't going to eat some of the fruits up there because some of them were -- some of them have jim a

possibilities. there is a lot of angst about all sorts of things and we will talk about it. it is unwarranted? the areas where you can have potential concern about gmo -- by the way, gmo is not a state. it is a process. it is a technique by which you can create certain kinds of plants and that is why it is not regulated the same way by the fda. it is not something that you can detect. it is a product. some things are societal and some things are environmental. some of these things are much bigger than gmo's. gmo is a little part of that. and we may have issue with the way the world is organized, but that is separate, above and beyond the issue of the specific technology so i will not get into that issue.

it is environmental issues. there are much bigger fish to fry in that realm as well you can make a strong argument, by increasing yields, you really are very much in a positive way affecting the environmental footprint of agriculture, we are in a state where you try to go back to a pre-green revolution agriculture, we could have the paul ehrlich kinds of frustration that were feared back in the 1960's. what i want to talk about his two other things. filth -- health, once again, i have never heard such nonsense. 5000 patients have all been cured by getting off of gmo ingredients of some sort or another? doctors are absolutely certain about that and somehow the whole world is ignoring it. the other is spiritual, fear of the big thing.

what are the limits of what we are doing and how do we feel about it and what does it mean to be human? that is where jeffrey really took it from. and the sense of the spiritual place of man and that is what we are really talking about. when we are talking about anything, it is a matter of cost and benefits. here, the costs would seem to be extra nearly high. it seems to me there are two. 1 is the one on the left and many of us have fallen into the affluent category. and there are people on the right to are actually just scrabbling along, trying to

survive. it actually makes a difference some of these things because they solve very real problems. let's talk about some of the possibilities here. 1, bt cotton. oh, my god, that is horrible. you better really be careful about sprays on organic foods. this is pesticide use by about 40%. that is an abstraction for us. really, is that something that is important? but if you are one of these located to those around with a shotgun on his back all day long spreading pesticides in the field so he is swimming in the stuff. and not using as much of that is a bigger.

i don't see a problem with that. the banana will disease. it turns out that that is affecting a huge percentage of the crops of bananas that is the staple of a large fraction of the population. the only way or a very good have been trying to prevent that disease is to engineer in a gene from rice that is protected against that disease. flood tolerant life. they can continue to produce product after a flood. so flood tolerant rice. citrus grooming disease, something that is wiping out the citrus crops in florida. nobody knows how to deal with it. one avenues to engineers in some resistance.

some people who are citrus farmers there don't know what to do because of the campaign that has been waged about the dangers of gmo's. you can see here what the oranges look like after they have been infected with a disease bacteria that is associated with fuller's. so wrecking the orange crops there. papaya, there is no way to avoiding this ring spot virus. so in a short time and most of the papaya is in hawaii has been protected from the virus by this resistance game. when you eat papaya, if you can find non-gmo papaya, it has about 10,000 times.

then there is frozen rice switch as vitamin a to rice. i see no evidence that there is a safety problem, a health problem with rice. it is opposed because it might be a wedge crop that would somehow get people gmo's gmo's used to the idea of. -- get people used to the idea of gmo's. let's think about what really is a danger. i can assure you that the issue is not how something was made. it is what was actually made and whether it is safe or not. the danger is not -- and i will tell you with the background is in a moment. maybe some of you can guess. but the danger is in food that is actually being engineered or being creative by very

well-meaning scientists. you can say they are misguided, but they are trying to do something. as far as the testing occurs, there is no testing on non-gmo crops with a variety of process, genetic alterations, all of the crops that we have today are not the natural original crop. basically, not only is there a great deal of testing, it's voluntary. you don't think you want to be affected by it. just eat food is labeled it is not gmo. stick to organic foods. it will help your health anyway not to read 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? bio weapons, oh why and ray, that has nothing to do with this debate. what if you were to take smallpox, which has not been eradicated but still exists, and engineer soa can be transmitted in the air, airborne. not probably an impossibility. the serious thing. in case you don't know what that would be, here is a photo. you can see it very well but that is a young girl with smallpox. that is what smallpox does. these of the kinds of things in genetic modification that you really need to worry about. i am not worried about gm owes in the least in terms of the food. i find the logic for them to be completely unconvincing. in fact, virtually every science, scientific organization that has any credibility absolutely agrees with that. there are any number of health risks.

they are actually real and that we should be worried about, including your cancer, heart disease, stroke. the idea that these diseases are somehow all caused by gm owes, they were not epidemics prior to gmo's. you get the flu vaccine, car accidents, suicides. what about just people who are having a bad diet? it's not like we don't know what we should be eating. more leads, more festivals, less meat, getting some exercise. these are the things that will really do in our health for most

people. what about dietary supplements? completely unregulated? all sorts of contaminants, mercury, that should be heavily regulated. or and our mental toxins, something that i work in. i have a ebony that is selling a genetic test that tests individuals' susceptibility to low levels of mercury. but if you are in a genetically susceptible subpopulation, which is about 20% of boys, you can have delayed development inattention and memory and learning of about two to five years. so this is something serious. there are some real things associated with the public that are a real problem. this is organic chemicals that are used. there is the reduction of them from 1940 to the present, and just exploding, there is no testing of them.

so it's not as though there was not a cost by focusing on something that is really a third issue because we have limited resources. when we are faxing and focus on one thing, we are taking our energy away from other things that are more real and more present in our lives. no problem with gmo's, are all of these part of the conspiracy that a person with no scientific training has just suddenly uncovered and is telling all of us about? if that is enough for you, here are other organizations. these are real medical and protective organizations. in europe, which is very anti-gmo, in australia, all over the world, the epa which we pay attention to because of global warming or something like that,

they say we have not posed our reasonable risk to human health and the environment. i could come up with dozens of these. the australian food safety group will identify no city concerns for any of the gmo is that we have assessed is this reasonable, that is something and extraordinary us poison. are they just ignoring it. but jeffrey smith knows the truth. here is an editorial in "science magazine," the magazine of the aaa out. it just wrote a report about setting up for gmo's. these are people who have extraordinary reputations the president emeritus of the world society, a paper have no ax to

grind, their careers are made. there not in the pockets of the big several industrial groups that are developing these things. and here's jeffrey smith. there is a picture of him supposedly flying. he is probably hopping. if you can actually do that, that would be a great demonstration. but advanced meditators. zero medical training. yet he pretends to go around and talk to medical groups so they are listening to him. he runs an anti-gmo cottage industry and believe me they are profiting from this controversy. it is not these other people. it is the group of gmo activists that are benefiting from this. ran for congress under the natural law party.

yogi fires, which i think he qualified with lower nationwide stress and improve legible and make the country invincible to foreign attack. this is not science and i am not saying there's anything wrong with transcendental meditation. i find great value in it but it is not science. it is a whole process. a people were engaged in this sort of thing, this deceptiveness, they would be drummed out. that is very clear because individuals and science love to argue with one another about evidence. that is what peer-reviewed is all about. i didn't know about jeffrey smith. i looked this up and i read part of it to see what it was. and it sounds very disturbing. the arguments just don't stand up to scrutiny.

they are ridiculous, ok? you can throw around a lot of words that make it sound like it is 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 site and they go through a point by point refutation of these clients with peer-reviewed argument, with other publications, and i think that if jeffrey were scientifically trained, he said they could not make the arguments that he is making, or at least feeling like it was honest. i could have picked many examples, but i don't want to get into this he said she said because, you actually are -- i am not very familiar with all of the arguments in terms of gmo's although i have educated myself recently about them i really wouldn't care how it comes out.

if gmo's were a problem, i am fine with that. it takes a lot of energy, even from me. so the claim is this had multiple health problems. that is a strong statement. that is what it says for 90 days. they showed significant changes in blood cells, kidneys, which might indicate disease. sounds disturbing there is a cover-up going on. that is disturbing as soon there are 90 of these in the book. if you read good, take a look at the website. judge for yourself. peer-review did not do this.

the european food authority, not a captured organization, i assure you, set up the passport, looked into, set up the comment and what did they find? this options were misleading, no scientific basis, no new safety issues, and no revision determining whether the scorn was safe. there are 600 studies that look at the safety of gmo. it is so required that only big business can do gmo's now. that has been the effect of all of this. it means that it requires the [indiscernible] gmo'sgmo's so, no, don't bother me. if it is not credible -- if you want to believe it, then fine.

but if you don't think that is what is going on in every medical organization around, then it requires very good evidence to reject the body of evidence that exists and that has caused these organizations get the safety in these products and that does not exist. secondly, this is a hauntingly similar debate to me about things i am very. familiar with in vitro fertilization. my daughter was the process of in vitro fertilization. they kind of arguments that were made when this first occurred

were very similar sounding. it happens with every new technology and it gets shifted and shifted. 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 in just dna. we break it into fragments. of course, we have fragments of genetics in our guts. and transient, moving from one organization to another. of course they are there. the dna in one organism business something different. we share half the genes with cauliflower's because that is what we are. although life processes are the same. viral bacterial genes. we are exposed to these things all the time. the large kinds of lifeforms, a tiny fraction of the life on this planet is actually bacterial. this is stuff that we are very equipped to deal with. almost every decibel that you eat contains natural insecticides. why is that? because by symbols are in a life-and-death struggle with

insects. the problem with insecticides is that you're getting it all over the farmworkers and everything or on the surface of these things. insecticides -- i'm wrapping up. so gmo's are the most -- modifications to the genetics and we get. that is what evolution is all about. this is happening all around us. it is a thing that sort of pounds industry. so it's a little bit like waccamaw you can argue about month thing -- like whack-a-mole. you can argue about it.

many people feel it is wrong. we shouldn't play god and we shouldn't reship the natural world around us. in fact, i would bet that the radicals, the zealots in the anti-gmo crowd, is not that you're going to have an accident and a bunch of kids get killed by gmo's because that would actually destroy that industry. it would probably never recover from that. though wealthier is like other technologies. we will get so used to it that it will be used in a variety of ways.

within a generation, it will seem natural. who would ever argue that ibf is going to create monsters. so that is what the big fear is. and if you really wanted to run tests and it was this magnitude of problems associated with these bombs, it would be fraught headline everywhere because i know any number of scientists who would like to get their nobel prizes. of course we are concerned. here's what we did to the world. look at this fine creature here, the gray wolf. in just a few years in many cases. this is what we created.

[laughter] and that was using very low tech tools. it was just natural breeding, very transformed. and now we use high-tech tools. and guess what, we are going to apply them not just to plants and animals are around, because that is what we do technology, what about us? we are already doing selection to avoid cystic fibrosis. if you had the capability of altering genetics, there are 60 to 70% of people who say they would enhance the physicality of children if they could with genetic engineering. so this is where this is going. of course there is a lot of angst with it. but the idea that we can stop is absurd. it's not like there is one little technology that is causing all of these weird things. this is happening across a broad technology front. it is not one genie who needed help out of a bottle. it is hundreds everyday.

look at the way the internet is going. this is big stuff that is happening and here is what is really going on. that is really the charge that glory and danger alike, they go out and meet it. that is really the charge that we have to take for us and our children. how do we deal with these incredibly challenging and difficult technologies that are really altering our sense of who we are and what we are and what life is all about. that is where the situation is heading. [applause]

>> i would like to give each speaker an opportunity to rebut one another before we open it up to the audience. i would like to ask one question. we presume that we know what we're talking about. if the two of you could start with a definition of what a gml is -- gmo is. i would like to know what is different about genetically modified organisms and how long they have been around. jeffrey, i will start with you. >> i refer to it as laboratory techniques that insert genes from other species. you can mix and match between species. they have taken spider genes and inserted it into goats.

in hopes that they can milk the goats to get spiderweb proteins to make old proof vests. they have pigs with cow hides. these are examples of crossing between different species. it is very unclear what they are. there are many things that are considered to be natural plant breeding. they are actually moving around genetically in a wholesale fashion. it is less precise than if you move a few genes around. they have been called genetically modified organisms. using the techniques of molecular genetics essentially to hone the process so that we can actually do things which are very common. many drugs are created by putting in a gene into a bacterium that then produces that in a purer way than going

into an animal and taking insulin by purifying it from the organism. there are all sorts of aspects in medicine where we do the same sort of technology, but it is not labeled as gmo. it is unclear and it is quite nebulous. for example, is a gmo an animal that is consuming gmo produce? does that become genetically modified in some way? would you eat those animals? to me, the slippery slope is when you come in -- i will give you a chance to answer. you come in and you use this nebulous term and speak of it like it is a thing. it really is not. it is a whole set of properties

-- processes that are used to create different kind of biology and new strains. many other processes of creating them as well. it uses that in a selective fashion. >> i want to give jeffrey an opportunity to answer the question. we will do some rebuttal here. i want to open up to the audience. let me give you seven or eight minutes. >> perhaps you can yield me your time for rebuttal? i have all of these notes. he made so many mistakes. first of all, i am not against genetic engineering. i am not against human gene therapy. my line, my boundary is in the food supply.

we are affecting everything we eat and releasing it outdoors. i looked with great interest at your presentation. there are many things in here that are talking points of the industry created gmo's. i have had the opportunity to spend years looking at these things with scientists around the world. i take advantage of the fact that i am not a scientist. i asked many scientists. i run it by other scientists and compare. that is how we produce the book. i can explain why academic review is junk science. you mentioned bt. you said that if you are scared of bt, then you should be

concerned about organics. bt toxin is a that spray washes off. bt toxin in crops is produced when thousands of and -- at thousands of times higher concentration than it is sprayed on. it does not wash away or biodegrade. it has properties of a known allergen. there was an understanding and an assumption by the epa that bt toxin was completely safe for humans. but the science advisory panel of the epa looking at studies in mice and form worker studies said that these animals and humans are reacting to the toxin. more study is necessary before they can declare it completely safe. the epa ignored its science advisory panel, which was the most expert allergists and

immunologists in the country. they did not do the research that was recommended. you pointed out flood-tolerant rice. it was created by breeding. you said that we eat plants all the time. we eat dna all the time. there are reasons why plant genes do not transfer to gut bacteria. gut bacteria transferred genes all the time, back in order. plant genes do not transfer any -- into bacteria, because they do not have a similarity in the genetic code. most of the genes inserted into gmos are from the bacteria. if plant genes end up in bacterial genes, they typically will not function.

the promoter does not work. it does not work. the promoter that is used with gmo's works in bacteria. if we get technical, the genes will transfer. all of those natural barriers have been removed with gmos. the only time they've ever looked at it, they found gmos in human gut bacteria. they said it would never happen. if you look at the assumptions that were used by monsanto back in 1996 when they first introduced large-scale soy and corn -- so many of those assumptions have proven to be wrong. this is one of the concerns that i have. a professor said it used to take one class a semester to teach

what a gene was. now takes a full semester. it is so much more complicated than we thought. we have not yet understood the language of dna sufficiently to make manipulations at this level and release it to the entire population. they discovered a new code in the dna recently. they discovered epigenetic effects. they are doing tests on gmos. the most common results are surprising. double-stranded rna was exposed to honeybees. they thought it would have no effect. it changed 1100 genes. it completely changed the insect. it was not supposed to be affected at all. they are putting out double-stranded rna gmos. there is a clock that goes off when they are doing gmos research. the patent has a certain life.

it may take 50 years to understand the functioning of the dna to reliably and safely manipulate it for the benefit of the environment, but the patent will run out and the return on investment has a time limit. of all the independent scientists that i have talked to and i've have been to 40 countries, they all agreed that whether you are for gmos organs gmos, they agreed that it was released long before the science was ready.

normally if a toxin comes in, enzymes will usher out of the body.

roundup messes that up. all the toxins are amplified. it increases their toxic effect on us. whether it is from what we eat, vaccines, environmental exposure. it is only amplified. a recent study links roundup sprayed on sugarcane to a huge death rate based on kidney failure because of the way that it amplified the effects of arts not. as far as being a conspiracy as far as being a conspiracy theorist, i do not have to be a conspiracy theorist. i have quotes from scientists around the world who agreed that genetic engineering is a dangerous and side effects-prone science. the canadian royal society said that gmos should have unpredicted side effects. i can list the organizations that have a different opinion.

i have also talked to some of those organizations that agree with you and i was alarmed at how unscientific their thinking was. i was recently in new zealand having an hour-long interview with food standards in new zealand. they are not credible studies. they are not wanting to use the most up to date means of evaluating what mutations are taking place and what proteins might be produced. their responses to why are bizarre. sometimes these studies do not reveal a cause. sometimes animal feeding studies do not reveal a problem, but thousands of public studies do reveal a problem. they are not down from chemical analysis. -- found from chemical analysis.

i said, why don't you do an analysis of all the proteins created by gmos? they said, we do not want to collect that data. we would not how to interpret it. they are saying, because we do not have enough data to evaluate, we do not want any more data. it is circular logic. many of these organizations have come under attack by ngo's as being manned by the people. the european food safety authority is the subject of numerous scandals because they are the people who make the decisions on gmos. people,ally monsanto's just like the fda. i want to refer to more details. i would love the opportunity to respond because there were so many things in their -- i spent years interviewing scientists.

it was misinterpretation that you presented just now, which is so easy to show that it has no scientific legs. academics have spent years looking at my books and then they misquoted it. they lied about what my book said in order to knock it down. i have an article my website. in my book, i say that these are the arguments, the ways that the industry deals with information that they find uncomfortable. they ignore you or they attack you. if he gets to a point where you have evidence that they cannot deny, they cannot win on a scientific basis, that is when they personally attack you. they have spent a lot of money investigating my past and they came up with the fact that i like to dance, i meditate, and i don't have a scientific background. i have talked to scientists for 18 years. i have had my materials peer-reviewed. that is all they could come up with. they distorted the evidence and they distorted information to

assume that i am aligned with people -- my clients etc.. this concept of profit motive. i have an mba. i was making far more money in the business world, before dedicating my life to protecting humanity from the dangers of gmos. if i wanted to make money, i would not be in this is this. -- business. does anyone know about nonprofits? you are not in it for the money. if you would like to make a donation, talk to me afterwards. [laughter] thank you very much. [applause] >> i do want to open it up to questions. that is part of what we do here. but you did go longer than your initial presentation. let me give you two or three minutes. fact is that of getting into a lot of detail that is difficult

to understand, let's talk about a claim that was made -- i interviewed a whole bunch of scientists and everyone is in agreement that this is premature. that is actually not correct. i talk to everybody and they think you are a wacko. they do not agree with that. when you talk about people in the scientific community, you raise a lot of ire. i was not aware of that. let's take a simple thing. a simple thing which is the claim that you made that physicians that you spoke to indicated that 100% of patients were basically cured when i -- they stopped eating gmos. >> i said, got better. >> ok, got better. that is a strong claim.

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. the medical system is in shambles. i cannot even fathom how you would get that kind of data from a doctor -- 5000 patients is a huge medical practice. you are going to have as unitary effect associated with going off gmos. that is an extraordinary claim. i would like you to answer that, because that, to me, represents the state of this being a poison that is very dramatic. yet there are a lot of people who are not the industry lapp,

but they are very accepting of gmos not being a problem. >> can i answer the question? >> the doctor said it is not just gmos. it is a lot of things. in the film, "genetic roulette, the gamble of our lives," she does not just prescribed anti-gmo diet. i cannot vouch for how important the gmos were. i was repeating information from her. i made a bold step in repeating information from doctors. there are so many doctors reporting this and we're starting to collect it. there are some people who do not get better. that is absolutely the case.

but it creates leaky gut. it suppresses digestive enzymes. it may get in the way of the body's natural healing mechanisms. it becomes part of a practice that is valuable. >> let's open it up to questions from the audience. let me recognize you. i will ask two questions. you may take a second to get over here. let's try to keep the responses brief. can you wait until the microphone is near you? this lady. >> thank you. it was a very interesting presentation. i do believe that diet and lifestyle contributes to our health.

eating organic food and not eating red dyes and antibiotic, i am 69 years old. i have spent a lot of time in the community. a lot of it i do not believe. we have been told that agent orange was safe. i am skeptical about the scientific community. my question is, i would like to eliminate gmo's from my diet. i eat organic. what can i do as an individual to help get food labeled as a non-gmo product? our government seems to be hesitant to allow this labeling. it is probably because of the money behind monsanto and those manufacturers. what can i do as an individual?

>> i will turn it over to jeffrey because i think he is the expert in this. i think you should not be eating processed foods. that is a fairly limited list of fruits and vegetables that have possible gmo's. eat organic foods, and i think you are in good shape. >> organic products are not allowed to use gmo's intentionally. there are products that are labeled non-gmo. the non-gmo project is the uniform standard that is used by 16,000 products and 1500 companies. we have a shopping guide. nongmoshoppingguide.com. it lists those products and it is also available on an iphone for free. shop no gmo. you can download the app.

we also have at risk ingredients. those are derivatives of soy, corn, oils, sugar, alfalfa, papaya, zucchini, word is gmos -- no popcorn is gmo yet. their animals that we do not consider genetically modified, but the fda says that there are unique risks to health for eating milk and meat from animals that are fed gmo's. as far as labeling, there is a unique announcement that some of you are not aware of. there is a ballot initiative in colorado that will be there in november for you to vote for all products that are genetically engineered to be labeled. already, the industry has started to unleash a torrent of lies and disinformation. they will try to tell you that this will cost you $400 per person for year.

-- per year. there are other countries that require labeling. none of them had increased their cost. they will tell you that labeling is bad is bad for farmers and people. this is how they got 51% in california to vote against labeling and 51% in washington voting against labeling. 93% of the population was in favor of gmo-labeling. >> i do not need to step on your toes here, but let's try to be brief. can you wait until the mic is there? >> i grow gmo's, and it is impossible where i am not to grow gmo's. it is impossible.

people. we grow gmo's in missouri. it is impossible not to grow them, because if we do not use gmos, they will get pollinated by trucks that go by. we don't want to grow them, but we have no choice. it is cross pollinated, we grow it anyway. with all of us farmers growing gmos across the midwest world -- where all the crops are grown, where is all this non-gmos product coming from? >> let me restate the question. the question was, farmers were trying to grow non-gmo crops have gmo seeds blown into their crops. how do you grow them? >> i think your challenge is a real one. what you are talking about in

terms of eliminating gmos and not just labeling organic food is completely redoing the distribution system. any truck that has been moving around any gmos and goes from one field to another, it is a separate distribution system that is needed. especially when you get into products where their site of origin is mixed together. you have to keep everything separate. it is almost impossible. it is an enormous undertaking to completely do that. >> there is a new booklet that i can tell you about later about how to protect your farm from gmo contamination. this is one of the problems about gmos. they spread. organic may be contaminated.

non-gmo project verified, where testing is required and there are still 80.9% tolerance for contamination. this is one of the issues about when you plant the gmos and you change the gene pool of the non--gmo species. you also change the relatives. canola can cross pollinate with broccoli and cauliflower. this is one of our concerns from the environmental impact of gmos. >> i have a question. i've heard there is zero tolerance for gmos. is that something you would subscribe to? how do you handle something like canola oil, corn oil? is that considered a gmo?

>> zero tolerance is not possible right now in canola. if the non-gmo project, if it had zero tolerance, no former would grow our products. if one kernel is engineered, they would lose their premium results. we have to think about what is practical. as far as oils, they do not have the dna or the protein. some people consider them completely safe, even if they are made from genetically engineered soybeans. a recent study came out this year and it showed that the roundup ready soybean oil have high levels of chemicals in it. the non-gmo oil does not. the process of genetic engineering create such massive collateral damage. the compounds that are produced in the crops may be different. there may be some fat-soluble

toxins that result in genetic engineering and that ends up being in the oil. there are compositional differences. >> one more question if someone has one. carol? can you wait for the microphone to get to you? >> you mention something earlier about tobacco. i'm interested in the scientific basis for what both of you are saying. please address that tobacco thing. >> the question has to do with >> the question has to do with jeffrey's reference to tobacco science. >> how many people have heard of bovine growth hormone but? it is a genetically engineered drug injected into cows to increase milk production. the fda says that it does not

matter about the bovine growth hormone because 90% is destroyed during pasteurization. it turns out they are referring to a study done by monsanto's friends where they pasteurize the milk longer than normal and they only destroyed 19% of the hormone. they added powdered hormone to the milk and pasteurized it more than normal. they destroyed 90% of the hormone. when the fda reported that 90% of the amount was destroyed they never refer to the fact that it was under those conditions. in the book, we are pulling out excerpts from expert reports. monsanto did studies where if you want to design a study to avoid finding problems, here's how you do it. here are the methods. they explain away problems. they do things that no other scientific body had ever done.

they find a scientific event and -- statistical event and it is completely unscientific. we quote the experts in there. >> i would assume that this refers to the idea that the tobacco industry for so long was in such denial about the clear and obvious dangers of tobacco smoke. the same thing happened with mercury and this went on for many decades. there was a lot of resistance and internal effort to try and do that. i can tell you in terms of the fda, i do not know the particular study, but i dealt with the fda. this is a very conservative, safety-sensitive organization. it can be incredibly frustrating to deal with them. here are a bunch of bureaucrats.

if they speed something to market, they may get a little pat on the back. it's not a huge career advancing step for them. if they allow something through -- and you see this with recalls in the pharmaceutical industry, it is career ending. the usual attack or feeling about technology is that actually the fda is extraordinarily conservative and resistant to allowing these things through. in fact, the pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and what they could bring to bear on the fda and the half of big pharma is far bigger than montana so. -- monsanto. it surprises me that you think the fda will allow junk science

to be the basis for regulatory approval. the kind of scientists that i have referred to, they look at that stuff and they would have no problem at all saying that it is garbage. not everybody is captured by the monsanto corporation's of the world. >> let me get a question in here. give him a moment for the microphone. >> i am concerned with the lack of the use of the scientific method to draw your conclusion . you drew some curves showing use of roundup related to diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, autism. i can draw the same curves

correlating with use of i-70 on weekends or my ski days over the last few years. the scientific method uses controlled experiments, frequently double-blind experiments, not just anecdotal accounts of somebody saying that they stop using gmos foods and they got better. what if you give that person a placebo and said, these are gmos foods? would they feel sick? i would like your comment. i know you made a presentation on the dr. oz show. there was an interesting article in the new yorker magazine a year ago. it was called, is the most trusted doctor in america doing or harm than good? -- more harm than good? i'll quote two sentences from it. the study that you refer to here as on the dr. oz show was publicized widely throughout the

world but it was denounced by the european union and rejected in a rare joint statement by the six french national scientific academies. it was ridiculed by scores of scientists. agricultural technology has been under review for decades. no agency in the united states or anywhere else has found evidence that genetically modified foods are metabolized by the body any differently than any other type of food. that was in february but the 13. -- february 2013, "new yorker." >> i actually spent a lot of time analyzing studies and translating this into english. my book does that. it also says in the beginning that if this were cancer studies and a number of other things, we would have thousands of studies to deal with.

we actually have only a handful. it is not true that there are 600 safety studies. as of a few years ago, the number of animal studies that will qualify was less than three dozen. in the book, which has endnotes and lots of peer review studies, it also says that we do not have the luxury of peer-reviewed studies. we have to be more like epidemiologists. they look at the unpublished studies which are committed to the fda, and they look at theoretical risks based on biochemistry. i could have bored you with the details of numerous peer-reviewed studies and in a different audience, i will do that.

here, i took the epidemiological approach. all i did was handed over to another medical organization to review. they said that gastrointestinal problems were caused. i wanted to show patterns. i was very clear when i showed the cause. this is not causation. if you are looking at it like an epidemiologist, you have to ask, what is the cause? i have provided information that many scientists and doctors believe are the causes of why this graph are so closely aligned. there are hundreds of doctors literally just published a petition saying that it never should have been retracted. it is very important.

if you want the details, go to our website. he will answer every objection with science. >> it is interesting. it is clear to me that since the effects were so dramatic and he poisonings are so broad, it wouldn't actually take very much to do a human study where you took a small population, suitably controlled, and take them off of gmos. you show the dramatic effect. i guarantee you that it will be published in the journal of the american medical association. it is not like it will be very hard work take very long, according to these results. why doesn't the anti-gmo industry, and it is kind of an industry, simply funds and do those sorts of studies? it is certainly well within their capabilities.

>> i would volunteer you to be a part of the experiment. [laughter] >> i would do it. >> i don't think such a thing would pass through a review board. before you get into human trials, you go into long-term animal feeding studies. the industry does not use animal feeding studies. they last a long time and they make it impossible to track chronic problems and intergenerational problems. before you get into the human studies, there is usually a deal that starts with animals and goes to humans. we are not there yet. there is not enough hunting available for long-term -- hunting available for long-term animal eating studies. -- feeding studies.

let's figure out what the causation is. >> when you use a drug to try to prove that it is even humans -- safe in humans -- gmos material is being consumed quite broadly by the population. all you are talking about is taking a population, and i'm happy to volunteer. anybody who is eating processed foods, virtually 100% of people. all you have to do is set up a control group and change them in a small way. you would not have to get him exercising or change their diet and do all sorts of things. just selectively remove the gmo's. tracking very scrupulously. use an external observer.

it would be very easy and you do not have a problem in doing that experiment. >> on my facebook page you find a doctor who took 20 seriously ill people off of gmos. he was astounded that the improvement. now he is doing it with 300. it is a different model. doctors are doing those experiments on people all the time. it is already happening. >> i want to take another question. this lady over here. >> i would like to preface my question with the fact that my family and myself eat nearly 100% organically produced food. my question is, can both of you comments on whether it is economically feasible to continue to feed our planet where the population continues to grow without using gmos? >> was everybody able to hear

the question? >> the most comprehensive study in the world for feeding the hungry planet is called the istaad report. it was signed on by 58 countries. its conclusion, written by more than 400 sciences, was that the current generation of gmos has nothing to offer fulfilling our goals of eradicating poverty and creating sustainable agriculture. according to concerned scientists, in their work, gmos do not increase yield. many people realize that the sexy new technologies of gmos is taking money away from other technologies that have been shown to aid the world. in addition, we should be clear that it is not necessarily increase of yield that the experts they will feed the world. we have more food per person

than any time in human history. it is access to food, poverty issues, which are more fundamental. if you look at the nutrition per acre, then sustainable methods actually increase over conventional and gmos. there was a study done that show that sustainable methods of agriculture increased deals by an average of 79%. -- yields by an average of 79%. >> my understanding is that that is not true. the one thing i've actually certain of is that if you were to limit all gmos crops, you would end up with a substantial increase in pesticide use. levels that would not be desired by most people. i would not like to see that. i am more concerned about pesticides. as far as yields and productivity, my understanding is that they are substantially higher, especially when you're

looking at issues like the removal of crops because of various infection agents. this is a process. the green revolution has increased productivity in enormous weight. -- in an enormous way. it has leveled off. there will be problems. we will have to increase in significant ways. i have seen commentary from people that suggested it would be substantial increases. i am not sure. >> in the interest of time, i would like to take three more questions. this gentleman. >> i am bob. i have adhd. this has been very challenging. i do not understand a lot of scientific stuff. i have a short question. in 1955, the fda said tobacco is healthy for you.

it is good for you. thank you fda. we believe you. that is not a question. that is a preface to my statement. [laughter] explain to me what is wrong. we have weeds, we have tests and our yield is not high, i appreciate the drought resistant crops. we want to increase our yield. we sprayed poison toxins, roundup, on our crops and their -- our cotton to kill the weeds and the pesticides. is this correct?

then we digest -- we digest the corn or the cows and the animals digest the products that have been sprayed with these super pesticides. is that going into us or is it not? we are digesting the residues of the roundup. we are consuming roundup. your kids are consuming it. is that not true? >> true. but there are all sorts of pesticides, including roundup. one of the problems with them increasing is the fact that large amounts of the same crops are being planted without a scattering of other crops. when you get pests, there is a huge feeding ground. there are lots of ways in which modern agriculture has become very reliant on pesticides and

huge amounts of fertilizers. on water usage that is unsustainable. there are a lot of problems with this operation. the use of gmos is part of the solution to that. you can deal with a number of the past issues. -- pest issues. i do not think that jeff would deny that if you were to roll back from modern agriculture, mechanized production, you would have food issues. it is not just an accident that we have gone from 60% of the population being engaged in far 2% offarm work to 1% to the population. that is why we do not have global hunger. >> just to respond to this,

because of the herbicide-resistant crops, the weeds become resistant to what farmers use. because of the herbicide-resistant crops, the u.s. uses 570 million pounds more herbicide just because of the gmos. the insecticide-producing crops reduces the amount of spray by about 150 million pounds. the amount of pesticides produced in the crops itself is double per acre that which is displaced. we eat that pesticide when we eat the corn. we consume the herbicide and pesticide produced by the corn kernel. the amount produced it has not gone down. >> i want to take one question over here and now we will go way back in the corner. the demographic here is fairly akin to mine. we have an 11-year-old back here. i will encourage everyone to

patronize local restaurants. >> i would like to have a little bit of detail. i am hearing a lot of differences. there is so much going on with regard to getting gmos and those products labeled. you have the organic community. my question is, there has to be huge difference between me going and buying something that is labeled non-gmo and buying something that is organic. you mentioned something about the popcorn not being non-gmo. but you see the verified non-gmo label. i would like some clarification of the differences between labeling of non-gmo. >> the difference between

organic and labeled as non-gmo, is the question. >> if something is labeled 100% organic, it potentially does not use gmos. if it is 95% organic, it is non-gmo. if it says it is made with organic soybeans or something similar, it has to be 70% organic. there is no required testing in organics. there can be contamination in the sea or the field. -- seed by other fields. it is possible to buy it without even knowing it that it is contaminated. non-gmo project has testing requirements. they have a 0.9% threshold. sometimes you will see organic and non-gmo projects on the

same package. that is the gold standard. organic has other attributes. there are many benefits. the other thing is this. roundup is being sprayed on wheat and barley and rye and potatoes and 100 different types of fruit and vegetables. it is being absorbed into the crops. if you want to avoid roundup, then organic is best. if you see organic and non-gmo products, that is the gold standard. it is tested. >> organic has been around a lot longer than gmo. as far as understanding this, it is virtually impossible. you get on the site, and you think it sounds interesting, and then you read the other information.

that makes sense. it is very difficult. there is a whole pattern here of confusion. it becomes very simple to think that gmos are awful. there was a book called the product is confusion or something like that. it is about how you create uncertainty about these things and people do not know what to believe. it is difficult. that is the way it is. not just gmos, but any number of these things. you get into the technical arguments and it is impossible. one of the aspects of that is looking at people's credentials and using common sense about what their motivations might be. >> i apologize to those of you who saw hands up. if you have questions, perhaps

the gentleman will tell you after the program. i want to go to this young lady. >> it is hard for me to because i also have adhd. i have one question. are gmos good or bad? [laughter] >> the question gets to the essence of the question. are gmos good or bad? >> you might think that is a planted question. that is my daughter. she is a 10-year-old. i think there is not a problem with gmos. they are neither good nor bad. it is a process. as i was saying before, you can use genetic modification of organisms to create things that are really horrendous and you can use it to create things are beneficial. we need to think about that.

that's an issue with the labeling. frankly, before i was thinking about it, and this is a few months ago, i thought it made a lot of sense. but when you start thinking about it as a project, and jeff has said a lot about food i would like to know. i would like to know what food uses pesticides. i would like to know whether that food has been growing where people are paid a living wage. what country does it come from? what you're asking for is an inventory of the entire food system. it would keep track of all the processes involved in producing something that we eat. to me, you can say, let's label that. it is hard when you start getting into processes to deny someone who want something else incorporated on a label. the reason the fda does not support that is because food labeling is supposed to be about health and safety.

and they feel, they feel that there is not a health or safety issue associated with the process. there is, in terms of what is created. that is why testing is involved. >> it's an excellent question. i think that gmos -- she is good. i think that someday we may be able to manipulate genes individually and know what is going to happen. one gene could produce one protein and that is exactly how works. it is very easy. it turned out to not be the case. they realize that genes are networks and it is extremely complicated and it is getting more complex the more they look at it.

when they genetically engineer, they mess up the dna pretty substantially right now. they do not even know how to test to see if they had done something wrong to human health because they do not know all the different laws of nature. i would say that. it is certainly possible that this process will become reliably safe. right now, i am confident that the process itself is too fraught with side effects, two new, and it was rushed to the market before the science was ready. it may be a significant health problem that we are facing. i'm not even talking about the environmental impact. everything that was said by you tonight is mentioned in a book online. it is very easy to read and it looks at all of the talking wind that points. -- points. it shows what the truth is. i recommend going online.

gmo myths and truths. it is open source. you can read it and you will recognize many of the statements that were made tonight. you will see the scientific clarification. it will show that there is a lot of wishful thinking about gmos. a lot of promises have been made that it will feed the world. they have not actually turned out to be true. >> very quick, this idea of talking point. one of the reason that some of these things may occur as arguments again and again is that they are actually right. many people are saying these things. they are not using them is talking points. the same arguments are made generally because they are well thought out. i think it is a little disingenuous to say that you have nothing against genetically modified organisms if they were tested enough. i have heard the same thing with

environmentalism and other stuff. not you personally, but everything is being done to prevent the kinds of testing that you would require in order to certify that something is safe. it is absolutely impossible to prove that something is safe. you cannot see any damage from it, given the kinds of tests that are done. you cannot make that proof. when field trials are ripped out by activists and when it is made very clear and difficult to do testing with these things, it sounds good to say, we love it, but it is not ready -- actually, we accept it, but it is not quite ready. that is an endless path and we will never get there. it is a very high ground to take. the reality is that the world is

racing forward and we cannot stop. all sorts of things are being introduced that have enormous implications. we do the best we can. wisdom and knowledge have their own cost. >> thank you everyone for being here and being so involved. i did not see anybody nodding off. you were a great audience. i want to think the speakers for their expertise and passion. it has been a privilege to be here. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] cam.udent students were asked, what's the most important issue congress

should consider in 2014? the first prize winner is a sophomore at notre dame. he believes congress should mandate genetically on of -- modified organisms grown in our food to be labeled or band. -- banned. >> we warned the fda at the time, 20 years ago, that if they did not label genetically modified consumers would wonder what they were trying to hide. quite have you heard of a gml? >> no. >> i am not sure. >> it is been a long time since i have been in science. >> where they add chemicals to the food here it >> it is a crop were they modified genes to increase the yield or tastes. >> you don't want to lose your seat.