Abstract

Purpose

We reviewed 19 studies of mammals fed with commercialized genetically modified soybean and maize which represent, per trait and plant, more than 80% of all environmental genetically modified organisms (GMOs) cultivated on a large scale, after they were modified to tolerate or produce a pesticide. We have also obtained the raw data of 90-day-long rat tests following court actions or official requests. The data obtained include biochemical blood and urine parameters of mammals eating GMOs with numerous organ weights and histopathology findings.
Methods

We have thoroughly reviewed these tests from a statistical and a biological point of view. Some of these tests used controversial protocols which are discussed and statistically significant results that were considered as not being biologically meaningful by regulatory authorities, thus raising the question of their interpretations.
Results

Several convergent data appear to indicate liver and kidney problems as end points of GMO diet effects in the above-mentioned experiments. This was confirmed by our meta-analysis of all the in vivo studies published, which revealed that the kidneys were particularly affected, concentrating 43.5% of all disrupted parameters in males, whereas the liver was more specifically disrupted in females (30.8% of all disrupted parameters).
Conclusions

The 90-day-long tests are insufficient to evaluate […]

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a fascinating new report out that compares consumer budgets in the United States, Canada, Britain and Japan. There’s a huge amount of variation: Americans appear to spend more than their peers on housing, transportation, and health care – and we spend far less on clothes, food, and booze.

At this point, it shouldn’t come as a shock that American consumers devote a far bigger fraction of their budgets to health care than their peers abroad. That’s partly because Canada, Japan, and Britain all have more comprehensive taxpayer-financed nationalized health systems that curtail out-of-pocket expenses. (Though, as Catherine Rampell points out, when you add up both taxes and out-of-pocket expenses, the United States is still paying significantly more for health care than other countries.)

Also noteworthy is the fact that Americans spend a much bigger chunks of their budgets on housing, and far less on food. As the BLS report’s detailed breakdown here shows, Americans spend more money eating out than their peers, but they spend a significantly smaller portion of their budgets on cooking at home than Canada, Britain, or Japan. Here’s an old article by Derek Thompson looking at why food in the United States […]

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If every aspect of a person’s DNA is known, would it be possible to predict the diseases in that person’s future? And could that knowledge be used to forestall the otherwise inevitable?

The answer, according to a new study of twins, is, for the most part, ‘no.

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John Thompson spent 18 years in prison – 14 of them on death row – for crimes he did not commit. But as he was facing his seventh execution date, a private investigator hired by his lawyers discovered that scientific evidence of his innocence had been knowingly concealed by the New Orleans District Attorney’s office.

Thompson was eventually exonerated. He sued the prosecutors’ office, and won. A jury awarded him $14 million, one million for each year on death row. When Louisiana appealed, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the spring of 2011, in a controversial 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the prosecutor’s office could not be held liable.

With Connick v. Thompson, the U.S. Supreme Court thus took away one of the only remaining means for the wrongfully convicted to hold prosecutors accountable for willful misconduct. The Prosecutorial Oversight Coalition charges that, ‘Although all other professionals, from doctors to airline pilots to clergy, can be held liable for their negligence, the Supreme Court has effectively given district attorney offices legal immunity for the actions of their assistants, even when an office is deliberately indifferent to its responsibility to disclose exculpatory evidence.

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If you enjoy public beaches, state parks or fishing piers, you can thank the sixth-century Roman emperor Justinian. He’s credited with introducing the public trust doctrine, a legal concept that forbids private ownership of certain natural resources, instead preserving them for public use. This idea has spread worldwide since then, protecting everything from beaches and streams to oyster beds and fish stocks.

It was an early tenet of English common law, later encoded in the Magna Carta, and also has a long history in U.S. courts, dating back to at least 1842’s Martin v. Waddell. During a 1983 case about water use at California’s Mono Lake, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically quoted this section of Roman law to explain public trust:

‘By the law of nature these things are common to mankind: the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea.’
- Justinian Code of Rome, c. 534

The court ultimately added its own, slightly more specific wording:

‘[T]he public trust is more than an affirmation of state power to use public property for public purposes. It is an affirmation of the duty of the state to protect […]

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