Talk:Genetically modified crops

Scientific "consensus"

With this edit I changed the "scientific consensus" language to what was agreed on in Genetically Modified Food in this section, where there was an extensive RfC about it and negotiation that followed the RfC to the language that is there now, which was changed with this edit and has been stable since then (despite editors who have insisted the language is still too strong). That RfC was noticed in this article talk page here. When the RfC closed I noticed the subsequent discussion Genetically Modified Food here specifically suggesting the discussion take place at Genetically Modified Food, and no one objected. I am shocked to see Aircorn has reverted my edit here and says, "This will probably need a rfc at some point". Seriously? You are you claiming that despite the notice of the RfC and subsequent notice about post-RfC discussion of that language were insufficient to justify using the result of those discussions for the language here? And that, therefore, a separate RfC must be held for each and every article that has this language? I am in disbelief. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:35, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

You made no mention of a RFC or any consensus in your edit summary Controversy: changed from scientific consensus to scientific agreement per language in GMO foods.. The last RFC I can find on the subject is here and it closed as no consensus. If a RFC closes as no consensus then the status quo stays and unless a strong consensus can be reached on the talk page it usually takes another RFC to change it. AIRcorn (talk) 08:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

This is the latest discussion on consensus. AIRcorn (talk) 08:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I looked at the edits, and Aircorn did not revert the entire edit, so all we seem to be arguing about here is whether the wording should be "scientific agreement" or "scientific consensus". I think that the language changes that Aircorn left intact are an improvement. As for getting into high dudgeon over agreement/consensus, I agree with Aircorn. There is a more precise meaning to the phrase "scientific consensus", so let's leave it that way, and find something more useful to discuss. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

There is no consensus per the cited sources, and the divide (i.e. ban of GMO crops worldwide) certainly underlines that. See also WP:OR and WP:SYN. prokaryotes (talk) 22:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

So are you claiming that there is an agreement but not a consensus? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I can settle with an agreement, but it would be more precise to state that on a case per case basis, as the WHO states in their official announcement on GMO safety. prokaryotes (talk) 22:20, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm puzzled why "scientific agreement" would be acceptable, but "scientific consensus" would not be. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Because a consensus is a clear majority opinion, visible in the mainstream scientific literature, and through official announcements - which clearly refers to a consensus. There are probalby GMOs which can be considered relatively safe, and there might even exists such a consensus, but not general speaking - including every single GMO.prokaryotes (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I have no objection to qualifying it to indicate the case-by-case aspect. To my knowledge, however, there has yet to be a "case" where a GM food in the food chain has been found to be unsafe, so it is "general" with respect to existing crops. And you seem to be agreeing that there is a consensus with respect to that. I don't think that anyone here is claiming that there is a scientific consensus that it would be impossible to create some GM plant that would be unsafe. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Please provide a RS that makes the claim for agreement or consensus. AlbinoFerret 03:02, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Please see the numerous earlier discussions, and please do not wiki-lawyer that it's SYNTH unless a meta source uses the word "consensus". In any case, the solution is not changing "consensus" to "agreement", because the latter is just a WP:WEASEL-word. But perhaps more importantly, please see what I'm about to say below. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The "just look for it" idea is just problematic. I have looked in the past, I was involved in the RFC. To date none of the reliable sources I have looked at make the claim and the claim appears to be WP:SYNTHESIS. The closest is the AAAS source, but it misstates the WHO and that is a red flag for reliability. AlbinoFerret 21:21, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I really should have done that to begin with, sorry. It's just that it gets tiring to feel like one is having to say the same thing over and over again. And I do emphasize that changing the word to "agreement" should not be a solution to satisfy anyone. For me, my previous statement about it, [1], covers the situation as I see it. And if you consider the AAAS to be an unreliable source, then we are in a situation where it will be very difficult to get to consensus. The American Association for the Advancement of Science is about as close as I can imagine to being what Wikipedia considers to be a reliable source. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish: You say, " The American Association for the Advancement of Science is about as close as I can imagine to being what Wikipedia considers to be a reliable source." I thought for health concerns, we are supposed to rely on secondary sources, such as review articles per WP:MEDRS, right? Why are we not using these two sources for statements about health and GMOs?

--David Tornheim (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I know that I've discussed Krimsky with you at another page, and he is a reliable source as a critic of mainstream science, but not a reliable source as a spokesperson for mainstream science. I remember seeing prior discussion of Domingo, but I don't remember the details. I'm wondering, just off the top of my head now, whether there might be an approach in which we say something like (very approximately), "according to such major scientific organizations as AAAS and... there is a scientific consensus that...", followed by "some scientists, such as Domingo and... have however questioned whether there is such a consensus". --Tryptofish (talk) 01:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Domingo doesn't really question the consensus, most of what I read he just asks for more testing. Anyway this approach runs into major WP:weight issues. If we want to present different opinions we will really need a Scientific opinions on the safety of genetically modified food article. BTW the AAAS source is a secondary source. AIRcorn (talk) 07:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

I've been thinking hard about ways we can perhaps get to consensus. I see that editors have added the language "but should be tested on a case-by-case basis." I fully support that additional language, because after all, that is indeed what the sources tell us.

I have another thought, and this is what I want to suggest. The scientific consensus in the sources isn't really that it is impossible that any GM food crop will ever pose a greater health risk than conventional crops. Editors objecting to the page language are making a good point, insofar as that goes. But that does not mean that the preponderance of sources are saying that there is a meaningful risk in the food supply as a result of GM. It's important to grasp that distinction. And that in turn leads to my suggestion.

The language now on the page is that "food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but...". The verb there is "poses", in the present tense. That is accurate, per the sources, but it also implies that the situation will remain true, going forward into the future. And that is not supported by the sources. Therefore, I suggest changing: poses to "has posed". Thus:

There is general scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops has posed no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.

I could support that. Do other editors feel comfortable with it? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

That addition says there is consensus, and then there isnt. Its conflicting and does not deal with the synthesis problem. If the consensus claim stays it has to be shown where it is located. AlbinoFerret 21:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I find it worrying that editor Tryptofish continues to ignore current concerns. He still fails to provide reliable sources for his consensus claim. prokaryotes (talk) 21:44, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:OR which includes WP:SYNTHESIS is a core policy. It cant be overcome by local consensus of editors or RFC. A reliable source needs to be supplied. All the rest is just hand waving and distraction. AlbinoFerret 22:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I find it worrying, myself, that when I say that I support the language about case-by-case, and I then offer an additional change in the direction of accommodating the editors who have disagreed with me, some of those editors brush off my comments and accuse me of ignoring them. It sounds like "we have to get rid of the word "consensus", because these are Frankenfoods, and no compromise less than that will be acceptable". As for that core policy, I'm all in favor of complying with policies, and I hope that editors will now look at what I said at the NOR noticeboard, about two theories of what SYNTH really is. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I think we get in a little trouble with WP:SYNTH going this route because there are two slightly different ideas that go hand in hand here that the literature talks about. That's also why I've moved (but not removed) the case-by-case language. The issue is that there are two main parts to the consensus statements out there.

1. GM crops don't pose (present tense) an inherently greater health risk than their conventional counterparts. Full stop. This doesn't say there isn't any risk, but just that the risk doesn't inherently increase due to being a GMO. Risk analysis is a projection based science, so it uses current or future tense. This is basically just saying it's the traits within a variety that matter for safety assessment, not how the trait got there. GM and non-GM crops can have safety issues, which leads into . . .

2. Currently marketed GM crops haven't posed a greater risk to human health than conventional food and are assessed for safety on a case-by-case basis. Since the lack of risk due to being a GMO is established, any safety assessments are just done on a per variety or transgenic event basis.

Basically there's the question of whether GM inherently does something that could be a significant risk followed by whether the specific crop, regardless of where it's traits came from, can be considered safe while looking at some specific traits. That's with the understanding that conventional crops can also go through a safety screening and found to be unsafe. The two ideas are complimentary, not antagonistic to each other as long as someone is catching the nuance. We do need to be careful we don't intermingle them too much and lose the meaning of both though.

That's why I moved the case-by-case language out as a separate clause. The mounds of literature out there often may focus on one of the two ideas a bit more or expect the reader to have some of this background already (which is why science editors at Wikipedia are expected to have a certain amount of competency in the given topic). I haven't quite thought of a good way to improve the remaining "currently marketed" text to also include the nuance on methodology risk, but I don't think now is the time to try dealing with all that nuance a stick to the language that had already been agreed upon before this talk section opened up with respect to using general scientific consensus. The current language hits the meat of that enough for now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You should check reference before removing sourced content. Though, i did not checked the other two edits you just edited.prokaryotes (talk) 02:15, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a WP:LEDE. A source isn't always needed for those, especially when we just introduced all the sources in the prior sentence, and it's been that way for quite awhile now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'am puzzled by your response, the part you removed is sourced and discussed above, and are you suggesting to remove the references for the claim that there is a consensus? prokaryotes (talk) 02:28, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I only moved the case-by-case language. It was not deleted. It's a relatively minor detail, and it's already sourced in the previous sentence. So no, I never said absolutely all references should be removed from the lede, especially for something like the scientific consensus statement. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:37, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

It is certainly not a minor detail, and there is no consensus for removing it, even Tryptofish suggest this addition above. prokaryotes (talk) 02:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed this is not a minor detail, it is based on core policies, and if it violates it no local consensus of editors or RFC can stand compared to wide community consensus of core policies. that are the foundation of WP. AlbinoFerret 03:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's not go on a tangent here. The whole bit about being a minor detail in the relative sense is that it isn't something requiring a source under WP:LEDE. That's especially when the previous sentence is sourcing all those ideas already for something that should have lede references such as scientific consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The tangent is WP:LEDE which is a guideline, which cant be used to overcome WP:VER and WP:SYNTHESIS/WP:OR which are core policies. Please provide the source. AlbinoFerret 04:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:LEDE, the sources are provided in the body, and the lede merely summarizes the body. There is not policy violation, so please stop flashing them about as if there is something wrong with following the lede guideline.Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:16, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Then it will be no problem to point out the specific source, page location, and wording for the scientific consensus claim. Please provide it. AlbinoFerret 16:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

What I think I am seeing here is that Kingofaces does not want the change in verb tense and wants the case-by-case lower in the paragraph; other editors want nothing less than the removal of the phrase "scientific consensus". I tried to offer a compromise, in between those two positions. I still hope that editors on each "side" will find it in their hearts to "give" a little. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Just to be sure it's clear, I was wanting the case-by-case language immediately after the consensus statement (as opposed to lower in the paragraph). There was a lot of mischaracterization above that I deleted the phrase entirely, moved it below a bunch of text, etc. Nothing as egregious as it would seem by reading the comments above. For tense, it just gets tricky here because there are both forward thinking and current evaluation statements out there as explained above. Both tenses are correct, but we need to be careful not to exclude one. Even at the potential of having a compromise, I would have to say the current wording does things marginally better. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:24, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting me about that; the wiki-markup made it look in the diff like there was a lot of stuff in between. I really do want to find a compromise, though. I actually am pretty satisfied with the version at the page a moment ago: [2]. But I wonder whether you could be persuaded to be flexible about the verb tense issue? Perhaps it won't be enough for the editors on the other "side", but any movement towards peace would be helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Separating out the case-by-case language as a separate clause is more important in my mind. Tense isn't as big of a deal for me as you presented at least, but my main mention of it is to be sure we have understanding on talk at least of the different ideas at play here where different tenses can apply. I'm not going to nitpick about tense at this time beyond talk page discussion though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:46, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I do agree with both of you that the addition of the language "case-by-case" is an improvement of the representation of what is actually in the sources and I think Prokaryotes agrees too. That improvement is why I am not as aggressive as the others in challenging the change of "scientific agreement" to "scientific consensus", as I did when the change was first made and I wrote about it on this talk page here. (Yet, I do agree with the others that "scientific consensus" is OR and SYN. As is "scientific agreement".) Even though I have kept some distance from the emerging walls-of-text from this discussion of the "scientific consensus", because of the favorable addition, I want to remind you both and Aircorn of this: As I said above, I was quite troubled that what had previously seemed to be a Gentleman's agreement of the post-RfC discussion here to change "scientific consensus" to "scientific agreement" (in all the GMO articles that had it, not just GMO food), was completely undermined by bringing back the word "consensus". That is why we now have an explosion of posts objecting to the change. That compromise proposed and executed by Jytdog and even agreed to by Prokaryotes reduced the conflict over the sentence. Now that you three are trying to force the word "consensus" back in, opposition has predictably resurfaced. So I really don't understand what the purpose of trying to bring back the word "consensus" is and suggesting for yet another RfC, when that sentence had been fairly stable since the "consensus" was changed to "agreement". It seems like an invitation for drama. The two words are definitely not the same or there would not be so much opposition (or push) for the change. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

David, I appreciate your collegial approach here. I didn't take part in or follow that "gentleman's agreement", and looking back at it now to see what it says, it does not really seem that much like a clear consensus. I did not really follow this page closely until I saw Aircorn's edit that put "consensus" back, and the subsequent drama. Lately, I've been trying to stay away from GMO pages until such time as I see drama erupting, at which point I've been stepping back in. I agree with you that the words are not interchangeable, but it seems to me that "agreement" is a WP:WEASEL-word, whereas "consensus" is both precise and fully supported by the source material. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

There also wasn't ever any gentleman's agreement to use the term agreement, so there wasn't really anything to take part in there. We had settled on the phrase general scientific consensus, but that's as far as we've ever got on agreed upon language as of late. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:17, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Source Request "scientific consensus"

To avoid any WP:SYNTHESIS which is on the core policy page WP:OR I request the source of the "scientific consensus" claim. This section need have nothing but a link to the source and a page number and a copy of the wording that supports the claim from a WP:RS. Those that the support the claim are asked to provide it. Arguing that its there and not providing the exact source and wording will not solve this issue. Please provide the required source per WP:VER. AlbinoFerret 02:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I brought up the AAAS statement at the OR noticeboard as that is the strongest source currently in the article. BTW If this is synth (which I don't think it is) is not saying "scientific agreement" as problematic synth wise as saying "scientific consensus"? AIRcorn (talk) 21:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Just agreement maybe, considering that most GMOs are up for sale, we should reflect that. Just not the word consensus. prokaryotes (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't address the synth question. AIRcorn (talk) 21:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Or use the per source quotation. prokaryotes (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The only problem is that the AAAS source only lists 4 groups, not even mentioning scientific agreement or consensus, even worse it misstates the WHO that GMO's have to be guaged on a case by case basis, a red flag for reliability. It also does not list any other sources it relies on, second flag. Third it is a statement of the Board of directors of the AAAS, not the orginazation, third flag. Try again. If the statement said " The AAAS board of directors said four organizations ..............." even listing the WHO ect out, it would be one thing, but the problems with the source, and using it to back a "scientific consensus" statement is problematic. Its still OR/synthesis. AlbinoFerret 21:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

No point arguing this at two places. Better off at the No Original Noticeboard where there is a slight chance uninvolved editors might comment. AIRcorn (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#OR on GMO articles AIRcorn (talk) 07:41, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Sentence regarding case-by-case testing in different countries

These two edits replaced sourced material:

Yet, some countries such as United States, Canada, Lebanon and Egypt do not have any special regulations for testing GM food on a case-by-case basis.

with this unsourced statement:

The safety of individual crops is assessed on a case-by-case basis...

This later statement is contradicted by RS about GMO regulations. In the edit which removed the original source statement, Kingofaces43 wrote "Not in source." Apparently, the editor did not read the source, it is indeed in the source and is brought up repeatedly in RS, especially RS that distinguishes US from EU regulations Numerous other law review articles say the same thing about the U.S., that there is no special testing for GM food, because of the substantial equivalence and Generally recognized as safe doctrines. . There was no justification for deleting the well sourced material and replacing it with unsourced material that is contradicted by the RS; therefore, I have restored the sourced material.

--David Tornheim (talk) 10:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

These tendentious tactics, especially the edit warring, needs to stop. Other editors mistaking a moved expanded sentence as deleted hasn't helped this discussion either. The source on the "special regulation" language says nothing of the sort. It says there isn't specialized legislation that mentions GMOs by name, but that's a non-issue because regulatory agencies deal with those nuances of developing new regulation. It goes quite in depth into the different ways GMOs are regulated in the US such as APHIS, FDA, etc. showing the language you are trying to revert back in is purely OR. You're basically trying to claim that because substantial equivalence is practiced, crops aren't evaluated on a case-by-case. That's a personal interpretation and an extremely incorrect one at that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I did nothing tendentious. I simply wrote what is in the RS. APHIS is not part of the FDA. The FDA regulates American food for safety, not APHIS. All of the resources say the same thing: that GMO's are Generally recognized as safe by the FDA, and if a GMO product can be shown to "substantially equivalent" to the conventional crop, no special toxicity and animal feeding studies are required, unlike for food additives (and "novel" food), where those studies are required (explained on page 746 of Marden). The RS also say that part of the process of approval in the U.S. is voluntary despite requests from the AMA that it be made mandatory (verifying this is as simple as looking at the FDA website under the section titled "Consultation" here). To suggest that GMO products are tested on case-by-case basis with toxicity and animal feeding studies as is required in Europe is misleading. If any edit is tendentious, it is putting such a misleading statement in the article. If you want to take this to a notice board, please do. --David Tornheim (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

That's actually the part that demonstrates your novel synthesis, so I highly suggest self-reverting as you edit warred the content back in. To be considered substantially equivalent, testing is still needed to establish that (e.g., biochemical composition, etc.) on a case-by-case basis. The source also demonstrates that there are multiple regulatory agencies involved in the process. The source does say there isn't legislation specific to GMOs, but that's the case for many topics out there. Regulatory agencies are given some autonomy to decide what needs to be dealt with in their domain, so even mentioning specialized legislation in the article is a misnomer. As of right now, the source directly contradicts the statement you tried to make it say. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Have you read the RS I provided? You claim the source contradicts the language in the article. Please provide a sentence or page and the language you claim contradicts the sentence. So far Aircorn, Tryptofish have seen the language, and I assume other editors who monitor the articles. Tryptofish even slightly revised it in one of the articles. The language is a summary of material in the article referenced--we could expand it to summarize what goes on in other countries too and how it varies from country to country. So far, you are the only editor who objects to it. I do agree that to prove substantial equivalence one must do what is required for ALL food, which is what the FDA says here, not just GMO, so it is not specialized for GMO, which is consistent with what is said in the various RS. And again case-by-case is referring to the toxicology and animal feeding studies required by the EU (not test required of ALL food to prove substantial equivalence)--we could add the lack of "toxicological and animal feeding studies" to the sentence if that makes it clearer and satisfies your objection. And again the EPA and USDA do not regulate food safety; the FDA does. The language in the sentence specifically says "food" not crops and is directly relevant to the preceding sentence about FOOD safety, not the topics that are covered by the other agencies. So I do not see evidence of a problem with the sentence, or any suggestions to improve it if you really feel it has a problem. Can you please propose a better sentence that reflects what is in the RS I provided if you think there is a problem? --David Tornheim (talk) 19:09, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry David, but the WP:BURDEN is on you to demonstrate the source says this, not me. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:11, January 31, 2016‎ (UTC)

Unless it's untrue that the United States, Canada, Lebanon, and Egypt do not require it (that's a double negative, so in other words, unless it's true that they do require it), I'm OK with that sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

It is explicitly untrue:

"In the United States, in fact, each new GM crop must be subjected to rigorous analysis and testing in order to receive regulatory approval, AAAS noted. It must be shown to be the same as the parent crop from which it was derived and if a new protein trait has been added, the protein must be shown to be neither toxic nor allergenic. "As a result and contrary to popular misconceptions," AAAS reported, "GM crops are the most extensively tested crops ever.”[3]

and

"Whereas each new genetically engineered crop variety is assessed on a case-by-case basis by three governmental agencies, conventional crops are not regulated by these agencies. Still, to date, compounds with harmful effects on humans or animals have been documented only in foods developed through conventional breeding approaches."[4] (my bolding)

We're dealing with language that is not in the cited source as far as I can find as it appears to be an original synthesis of what the reader thinks it means barring some further clarification that the source does say this. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The AAAS statement from a SCIENTIFIC and technology advocacy organization as part of a PR campaign against labeling is hardly RS on regulations. Regulations are legal, not scientific, so the RS from legal sources about the regulatory system trumps statements by scientific organization with an agenda. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Speaking to the subject, there is no mandatory GM food testing in the US, in fact, there is no specific GMO regulation in the US. This is amply documented. For example (my emphasis in both):

The FDA regulates GM foods as part of the “coordinated framework” of federal agencies that also includes the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”).16 This framework, which has been the subject of critical analysis and calls for redesign,17 is available online18 and contains a searchable database that covers “genetically engineered crop plants intended for food or feed that have completed all recommended or required reviews.”19 The FDA policy (unchanged since 1992)20 places responsibility on the producer or manufacturer to assure the safety of the food, explicitly relying on the producer/manufacturer to do so: “Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the producer of a new food to evaluate the safety of the food and assure that the safety requirement of section 402(a)(1) of the act is met.”21 So it is the company, not any independent scientific review, providing the research that is relied on to assert safety. FDA guidance to industry issued in 1997 covered voluntary “consultation procedures,” but still relied on the developer of the product to provide safety data.22 There is currently no regulatory scheme requiring GM food to be tested to see whether it is safe for humans to eat.23 American Bar Association health law article (2013)

...and...

The United States does not have any federal legislation that is specific to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Rather, GMOs are regulated pursuant to health, safety, and environmental legislation governing conventional products.

Under the FFDCA, substances added to food can be classified either as “food additives,” which require approval from the FDA that they are safe before they can be marketed,[45] and substances added to food classified as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), as to which preapproval is not needed.[46] In a 1992 policy statement, the FDA reaffirmed that in most cases it would treat foods derived from GMOs like those derived from conventionally bred plants, and that most foods derived from GM plants would be presumptively GRAS. Library of Congress report on GMO restriction in the US (2014)

Our GM food/crop articles should make clear the rather unique US regulatory situation: Compared to other countries, regulation of GMOs in the US is relatively favorable to their development.Library of Congress report --Tsavage (talk) 18:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

^Agree. I have added that kind of information to some articles, and more needs to be done. Our articles do a poor job of explaining the very large differences in how GMO's are regulated from country to country, and some articles try to make it sound like the regulations are more or less the same everywhere, which is quite misleading. That is precisely what the AAAS statement does, which is why we should not use the AAAS statement as RS--it is not reliable. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

In the well-written AAAS statement, In the United States, in fact, each new GM crop must be subjected to rigorous analysis and testing in order to receive regulatory approval I believe refers to the fact that the biotech companies are expected to test each product for safety, but there is no requirement that they do anything beyond that, including publish the test results, if the company is satisfied of safety. So it's accurate that way, but doesn't refer to what some might think it does, that there is mandatory independent testing. I believe companies have submitted to the voluntary consultation process for all approved products, so essentially, GM foods are safety tested by the companies themselves, with results reviewed by the FDA. --Tsavage (talk) 19:34, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

The statement you quoted is IMHO deliberately misleading to make it sound like there is more testing than there actually is, as part of their agenda to oppose labeling in California. Hence, we should not rely on that statement as RS. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:52, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't yet have an opinion on this, but I tagged the sentence pending further discussion here. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I see you did. So do you mind if I tag the sentence regarding the "scientific agreement" (which others like you say should read "scientific consensus") in the same way since clearly there is a dispute about it? --David Tornheim (talk) 17:05, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

That would be pointy at this time per WP:TAGGING. People are already aware of the of the ongoing discussion on the consensus statement, but the current version has been the stable version for awhile. Do realize the text you edit-warred in ignoring WP:BRD on the other hand is there at this time because of the current tag compromise.

Focusing on the content at hand, it's pretty apparent the content doesn't quite match up with the sources you're providing and is further disputed by others. To say there are no "special" regulations in the U.S. is just false. Each regulatory agency has their specific set of regulations they've developed for GMOs, and they get approved on an individual basis. Such a statement in the lede makes it appear like there is no regulation in this area and becomes undue weight due to cherrypicking specific statements and synthesizing new meaning. Not to mention that we have no such content in the lede. At the end of the day, USDA, FDA, and EPA each have specific regulatory frameworks for dealing with GMOs. Even the FDA's substantial equivalence call is a layered case-by-case evaluation where information that does not fulfill substantial equivalence triggers further testing. Even the EPA requires food-safety analysis for allergenicity, etc.[5]. When it often costs over $100 million to get through the regulatory phase in the U.S., people are going to have a tough time claiming there aren't special regulations. It's looking like it's time to remove the content and more accurately reflect the sources in other areas instead of just inserting it into the lede. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:44, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: The simple, factual summary appears to be, in the US, there is no government regulation specific to GMOs, GM food is treated in the same way as conventional food, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) of 1938. Unless there is an indication that any new food may be unsafe, it is generally recognized as safe (GRAS, an FDA term), and does not require preapproval. Determining whether a food may be unsafe and therefore require special testing is the responsibility of industry. There is a voluntary consultation process, wherein industry can submit their own testing to indicate safety. For approved GM products to date, industry has submitted to voluntary consultation.

In more detail, what is regulated for food safety is not the entire organism, it is the introduced DNA material and resulting proteins, which are considered under food additive provisions in the FFDCA. Safety is determined pursuant to FFDCA 402(a)(1) "Poisonous, insanitary, etc., ingredients.". Substantial equivalence is used to determine whether the DNA or resulting proteins are unsafe, by comparing the GMO with an unmodified equivalent organism that is GRAS. A specific set of indicators are measured, and if there is no substantial difference between GM and non-GM organism, then the food additive, and so, the entire GMO, is considered GRAS as well. That is my understanding.

The simplest accurate description of GM food regulation in the US, which does beg explanation, is; In the US, industry is entirely responsible for determining GM food safety. --Tsavage (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

{[ec}}Tsavage, the simple fact is that there is specialized regulation in regards to GMOs in the US. If people want to engage in personal opinion about things they think regulation should cover (which has come up here) this is not the place to engage in such personal opinion. There's been too much synthesizing going on here and personal point of views coming into play here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:36, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

That's an extraordinary conclusion, "personal opinion," in the face of sources, both secondary and the actual statutes. This isn't some sort of convoluted description, it is a simple summary of the law, procedure, and responsibilities. The FDA is solely responsible for the food safety aspect of GMOs, and they have passed that responsibility to industry. The statutory law is a 1938 food safety act. What you describe as "specialized regulation" is the way the Act is applied to biotech products. The framework is not specialized in any common understanding of that term, because it cannot treat biotech products any differently than what was specified about them in 1938, which was...nothing.

It is misleading to call something specialized that is in fact a way to conform to not having specialized laws, which is the case here. Whether specialized GM food safety legislation is warranted is the great debate - to suggest the US already has them is wrong. --Tsavage (talk)

I'm sorry, but your claims are original research and more personal opinion, especially the claim that the industry is entirely responsible for determining food safety. They need to submit the data, but it's the regulatory agencies with final say. You are ignoring aspects of the regulatory process to make your claims. Both FDA and EPA are in charge of this too. The way regulatory agencies work in the U.S. is that laws are passed giving them general authority over topics, and those agencies develop the actual regulations within. It's a huge misnomer to say there isn't specialized regulation by citing the food safety act, and the level of maneuvering going on to make this claim is getting into very problematic territory. At this point, the sources contradict that there isn't specialized regulation on the topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:44, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43 vs Library of Congress: The United States does not have any federal legislation that is specific to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Rather, GMOs are regulated pursuant to health, safety, and environmental legislation governing conventional products.

What I summarized does not suggest that there is no evaluation of GM food in the US: there is evaluation through a voluntary process (which industry has consistently submitted to), where the results of industry testing are submitted to the FDA for approval. According to the FDA:

At some stage in the process of research and development, a firm will have accumulated the information that it believes is adequate to ensure that the product is safe and complies with the relevant provisions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act). The firm will then be in a position to conclude any ongoing consultation with FDA. The agency recommends that the developer take the following steps to inform FDA about bioengineered foods that are intended to be introduced into commercial distribution: submit to FDA a summary of the safety and nutritional assessment that has been conducted (as described below); and if necessary, meet with agency scientists (at headquarters or through a video- or teleconference, depending on the circumstances) to discuss the scientific data and information that support the summary of the safety and nutritional assessment.}^[6]

By law in the US, GM food is generally considered GRAS, therefore, no preapproval is required. In choosing to voluntarily submit, the objective is to confirm GRAS via substantial equivalence comparison, based on the results of industry testing. Realistically, the industry only submits results that they believe indicate equivalence/safety, so there is not much room for or likelihood of a differing conclusion in the FDA evaluation for final approval.

None of this is to suggest that the system is somehow ineffective or corrupt, however, we commonly accept neutrality and independence as cornerstones of fair and impartial decision-making, culturally and legally, so it would seem to be somewhat disingenuous at best to avoid making clear the voluntary nature of the safety approval, and the industry source of the results. This speaks to the Library of Congress noting: Compared to other countries, regulation of GMOs in the US is relatively favorable to their development. We should be clear, straightforward, and comprehensive. --Tsavage (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

What you summarized says there isn't federal legislation that specifically names GMOs, not that there isn't regulation developed by regulatory agencies. That's the key content problem here, and even just changing the content to say there isn't specific legislation by name is still a problem because it ignores that regulations actually are in place. In addition to those problems, you're still focusing just on the FDA here. Focusing on the actual content at hand, the content is not supported by sources. It's directly contradicted by them. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:47, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

With Tryptofish's recent edit, I for one am good with the change. In the future, let's first remember that we need to respect 1RR and engage in WP:BRD when a new change is rejected, and remember that content needs to be fleshed out in the body first, not the lede. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Trypotifish's edit excludes well-sourced information, on what editorial basis is not clear (Revise the disputed sentence, in hopes that this will resolve the lengthy arguments in talk). We should be respecting sources and balanced content, not catering to editor disputes.

In an overview of GMO regulation, that a very few countries, notably the US, which is the leading GMO producer, has no specific GMO legislation, and has an entirely voluntary safety approval process that relies on industry testing and findings, is certainly notable, and is in fact noted as noteworthy in sources. This is well-documented. The only reason I can see to exclude it is not raise anything that might cause a reader to think critically about GM food safety. I think we should be here to inform, not shape opinion.. --Tsavage (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

PS: To be balanced, we should also at least outline the process in the EU, as the EU is usually mentioned in contrast with the US. It's all ultimately based on substantial equivalence, so the most relevant differences appear to be that there is specific EU GMO legislation and the actual approval process, that there is no presumption of GRAS, and the requirement for post-market follow-up. --Tsavage (talk) 00:44, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I really have been reading this discussion closely, and I made the edit only in the context of what I have read other editors saying. I feel strongly that this discussion was becoming an impasse and that someone needed to break the logjam. I agree that there are further details about regulation in the US and in the EU that are appropriate to including on this page, but I think that they need not be in the lead, as opposed to being explained with more nuance lower on the page. And, I want to make something else very, very clear. I see repeatedly in these discussions some editors describing AAAS as if it were some sort of K Street lobbying group. This is utter nonsense, and it needs to stop. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts to create a different sentence that more editors think accurately reflect what is in the RS, but why did you not propose it here before changing it? I agree with Tsavage that this is not what the RS says. It is probably true and you can probably find RS that supports this view, and then we can consider whether that is what is proposed is better than what is written. But the RS that is currently cited for that sentence is high quality, and what you wrote does not reflect what is in the article. That RS summarizes what the regulations ARE not what they SHOULD be. The other RS I provided does the same, although the other RS does talk more about arguments people have made against the U.S. regulation approach. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind that you reverted it, and I hope that editors can come up with an alternative that gets consensus. Good luck. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Seeing this revert, it's looking like we don't have any consensus version, so I've restored the last clean version. I agree that any content in the lede on regulation needs to have that nuance developed in the body first instead of trying to insert it directly there. I'll note that the content I just removed has been edit warred in before when it was clear those that wanted it would need to gain consensus on the talk page instead, so we should not be seeing that happen again. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

There was consensus for that sentence. You were the only one who objected to it. You are the one who is edit-warring against consensus with such tendentious edits and removals of well-sourced material. That includes your removal of the sentence about bans. Your words apply to you: "These tendentious tactics, especially the edit warring, needs to stop." --David Tornheim (talk) 04:48, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry David, but you were alerted from the start that there wasn't ever consensus for this before you initially re-reverted it back in even after I specifically mentioned to follow BRD if you felt strongly about including it. I can't make it any clearer than that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to make of the different readings of the sources by different editors, partly because legal issues are not my forte as an editing topic. But, given how difficult it is proving to attain consensus about what the sentence should say, would it perhaps be better to leave it out of the lead section, and instead, deal with it lower on the page, where there is less need to keep it succinct? I'm not persuaded that it is necessary to cover this point in the lead, and I don't think that the WHO source about case-by-case requires an immediately following analysis of where the testing does or does not occur. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• In reviewing some materials, I found other statements that address this issue about testing (or more specifically lack thereof): [7], [8], where the AMA calls for "pre-market" testing. I still do not understand why that is not in the lede of the article. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:18, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

General agreement

In the lead it currently says general agreement. This is actually a broader designation than scientific agreement or even scientific consensus. Given the public opposition to GM crops I would be surprised if this was accurate, and it is definitely not supported by the sources. Maybe someone not in danger of 1RR would like to fix it? Pinging @Prokaryotes: on they off chance this is what the intended. AIRcorn (talk) 04:30, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

My main involvement here is because of the word consensus, i changed back to what i believe is a past version. The best way to resolve this dilemma is probably to stick with quotes, like from AAAS. Additional i would add the quote from the WHO about case per case basis. prokaryotes (talk) 04:37, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Especially since we have sources using language like "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat."[9] and "Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). . ."[10]. The best thing to do at this point is stick with the scientific consensus language as the sources describe and cite the supporting sources that don't inherently say consensus, but reach the same conclusion for further explanation on the background. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:40, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Notice the first cite to the Genetics website is from a single author, who was criticized for a flawed assessment by the Union of Concerned Scientist. However, the second reference (FAO) states in the main conclusion (introduction part), "There is a substantial degree of consensus within the scientific community on many of the major safety questions concerning transgenic products, but scientists disagree on some issues, and gaps in knowledge remain." prokaryotes (talk) 04:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Coincidentally there is an article about recent discussions on the food safety consensus, we discuss here, http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986952/why_is_cornell_university_hosting_a_gmo_propaganda_campaign.html prokaryotes (talk) 05:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I think everyone is missing my point. This is not about the word consensus, but the lack of the word scientific. Currently the article is misleading as it says there is general agreement. Scientifically yes. Publicly, politically and in the media not so much. AIRcorn (talk) 07:28, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I suggested above to use direct quotes, such as from AAAS/WHO. This would resolve the entire debate here. prokaryotes (talk) 07:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

If it is found to be synth then something along those lines will need to be done as agreement and consensus or just as bad as each other in regards to OR. AIRcorn (talk) 08:31, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

^In the above edit, your edit note says, "Guess we have general agreement then". I do not believe that is what your above post actually says, and I do not believe it is true. Can you please explain? I do not agree to this plan, but am open to further discussion of proposed changes along those lines that are NPOV representations of what is in WP:RS of safety of GM food. --David Tornheim (talk) 17:40, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

The point is moot now, but the whole reason I opened this section was because the article read "There is general agreement that food on the market..."[11] instead of saying general scientific agreement. The addition of scientific changes the meaning quite a bit. I can't have explained it well enough since the thread has gone on a tangent. Anyway, my comment was me giving up on changing the wording and accepting that we have general agreement (as in the words "general agreement") in the article and then giving into the new direction the thread is going, by responding to Prokaryotes (and generally agreeing with them). AIRcorn (talk) 04:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, per WP:MEDRS, we should be using the best secondary sources such as peer reviewed journal articles, ideally reviews (from the relevant subject field), such as Domingo(2011)and Krimsky(2015), right?

--David Tornheim (talk) 17:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

MEDRS says you use the best secondary sources, not poor fringe sources that conflict with the scientific consensus on GMOs. It would violate NPOV to use them in this fashion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

We can also cite the WHO, on residues, and not everything is MEDRS in these regards (contamination, horizontal gene transfer, results unclear) - cancer glyphosate and their safety statements. A bit ironic, the past version you defended so passionate actually included several none MEDRS compatible sources. prokaryotes (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, David, for drawing my attention to the Krimsky paper, because it cites another paper that I just posted about at NORN. It is: [12]. And as I said at the noticeboard, it talks directly about "scientific consensus". As for "general agreement" it's WP:WEASEL words. It actually falsely implies that politicians, advocates, etc. agree, which they don't, as other editors just pointed out. "Scientific consensus" is actually a narrower way of saying it. And as for any previous "gentleman's agreement", such as it may have been, consensus can change. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:26, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad that we maybe now have a more peaceful editing environment and a lead section that editors may be more comfortable with, but I do want to make it clear that we now have a good source for saying "scientific consensus" as opposed to "scientific agreement". I still think that "agreement" is needlessly vague, even though putting "scientific" in front of it fixes the most serious problems. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Recent edits Thanks Aircorn, for your recent edits, the current version is good. Maybe we can trim the FAO (2004) and single author study (Genetics journal) references too. prokaryotes (talk) 21:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Just for the record, I made those edits because I never meant to change the lead in the first place and I was fixing a mistake I made. They should in no way be taken to mean I support "agreement" over "consensus". AIRcorn (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Seeing as there hasn't been consensus for awhile now (everyone is across the board) on this new change of using agreement instead of consensus, I've gone ahead and restored it back to the status quo. Instead of edit warring it in, we need to gain consensus for a new change once it has been disputed as encouraged at ArbCom. I also added in a few more sources that exactly use consensus language. Not that we need sources that explicitly say consensus as there are other ways to say it, but that's a bit of a larger undertaking to document all the positions that represent the mainstream on this. If anyone has preferences on source order, I'm open to switching things around. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:51, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

On a quick look, I think that you may have gotten the quotation in the cite for [13] wrong. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm double checking the quotes. I noticed one other prior that got mixed into another in the list, but I thought I got them all. One sec. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the quote I pulled was from the conclusions section. Maybe you were looking at the similar wording in the abstract? I went with the conclusions one because it seemed more concise, but I don't have a strong preference on either if you think the abstract does a better job. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

See below, please. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Thats not the status quo version from 23 Jan, before that Jytdog himself changed it back to broad agreement i think. The only involved authors who support your edit is you and fish. prokaryotes (talk) 00:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say that I supported it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Do you? prokaryotes (talk) 00:35, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I prefer discussion first, and I explain what I support just below. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Even though it's been practically two days since my last edit, I self-reverted the consensus language temporarily to avoid even the spectre of edit warring. As it stands though, we haven't gained consensus for the agreement language. It was inserted while the makings of the ArbCom case were underway, so I cannot really call the agreement language status quo as we're still cleaning up a lot of things happening during the process of the case, but that's largely moot point now. In the current day, we're sitting in a situation where scientific consensus is appropriate, and that's all that matters at this point. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Another suggestion

At the time that I write this (but with an (edit conflict) with what KingofAces apparently just did), the contested sentence in the lead says/said:

There is general scientific agreement that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

I suggest that we change it to:

There is a scientific consensus^[1] that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[7]

Here, ^[1] would be this source, to source the phrase "scientific consensus", ^[2]—[6] would be the multiple sources we have been using for some time, and ^[7] would be the WHO source, to source the case-by-case language (the actual numbering to be according to where the sentence actually will be, of course). I believe that this would be an improvement, because the more precise phrase about consensus would be restored, but with a source, and the other sources would be arranged so that it is clear just what the WHO source is sourcing. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The WHO has more authority then studies from small author teams, the WHO states that no general conclusion can be drawn about the safety of GMOs. The Tand source is unclear, when it states in the lede that consensus has grown in recent years. Besides that the page wants 44€ from me. A source about the scientific consensus should not hide behind a paywall. prokaryotes (talk) 00:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Here again [14] is the source about consensus. The relevant language is right there in the abstract (KingofAces also please note), so you don't need to pay for full text access. And the Wikipedia policy at WP:PAYWALL says that a source cannot be rejected for that reason. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This looks again like OR, just now with some new papers in the mix and more papers. Most of it is irrelevant (single author conclusions), or the FAO is old for instance. I see that King has backtracked now by reverting back from consensus, prokaryotes (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

As I begin to reach the limits of my patience, I will reproduce here what I posted earlier at WP:NORN:

*Source. OK folks, I've done some searching and (thanks to a citation in the Krimsky critique) I have found a reliable source from 2014 that says there is a "scientific consensus", in those exact words. It's a review article, reviewing the literature about GM food crops, with a particular view to summarizing both support and scientific concerns about GMOs, thus, a secondary source. It is in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, thus, a reliable source. All of the authors hold academic appointments or government research appointments in Europe, and appear to be unaffiliated with biotech companies, so no apparent author "COI". Here is a link: [15]. And here is a verbatim quote from the abstract: "We selected original research papers, reviews, relevant opinions and reports addressing all the major issues that emerged in the debate on GE crops, trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide. The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops; however, the debate is still intense. An improvement in the efficacy of scientific communication could have a significant impact on the future of agricultural GE." On the one hand, there is still a debate (no kidding!), at least partly attributable to communication problems, but nonetheless there is a matured scientific consensus that no significant hazards have been detected so far. No SYNTH, no matter how one defines SYNTH. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Look again, before you claim it "looks like OR". And KofA, there is the full quote. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

You pick a quote from the abstract, then it explains how the consensus has grown. What does this mean? Has it grown from 1 to 2 %? Besides this it contradicts more authoritative sources, and is old. In 2015 glyphosate was identified re carcinogen, and thus GMO crops with residue pose a potential health threat. Newer findings and more authority trumps your efforts of cherry picking an abstract, from a study you did not even read. prokaryotes (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

My jaw drops in amazement at what you are saying. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

EPA, WHO, these are the authorities editor Tryptofish. prokaryotes (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

To claim the WHO, etc. contradict the scientific consensus is itself original research. As explained before in RfCs, etc. the case-by-case language goes hand in hand with the idea that the consensus is that the being a GMO doesn't inherently increase safety risk and currently marketed crops are safe. Those are two different clauses within the overall consensus that should not be conflated as opposing. One of the sources I compiled recently went over this really well explaining the first step being that biotech isn't inherently riskier than conventional. That means that while there is some risk to crops in general, it's not different between the two. To evaluate the safety of an individual crop (regardless of GMO vs non) you need to look at that on a case-by-case basis. Those are not conflicting ideas. I'm running short on time for this tonight, but I'll see if I can find which source it was again soon. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:11, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

And the abstract states "not directly detected", but indirectly it could, and as i wrote above, indeed it has been found that glyphosate is indirectly a health problem. The abstract even acknowledges that there is still a debate. prokaryotes (talk) 00:56, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

If the sources considered indirect effects a health hazard, they would do so. They don't give weight to the idea so that shuts that personal interpretation down. MEDRS is clear: "Do not reject a high-quality study-type because of personal objections to: inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions." Authors will also mention directly because account for confounding factors (e.g., herbicides get sprayed on conventional crops too, even resistant non-GMO crops). Herbicide tolerance isn't something unique to GMOs either.

On the "debate", Nicolia is clear that their meaning is not intended as you are trying to portray it. We can't cherry-pick single sentences to change the meaning, The abstract sentences in tandem show they are discussing that the scientific consensus exists, but the public debate needs better communication from the science realm to get the point across on the consensus. That's not exactly news. That context is scattered throughout the main paper itself where it is never claimed there is current legitimate scientific debate, but that scientists need to do a better job addressing the disparity between the consensus the science has shown and the public's often opposite misconceptions. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:11, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with the proposed change. I've already expressed my reservations about where the case-by-case language goes, but that's something to tackle after the consensus language is in place as it's more nuance than anything. FYI, Trypto, I have university access to most journals, including this article, so I can provided limited quotes from the main paper if needed. I can change the current quote to the abstract version though as I see that it's cover a bit more info than the part I quoted. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I am just about to log out for the night. I would find it very helpful if you would look through that paper and see if you can respond to what Prokaryotes is saying. If I am wrong about what the source is saying, by all means let's correct me, but I kind of think that I am understanding it correctly. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• New study linked above, https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Nicolia-20131.pdf The single author conclusion is basically that there is a consensus on evaluation and on a PCR method. This paper is not about a general scientific consensus that GMO crops on the market are safe for consumption. The WHO states that this assessment must be made on a case per case basis. Statements about a scientific consensus must come from the authorities in the field, and should be reflected in the related literature. But for reasons like restricted access or no access at all, or gag orders, many studies can not be evaluated independently, transparent. Also with the last edit by Kingofaces there are now 11 references, see WP:OVERCITE (Overcite is an indicator for edit warring) - prokaryotes (talk) 02:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Not that it actually matters in assessing source quality, but it's also a multi-author review. The paper covers a lot more than just PCR (seriously, that's just the last section of the results) with the whole theme of the paper being safety both on the use and consumption of GM crops. Considering that the WHO is in general agreement with these sources as pointed out multiple times, there don't appear to be any issues at this point with the source. As for overcite, it's citations for a scientific consensus statement that editors have simultaneously complained about there not being enough sources that establish a consensus followed by claims of overcite like you did. In a situation like this, the best thing is to be thorough rather than skimp on citations. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:48, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Not a fan of long strings of citations. Apart from raising suggestions of synth (which we really want to avoid) they are also aesthetically unappealing to the reader. If they are all needed I would prefer them to be in a note. AIRcorn (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I feel that way too, and I don't think that they are needed, so I don't think we need a note. It seems like there is pretty clear consensus to shorten the string. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I have always felt the consensus statement needed better context. From a readers point of view it always felt a little strange jumping straight into saying that GM food is as healthy as conventional food. We don't say that the scientific consensus is that water is wet or the sky is blue. I feel it needs to be framed better with the reasons why such a statement needs to be made. Also not a big fan of the "but". The WHO statement is not contradictory to the other statements. Anyway my take on the proposed sentence.

While public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is mixed, there is a scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food and that it should be tested on a case-by-case basis.

A survey or other source can be used for the public opinion. AIRcorn (talk) 04:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The addition is good, but I'd flip the order around as a consensus statement should be right up front. Basically Trypto's version + yours:

There is a scientific consensus^[1] that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[7] Public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is mixed.

I think it's better to break up ideas a bit into separate sentences, but obviously have them next to each other since they are related. A few of the reviews on consensus already talk about public opinion, so we should be able to use those sources. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:30, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I would agree to Aircorns suggestion above, when we can add behind it the most noteworthy critics of the consensus, i.e. - broad example:

However, the Union of the Concerned Scientists, NameB, NameC, NameD point out that there are no standard safety tests for GMOs, that GMOs can contaminate the natural environment, etc .and that pesticide residues such as Glyphosate pose a health threat. prokaryotes (talk) 05:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

We can't be creating even more undue weight for the fringe point of view. We already give sufficient mention under WP:FRINGE. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:51, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

When you have the England Journal of Medicine publish about food labeling and Glyphosate, you cant really say that its a fringe view. Nine out of ten Americans demand GMO labeling. Again above was an example, and i would support Aircorns version. Where is your ability to reach a consensus, does it exist? prokaryotes (talk) 05:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

As a part of WP:CONSENSUS, we follow policies and guidelines such as WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE and base edits on them. That's why a lot of things you want won't get traction if we're talking consensus when it's furthering a fringe view. The consensus in scientific sources is that food labeling is unjustified and contradictory to the science, not to mention that the public also has poor literacy in this topic. That's somewhat off topic in this conversation because we aren't discussing labeling. We're instead focusing on the consensus statement right now without creating undue weight. Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This article is about GMO crops, and this article is not only based on US fringe views, in many countries GMO labelling is a reality, and this article discusses labelling and issues i mentioned. The lede should summarise a topic, hence we should add these critical points behind the statement. According to your new favorite source link above, there is a debate, and these points would reflect that. prokaryotes (talk) 06:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup, and we already mention that kind of stuff in accordance with WP:FRINGE (whether it's in the US or not). For now though, we're discussing the consensus statement in this section, not labeling. Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:29, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Why don't you read the lede before you comment again, and my suggestion. prokaryotes (talk) 06:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

A minority view is not a 'fringe' view. The consensus on safety does not suddenly push all discussion of labeling into fringe territory. There are a number of arguments for labeling which do not presume that GMOs are unsafe for consumption.Dialectric (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

KingofAces, I just tagged the Nicolia source with respect to the quotation, because I am concerned that it might not be accurate. And I would very much like it if you could explain clearly here just what that source, the full text, says specifically about "scientific consensus". Also, in all these discussions about the sentence, what I have been saying has been in terms of there being just five sources in the sequence 2–6 (numbered as in the drafts above). You added more sources, and I think that it is excessive and unnecessary, so I would prefer to go back to the lesser number of sources.

Let me suggest something that is a bit "triangulated" between Aircorn's version and KingofAce's version:

Public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is mixed. However, there is a scientific consensus^[1] that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[7]

I think that may be a way to get editors to feel like everyone concedes a little and gets a little. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

WHO GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. Individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

We probably have to quote the highest authority in the debate. Regarding the part about public opinion, i wouldn't agree that its mixed, considering 9 out of 10 Americans want GMO labels.prokaryotes (talk) 20:42, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I guess I should have said that at least some editors would see my suggestion as a compromise. Highest authority? Well, you have just seriously misquoted that highest authority. You mashed together sentences that are not put together that way in the source itself. And did you see that I said that I would like to cut back on what you correctly called citation overkill? But I would have no objection to: "Public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is mixed largely negative." --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, the PO part you just mentioned would be fine, but it should go after the first part. Regarding authority, what do you suggest is the highest authority? Alternatively, we cite different statements like here Scientific opinion on climate change, instead of constructing something. Yes, i would also agree to cite the mentioned WHO part 1:1. prokaryotes (talk) 21:08, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Seeing that my attempt to "triangulate" went over like a lead balloon, I would go back to:

There is a scientific consensus^[1] that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^{[7] Public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is largely negative.}

KingofAces and Aircorn, can you go along with that? And KingofAces, again, please see my comments about sources, above. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Depends on the source for the public opinion. The most recent one I looked at for a related issue says:

A majority of the general public (57%) says that genetically modified (GM) foods are generally unsafe to eat, while 37% says such foods are safe[16]

That is a year old and only covers America. It is probably fair to say "largely negative" or something similar using that source. Maybe something could be added to the sentence on the public opinion at the end of to emphaise European public views as our focus on the US is often brought up. Maybe:

Public opinion on the safety of genetically modified food is largely negative, with Europe showing the most doubt.

Don't like my wording and again it will depend on the source. AIRcorn (talk) 21:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I think those are good points. The lack of a source was on my mind, too. Maybe it requires more than one sentence. But my primary concern was the first sentence, the one about science, rather than the public. We started discussing public opinion because you brought it up. I'd be very happy if we could at least get the first sentence settled soon. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This is my general thinking too. I think it's better to stop discussion on public opinion for the time being in this section at least and deal with it in a different talk section. We should just focus on the scientific consensus clause for now, otherwise we can risk derailing the focus on a given piece of content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

To be fair in my original proposal it was part of the sentence. The scientific consensus and public opinion are linked and the divide is a major part of what makes this area so contentious. I can go along with the first sentence though. AIRcorn (talk) 08:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, you are right. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm good with the first sentence. Per my above comment, I'd rather focus this piece first and deal with the public perception, sources for it, etc. afterwards. We don't need to deal with both at once. As for your question on Nicholia, that quote was copy and pasted directly from the second paragraph of the conclusions. As mentioned before though, I don't have a preference on whether we should quote the conclusions paragraph or the abstract. I'm happy to replace the language if you have a specific preference. Let me know if I missed anything else you asked about. I'm just catching up and on limited time tonight, but I want to make sure I don't miss something. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Talk about burying the lead, though! So the quote on the page from Nicholia is correct. It is a very direct statement about "scientific consensus", as I just pointed out at WP:NORN. This is no small thing, given all the discussions among editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's my shot:

The major scientific organizations have stated that the current foods derived from GM crops pose no greater risk to human health than those from traditionally cross-bred crops.^[1] They generally recommend that future GM crops be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[2]

The single cite for the 1st sentence contains the merged sources from the current conga line. I left out the public stuff, because we don't have good sourcing on a general view of the public. We have sources for individual geographies. It's an interesting topic, that I would say is worth a section in the text. Once we get that sorted, we can talk about how to summarize it. Lfstevens (talk) 22:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support per Lfstevens statement. (only would strike the word future, since tests vary in timing) prokaryotes (talk) 22:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe they're proposing to test current crops, are they? Lfstevens (talk) 22:59, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

What i mean is that crops could be considered tested in the USA, and considered safe in the USA, are untested in the EU, or still in evaluation. This is not entirely clear from "future GM crops". Future GM crosp coudl also refer to GM crops which are not yet on the market at all.prokaryotes (talk) 23:05, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

My understanding is that Europe isn't engaged in safety testing of GM crops that are approved in the US ("on the market"). They are under "evaluation", which is a different thing. Please correct me. Also, the other proposals do not indicate to what geography "currently marketed" applies? Anywhere? Just the US? Lfstevens (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

That removes the scientific consensus language, so I don't think we're going to get consensus without it according to the sources. There's a difference between saying just major scientific organizations and scientific consensus, so we'd be downplaying the sources by just saying major organizations. Mutagenesis is also considered a traditional breeding method, so there's more than just cross-breeding. While a decent attempt, Tryptofish's version of the first sentence seems to do the best job of describing the situation. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:03, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The consensus claim rests on the support by the bodies, right? If you agree, then isn't this wording more concrete? What exactly is the difference (beyond the words themselves)? I.e., how is this "downplaying"? Added "mutagenic" as you imply. Lfstevens (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

There is a difference between saying major organizations agree and saying there is a scientific consensus. Just saying major organizations leaves it open that there may be other major organizations that have opposing views that are considered legitimate by the scientific community. Consensus means the scientific community as whole agrees. Major organizations putting out statements is something that happens just prior, and scientific consensus also implies major organizations agree. Consensus is the more concise term in this instance, plus, it's the terminology sources use.

Also, I mentioned mutagenesis not to add it, but because the language used in sources is either conventional food or traditional breeding methods. That way, we are being inclusive of traditional breeding methods without having the list them all. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Are there such other organizations? Anticipating that there are none, I made it "The major scientific"... Lfstevens (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

There's no reason not to use the appropriate term scientific consensus here. Scientific consensus is the agreement of the scientific community on an issue in the summation of statements by organizations, the state of the literature, conferences, etc. It's more than just saying organizations say so. In the end, the sources say scientific consensus as opposed to less strong phrasing, so we need reflect scientific consensus when using those sources. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I thank Lfstevens for the suggestion, and we can use as many fresh eyes as possible. But I'm inclined to oppose that version. It is problematic to frame this in terms of organizations only. Just because we cite sources from organizations, because that's best practice for sourcing on Wikipedia, we should not confound that with meaning that the view is limited to organizations. And the case-by-case testing is largely sourced to the WHO, so we gain nothing by making that more vague. I think that the placement of the superscript citations, within the sentence, is important here, for the sake of precision. Dropping the public opinion content for the time being, I still would like to go with:

There is a scientific consensus^[1] that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[7]

--Tryptofish (talk) 00:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

What other evidence of consensus is there beyond the org statements? I also don't see the "weakness" in "the major organizations state". Aren't we parsing the words pretty closely here? Is this a distinction that readers will notice/understand? "Consensus" has inflamed this discussion for YEARS. That's the only reason I'm proposing something else. Lfstevens (talk) 00:21, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see. We have crossed lines here, sorry. The reason I just got huffy with KofA for "burying the lead" is that the source that I want cited right after the words "scientific consensus" says explicitly that there is a scientific consensus, thus eliminating all this time when editors have been arguing over SYNTH: "We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops." --Tryptofish (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Break, first sentence

Ok, so we have draft text hashed out for the first sentence, so here it is with actual sources so we are clear on that (from the citations section below):

There is a scientific consensus^{[1][2][3][4][5]} that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[6][7][8] but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.[9][10]}

Consensus sources

1. Nicolia: "We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops."[17]
2. Ronald: "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Research Centre (the European Union's scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008). These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010)."[18]
3. Bett: "Empirical evidence shows the high potential of the technology, and there is now a scientific consensus that the currently available transgenic crops and the derived foods are safe for consumption (FAO, 2004)."[19]
4. Paarlberg: "There is a scientific consensus, even in Europe, that the GMO foods and crops currently on the market have brought no documented new risks either to human health or to the environment."[20]
5. Amman: "The broad scientific consensus was clear and compelling: ‘no conceptual distinction exists between genetic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular methods that modify DNA and transfer genes' . . ."[21]
   
   Implicit on consensus
6. AAAS:The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies.” The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques. [22][23]
7. AMA: "Federal regulatory oversight of agricultural biotechnology should continue to be science-based and guided by the characteristics of the plant, its intended use, and the environment into which it is to be introduced, not by the method used to produce it, in order to facilitate comprehensive, efficient regulatory review of new genetically modified crops and foods."[24]
8. European Commission: "The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are no more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies." [25]
   
   WHO/FAO on consensus and case-by-case
9. WHO: "Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods. . .GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved."[26]
10. FAO: "Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). These foods have been assessed for increased risks to human health by several national regulatory authorities (inter alia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the United Kingdom and the United States) using their national food safety procedures (ICSU). To date no verifiable untoward toxic or nutritionally deleterious effects resulting from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified crops have been discovered anywhere in the world (GM Science Review Panel). Many millions of people have consumed foods derived from GM plants - mainly maize, soybean and oilseed rape - without any observed adverse effects (ICSU)."[27]

First, I purposely moved the FAO source back because it directly says the WHO's comments are in line with the scientific consensus, and goes into more detail on how individual foods as GMOs in general can be considered no different in risk to conventional, but makes the disclaimer that no crop (GMO or conventional) can be considered risk-free. That basically qualifies how the case-by-case language is intended instead of editors creating personal interpretations that the WHO contradicts the consensus statement. I'll also note Ronald outlines some of this idea too, specifically mentioning later on that that in the context of the U.S. crops as assessed on a case-by-case basis. Everything seems nicely contained and more or less self referencing other parts of the sentence without us having to do anything even close to WP:SYNTH. Implicit sources use the same language that shows agreement with the safety statements (i.e., no difference in risk), but do not explicitly say consensus, so they are later in the sentence for more explanation. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:29, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm OK with this, but I'd like to see a better phrase than "on the market", because there are many markets that reflect local differences of public opinion. FAO says "currently available". WHO says "international market". I think the latter is the way to go. Lfstevens (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

It's the language we've been using for a long time now both during this drafting as well before, but on the market refers to everything on the market regardless of different localities. The overviews often cover all GM crops to date whether it's the Bt or HT crops, papaya, etc. and each of those have different markets. If one isn't marketed in a particular area, that doesn't alter the meaning from a safety standpoint. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:19, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate the greater detail about sources, especially where there are links to full text instead of just to abstracts, and I need to request a bit of time for me to really look at this for myself. Two points that are on my mind right now: I think it might be best, in the interests of consensus and compromise, to leave out sources where there are significant concerns about authors having industry connections, and I think we need to take a close look at the language that we will use, with respect to whether the consensus really only applies to foods and crops already on the market, and not prospectively to the future. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

No problem, although I don't believe we have any with legitimate concerns with respect to industry at this time. Let me know if you find any new details though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I've been giving very careful thought to this, as well as to the parallel discussion happening at WP:NORN, and I also went back and re-read the 2015 RfC before making the comments I make now. Although I still support something approximately like the version that KingofAces carefully lays out just above, there are a few things that I can no longer support. I'm going to spell out some source changes, but first I want to state some more basic conceptual concerns about the text.

I cannot in good faith go along with "that food on the market derived from GM crops poses". We earlier discussed issues about verb tense, and I understand what editors said then, but I simply do not see the sources as fundamentally supporting language that is forward-looking, especially given that "case-by-case" is well-sourced. So I really want to say "food currently on the market" instead (adding the word "currently"). I think that's better than changing the verb tense, and it is more precise than if we leave out "currently". I oppose language that does not say that.

Also, I am convinced that we must also cite two of the sources that dispute the existence of a scientific consensus, and I think we can do that by way of saying "(but see also)"

I'll explain my thinking on sources more below, but I think in general that we can adequately source this sentence in the lead without needing to cite authors who have been questioned by some editors on the basis of having industry ties that might include financial interests. On the other hand, I do not automatically exclude a source because the author is known to have an opinion. In doing this, I am leaving out some sources that I actually do consider to be appropriate to cite, but I don't think that we have to cite them just because we can, and I am making a good-faith effort to reach out to the editors who disagree with me, something that I hope they will reciprocate in kind.

So here is my proposed sentence, with citations to be explained after:

There is a scientific consensus^[1][2] (but see also ^[3][4]) that food currently on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food,^{[5][6][7][8][9]} but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[10]

consensus sources

1. Nicolia: "We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety for the last 10 years that catches the scientific consensus matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide, and we can conclude that the scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazard directly connected with the use of GM crops.

   The literature about Biodiversity and the GE food/feed consumption has sometimes resulted in animated debate regarding the suitability of the experimental designs, the choice of the statistical methods or the public accessibility of data. Such debate, even if positive and part of the natural process of review by the scientific community, has frequently been distorted by the media and often used politically and inappropriately in anti-GE crops campaigns." [28] (Same as above, except adding a second part to the quote.)

2. Ronald: "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops (Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, Committee on Environmental Impacts Associated with Commercialization of Transgenic Plants, National Research Council and Division on Earth and Life Studies 2002). Both the U.S. National Research Council and the Joint Research Centre (the European Union's scientific and technical research laboratory and an integral part of the European Commission) have concluded that there is a comprehensive body of knowledge that adequately addresses the food safety issue of genetically engineered crops (Committee on Identifying and Assessing Unintended Effects of Genetically Engineered Foods on Human Health and National Research Council 2004; European Commission Joint Research Centre 2008). These and other recent reports conclude that the processes of genetic engineering and conventional breeding are no different in terms of unintended consequences to human health and the environment (European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 2010)." [29] (Same as above. But omitting Bett, who is just citing the FAO source, Paarlberg, who may perhaps have a bias based on financial interest, and Amman, who is not directly talking about food; the concept that the plants are chemically the same implies that the food is the same, but he does not say that directly. We should probably cite these sources lower on the page, but not here.)
   
   but see also
3. Domingo: "In spite of this, the number of studies specifically focused on safety assessment of GM plants is still limited." [30]
4. Krimsky: "I began this article with the testimonials from respected scientists that there is literally no scientific controversy over the health effects of GMOs. My investigation into the scientific literature tells another story." [31]
   
   no greater risk
5. AAAS: "The EU, for example, has invested more than €300 million in research on the biosafety of GMOs. Its recent report states: "The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies." The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques." [32][33] (Same, just fixing some errors in the quote.)
6. European Commission: [34] (Omit quote: it's the same as in AAAS.)
7. AMA: "A report issued by the scientific council of the American Medical Association (AMA) says that no long-term health effects have been detected from the use of transgenic crops and genetically modified foods, and that these foods are substantially equivalent to their conventional counterparts." [35] (Same source, different quote.)
8. Library of Congress: "Several scientific organizations in the US have issued studies or statements regarding the safety of GMOs indicating that there is no evidence that GMOs present unique safety risks compared to conventionally bred products. These include the National Research Council, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Medical Association. Groups in the US opposed to GMOs include some environmental organizations, organic farming organizations, and consumer organizations. A substantial number of legal academics have criticized the US's approach to regulating GMOs." [36] (I'm adding this new, after seeing it suggested in talk by other editors. It's a high quality independent source that clarifies what scientists say versus what backgrounds critics come from.)
9. FAO: "Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002). These foods have been assessed for increased risks to human health by several national regulatory authorities (inter alia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the United Kingdom and the United States) using their national food safety procedures (ICSU). To date no verifiable untoward toxic or nutritionally deleterious effects resulting from the consumption of foods derived from genetically modified crops have been discovered anywhere in the world (GM Science Review Panel). Many millions of people have consumed foods derived from GM plants - mainly maize, soybean and oilseed rape - without any observed adverse effects (ICSU)." [37] (I moved this here without changing it. I don't think we need to show how the FAO and the WHO agree, and it wasn't apparent from the citation format above. On the other hand, the FAO does not say "case-by-case" verbatim whereas the WHO does.)
   
   case-by-case
10. WHO: "Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods. . .GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved." [38] (Same.)

I could also see putting the "but see also" citations into a note. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

The Italian meta analysis by Nicolia et al. states, ". The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops; however, the debate is still intense"

For a consensus you require at least several reviews and authority statements, and Nicolia does not rule out hazards (directly and indirectly). As i mentioned before, i have no objection to quote the study, but for a general consensus statement it lacks authority. prokaryotes (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Ronald 2011, is a bad source, since the study referenced by this single author includes opinion articles from the mainstream media. Additional the author retracted two studies in 2013. The source is not reliable enough to be used as a consensus forming statement.prokaryotes (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

About Nicolia, there is a reason why I expanded the quote from what KingofAces had proposed, and you can see what that debate actually is. About Ronald, she is nonetheless a scientific expert. I could elaborate more, but I honestly do not expect to come up with anything that will get unanimous editor support, so I'm fine with editors proposing other versions for consideration. And that is what I suggest that you do. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I support LStevens, and Aircorn proposals above (see my support replies). And i provided my own suggestion as well. And i support direct quotes of the major studies. prokaryotes (talk) 00:00, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Something else that I need to point out. Partly in the context of WP:BLP and partly in the context of WP:NPOV, I want to point out about Pamela Ronald, that per the page about her: Retraction watch, a website that shines light on problems with papers and educates and celebrates research ethics and good practices stated, "that this was a case of scientists doing the right thing". [39] --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

We're going a bit backwards now with this. Scientific consensus is something enshrined in NPOV under WP:PSCI. We need to be really careful not to give fringe theories undue weight. If a study is going to be mentioned that tries to contradict the consensus, it needs to be dealt with in terms of WP:FRINGE. There's no way around that even if some editors may not like that. The best thing to do for mentioning the studies is to deal with them later in a paragraph rather than keep them in the same sentence. Over at climate change, we don't include the naysayers in the consensus statement in a similar manner. Also, Nicholia makes no mention of the claims made by Domingo even though they cite part of their work. That is an indication that the parts taken seriously in Domingo's study does not conflict with the consensus according to more recent sources.

If you haven't seen it yet, give this new review a read by Panchin in the same journal as Nicholia. Krimsky's comments in his review are mostly just complaining that Seralini got called out for poor science, but makes allusions to 26 studies showing harm to claim no consensus. He barely makes a start at actually trying to demonstrate no consensus in the validity of those studies with little to no critique that other sources like Nicholia actually do. In Panchin however, they completely undercut Krimsky's claims that there are negative health studies conflicting with the consensus by showing there actually is no evidence of harm because a lot of these studies forgot some basic statistical methods. We could get into other reasons for excluding Krimsky, but you've covered that a bit in previous discussion.

On tense, I'm not picky about that, but we need to be wary about WP:CRYSTAL in implying here that the consensus may not apply someday. Ignore the forward thinking safety assessment I mentioned earlier for now. These products are considered safe or not riskier than conventional counterparts. The sources use present tense. If the scientific consensus changes, we're going to hear about it from more reliable sources than individual fringe publications. We don't really need to hedge our bets because science can change it's thinking. That's just a bridge to cross if it comes to it. We deal with indefinite tenses in science a bit because the current understanding is indefinite until something new comes to change it if that helps. I'm open to seeing some proposed wording though, but most versions I can think of can also make it seem like the consensus was in the past to readers, so I'm iffy on doing something different with tense right now.

As for sources, I think we should include at least a few more. There were no legitimate issues with Bett or Ammann as I recall. If we want to drop those, we especially shouldn't be trying to include Krimsky or Domingo. That could be a more appropriate compromise in terms of weight even if that is a bit unbalanced by taking away sources on the consensus. As for Paarlberg, I can see dropping that to reduce drama from those who'd wish to engage in original research to claim there's a conflict of interest; we should keep in mind for the purposes of assessing weight that no such COI has been established and that advising industry is part of the job description for professors. If we want to apply some of the similar arguments that have been made against the consensus sources (something about a political scientist comes to mind), we can exclude Domingo and Krimsky without any issue. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:33, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for the Panchin source, [40]. I enthusiastically agree that it should also be cited in the sentence.

But what I'm seeing here is Prokaryotes objecting on one basis, and KingofAces objecting for what are largely the opposite reasons. Prokaryotes argues for fewer of the sources that KingofAces would like more of, and vice-versa. It is going to be impossible to satisfy everyone fully, so I strongly recommend leaving everyone a little satisfied and a little unsatisfied. I also want to wait for more editors to comment.

I'm fine with the possibility of having three or four competing versions under consideration, and subjecting them all to community evaluation via an ArbCom-defined RfC similar to the one that one can find via Talk:Jerusalem. So I suggest that editors who have objections to my suggestion come up with specific draft versions instead.

For some of the other points raised by KofA, I would object to using Domingo or Krimsky to reject the language about "scientific consensus", and I'm also open to putting them into a note instead of saying "but see also" in the main text. But I cannot support omitting them entirely, for reasons of NPOV, so please do not expect me to support such a version. Citing them does not mean that they are correct, and saying that there is a scientific consensus (not some weasel words about agreement) clearly relegates them to a dissent position. (No one needs to convince me why I should disagree with Krimsky, personally.) As for CRYSTAL, we cannot predict that the consensus won't change, either, and that's beside the point. The WHO says what they say, and that's the mainstream, and it requires us to specify "currently on the market". Again, this is something where I will not support omitting "currently". I've given my reasoning about Bett and Amman, and I don't need to repeat it. You just have to decide how much or little you are willing to compromise. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I think that adding "currently" or equivalent language could be a useful clarification. I'd prefer using a note instead of "(but see also^[1][2])," both for style reasons and because it still feels a bit like a false balance that encourages readers to doubt the preceding statement. I'd probably also be fine with a separate sentence in which the dissent is placed in context, e.g. by citing Panchin. Sunrise (talk) 01:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Sunrise, thank you very much. That's very helpful. Given your comment as well as what KofA said, I agree that it should be a note (equivalent to citation 3 in the numbering above, with AAAS becoming 4, and so on). And, as I said earlier, I agree with adding the Panchin source in this sentence (however else we might also use that source in an additional sentence or sentences). Before I compile that, let me ask: @Kingofaces43: are you comfortable working with this, or would you prefer to have a separate proposal (per what you posted above my proposal)? And @Aircorn: @Lfstevens: how do you feel about these ideas? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

This is not how I'd put it, but all my suggestions have been rejected. I can live with this. Lfstevens (talk) 07:37, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

In my case, I didn't mean to reject anything you said. I think it's just more a problem with tl;dr, sorry. Looking back, what I found was what you said about "on the market". I would be fine with changing "food currently on the market" to "currently available food". That still satisfies my requirement about "currently", and I don't feel strongly about the rest. How would editors feel about that? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm in general agreement with Sunrise, and I think we're getting close. Having a later sentence instead of a note (though better than see also) is probably most in line with WP:PSCI here from my take. Looking at the spirit of what that policy says, we generally shouldn't include ideas counter to the consensus within that specific piece of content, but deal with that later in the paragraph. It doesn't need to come directly after the consensus statement, but we could have something to the effect of, "Some studies have claimed there are instances of harm,[Krimsky] but review of these studies show the statistical methodology used in them cannot support these claims.[Panchin]" We shouldn't be trying to satisfy opposing sides here, but instead follow WP:CONSENSUS and pick out what weight sources give. Krimsky and Domingo get little or even negative weight in other sources, so we do need to be careful about falling into a false middle hole by holding out Domingo and Krimsky as something we need to give a lot of attention to for the purposes of this discussion. On the note of satisfying everyone to some degree, Prokaryotes has recently been topic banned. Just a note for those in this discussion that weren't aware.

I also just noticed the FAO source was moved. First, we need to stress that it does state scientific consensus instead of just the no greater risk category. It also explicitly says the WHO's views are consistent with the scientific consensus. Just making sure those points are apparent in this discussion. We either should have it cited with the WHO because of that, or include it in the consensus references instead of no greater risk.

A few notes on weight. There is no specific issue with Bett with reliability or weight, and the fact that they cite the FAO is actually a reason for inclusion. One important factor is what more recent publications have to say about previous sources. If a source is reiterating a previous source in whole or in part by citation, that is important for establishing ongoing support of the idea in the scientific community. That and someone writing a paper isn't going to reinvent the wheel when they can just cite something that's established already. That's how the development of the literature works. Similarly, Domingo is cited by Nicholia, but not in a fashion that casts doubt on the scientific consensus at all. Nicholia doesn't give weight to that idea. That's why it's better to cite Nicholia's mention of Domingo instead of Domingo directly at this point. As for Paarlberg (not pushing for the source right now), I believe we've already discussed the one source we have on this explicitly stating that Paarlberg had no financial conflict of interest. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:38, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate all of that. I guess that I can say in general that I am trying extra-hard to be sympathetic to editors on all "sides" here, because I sincerely think that it is both better for Wikipedia and better in the long run for this page. That is even though my individual preferences are actually very close to yours. And we can have more details later on the page. But I looked again at the FAO source, and you are absolutely right that they specifically say "consensus". (How did I miss that?) Therefore, I definitely agree that it should be moved to the "consensus" sources, after Nicolia and before Ronald. I'll let this sit another day or two, and then I'll make a revised version. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

It sounds like this part of the discussion has quieted down, so, in order to avoid making this section any more tl;dr, I'm going to start a new talk section, to try to finalize one of the possible versions of this sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I will probably put a notice of the various discussions on talk pages of all the affected articles that have the sentence, since they would be similarly affected. I have been meaning to do that at the time when this issue was brought to the WP:NOR noticeboard, pointing first to your new proposed language and then also to all the other discussions that had preceded it. I just hadn't gotten around to it. If you want to review the language I intend to use to give notice, I can write a draft here. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, please, that would be very helpful, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Citations

Per WP:OVERSITE, "One cause of "citation overkill" is edit warring, which can lead to examples such as "Garphism is the study[1][2][3][4][5] of ...". Extreme cases have seen fifteen or more footnotes after a single word, as an editor desperately tries to shore up their point and/or overall notability of the subject with extra citations, in the hope that their opponents will accept that there are reliable sources for their edit. Similar circumstances can also lead to overkill with legitimate sources, when existing sources have been repeatedly removed or disputed on spurious grounds or against consensus."

Besides, we do not need 15 citations to cite the scientific consensus on climate change. In fact we use the IPCC statement, the equivalent of the IPCC in the GMO debate is the WHO. The amount used here is again indicating OR/SYN, and a lack of a robust consensus. To the editors who add these refs, i suggest to remove old stuff, and stuff from single authors, and primary studies. prokaryotes (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Missed this section as I was working my way down. Copying my reply[41] from above "Not a fan of long strings of citations. Apart from raising suggestions of synth (which we really want to avoid) they are also aesthetically unappealing to the reader. If they are all needed I would prefer them to be in a note." AIRcorn (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

And as I said in response, I also want to have a shorter cite string, so I think there is a pretty clear consensus for shortening it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm also in favor of shortening it as that was my original intent as well. My initial edit was just to get the ball rolling as a transitional edit. One step at a time here. The next step is figuring out what should be a main citation and which ones should be combined into a single ref. The sources that were added all explicitly use the consensus language though, so the WP:BOLD addition was meant to lay the sources out there instead of everything getting lost in the talk page discussions. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:29, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

While strings of citations are visually offputting, I think this is a special case. My cite suggestion is to leave the source in, but merge them into a single cite, so that the casual reader isn't burdened. Lfstevens (talk) 22:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. We need to be mindful that we constantly get the references challenged both with claims of too many sources and also too few to be a consensus regardless of how strong they are. That's why overcite carries a bit less weight on a controversial topic like this. It's better to cover the breadth of the literature in that regard, but keep the strongest ones as directly linked references and have some of the other more explanatory refs condensed into a single footnote for aesthetics. That way we also don't lose track of good references in the future. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:53, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I feel rather strongly that, for the group of sources that have been in that longish string, we should go back to this page version: [42]. That's what we had just before KingofAces added new sources while making the edit that he self-reverted. And I'm ambivalent putting them instead into a combined note. With the revisions we are making, it matters for the sake of precision that the superscript citations be placed precisely, so that Nicholia is the cite for "consensus", a reasonable number of other sources cite "safety", and the WHO is the cite for "case-by-case". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Is there something with the new sources that wouldn't fit with the consensus statement? FYI, I reverted the language in my revert edit, but didn't expect issues with the sources, so I left them. Here's the quotes from each of them:

1. "Empirical evidence shows the high potential of the technology, and there is now a scientific consensus that the currently available transgenic crops and the derived foods are safe for consumption . . ."[43]
2. "There is a scientific consensus, even in Europe, that the GMO foods and crops currently on the market have brought no documented new risks either to human health or to the environment."[44]
3. "The broad scientific consensus was clear and compelling: ‘no conceptual distinction exists between genetic modification of plants and microorganisms by classical methods or by molecular methods that modify DNA and transfer genes' . . ."[45]
4. [46] is listed as a consensus statement by the society. It may be better for explaining the background as it doesn't use consensus language in the article itself, but it is in the title of it being a consensus statement.

I'm open to dropping any of those with a valid reason, but I was mainly just expecting we'd do the dropping or condensing into a single footnote as we worked out the new language and placement of sources. What are your thoughts on these specifically? Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:29, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Holy f--k! Where have you been hiding this all this time? We've been having editorial battles-royal over whether it is SYNTH to say that there is "scientific consensus", and you have had all these quotes about scientific consensus? Facepalm --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

If I wasn't rushed yesterday and today, I probably would have went into more detail on them here and at NORN. I honestly expected people would be be reading the quotes I purposely put in the references and either have people speak up about some issue or largely consider the matter settled. That and I'd been focusing on the Nicholi discussion and the rewording discussion expecting people had taken the time to read the quotes I put into the article references. My bad if that didn't happen though. I thought the original edit would have done the trick. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

King, you attended the RfC that found we do not have support for "scientific consensus". Are these novel sources? I can't imagine why, if you had support all along, you did not bring these to the RfC where they could be reviewed. Do you believe you have new sourcing that would justify a new RfC? Because you all cannot hide over here and pretend that RfC never happened. Either a new RfC should be conducted in the full light of day, or you all should stop trying to rewrite history. That RfC was exhausting and I am not going to silently watch you, Trypto and Corn erase those 3 months of work. petrarchan47คุก 03:10, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

The result of that RfC was not that there is no consensus to say that there is a "scientific consensus". The result was that there was no consensus in that there was no clear resolution one way or another. An inconclusive RfC does not establish a consensus against anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:55, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

1st link is a study about Kenya farmers, 2nd link seems to be about crops and is from a single author, 3rd link is by someone very close to Monsanto (Advisory Council to the CEO of Monsanto), 4th study is from 2003. prokaryotes (talk) 00:40, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

And the fifth one smells bad. It doesn't look like the 4th one is really necessary, and if it's accurate that the 3rd was written by someone with industry bias, I'm fine with omitting it. But it sure looks like the first two add to the evidence that it is not SYNTH to say that there is "scientific consensus". About the 2nd study, the fact that the review was written by one author does not prevent it from being a reliable source. And although the 1st reports on a study about Africa, it's not like Africa should somehow be denigrated by Wikipedia editors, and if I understand the quote correctly (KofA please verify this), the authors are talking about their assessment of the scientific literature, not about a consensus among Kenyan farmers. Even people in Kenya know how to read scientific literature published elsewhere. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Bingo on not just being consensus among Kenyan farmers (talking about Bett here right?). The quote comes from a paragraph where they are talking about worldwide evidence, and the standalone quote I took out of it should be pretty telling too. I'll look into the 3rd more a bit later tonight. I didn't catch any red flags when I first looked through the paper and associations, but there could have been something I missed. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I took a second look and I'm still not finding anything that would represent a (real-life) COI that would question the usability of the source. His positions appear to all be academic, and doing things like setting up advisory councils to work on steering industry on the science is as much in their job descriptions as doing the same for the public. I'm not finding this information on him apparently being more closely associated with that, so I'd like to see where that claim is coming from. It could be there's more (and I'll remove it if there is), but we'd need to see what this is all about to see if the claim is valid. I've run out of time for the night, so I'll either have pop back for a few seconds in a couple of hours or check in tomorrow evening. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

This is the strongest case I've yet seen for keeping the "consensus" claim. Each source must be assessed, and opponents should produce comparable quotes rejecting the consensus claim if they want to stop the train. I'd say the train is moving. On the cite question, I agree that if some sources make notably different points than others, then separate cites are warranted. Lfstevens (talk) 07:19, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

We should not use sources with strong ties to the industry for bold statements, at least not without disclosing it to the readers. and the above studies really not support the consensus part we discuss here. The 4th link from above, states explicit no direct effects. However, this is a meta analysis of 1700 studies, and the most involved studies are not about foods at all. prokaryotes (talk) 09:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Lfstevens, I see that train the way that you do. On the other hand, @KingofAces: given that Prokaryotes is concerned, specifically, about that author having been on an Advisory Council to the Monsanto CEO, I'd like to have a little more clarity about that. Is it true that the author held that position? Even though I believe that it likely would be "advisory" in the sense of providing objective scientific advice, rather than toeing the company line, I also want to know: was it a paid position? I suspect that it was. If so, I think it would be best not to use it as a source here. It's not worth arguing with editors who object, and it would be better to try to reach as much consensus as is practical. Even without that source, we have plenty of source material without it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:02, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to know more too, which is why I asked Prokaryotes for clarification on this claim. I did a quick search, but couldn't find any information, but I've been limited on time lately. I'll see if I can dig into it tomorrow, but it appears if there is something it's going to take some digging, which is a flag for me on the claim until we get something concrete to analyze. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:33, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@Lfstevens: FWIW, some of these sources have actually been used for this before - I've always seen this as a problem of having too many good sources rather than too few. I redid some of my searches on this subject, and if we want sources that specifically use the word "consensus," a couple of them are:

• Robert Blair; Joe M. Regenstein (26 June 2015). "Overall assessment of the safety of GM foods and feeds". Genetic Modification and Food Quality: A Down to Earth Analysis. Wiley. p. 205. ISBN 978-1-118-82361-3. "There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently being marketed are safe as food and feed."
• Potrykus I (2013) Unjustified regulation prevents use of GMO technology for public good. Trends Biotechnol 31 (3):131-3. DOI:10.1016/j.tibtech.2012.11.008 PMID: 23273413 "There is broad scientific consensus, which has been published widely by academic and other public institutions, that there is no specific risk associated with transgenic plants." (Note that despite the title, the this one is peer-reviewed and not an opinion piece.)

If we want direct analysis of dissenting sources, the most recent source is this meta-analysis:

• Panchin AY, Tuzhikov AI (2016) Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons. Crit Rev Biotechnol ():1-5. DOI:10.3109/07388551.2015.1130684 PMID: 26767435

The problem is keeping the list short enough to not overwhelm the reader, especially since everyone seems to differ on which ones are the most important. At some point I proposed using one of the references to link a subpage, which I still think could be a good idea. Or if a "Scientific opinion" article is written as is being proposed below, then perhaps that could work as well. Sunrise (talk) 05:28, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

This seems to be more of looking for any source that says "consensus." Have you read the section on consensus in Blair and Regenstein's "... A Down to Earth Analysis"? Their consensus is their opinion based on a variety of evidence, including the problematic AAAS statement where they quote the entire AAAS food safety claim without quotation marks, giving the impression of an assertion in the authors' voice. The section seems like a good summary of the component arguments for GM food safety, discussing substantial equivalence, that GM methods are not inherently riskier, that DNA and protein are digested and processed out before they get to tissue, no reported harm, and so forth, and acknowledges that some dissenting studies exist (noting that "all have the same deficiencies..."). But a consensus statement from it should be directly attributed.

The 2014 Library of Congress GMO regulation report section on "scholarly opinion" has been brought up several times—as a summary statement, it seems more informative (indicating that there are a number of contributing opinions) and evenly worded, and comes from a reputable source that is clearly addressing the issue of scholarly opinion:

Scholarly Opinion: Several scientific organizations in the US have issued studies or statements regarding the safety of GMOs indicating that there is no evidence that GMOs present unique safety risks compared to conventionally bred products. These include the National Research Council,[12] the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[13] and the American Medical Association.[14] [47]

What I am against here is any sort of misleading oversimplification and presentation of a political message in place of spelling things out (as, for example, the WHO FAQ on GMOs and food does quite well, including, "Are GM foods safe?"). Why so much effort to push through this particular type of consensus wording, especially when it is so difficult to support? --Tsavage (talk) 12:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

We represent the reality of scientific opinion here, so we represent the scientific consensus when there is one and resist attempts to obfuscate it by fringe sources. One problem that comes up in many science topics is that trying to just cover all the details without the consensus statement can create undue weight. You'll have a bunch of technical details followed by sources that oppose the scientific consensus making it seem like there's a lot of scientific argument going on (i.e. WP:GE). Stating the consensus avoids GE issues and is what we are called to do by our policies and guidelines when sources both explicitly and implicitly say there is a consensus. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

We represent the reality of sources, first and foremost, we rely on them to represent the reality of scientific opinion. Unless we have every relevant scientist in a room, voting, consensus is highly subjective, especially arguable when it is based on authority or (expert) opinion alone. In a debated area, it is best handled by quotes with attribution, to make it clear who is saying what. For example, we can quote the AAAS safety statement... Are you arguing that a quote is somehow not enough, that putting a consensus statement in Wikipedia's voice is required to add more weight? --Tsavage (talk) 17:00, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of your personal opinions on what scientific consensus is, WP:RS/AC is clear, "Stated simply, any statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors." Right now we have multiple sources that both say consensus and that most scientists agree on the underlying statement that there is no difference in risk. There's really not much more to say. If you have issues with our policies and guidelines on academics or what we place in Wikipedia's voice, this isn't the place to change that. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:16, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and when there are several sources of different apparent weight, with different consensus statements, and sources stating there is no consensus, we don't choose one and give it the extra weight unless it is extraordinarily definitive. And we don't add up a few. The balanced thing to do, is to quote or closely paraphrase with direct attribution, one source at a time, not concoct our own synthesis and wording. We don't conduct our own source reviews, we simply take a reasonable look at a situation and then rely on what the sources say. Here, there are multiple conflicting and varying sources, both among consensus statements, and as to any consensus existing. It's not up to us to sort that out on out through our own interpretation of it all. If things aren't settle, we can attribute. --Tsavage (talk) 18:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

^Agree, with emphasis of the quality of the source. It appears Domingo 2011 is one of the best sources because it is a literature review from a reputable author and expert on the subject, a review which is frequently cited. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:25, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, and as you've been made aware of many times, we cannot give undue weight to those WP:FRINGE ideas that conflict with the scientific consensus. We don't do that for climate change, vaccines, evolution, or other controversies on science topics where there will always be contrarian fringe sources. We don't engage in WP:GE as you suggest we do, especially when there is a scientific consensus documented by sources according to our polices and guidelines. At this point, addressing your comments is getting more into behavior issue territory. This is not the appropriate forum to address that, so I won't respond further to you to avoid letting this conversation derail content discussion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Certainly, consider the reliability of each in a straightforward way, for example, ranking peer-reviewed journal review sources above statements based on authority and expert opinion. FRINGE may come into play, with clear (verifiable) indication that a view or author is FRINGE. (@Kingofaces43:: Please focus on content. If you feel that replying to my comments is a behavioral problem - and I see you put a Discretionary Sanctions notice on my Talk page - then please feel free not to reply.) --Tsavage (talk) 19:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I just have a personal preference on not using books as it's difficult to gauge their threshold for publication, but good find on the Panchin source. I can think of a few articles where that is useful. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

My name has been invoked a few times in this thread. So here's my take. WP has policies for evaluating sources. Don't get creative. Discard those that do not comply. Include those that do. Distill what they say. Stop. Lfstevens (talk) 07:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Apparently, that's hard to do for this subject - though I completely agree that it should be easy. One of the problems is that the objections tend to be circular depending on the type of source. If it's a position statement, then it's not peer-reviewed; if it's a review article, it only represents a few people. If no evidence is cited, then they didn't give any reasons; if evidence is given, this was their opinion based on this specific evidence. If they don't use the word "consensus," it's SYNTH; if they do mention it, then...And so forth.

That's a simplification, of course, but the reason why so many sources have been used is that these kind of objections can continue endlessly and exhaustively. Placing emphasis on any one source leads to TLDR on the talk page, because no source is perfect and there are always objections that will be argued at length (this also happens to whichever source comes first, due to the implicit emphasis from positioning). Reducing the length of the list ends up being temporary, because new participants to the discussion bring up objections that are addressed by sources no longer present. Since there are so many good sources, after a certain point it becomes much easier just to add those other sources back in. It would be great to break this cycle, but I'm not sure how. Sunrise (talk) 09:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sunrise:: Your first paragraph is a serviceable summary of the situation, however, the analysis in the second paragraph is incomplete, in that it does not consider from an encyclopedia-writing perspective, what "scientific consensus" represents and how it should be used.

• "scientific consensus" is meta information, #scientificconsensus, a descriptive tag for either of two types, quantifiable (a literal vote count of an unarguably representative majority) or an opinion (based on someone examining some things)
• in the case of opinion, criticism and opposing views are always possible, and to be expected for a contentious topic
• evaluating a consensus source based on opinion involves either reexamining the evidence and conclusion, or assigning a degree of authority to the source
• "scientific consensus" is commonly used to add further weight to a position, it is usually used in a political capacity, cited when opinions are divided

We can look further to a discussion of the term, for more context relevant to neutral encyclopedia presentation (taken from Scientific consensus): In public policy debates, the assertion that there exists a consensus of scientists in a particular field is often used as an argument for the validity of a theory and as support for a course of action by those who stand to gain from a policy based on that consensus. Similarly arguments for a lack of scientific consensus are often encouraged by sides who stand to gain from a more ambiguous policy.

These points easily explain why there is strong debate over the use of the term in GM articles (at this point, there is no assumption of bad faith on any part, simply differing editorial views and perhaps views of the subject itself).

In a neutral encyclopedia, it is not the editors' place to take sides, only to represent the verifiable facts in a neutral and balanced way. In the absence of a hard-count consensus, with such a variety of consensus sources with variations in their precise statements and criticisms of them, plus no-consensus sources, the primary fact is that consensus opinions exist—we clearly cannot go so far into re-analyzing sources as to pick one, or reach summary language encompassing several, without ultimately coming to original conclusions.

The thing to do (firmly supported by our content policy of verifiable (i.e. non-original) and neutral content) is to present consensus agreement and dissent as views directly attributed to their sources, with decisions as to which to include and exclude, and relevant criticisms of particular views if warranted, based on sources as well. For example, if brevity is the goal, include the views of the most prominent and presumably authoritative sources for consensus and no-consensus (exactly as the Library of Congress has done, see "Scholarly opinion" above). --Tsavage (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Scientific opinion on GMOs

The article scientific opinion on climate change quotes various statements from major involved bodies. I suggest we should add a section for the scientific opinion on GMOs, and then quote there the major involved bodies of GMO research. The lede could state that there is a general agreement on food safety, and that it must be judged on a case per case basis. This solution would be the most accurate, and the most scientific one, since it comes directly from the experts. This could also include reviews, and statements from groups like Union of Concerned Scientists. prokaryotes (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The specific topics are in the scope of the controversies article already where such information is covered, so that would be redundant. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The focus of this article is on the crops, not the food. While there is some mention of food and food safety here, these topics are dealt with in more detail in other articles, as Kingofaces43 points out. Assembling a list of statements and reviews could be helpful, but this is probably not the best place for such a list.Dialectric (talk) 21:27, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

What about a dedicated article? prokaryotes (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

What would you call the dedicated article? If it were me, I would put together the list in my user draft space first, then see where the information fit best. Creating an article could work, but could cause some additional conflict unless the scope was sorted out beforehand.Dialectric (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Several editors suggested here and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#OR_on_GMO_articles and at a current ANI discussion to quote official announcements on GMO food safety. Thus, the article would include all official announcements by scientific bodies. prokaryotes (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I have often considered the idea of an individual article on scientific opinions. It has the big advantage of presenting all the information we have been arguing over clearly for readers and other editors. However, it also has a few disadvantages. The biggest one is deciding on inclusion criteria. What scientific organisations get to be represented and how do we assign the correct weight to their opinions?AIRcorn (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I would support creation of such an article. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:25, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We need to be careful that it would not be called a WP:POV fork. Given that the crops are food crops (as opposed to, for example, cut flowers), I'm not really seeing a difference between food and crops here. I don't think that any putative effects of GM arise during cooking. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

No. Food and crops are not the same. They are regulated by different agencies in the U.S. under the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology for different kinds of safety concerns. To the best of my knowledge food is sold directly to consumers and restaurants to be eaten, whereas crops are an earlier stage of the process of creating food, and concerns like creating weeds, cross-pollination, other effects on plant and animal life come up for crops but not for food. And of course, Bt Corn is classified as a pesticide so must be regulated as such. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

For me, this isn't an academic discussion of the differences between food and crops, but rather a discussion about whether there should be one Wikipedia page or two. I fully understand that restaurant patrons do not sit down to eat in the middle of a farm field, and I don't see why the regulatory decisions of two different agencies must be covered on two different pages instead of on the same page. So I understand that there is a difference between crops and food. My concern is that the difference might not require treating them on two different pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Crops and food are interlinked to a degree, so aspects of food production (i.e. crops) go over in the controversies article besides things like food safety. I've actually considered for a time just renaming the controversies article to genetically modified organism controversies, but my previous sentence explains why it's largely unneeded. The crops article isn't quite a subset of the foods article, but it's meant to have a bit more focus on the production end of things while the foods article is a bit more of a catch-all for a wider berth. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not clear on what Prokaryotes is proposing, so I was speaking generally about creating additional articles in this area. Tryptofish, to your point, safety of crops is distinct from foods for several reasons - 1.some crops have related dusts, molds, allergens, etc. that affect farmers and handlers due to the high levels of exposure, but do not affect end consumers. 2.FDA safety assessment for pesticide levels on sold produce assumes that the produce is washed. Again, farmers and handlers can be exposed to higher levels of chemicals. Neither of these is GMO specific, but there is a significant difference between food safety and crop safety.Dialectric (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, you make a good point about the safety of farm workers, but this page, which is about crops, is clearly much more about food than about farm workers. And the issues about farm workers aren't precisely about GM organisms, but rather about chemicals used in their cultivation, and I am not aware of any natural molds etc that are specific to GM plants. Certainly, a page like glyphosate should address issues of farm worker safety (as should pages about chemicals used on conventional crops). I suppose one could spin out a page about foods derived from GM plants, and make this page only about the effects of GM crops within farms, but I think it makes better sense to cover foods here, as foods that come from crops. And I cannot think of any way that foods, after being washed, would have greater safety issues that would justify a separate page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you proposing an article reorganization? what would it look like? I think a more logical structure to these articles is possible, but I personally haven't figured one out. One gap I see and mentioned months ago was that non-food products of GMO plants do not have their own article, and criticism related to these products does not fit well into genetically modified food controversies.Dialectric (talk) 23:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

No, sorry for my lack of clarity. I am skeptical of a reorganization, and I was thinking out loud about how various possible reorganizations would not be improvements. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Re washing, http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-011-0499-5 "The pesticide residues, left to variable extent in the food materials after harvesting, are beyond the control of consumer and have deleterious effect on human health." - Just washing is likely to not get rid of all residues. prokaryotes (talk) 00:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: The specific topics are in the scope of the controversies article already where such information is covered This recurring argument, and that certain GM food/crop topics are found only in the Controversies article, relies on a separation of information that is unsupported by sources.

For a clear example of how a reliable source groups GM food subtopics, the WHO Frequently asked questions on genetically modified foods covers many aspects and issues, including safety, public perception, regulation, and environmental impact, all at equal weight on one page (and does not use the word "controversy") - there is no basis for us to arrive at a novel, dramatically different organization of material, where basic information is segregated in other articles. --Tsavage (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup, I'm fully aware you don't like the way the layout of the articles that's been developed. You've been rather adamant in that, but the general ongoing status quo has been that we have the controversies page to help manage weight issues to not overshadow the foods article while still giving enough space to put the controversies in context. Content forks are how we manage that here at Wikipedia. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Your reply says, that's how it is. My comment is that how it is defies sourcing and needs to be fixed. We have basic information segregated in an article called Controversies that has no mention in the main article, compared to high-quality sources like the WHO that include that information within their main coverage, where the word "controversy" does not even appear. There are other examples. This is what the sources squarely indicate. Our structure misrepresents the topic by not presenting all the aspects normally recognized in mainstream sources in one place. If otherwise, please demonstrate? --Tsavage (talk) 17:32, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Please read WP:NOT as a single preferred source of yours doesn't dictate how we organize articles here. That's done under WP:CONSENSUS, WP:MOS, etc.. You keep going on about this, but it's time to drop the WP:STICK. I for one am not going to entertain you on this further when you've consistently failed to get traction for these ideas. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I mention Controversies here because you argue against an article like scientific opinion on climate change for GM food safety opinion, by referring to Genetically modified food controversies as the equivalent, which it clearly is not, yet it is repeatedly used this way, to defer content. (I'm not sure why you appear to be trying to personalize my comments, they can stand on their own.) --Tsavage (talk) 17:57, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Potential RFC

So it seems like myself, Tryptofish, KingofAces and Lfstevens will come up with agreement on the wording for that sentence soon. It is also obvious that other editors will disagree with that wording. So I am thinking this will probably go back for another WP:RFC to get a wider community input. If we go that route can we please discuss the wording and scope before starting one. If we are going to put all this effort in again we may as well give it the best chance of reaching a consensus one way or the other. AIRcorn (talk) 21:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

This is not how an article is written. We don't "come up with a statement". This 'statement' is what we usually refer to as a summary of content already agreed upon and included in the body of the article.

To say that some editors will disagree is to admit you've no grasp of the situation. The RfC failed because when reliable sources are reviewed, it is clear there is no support for the idea that the science is settled. The sources are the "side that will disagree".

We have all agreed that to claim, for instance, that the Pew poll of AAAS scientists found '80% think GMOs are as safe to eat as their conventional counterparts' is fine. To claim in WPs voice instead, based on this source, that there is "general scientific agreement", without making clear that this is not in reference to all scientists, or most, but a very small subset, is not acceptable. There are no stronger sources supporting this specific claim (and we don't need to revisit the "no WP:OR conversation, I hope), so this doesn't have support either.

The RfC failed because when it comes down to it, much evidence exists for the fact that there is rigorous scientific debate, especially in non-US countries, and that there is no consensus or general agreement.

So the proper step is to bring sources that should be included in an encyclopedic article, and quote them properly. For instance, it should be mentioned that the WHO says there is no way in can be claimed that all GMO foods are safe. We need to add mention of the studies/reviews that have found harm, when they meet MEDRS, as well as make a note about the amount of support for GMO labeling that exists in the States, and other "public perception" details.

Then, we can summarize AS A GROUP the content that has been added. petrarchan47คุก 22:55, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Please consider to use several direct quotes, and something along the lines of the WHO for the lede.prokaryotes (talk) 23:01, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much reason to discuss the possibility of an RfC yet. First, we have to have some clarity about draft sentences, with proposed sources, and then see where we stand. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed there is no reason to talk even of "draft sentences" until all of the content to be added and summarized has been discussed, individually. The RfC failed to reach consensus because when the 18 sources that were used to support the "statement" were reviewed, they were all found lacking. The closer noted that the RfC was poorly constructed, as the editors were asked to review sources that weren't included in the article, and that changed throughout the RfC. It isn't appropriate to ask editors to review multiple sources that haven't been through the discussion process already. I would suggest editors begin to add content suggestions, using direct quotes. I'll begin a section below. petrarchan47คุก 00:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

"The closer found the RFC was poorly constructed". Bang - nail hit on the head. Just suggesting that we should make sure a new one (if we need one - maybe we will all agree on something for once) is not poorly constructed. Maybe I jumped the gun, but I have taken part in too many poorly thought out RFC's not to at least suggest this. AIRcorn (talk) 10:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Bingo. The closer said they couldn't give a heads or tails decision. It's a bit early to suggest an RfC, and we don't defacto need one for this either. We've got strong sources supporting the consensus statement and also qualifying that the WHO's comments are exactly in line with that instead of opposing it. If we do, it will be a matter of providing the draft text and quotes from the relevant sentences. I'm doing a few tweaks above, but I'll have something on the talk page here soon that should be close to a proposed version to springboard off to whatever the next step is. Kingofaces43 (talk) 02:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Its probably a bit naive to think this won't go to RFC, and I personally would not be comfortable not going giving the level of community input to the most recent one that closed as no consensus. It is not perfect, but it remains the best way we can get consensus on article content. If I was Petra, David or Prokaryotes I would be drafting a similar sentence, based on what they consider the most reliable sources, regarding the scientific opinion relating to GM food safety. AIRcorn (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm just talking in terms of what consensus is and not functionally what's likely to happen. In the event of an RfC though, it might be useful to consider separate involved and uninvolved response sections. That might be tough to implement with it's own issues, but the last RfC was a bit of a mess because of some WP:BLUDGEON issues. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:49, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

A useful RfC works by getting "fresh eyes", input from editors who do not already have a (GM) dog in the fight. A big part of the reason why the previous RfC was no-consensus is that it was dominated by fillibustering by the editors who were already declared partisans on both "sides". I suggest taking a look at the top of Talk:Jerusalem, where one can see that ArbCom ran a carefully monitored RfC in 2013, with binding rules. I suggest that in a general way, we should consider doing something similar for the similarly intractable dispute here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions for content addition

Pro and others have suggested, in line with PAGs, that the content being summarized in the hotly disputed "safety statement" should be spelled out with as much detail as possible, with attribution, before summarizing it in WP's voice for placement in the intro. WP:nPOV dictates that we also include any criticisms and that we don't exclude details regarding the controversial side of this issue. petrarchan47คุก 00:41, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• The WHO

Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.

• Imo, it is necessary for a fair, balanced view to present sufficient context for a food safety summary. Important points include:

• The unique position of the US in GM as far as regulation and economic interest, and how regulation in the US works.
• The US's unique GRAS doctrine, and how it compares with the precautionary approach.
• The basic idea of substantial equivalence: how it works, and the views, scientific and otherwise, about its current reality.
• An explanation of GM methods as not inherently more risky than other breeding methods.
• What it means that no harm has been documented so far, how that is determined.

I'm not imagining a sprawling recap of these various issues, instead, a tightly written, integrated summary of the relevant factors that input into GMO safety considerations, tailored to crops and food. Right now, this is just about ABSENT as a clear, accessible narrative for the general reader. --Tsavage (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying, by putting "not likely" into bold font that is not in the original source, that the source is saying that there is a significant likelihood? What is the reason that you did not use bold font for "have passed safety assessments"? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

That was posted by Petrarchan47. My common sense read is that the emphasis serves to highlight the particular language the WHO uses in its safety summary, simple as that. --Tsavage (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• Trypto, WP and Jdog, along with anyone else who has (re)inserted the contested language into articles, has been misrepresenting the WHO. My bold makes clear how this is so, although this issue has been covered quite extensively already, in both the RfC (by Sarah SV, especially) and the ArbCom case. I noticed at the OR/N Corn was questioning Pro's echoing these claims. My bold was also a response to him. Misquoting is what started the RfC - as Jdog and King became overwhelmed with complaints by GF editors trying to protect WP's veracity. petrarchan47คุก 19:27, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Whoever posted it with those emphases, there is a serious problem here with misrepresenting the WHO source, and I am not one of the editors who are doing the misrepresenting. I am going, here, to re-post what the source actually says, but without any editorializing-by-bold-font. (This is based on a recent post I made at NORN.)

The WHO source is divided into multiple sections. There are two sections that are relevant to the question of whether scientists view GM foods as safe or not: 8 ("Are GM foods safe?") and 12 ("Have GM products on the international market passed a safety assessment?"). Here is section 8, without bolding anything:

Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous application of safety assessments based on the Codex Alimentarius principles and, where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM foods.

I agree that it does indeed support the idea that WHO is advocating for case-by-case evaluation. And it does indeed make it clear that, without case-by-case testing, it is impossible to draw reliable conclusions about safety. But the sentence in the first paragraph thus cannot be saying that it is impossible to make a general statement on the safety of all GM foods currently available, because the authors go on to make exactly that general statement in the second paragraph. The call for testing, and the caution against general statements, are being made with respect to new GM plants, as they come out, not with respect to those already in the food chain.

Here is section 12:

The GM products that are currently on the international market have all passed safety assessments conducted by national authorities. These different assessments in general follow the same basic principles, including an assessment of environmental and human health risk. The food safety assessment is usually based on Codex documents.

That's about as strong as statement as one can get about GM products currently available. We should indeed note that the WHO says that GM crops and foods should be tested case-by-case as they come along, and that one cannot make a general conclusion about the safety of new products before they are tested. But the WHO is absolutely in agreement with the preponderance of reliable sources in saying, unambiguously, that "products that are currently on the international market have all passed safety assessments". That is the scientific consensus, and it is a misrepresentation of source material to say otherwise.

And just for the heck of it, I will repeat the text above, but with an alternative scheme of bold fonts:

Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.

GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous application of safety assessments based on the Codex Alimentarius principles and, where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM foods.

The GM products that are currently on the international market have all passed safety assessments conducted by national authorities. These different assessments in general follow the same basic principles, including an assessment of environmental and human health risk. The food safety assessment is usually based on Codex documents.

It sure looks different that way, doesn't it? But I'm not advocating that we utilize the source that way. Just that we read the source as it is written. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

To drive that point home even further, there is the FOA source that says (my bolding):

"Currently available transgenic crops and foods derived from them have been judged safe to eat and the methods used to test their safety have been deemed appropriate. These conclusions represent the consensus of the scientific evidence surveyed by the ICSU (2003) and they are consistent with the views of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002)."[48]

The misinterpretation with the WHO source has been that it contradicts with the idea that GM crops are not riskier (not even talking consensus here). In addition to the FAO, we have the AAAS[49][50] clarifying that this idea is untrue and a bunch of other sources I'm sure we could focus on that mention the who as part of the safety statement even if they don't explicitly mention consensus. For those not familiar, the WHO and FAO are basically sister agencies in the UN that collaborate together on food issues. Even if we ignore Trypto's overview of the source standalone, we'd expect more fireworks if the two agencies were disagreeing. Sources secondary to the WHO show this isn't the case though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Content addition break

You remind me - I meant to suggest that folks read the WHO page from which I quote above. In my view, it is an excellent example of how an encyclopedia should read. Very concise, clear and informative. petrarchan47คุก 01:01, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. There is a clear, logical lead-up to food safety, which is the eighth section in. The WHO outline:

• What are genetically modified (GM) organisms and GM foods?
• Why are GM foods produced?
• Is the safety of GM foods assessed differently from conventional foods?
• How is a safety assessment of GM food conducted?
• What are the main issues of concern for human health?
• How is a risk assessment for the environment performed?
• What are the issues of concern for the environment?
• Are GM foods safe?
• How are GM foods regulated nationally?
• What kind of GM foods are on the market internationally?
• What happens when GM foods are traded internationally?
• Have GM products on the international market passed a safety assessment?
• What is the state of public debate on GMOs?
• Are people’s reactions related to the different attitudes to food in various regions of the world?
• Why are certain groups concerned about the growing influence of the chemical industry on agriculture?
• What further developments can be expected in the area of GMOs?

And that, a FAQ, is 2700 words, GM crops is 6600 wds, GM food 4800 wds, and most of this is either not covered, or poorly covered, between them. We're not out to reinvent the wheel. We have one reliable source that can be expanded on, and logical articles broken out with much more detail. Why are we not doing that, and trying to do something else? Editors are actually combing through "Perspectives of gatekeepers in the Kenyan food industry towards genetically modified food" looking for definitive support for a scientific consensus wording - what is going on? --Tsavage (talk) 02:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I feel very favorably about covering the topics listed in Tsavage's first list of bullet points (ie, the first list, not the recap of the WHO source sections). I think it's especially important to have an international perspective. But there are some things I'm not clear about, because we seem to have gotten into this discussion section by way of discussion about a single sentence in the lead. You don't mean to cover all of this in a single sentence or so, right? I don't see how that could be done. And I hope that we won't attempt to cover all of this in the lead section, right? This material needs to be dealt with at sufficient length. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:13, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I am referring to ensuring that the articles, GM food/GM crops, cover the basics, I'm not suggesting that a single sentence cover those basics.

The lead for a developed article should summarize the article, and a summary sentence, wherever it appears, should be supported by sufficient in-article context to allow the reader to make sense of that summary. Any broad summary statement about GM food safety, using consensus language or otherwise, needs to at the same time be supported by the necessary context, to avoid being misleading or misrepresentative. An explanation of the US regulatory system, GRAS, substantial equivalence, etc (e.g. the content in either my list or, even better, the more extensive WHO list), is required to make minimally informed sense of a safety summary.

That the WHO has done that and much more in half the space of our entire GM food article, indicates that it can be done, and in fact gives use the reliable source necessary to do so without delay. --Tsavage (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I understand Trypto's question, though. We really should divide this discussion of sources/missing content into two parts for now, to keep things simple. The summary of views on GMO safety needs to be discussed separately, and immediately. Why don't we list sources that address this specific issue, that qualify as RS, add them to related articles, and update our summary statement accordingly? petrarchan47คุก 19:27, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: Only just saw your comment above, and posted A new take on the safety summary. --Tsavage (talk) 03:09, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• Comment about the questions to be answered. I think I have expressed before that if one of the goals of the articles is to answer a set of questions, the selection of which questions will make a difference in what is covered. People who know little about GMO's may be asking the "wrong" questions--because they do not have a basic understanding of GMO's. So popular questions may be poorly phrased and difficult to answer simply. Some rumor about GMO's might be spread and there may be a lot of questions about the rumor. Consider for example rumors about Area 51, where I think I once saw a TV program or found a book where an individual claimed aliens had been captured and they had seen the aliens. I do not think it is the encyclopedia's job to address a question such as "Are there aliens in Area 51?" any more than "Is the moon made of green cheese?" but instead to objectively report on what is known about Area 51 (or the moon) without any needless focus on crazy rumors and questions about them, except perhaps reporting on the RS that says such a rumor is popular. Of course, your questions are not like that, but I use these extreme example to show how popular questions (and misconceptions) are often not the "best" questions.

As further examples of my concern, consider different list of questions from different sites. Questions from industry sites, consumer sites, anti-gmo sites or regulatory agencies will all be slightly different to address the goals of the organization posing and answering the questions. The FDA for example will want to reassure readers through their Q&A that they are doing a great job regulating them, while the others will have a different agenda.

Consider for example, these lists of questions from a Google search.

Q&A from GMO Answers (I believe this is an industry site) Questions & Answers:

1. If livestock eat genetically modified grain, will there be GMOs in my meat?
2. Are feeds made from GMOs safe for livestock?
3. Are GMOs contributing to the death of bees?
4. Are GMOs contributing to the death of butterflies?
5. Why are companies against labeling GMO foods?
6. Are GMOs causing an increased use of pesticides?
7. Why aren’t long-term health studies conducted on GMO plants?
8. Are GMOs contaminating organic food crops?
9. Are GMOs Increasing the Price of Food? ←
10. Are big companies forcing farmers to grow GMOs?
11. Are GMOs causing an increase in allergies?
12. Do GMOs Cause Cancer?

From grist.com (I think also pro-industry) Q&A:

1. I’ve heard that GMOs are totally unregulated, is that true?
2. Do the big seed companies prevent scientists from doing research on their patented plants?
3. Are there dangers for scientists working on genetically engineered plants?
4. Is genetic engineering more likely than other forms of plant breeding to create unforeseen changes?
5. Isn’t genetic engineering more likely to create allergens?
6. So, does the chance that novel allergens could emerge make genetic engineering dangerous?
7. But what about those studies suggesting that GMOs are harmful?
8. Isn’t it possible that some subtle, unintended shift in corn DNA is causing the obesity epidemic, the rise of autoimmune disorders, autism, and Morgellons disease?
9. Have genetically engineered crops reduced insecticide applications?
10. Haven’t the decreases in insecticides been dwarfed by increases in herbicides?
11. What about soil and carbon? Have GMOs led to carbon capture and soil preservation by facilitating an increase in no-till and low-till farming?
12. Who has profited from genetically engineered crops?
13. Aren’t there big problems caused by the fact that genetically engineered seeds are patented?
14. But that’s nothing, what about Monsanto forcing farmers to buy their seeds by spreading the terminator gene?
15. Is genetically engineered pollen spreading into regular old plants?
16. Do genetically engineered crops help or hurt poor farmers?
17. Do we absolutely need genetically engineered crops to feed the world?
18. So should we label GMOs?

From Monsanto Q&A

1. What are biotechnology, genetic engineering, genetic modification and GMOs? And, why does Monsanto use it?
2. Are foods and ingredients developed through biotechnology (or GMOs) safe to eat?
3. Who makes sure biotech crops are safe to eat and safe for the environment?
4. Can consumers avoid GM foods in the grocery store if desired?
5. Are foods and ingredients developed from genetically modified (GM) crops labeled?
6. Do GM crops provide any benefits?
7. Has anyone studied the long-term health effects of GM crops (GMOs)?
8. In addition to animal feeding studies, are human clinical trials used to test the safety of biotech (GM) crops?
9. Is food grown with or developed from biotech seeds contributing to allergies in America?
10. I’ve seen reports of studies showing GM crops are safe and others saying they aren’t. Who and what do I believe?

Council for Responsible Genetics (critical/skeptical of GMO's) Q&A?

1. How many genetically engineered foods are on the market?
2. Isn't genetic engineering merely a minor extension of traditional breeding practices?
3. Won’t genetically engineered foods cure world hunger?
4. Isn't genetic engineering a precise and predictable science?
5. Do genetically engineered foods pose risks to human health and safety?
6. Do genetically engineered foods pose risks to the environment?
7. Do genetically engineered foods raise other ethical considerations?
8. Doesn't the U.S. government test genetically engineered foods to ensure that they are safe for human consumption?
9. What is the U.S. government policy on labeling of genetically engineered food?
10. Do consumers have a right to know that their food has been genetically engineered?

An organic food site Q&A:

1. How can I determine if a product contains GMO ingredients?
2. Is there any way I, as a consumer, can get my food tested for GMOs?
3. What are the tests and how do they work?
4. How large a batch of material is needed for a statistically valid result?
5. Does batch size change with kind of material (e.g. seed versus ground meal), or type of source (e.g. corn vs. soy)?
6. How is the sample taken, and how it is treated before testing?
7. Once a product has been verified, what, if anything, might trigger retesting it later?
8. What are the costs involved for current PCR testing?
9. How long does it take from sampling the batch to determining the results?
10. Much of the current end use of GMO corn and soy is as animal feed. Can GMO feeding be detected in the final meat, milk, eggs, fiber, etc?
11. What innovations are happening in the science or engineering of GMO testing and what options might they open up?
12. What products does the Non-GMO Project verify?
13. What foods can I buy without worrying about GMO ingredients?
14. Is organic certification a guarantee against GMOs?
15. Where can I get products that don't contain GMOs?
16. How about feed for my pets or livestock?

As you can see from these lists there is a huge difference in what Questions are asked (and how they are answered) based on who is doing the asking. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:32, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

The IMMEDIATE advantage of the WHO FAQ is that it is also entirely a reliable source, so it can be used to get the articles quickly to a minimum quality standard. My concern is that months and years seem to go by here with lots of talk and nothing much done. It would be nice to have a reasonable informative GM article sooner than later. The WHO FAQ makes that doable. --Tsavage (talk) 23:23, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I see. That is an advantage, I suppose. My main point still remains that every organization has an agenda as to what Questions they ask (and how they go about answering them). The industry sites want to ally fears, the FDA (and entities like the WHO) wants you to know that they are doing a great job regulating GMO's and GMO trade internationally, the organic site tells you how to avoid GMO's, and the other site challenges the industry claims about feeding the world, the idea that GMO is the same as breeding, etc., so who writes the questions indeed makes a big difference. I don't think the WHO list is a great list to be honest, not even close to comprehensive, but at least the WHO is RS, unlike probably all of the others that I provided. I don't have a problem with having these questions easily answered.

But I think the bigger problems with the articles is that they are poorly organized by title and internally, multiple articles have similar and complicated names and often have (or should have) more or less the same information and the information in different articles can actually seem to contradict each other because one article is incorrect, and basic information such as the major difference between European and the USA regulatory schemes is buried in the wrong sections making it hard to find the information that is there. This is why I have decided to not put as much effort into the debate about the sentence on the "scientific consensus" as I have in the past, because the other material about regulations is not adequately explained and even misrepresented. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

(BTW, here's a shortlist of FAQs I assembled for my own crosschecking reference, a kinda nice mix: WHO, Non-GMO Project, Whole Foods Market, FDA, Monsanto, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and Kids' Guide to GE by Tiki the Penguin. :) --Tsavage (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

LOL. Did you put those lists on Wikipedia somewhere? --David Tornheim (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: One extremely practical use for a selection of FAQs is to definitively show what subject areas are considered part of the mainstream topic, and do not belong separated in a Controversies article. And the 2700-word WHO FAQ, half the length of our current GM Foods article, demonstrates that a lot can be covered in a concise, summary style. This should put a well-sourced end to basic content inclusion debates. --Tsavage (talk) 23:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

True, but I think we want to have more information than a FAQ from the WHO and should have high quality RS to back up our material. The WHO speaks in broad generalizations, some of which I find not entirely helpful and provides no footnotes to explain exactly what they mean and why they came to their conclusion and what opinions they rejected and why they rejected them. More like "Trust us. We are the WHO. We have experts who write our material. You don't need to know where it came from." (Argument from authority.) The section "8. Are GM foods safe?" that has been dissected both for and against saying there is a "scientific consensus" on the safety of GMO food is a good example of the problem I descirbe. Having read the RS, I do not consider it a very accurate description of the literature (I have seen worse of course), although there is certainly RS available to support just about every sentence in that section, they don't refer us to any of it. (That probably can be found somewhere, and if you know, please share.) I guess I am not all that impressed with the WHO FAQ. I think we should do better, so it will take more language. Now as for the leads of our articles, they will need to be more concise like the WHO language, and then refer to the discussion in the body. My two cents. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Guys if you want results in these discussions, ask a clear question for article change, then ask for editors to oppose or support the edit. We only require RFC if there is no clear majority for support. prokaryotes (talk) 20:44, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Scope of Crops safety statement

Seems that a safety statement about GM crops should account for more than safety for human consumption only, the crop safety concern also includes environmental impact and pesticide emission (and, notably, in the US, these aspects are handled by separate agencies than the FDA). A consumption-only statement presents an unbalanced view of crop safety concerns, the regulatory frameworks that determine them, and the related science, and general issues. In the current lead, stating GM crops also provide a number of ecological benefits, right after the food safety statement, without mention of environmental safety assessment requirements, furthers this imbalance. (This food safety sentence should be similarly examined for contextual fit in the several other articles it was inserted into.) --Tsavage (talk) 15:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that on-farm safety is also something that this page should cover. But I think it is best not to try to deal with both kinds of safety in a single sentence; instead, there should be a separate sentence or two. And I also think that it is important to treat on-farm safety not simply in absolute terms, but also in relation to farm safety of conventional crops. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

If there are two kinds of safety, including an "on-farm" safety, then this is the "on-farm article" (we have a spun-off Genetically modified food article, this article discusses at length yield, agricultural business, farming practices, Bt and glyphosate resistance in pests,...), and the immediate focus should be on duly representing the crop safety aspects, which are equally part of all regulatory frameworks along with food safety, yet are not mentioned in this, the crop article.

I'm not sure why editors are working so intently on trying to change the wording of a single food safety sentence to read "consensus," in a crops article where the crop safety aspects are MISSING. Their absence creates the misleading impression that food safety is the prime safety concern in agriculture, when in fact, even in the favorable US GM regulatory environment, there is, for example, more safety restriction on growing GM crops, by the USDA, than there is on using them for food, by the FDA. We have to be careful to fairly balance aspects. --Tsavage (talk) 23:38, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

About "consensus", there is no mystery. It's what the source material indicates. About crop safety on the farm, no one is opposing giving that appropriate coverage. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:40, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

We are giving hugely UNDUE weight to food safety by focusing on what is only one of multiple equal aspects of crop safety, in a crops article that does not mention those other aspects. --Tsavage (talk)

Another, related, thought occurs to me. I wonder if this page should be merged with Genetically modified foods. It seems like two needlessly parallel pages. Of course, there is a difference between the two, as we are discussing here, but we could cover the two interrelated topics on one page. I'm not making a formal merge proposal, but just seeing what the reaction to the idea is. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The split doesn't seem to have worked out too well, after 3.5 years: GM food, 2 August 2012 version. The subject came up last June in GM foods talk: In many ways, I find the old article MUCH more comprehensive, readable and informative than the current version, it just needs some editing (not tearing apart). I can itemize some examples if you like., and the comparison that followed (scroll to) Comparison of pre-rearrangement article with current version. I doubt there'd be agreement to do that, but what is an idea...

Perhaps a more practical suggestion is renaming this article Genetically modified organisms in agriculture or GMOs in agriculture, and starting by literally merging the old version with what's here now. It would serve as an gateway from the broader Genetics > Genetic engineering, with a much better overview scope than a Crops article—definition from Agriculture: "Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal and other products used to sustain and enhance human life." A basic merge could be done in an hour or two.--Tsavage (talk) 01:22, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I have a few saved sources that address safety for livestock or the environment. I haven't gotten around to writing content based on them, so I'm happy to post them here if anyone is interested. I'd also agree that this should be discussed as a separate issue, even if only to help keep the discussion organized. Sunrise (talk) 01:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Business impact section is POV

I tagged the section after coming to this page reading this for the first time today. The section only describes (impact on) the side of the GMO industry, not the other side, farmers that produce crops with traditional, non-GMO seeds.

Until and unless that is represented in this section I dont think the section is a neutral portrait of the issue.--Wuerzele (talk) 22:26, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

:*NOTE: Restored this section from archives to address removal of POV tag (edit summary: Economy: standard removal of POV tag without active discussion on talk page - criterion 3 at Template:POV)). Also restored tag. Additional discussion begins below. --Tsavage (talk) 03:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

POV tags are to be removed "if the discussion has become dormant" - I cited inactivity of discussion, not absence, so it was not an error as your edit summary suggested. I checked the archives and found only this single comment with no replies, despite the talk page being highly active in the intervening time period. Of course, if you wish to reopen the discussion then restoration is fine. Sunrise (talk) 03:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the restoration of the tag. I agree with Tsavage and Wuerzele that the material is POV. I was not aware of the tag until today --David Tornheim (talk) 04:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Sunrise: You are correct, you cite Rule 3, not Rule 2, and two months seems reasonable to consider a topic dormant - good observance of the rules! I had read this section when posted but hadn't gotten around to commenting. The POV tag I believe is valid, so I will continue that discussion as I should have earlier. (Best would be to just fix the section through improvement!) --Tsavage (talk) 04:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment: The section does seem to present only one industry-centric view of the economic benefits of GM crops. Overall, the section is poorly organized. The current version, which has been in place for some time newly expanded, comprises seven paragraphs.

• Para 1-2 describes economic benefits in the billions of dollars, leading with: GM food's economic value to farmers is one of its major benefits, including in developing nations.

• Para 3 introduces a critical assertion: Critics challenged the claimed benefits to farmers over the prevalence of biased observers and by the absence of randomized controlled trials. A review report is cited, mentioning promising but mixed results, and highly variable returns depending on year, farm type, and location. This is followed by a quote from Mark Lynas, which doesn't make much sense in context, but is apparently meant to counter the negative assertions (any time Lynas is used as a counter, red flags should be hoisted all around the region; he is not a credible source for this area.)

• Para 4 has the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) petitioning the EU to stop getting in the way of GM technology.

• Para 5-7 is an assortment of industry information, including biotech seed sales and patent status.

Overall, there is a clear impression given of economic advantage, and no real discussion of the various balancing issues, including variability in returns (touched on in Para 3), impact of glyphosate and Bt resistance, and criticism of study methods analyzing economic returns, among other concerns.

Economic impact appears to be yet another tangled area of GM agriculture, but that isn't a good reason to have a section that offers a one-sided view. --Tsavage (talk) 04:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

@Tsavage: FYI. Sunrise added this same material over Genetically modified food as well. I think this might be premature until the issues you raise are resolved. --David Tornheim (talk) 04:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

For the record, it's not new material. I copied 3 paragraphs from the introductory Economics section at the Controversies page, because it seemed more relevant on these pages (I'd probably support removing it from Controversies as well). On this page a similar section already existed, so I made some edits to integrate them. That other section, which was titled "Business impact," is the one that originally had a POV tag, and it looked like this. The comment above refers to the new version. Sunrise (talk) 04:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sunrise: It would probably be helpful if you reverted your substantial copying of this section to Genetically modified food, it is unhelpful and potentially disruptive. You'd just removed a POV tag from it here, imported paragraphs from Controversies, and within minutes copied the challenged section to an article where it is of questionable relevance: this is about economic return to farmers, which, for better or for worse, is the focus of this article. Better settle the POV issues in one place, rather than duplicate content and disputes across articles.

I also amended my comment above, to reflect your new edit. Why would you move content from Controversies to here, and then from here to GM food? Did you, for example, check sources? Lynas alone is a POV indicator, that should give one pause. --Tsavage (talk) 04:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

^I agree with all of Tsavage's observations and request same. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I see you've already gone ahead and reverted. But I didn't do what you're saying I did, so I'm not sure how to respond here. The section I copied to the GM food article is the same one that I copied to here. You're free to conclude that it isn't relevant in the food article, though I would note that the section begins "GM food's economic value to farmers..." Either way, copying content between articles is a relatively common action. It's almost a guarantee that I don't agree with everything in the copied text, because I'm not going to copy paragraphs with sentences or sources removed - if I did that, it would (rightly) be seen as deceptive. Copying with minimal changes at least reflects text that already existed. It can be edited further, and I can do that, but anyone else can do that as well. Sunrise (talk) 10:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that copying without changing when you copy is the right way to do it, but I also agree with Tsavage that the language should be corrected before we have 3 copies that we have to fix. I was surprised some of the stuff you copied over from that article Genetically modified food conspiracy theories that had blogs and references from Jon Entine. That page Genetically modified food conspiracy theories is very weakly sourced and needs far more work before anything makes it into our major articles IMHO. So, I'm just saying, if you are going to copy a bulk of text, let's make sure it is tip top shape first, and if there is a POV issues, let's work on that first before we have multiple copies we have to address. --David Tornheim (talk) 11:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I believe David has effectively summed up the situation, and it would seem most useful if content is well-examined where it is before being copied to other articles.

As for the newly imported Economy content, now that it's here, imo it should be improved here, where it seems most relevant, and the copy in Controversies should be edited down to whatever directly controversy-related content it contains, that seems...logical.

(Sunrise: Hopefully, everything about the content copies is clear at this point (I amended my comment just above). Please let me know if there's anything you'd like me to respond to. Thanks!) --Tsavage (talk) 14:52, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

That plan works for me. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's reasonable to ask editors not to reuse material in other articles until everyone agrees with it, if the content in question is not under dispute at the time. That sounds too much like ownership to me. Making changes before copying, in my opinion, is not much better in a context like this one, because the reuse no longer reflects pre-existing content from the other article. Of course you can disagree, and even revert, but I don't think you should object to (what I see as) an improvement on the grounds that I have not made other additional improvements.

Tsavage, FWIW I'd point out that part of the main premises of your comment (e.g. much of the first paragraph) doesn't apply; striking those three words is only a small step towards correcting it. If there were no other issues, I could have made the correction mentally and replied to your points directly. Of course, I'm not going to be bothered by what you do or do not choose to strike; I'm just pointing it out for you and anyone else who might read this page. I don't have strong opinions in this topic area, other than wanting the articles to reflect the highest-quality sources - but you can choose to believe that or not, of course. Sunrise (talk) 06:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Not sure why there's a tag at this point. There's never been any sourcing discussed to indicate a POV problem, nor is content being proposed. We're just getting editor claims of POV. Since tags are not marks of shame, etc. it would seem appropriate at this time to remove the tag per WP:DETAG. If someone wants to start proposing specific content, they can do that, but they don't need a tag for that. I'm not seeing any current problematic content that currently exists in the section, so the best thing to do is WP:FIXIT rather than just keep saying it's somehow biased. Editors also should keep WP:WEIGHT in mind. Just because something is overall described in a positive light does not inherently indicate bias. Some things also just aren't well quantified in the literature yet either. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

General agreement sentence, continued

I'm continuing this discussion from #Break, first sentence, above.

Existing language on the page now

At present, the sentence in the lead is:

There is general scientific agreement that food on the market derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.

Citations

Proposal first draft

Based on the discussion about, I want to propose the following as one possible revision of that sentence, on this page and on the other pages where it takes place:

There is a scientific consensus that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.

Citations

I recognize that some editors may disagree with this, and if so, I urge them to propose an exact wording and sourcing for alternative versions. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

• oppose: Although I have not stated it above, I preferred your more recent version that said "but see also" and referred to Domingo and Krimsky and the inclusion of that material in the body of the article--more NPOV. Regardless, I oppose the change to "scientific consensus" which has a different meaning than "general scientific agreement" as I explained previously (diff to be provided). I oppose the change for all the reasons the original language about "scientific consensus" presented and argued at length the massive second RfC here about this language and the creation of settled language in late August-early September 2015, as I explained previously above here and here. One last concern is that some articles (e.g. Genetically modified food) say that "that food from genetically modified crops is not inherently riskier to human health...". This is closer to the language that comes from the E.U. report that uses the phrase that GMOs are not "per se" riskier. That language is more precise. I acknowledge that the recent addition of the language by you about case-by-case testing has been an improvement. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2016 (UTC) (revised 08:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC))

Two things: Given the discussion at NORN, I would encourage you to find a non-OR source for "general scientific agreement". And I fully realize that there is no way that we are going to get unanimous agreement for anything about this sentence. That's just the way it is. So, for that reason, I would ask that editors not simply treat this as a support/oppose vote, but instead provide exact wording with sourcing for alternative versions. If there really are multiple draft versions that have some traction, then we can have an ArbCom-supervised RfC similar to the one that took place for Jerusalem, to select among them. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:24, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

PS: No need (at least for me) to provide links to the previous RfC and subsequent discussion. I'm quite familiar with it. And what I am discussing here is in conformity with the close of that RfC, despite what some other editors have claimed. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I will make a more specific proposal. It might take a few days. The statement here (assuming it also includes Domingo, Krimisky and possibly Panchin (who I am unfamiliar with)) is a more NPOV treatment:

Several scientific organizations in the US have issued studies or statements regarding the safety of GMOs indicating that there is no evidence that GMOs present unique safety risks compared to conventionally bred products. These include the National Research Council,[12] the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[13] and the American Medical Association.[14]

Groups in the US opposed to GMOs include some environmental organizations,[15] organic farming organizations,[16] and consumer organizations.[17] A substantial number of legal academics have criticized the US’s approach to regulating GMOs.[18]

--David Tornheim (talk) 08:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks David. I'll be happy to compare versions when you have had time to get that ready. By the way, what you have above includes more than the sentence I was discussing. In what you have there, everything from "Groups in the US opposed to GMOs..." on is material that I would be quite willing to accept as coming after the sentence that I propose. And to all editors who object to my proposed version: please remember that the best thing for you to do is to present a specific alternative, which could perhaps be David's. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

• I am in general on board with this as a potential proposal. It generally reflects the sources regardless of personal editor views on the subject. The only tweak I'd suggest is moving Panchin into the but see also [4] alongside Krimsky and Domingo as it address the claims of those sources directly. It basically tells the story through successive refs that way. That would seem to satisfy WP:FRINGE at least, and I'd be ok with that version as text.

That said, I still think an even better approach would be to tackle Krimsky, Panchin, etc. head on in the text, potentially even before we initiate an RfC. With that, I'm going to initially float the idea here of adding this as new content. If the content itself needs discussion, I'd go with a new talk section to avoid clutter here. If for some reason it doesn't work out, and an RfC is needed, we could discuss including it in this talk section as a different proposal. I feel like focusing on two different sentences in an RfC might be asking a bit much for respondents in this topic though, so it seems worthwhile to take a try intermediate attempt beforehand. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:03, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better to have Panchin with the other two. I'm fine with the new statement you added to the body, and I think it could be in the lead as well, though I don't know if it's too important either way - probably not important enough to risk derailing an RfC for. But hopefully another RfC won't actually be necessary, since the general concepts of the sentence aren't really changing, after all. Sunrise (talk) 07:01, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

• I think this proposal is a large improvement over the current version. One thing I haven't mentioned yet, though, is the phrasing for the "case-by-case" statement. First, AFAIK it's a true statement, and one that should be included prominently. I haven't seen anyone cite RS/AC calling for more sourcing yet, but here are a few sources to try and address this anyways. Only one of them (the second) uses the phrasing "general agreement," and it's just the abstract of a scientist's presentation, but the third comes pretty close several times. So these may or may not be useful and/or could be a basis for different wording.
  • Haslberger AG (2003). "Codex guidelines for GM foods include the analysis of unintended effects". Nat Biotechnol. 21 (7): 739–41. doi:10.1038/nbt0703-739. PMID 12833088.
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2006). Enhancing Developing Country Participation in FAO/WHO Scientific Advice Activities: Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Meeting. Food & Agriculture Org. p. 43. ISBN 978-92-5-105632-5.
  • Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2008). "GM food safety assessment tools for trainers" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  • As an aside, [51] may also be useful at some point for a statement on case-by-case evaluation for environmental concerns.

The second thing is juxtaposition - in a way, the phrase is positioned as if it refutes the first part of the sentence, and the use of the word "but" to indicate contrast doesn't help. I think replacing "but" with "and" might be an improvement, but I think a better option would be something like "and there is general agreement that..." if we have the sourcing for it. Or another option would be to put it in a separate sentence. Sunrise (talk) 06:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll reply to both of you here. First, about additional sources for "case-by-case", that was very helpful. I figured one more source would be good enough, so I added the Codex source as citation 11. Thanks. I have mixed feelings about combining the Panchin source into the note about Domingo and Krimsky, and I could go either way about it. It would be easy to do, and I would want to change "But see also:" to "But compare:". On the other hand, an argument can be made that Panchin isn't responding directly to Domingo and Krimsky, per the talk section below this one. Given subsequent talk, what do you think now? Now as for "but" versus "and", I disagree. I really do see it as a "but" situation. It's not a refutation, but it is a caveat that the sources explicitly say. In other words, it's the opposite of the sources saying "there is no evidence of harm and no need for further testing". About the various points about material beyond just this one sentence, I also like an in-depth explanation of Panchin, Krimsky, and so forth later on in the page, but I want to focus on this sentence for now. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:56, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

On the note of Panchin not responding directly to Domingo of Krimsky, I don't think we need to consider that aspect. The point I've been focusing on is that each of those three comment on the same aspect of the literature, not each other. We're not looking at saying Domingo and Krimsky said X, but Panchin says they are wrong. Instead, the intent is to say Domingo and Krimsky said studies exist that claim harm, but later review of studies showing harm show the claims are unsupported. Basically, someone said these studies exist, but more in-depth analysis of those studies show they are flawed. Does that clear the intent up a little? My thinking is that with those two studies mentioned, they already have been given ample weight and don’t need to be mentioned within the consensus statement. The But compare option seems like an ok alternative I wouldn't completely disregard either though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:45, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I understand your reasoning about that. And I don't feel strongly about this, either way. I'm still wondering whether it is too unclear to readers why we would tell them to compare these three sources. It's clear to you and me, but we have been discussing this in great detail, whereas readers come here with fresh eyes. Whether we use Panchin as a rebuttal source in that way, or not, really does not change the meaning of the text, and the discussion section below draws attention to the limits of using Panchin for this narrow purpose, as opposed to citing it as one more source for the mainstream consensus. A reader can readily understand why Domingo, and especially Krimsky, are in a footnote about "but see also", whereas it is unclear what the pattern is if Panchin is the third member of that note. And, really, I'm not seeing any problem with the sentence giving too much weight to Domingo and Krimsky. For both NPOV and for (relative) editorial peace, I'd just as soon not try too hard to put Domingo and Krimsky down. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:30, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I think your suggestion from earlier to use a note is a good one, and could help place them in context. "And contrast," as you used below, might work as well. The cynical side of me isn't really surprised by the objections to Panchin, but I guess that's neither here nor there.

With regards to but/and, I do agree that it is/should be a caveat in a sense. My primary concern is that the wording can be interpreted as implying that currently available foods may not have been sufficiently tested, which would go against the sources. A comment on post-market monitoring (of current foods) works, but I'd also prefer wording that makes it clear it's new foods that should be tested, and (explicitly or implicitly) that previous foods already passed that standard. Something like "but that new foods" would probably be fine, assuming the sourcing can support that. Sunrise (talk) 23:19, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. And yeah, pretty much nothing about these discussions surprises me any more. I'm struggling with the "new" descriptor. It gets complicated to make the sentence say that new GMs need to be tested on a case-by-case basis but old and new should have post-market monitoring – how can "new" be inserted into the sentence? To me, the wording does seem to say implicitly that previous GMs have passed the standard, because it says that the scientific consensus is that they are safe. Put another way, existing food needed to be tested, and was, and passed, and future food needs to be tested too. I'm sympathetic to editors on the other "side" of the discussion, that the scientific consensus does not go so far as saying that existing regulations are sufficient to assure safety in the future. After all, the AMA pretty much says just that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I see that version as expressing an implied contradiction, first making the statement on currently available GM foods, then saying that (all) GM foods should (in future) be tested, with the parts in parentheses being one way to interpret the second part of the sentence. I see it mostly as something that could trip readers up if they don't parse the sentence carefully. But adding "before introduction" is a great solution. I also agree that the existing regulations may not be sufficient in the future (I haven't studied that aspect of the subject enough to make a judgement either), and that the consensus doesn't address their suitability. Sunrise (talk) 01:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Neither version is accurate. We should reflect what review studies have said, that no evidence has been found that (currently available) GMO foods are not safe. GMO advocates want to draw a parallel with climate change science, where there is a consensus. TFD (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure which sources are "GMO advocates" here. And to be precise, the sources say that no evidence has been found that (currently available) GMO foods are less safe than conventional foods. But I think my proposal is consistent with that. And as I have been saying repeatedly, I really hope that editors who dislike the proposal here will actually propose alternatives. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

"GMO advocates" are people who advocate the use (and government subsidization) of GMO products. As you are aware, the same people who fund climate change skepticism websites that claim there is no scientific consensus for climate change science also fund pro-GMO sites that say there is a consensus that GMO products are safe. Yet no reliable sources say that. In the meantime, we should not make claims that are not made in reliable sources. TFD (talk) 07:45, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

• oppose both Both are syntactically incorrect, the "but should be etc..." needs to be a new sentence, and it should explain clearly what's meant by "case by case." And, let's also be clear that consensus is centred on the concept of substantial equivalence, that GE food products are as safe as their conventional counterparts. Omitting the significance of SE here is problematic. We also need to mention the WHO advisory that "where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM food." Semitransgenic _talk. 18:15, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm friendly to adding something about post-market monitoring. I also am fine with going into detail about SE somewhere on the page, although I see diminishing returns about trying to fit everything into the lead. About "both", the first version is simply what the page says now. As I've said repeatedly already, it's already clear that editors are going to oppose one approach or another, so getting a version that satisfies everyone here is never going to happen. Please propose alternative versions, with specific wording and sourcing, so they can be compared side-by-side. And not a whole treatise, just a sentence or two.

That said, what do editors who basically agree with my suggested change above think about expanding the last phrase of the sentence, from: "but should be tested on a case-by-case basis.^[10][11]." to: "but should be tested on a case-by-case basis and undergo adequate post-market monitoring.^[10][11]."? I would support that change. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:16, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

there is another potentially confusing aspect here with the "but" thing, I can see where some readers - and this is not as stupid as it sounds - might view "food on the market derived from GM crops etc....but should be tested on a case by case basis" as a statement that suggests every single food product containing GMOs, of one description or another, is safety tested. This is an article about crops, what we should be saying in the lead is: they grow stuff, that stuff is tested to see if it meets SE requirements, if it does, consensus deems it safe enough to be used in food products consumed by humans etc. Semitransgenic _talk. 18:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

It took me a bit of thought to see what you meant, but I do now understand, and I agree with you. Thinking about what has been discussed so far, and not having heard replies to some of the questions that I asked, I now revise my suggestion to:

Revised proposal

There is a scientific consensus that currently available food derived from GM crops poses no greater risk to human health than conventional food, but that each needs to be tested on a case-by-case basis before introduction, and to undergo post-market monitoring.

Citations

But, again, I request that editors who want a different approach actually make a full proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Just a partial restatement of my point from above. I'm fine with this version, but I'd like the wording to clarify the distinction between current and new/hypothetical foods in the second part of the sentence. Maybe something like, "but that new foods should be tested on a tested on a case-by-case basis, and that already-approved foods should undergo post-market monitoring." The phrasing is awkward there, but we can probably find better ways to communicate the same idea. Sunrise (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I just inserted "before introduction,". Does that work? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! I just added "that each" for grammatical unambiguity (but feel free to revert that if there's any issue). I'll fully support this version. :-) Sunrise (talk) 01:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Second proposal

what I would say, sources exist for all of this:

GE crops intended for human consumption are tested to establish if they are substantially equivalent to conventional crops. The FAO and the WHO view substantial equivalence as a means of assessing the relative safety of GE food products derived from such crops. While currently available GM food produce is generally considered to pose no greater risk to human health than conventional food, newly developed crops are safety tested on a case-by-case basis. The WHO also recommends post-market monitoring of previously tested food crops, where appropriate.

Semitransgenic _talk. 20:34, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd suggest getting that down to a single sentence, given that it is in the lead – or at least make it very clear how it would fit into the lead. Also, you need to present it with full sourcing, because otherwise there just cannot be a comparison. And you may want to work with David T, who says he is also preparing an alternative version. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

squashing what you guys want to say into a single sentence does not serve our ends, it's a distraction. Relative to the length of the article, the lead is quite short, nothing lost in saying what needs to be said with more words. This particular article is about crops, as you know, there's another one we have about food, so the food use aspect here is subsidiary, but, how we get from the GE crops to the GM food should be clearly explained in the lead. Maybe remember who most of the readers are, they don't know as much as you. Semitransgenic _talk. 20:59, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

How would you make it fit with what currently comes right after? "GM crops also provide a number of ecological benefits.[15] However, opponents have objected to GM crops on several grounds, including environmental concerns, whether food produced from GM crops is safe, whether GM crops are needed to address the world's food needs, and concerns raised by the fact these organisms are subject to intellectual property law." --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

What comes directly before: "A 2014 meta-analysis concluded that GM technology adoption had reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%.[4] Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries.[4]" --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll tell you how, you rewrite the entire lead so it actually does what it's supposed to do: summarise the article by touching on the main content headings. Example, the 'history' section, how is this properly represented in the lead? for instance is a fact like "the first genetically modified crop plant was produced in 1982" worth noting upfront? main types of modification? or mention of something as important as Bacillus thuringiensis? we could go on. Basically, the lead is woefully inadequate, getting one sentence fixed will not address this. Semitransgenic _talk. 23:37, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I'm open to doing that. But show me; don't just tell me. I'm not going to rewrite the whole thing myself. So I think you should, perhaps with other editors, draft an entire new lead, with complete sourcing, and propose it here in talk. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

and you highlight yet another problem. If a main body is properly referenced, lead summaries of that content should not require citations. So perhaps the issue is with the actual article and not simply the lead? Semitransgenic _talk. 23:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not seeing it, but feel free to propose whatever you want to propose. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:20, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

so you are not seeing the lack of any coverage of safety testing in a section other than "controversy" as problematic?

Or that the words "substantial equivalence" appear once throughout (the last two words of the entire article)?

And you do know there is actually no mention of "case-by-case" in the main text, right? So you are summarising something that isn't even mentioned in the article?

And lets look at the proportionality issue.

Article prose size (text only): 5922 words "readable prose size."

Lead prose size: 337 words

Consensus/safety sentence in lead: 32 words

Consensus/safety sentence in main body: 24 words

You don't see it? too busy politicking to actually build an accurate article I guess. Semitransgenic _talk. 13:46, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Panchin

From this

We performed a statistical reanalysis and review of experimental data presented in some of these studies and found that quite often in contradiction with the authors’ conclusions the data actually provides weak evidence of harm that cannot be differentiated from chance. In our opinion the problem of statistically unaccounted multiple comparisons has led to some of the most cited anti-genetically modified organism health claims in history

Kingofaces43 came up with this

but review of [studies reviewed by Domingo 2011 and Krinsky 2015] show the statistical methodologies were flawed and do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence

Mention of statistical significance seems to have been added from left field, this was not a subject of either review.

The wording is so misleading it should be removed ASAP, but I will let someone else wade into those waters. You cannot use this paper to refute these reviews, and I am shocked by the attempt. If it is true that all 22 studies covered by Krimsky as well as those in Domingo have been shown to be invalid, the source added by King is not sufficient proof.

If you wish to use the paper to refute whatever studies the authors were referring to, great. I'm interested to see what they've uncovered. But to extrapolate from "some" unnamed studies to the present 'no study reviewed by Domingo or Krimsky actually showed harm, they were all flawed', without specifying what the authors were referring to, is not very encyclopedic, to put it mildly.

Is there a reason editors are hell bent on summarizing sources (shoddily, I may add) rather than giving readers an idea of their content by elaborating just a bit? petrarchan47คุก 09:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll preface this with a reminder that WP:MEDRS is clear we do not engage in personal peer-review in terms of study inclusion criteria, etc.

Panchin is clear that they aren't just using a few studies as example, but making a statement on the state of the literature as a whole. You're cherrypicking pieces of text to change the meaning. Some studies had issues with multiple comparisons, while some simply didn't do the stats at all. There were a range of issues, so trying to say Panchin doesn't have an overall consistent message on statistical methodologies because of the word some is incorrect. Panchin states, "We reviewed published articles in which undesired and statistically significant differences between GMOs and conventional crops were reported." There is no qualifier that it was only a partial review. They just simply say this is their review of the literature. If there was some flaw in the methodology where a study should have been included, a later review will need to comment on that.

To call statistical significance coming from left field is laughable. It's the basis of all claims in this science. If a previous review neglected to check for basic stats in the papers, that's still a flaw with those reviews as well when a corrective review comes along later commenting on the exact same aspect of the literature. When a study has been found to be flawed in use of statistics, it doesn't matter who cited it previously, especially when such a citation makes no mention of the validity of the stats. Claims later found to be false are simply dealt with as such under WP:WEIGHT. The fact of the matter is that Panchin is extremely critical of claims of harm in this review.

At the end of the day, all studies in the review had major statistical flaws. Panchin also does not give any weight to the idea that there is legitimate evidence of harm in the literature as a whole in any of their introductory or conclusionary statements. That contradicts in multiple ways with Krimsky and Domingo who try to claim there is evidence of harm. If there is something actually incorrect in the content I added, I am willing to discuss that, but I would expect that to be with an understanding of what it means in the literature when studies claiming statistical significance are later found to not be significant. This is simply how we address flawed science if we make any mention of it at all. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment: After attempting to verify Kingofaces43's addition by reading the source, it seems entirely misrepresentative. (Please correct any ignorance displayed, I am a simple layperson attempting to verify what I read by following citations.)

The text, in citing Domingo and Krimsky, gives the impression that it is the studies mentioned in those reviews that are under consideration:

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200] but review of these studies show the statistical methodologies were flawed and do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence.[201]

In fact, counting, it seems that Panchin re-examines exactly six studies. Where is the connection to any other studies? I found none. The title of the paper should more accurately be (my bolded addition): "Six Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons".

Panchin first spends some time supporting the choice of critical tool, proposing multiple comparisons errors, evaluated by applying Bonferroni correction. Looking into Bonferroni, it is described as a simple tool that can at times produce overly conservative results. Hmm.. Then I discover What’s wrong with Bonferroni adjustments, an interesting read, which says:

This paper advances the view, widely held by epidemiologists, that Bonferroni adjustments are, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, deleterious to sound statistical inference.

Now I'm left wondering about Panchin's a basic premise: Is Bonferroni valid? Am I to believe Wikipedia and accept that these six studies are fatally flawed because Panchin's analysis says so, when a little looking casts such doubt?

Finally, Panchin's "Conclusions" seems to consist in large part of an ideological-sounding plea for people to wake up and look at sheer numbers, even if a big percentage of those studies may in fact be invalid:

It has been argued that we might be underestimating the number of false-positive results in science in general due to bias, improper use of statistics, analysis of highly improbably hypothesis and other factors.[26] The suggested solution was to take preference for large studies or low-bias meta-analyses and to take into account the pre-study probabilities of a finding being true.

We argue that the totality of the evidence should be taken into account when drawing conclusion on GMO safety, instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies with a high risk of bias due to a large number of multiple comparisons. Perhaps more focus should be drawn to clear and relevant outcomes such as mortality rates, life expectancy or reproductive success.

Unfortunately, it takes just a single article claiming a mild difference between GM and non-GM products to stir the public debate and cause a long-lasting hysteria. ...

In the first quoted paragraph, Panchin cites Ioannidis' Why most published research findings are false. That and his ongoing work in this area appear to be widely accepted,and Panchin appears to be acknowledging that, and saying that even if a large percentage of, say, Nicolia's 1500+ studies, are false, we still have a lot of studies left. I'm confused by where I have ended up - how is this argument arrived at from Bonferroni correction applied to six studies?

This is what a straightforward attempt to verify the source by reading it resulted in. I don't think this new, limited review should be used, at least, without direct attribution, adequate background (at least mentioning Bonferroni), and in a very limited way. --Tsavage (talk) 18:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

• I went back and re-read Panchin (the whole source, not just cherry-picking passages and pasting them here with misleading bold font), to look specifically at the issues editors are raising here. I agree in part with Tsavage that Panchin specifically does a statistical analysis of six studies, as opposed to of all studies. As I read what Panchin concludes, the only way I can interpret it, as written, is that Panchin concludes that what they found in those six studies can be extrapolated to the literature as a whole. Editors may disagree about that extrapolation, but such disagreement is original research. We should word things on the page to attribute to Panchin the conclusion that the experimental evidence for problems is weak and that much of the presented data actually demonstrates the opposite, but we should not imply that Panchin actually analyzed every study. I think the wording KofA added does have a flaw in that regard, and I am going to correct it now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish: As I read what Panchin concludes, the only way I can interpret it We shouldn't be interpreting it in the way you mean, if Panchin wanted to say, "Based on the re-examination of these six studies, for x-y-z reasons, we conclude that all such studies are flawed," he could have done that. Panchin did not do that. All the pieces to form your own conclusion may be provided, but it's not up to us at Wikipedia to form that conclusion and then commit it to content.

Also, while I find the general level of re-examining sources around here is completely beyond simply identifying reliable sources, looking into the central mechanism of a study, here, Bonferroni correction, is completely reasonable - if I read, "using a microscope, we found these things," and I don't know what a microscope is, I need to find out to make sense of the statement. If Bonferroni correction is a questionable method, then we have to take that into account. Is it? --Tsavage (talk) 18:59, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

No, Panchin say quite clearly what the title of their article says. We can argue about the exact amount to which they extrapolate, but in any case, I think that the revision that I just made of the sentence represents Panchin accurately. (Panchin say: "We emphasize that with over 1783 published articles on GMOs over the last 10 years it is expected that some of them should have reported undesired differences between GMOs and conventional crops even if no such differences exist in reality." That sounds like extrapolation from the 6 studies to me.) On the other hand, you have said: "Is Bonferroni valid? Am I to believe Wikipedia and accept that these six studies are fatally flawed because Panchin's analysis says so?" No, don't believe Wikipedia, believe Panchin, or at least believe that Panchin says that they conclude what they conclude. Wikipedia doesn't care whether editors disagree with Panchin. There is nothing wrong with attributing that conclusion to them. You have Panchin saying that Bonferroni correction is useful for their purposes, and that other source saying that it is often not necessary for many purposes, and you are doing OR when you propose that we should conclude that Panchin misused Bonferroni correction. You then say: "Finally, Panchin's "Conclusions" seems to consist in large part of an ideological-sounding plea for people to wake up and look at sheer numbers". It's a peer-reviewed review paper in a scientific journal. If you are painting it as ideological, it isn't the source that has a problem with ideology. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm good with your update to the wording as that clears up the meaning better than what I initially had in mind. The main idea is spot on that Panchin selected studies as part of their review methodology representative of literature that can be deemed critical. They don't need to analyze every single study out there as there are always pre-screenings that go on in conducting literature reviews as to whether particular studies will even be considered. That's a bit of an art sometimes, so if there is criticism on that part, we'll need to wait for newer reviews rather than editor criticism of it. We don't know all the inclusion details (rarely is this covered to everyone's satisfaction), but Panchin does portray these findings as representative of the literature. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that your wording is an improvement, the content still seems unverifiable. Going by the source, this:

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200] but an analysis of such studies concluded that the statistical methodologies were often flawed, and that as a group they do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence.[201]

...trying for neutral wording, should read...

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200]; an analysis of six such studies concluded that the statistical methodologies were flawed in the six studies examined.[201]

That is really all the source supports, with some redundancy to balance the association with the "some studies/Domingo/Krimsky" (and if Bonferroni correction is significantly controversial, then that should be mentioned, see the following...). It's still not a good sentence. In fact, the clean, neutral statement would be:

An analysis of six studies that claim that genetically modified crops can cause harm concluded that the statistical methodologies were flawed.[201]

Panchin say quite clearly what the title of their article says. We can argue about the exact amount to which they extrapolate. The title, "Published GMO studies find no evidence of harm when corrected for multiple comparisons" is misleading when it refers to just six studies. And there is no explicit extrapolation, what commonality would that even be based on, that they all suggest harm? Please quote where the extrapolation is established. If you can't quote it, then it's not there, it is an original conclusion based on what is there. A paraphrased summary does not arrive at new conclusions that aren't stated in the source.

you are doing OR when you propose that we should conclude that Panchin misused Bonferroni correction. Isn't this the point where, if Bonferroni correction is indeed controversial, we say, "Panchin was published on 14 Jan 2016, less than a month ago, there's no rush, it's reviewing old data, let's wait and see if the method is criticized"? It's not a small, quibbling point.

It's a peer-reviewed review paper in a scientific journal. If you are painting it as ideological, it isn't the source that has a problem with ideology. Fair enough, let's put aside Panchin's "a long-lasting hysteria," and just call it personal opinion. The conclusion is largely based on author's opinion about things not directly addressed by the study's actual work. --Tsavage (talk) 20:39, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I suppose I could argue that "let's wait and see if the method is criticized" should also apply to Krimsky, but I'm not going to change your mind. I could support: An analysis of six studies that claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm concluded that the statistical methodologies were so flawed that the data actually demonstrated the opposite, and that it is unlikely that there is really any published evidence for harmful health effects. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish: It would be helpful to the discussion if you could point out from the Panchin text how their review of six studies indicates that most or all other suggesting-harm studies are similarly flawed. --Tsavage (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

There's a very important distinction here. As an editor, I'm neutral as to whether or not "their review of six studies indicates that most or all other suggesting-harm studies are similarly flawed". So I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that Panchin says that. Not that they are correct or incorrect, in terms of Absolute Truth^TM. Just that that's what the source says. So here are some quotes where they say it: "We emphasize that with over 1783 published articles on GMOs over the last 10 years it is expected that some of them should have reported undesired differences between GMOs and conventional crops even if no such differences exist in reality." "We argue that the totality of the evidence should be taken into account when drawing conclusion on GMO safety, instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies with a high risk of bias due to a large number of multiple comparisons." They are not saying that they know specifically that the statistics are flawed in studies that they did not analyze. But they are saying that they think that what they found in the six studies can be applied to an overall assessment of the literature. The wording currently on the page reflects that accurately, and really does not go beyond that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

My objection is that, in this consensus statement debate, we're picking studies to try to piece together or shore up something that should be clear in one source, using a combination of multiple sources, and working them in to Wikipedia sourcing rules. Panchin appears to be doing essentially the same thing, they believe we should pay attention to the overall amount of research, and not focus on single studies, and they have found a novel way to support that contention, one which has been accepted in a peer-reviewed journal. How we use Panchin is the issue.

If editors believe this is a useful addition, we should make it clear what Panchin is about, not just summarize it in a few words, without establishing relative weight compared to other papers.

We should acknowledge: The Bonferroni correction is conservative yet justified [6] in such cases as those discussed below because virtually any difference between GMOs and conventional crops is presented as a cause for concern, a large number of tests are carried out without a preplanned hypothesis on what these differences might be and false positive errors have important social consequences. They're apparently applying a controversial method ("criticised as deleterious to sound statistical judgment," per their cited source at [6]^[52]) that is more likely to find no significance, and proposing a justification for that approach.

I am not trying to argue the science, my concern is the use of sources in this article. I would HOPE that what I read here, in Wikipedia's words, is a straightforward, balanced, many-eyes distillation of the sources, and not something that I have to painfully parse on my own. When we're covering scientific opinions, like Panchin and Krimsky, we should present them with enough context to give general readers a reasonable idea of what they're actually about and based on. --Tsavage (talk) 01:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

You've been arguing the science quite a bit now. It needs to stop as it's only causing talk page bloat on things that cannot contribute to WP:CONSENSUS. You're trying to call one of the standard methods for accounting for multiple comparisons, a concept in any introductory statistics course, controversial. That's personal peer-review, which has already been mentioned as something we cannot do as editors (otherwise I could easily rip apart Domingo and Krimsky as rubbish). That's especially when it appears this introductory concept is new to you based on your comments.

(Scientist hat on for a minute) Proper accounting of multiple comparisons, power, sample size, etc. is something much more complex when you actually dig into the literature with fluency that casting doubt over a study by vastly oversimplifying multiple corrections as controversial is just plain improper. You'll usually get papers rejected in most disciplines for not accounting for multiple comparisons, and the ongoing discussion on interpreting those adjustments is on properly designing experiments in the first place so you aren't data dredging or have too little statistical power, not that the adjustments themselves are improper. This however, is not the place to discuss that.</hat>

Panchin says what it says, and you cannot engage in original research to make it seem like the paper only focused on the six studies while ignoring their overall conclusions, was only focused on the use of a Bonferonni correction, or even cherrypick Panchin's mention of overemphasizing single primary research studies in an entirely different context. This is part of a consistent string of misrepresenting sources now that needs to stop.

In the end, Tryptofish has it. Panchin is currently accurately reflected in the current text, regardless of your personal critique of the study. We summarize what they said they did and what their overall conclusions were. In this article, we aren't going to go into detailed description of every single study out there, and we aren't going to go into an intro to basic stats on this page. If someone wants that more in-depth information not suited for an article, they can read the paper itself after seeing its conclusions or take a stats course. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Kingofaces43: Continuing to argue for scientific consensus wording, bringing in a new load of sources on top of the first 18, seems like the root cause of Talk page bloat atm. You haven't actually addressed my comments. In any case, I've said my piece on this. --Tsavage (talk) 03:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Improved wording for Panchin

From this:

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200] but an analysis of such studies concluded that the statistical methodologies were often flawed, and that as a group they do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence.[201]

...to a more descriptive, straightforward, neutrally informative description...

Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm.[199][200] In Critical Reviews in Biotechnology, a 2016 review presents statistical reanalysis of the data from several of these studies, finding that "the data actually provides weak evidence of harm that cannot be differentiated from chance," and that conclusions on GMO safety should be drawn from "the totality of the evidence ... instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies."[201]

Should be as a separate paragraph, with coverage of Domingo and Krimsky (as cited in [199],]200]). --Tsavage (talk) 14:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Here's an edit. Lfstevens (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Some studies claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm.[199][200] A 2016 review reanalyzed the data from several prominent studies including Seralini, finding that "the data actually provides weak evidence of harm that cannot be differentiated from chance" and that conclusions on GMO safety should be drawn from "the totality of the evidence ... instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies."[201]

Yes, imo, good edit for readability, and a distinct improvement with mention of Seralini, which gives general readers more high-level context, and better indicates the substance of the Panchin review, while keeping things at a summary level. (Maybe "such" to replace "prominent" for clarity, and, were all of those studies prominent?) Now, to do the same with Dominogo and Krimsky. (For the record, while I think the Panchin concluding argument makes sense as one opinion, the paper itself seems like a designer support piece to assist the pro-biotech case, which if so doesn't make it a bad thing, just an inherently biased one.) --Tsavage (talk) 17:29, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm fine with Lfstevens' version. Thanks! And that wasn't so hard, was it? It's much better to propose better wording than to try to argue endlessly, as above, about who is "right" in principle. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, the discussion isn't about being "right" in principle, it is about weight of the source. --Tsavage (talk) 20:01, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

The general ideas are good, but let's remember that we don't do unneeded attribution per MOS:QUOTE and save that for things that cannot be said in Wikipedia's voice. We should try to avoid using quotes for higher quality sources like this since we usually just reflect them in Wikipedia's voice. I've seen a lot of insistence of quotes lately, but that is something left typically for much lower quality sources that are only reliable as opinions.

Picking out individual quotes even with the best of intentions can change meaning too. The actual intent of "provides weak evidence of harm that cannot be differentiated from chance" from the abstract is a little ambiguous, whereas the similarly worded second sentence of the conclusions is actually worded a bit stronger. The point constantly driven home in the article is that claims made by the studies are not supported or invalidated due to improper statistical methodology. That's stronger than just weakening the evidence, and the article isn't just about multiple comparisons as the only statistical flaws, so we need to be careful on wording. That's why the broader description in Tryptofish's most recent version lines up better with the source than Lfstevens' first quote. The current version also includes Panchin's synopsis on on evidence of harm and substantial equivalence, which isn't included in Lfstevens proposal.

I do however like the second quote on "totality of evidence . . ." That could even be changed to a summary of the first and second paragraphs of the conclusions (most likely as a followup sentence replacing the quote). I'd have to think about that a bit more though, so I'd be perfectly fine going with that quote for now. So something like, Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm. A 2016 review reanalyzed the data of such studies finding that the statistical methodologies were often flawed, that as a group they do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence, and conclusions on GMO safety should be drawn from "the totality of the evidence ... instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies." What do folks think of that? Specific things like Seralini can get mention with respect to Panchin where they are focused on more since we're just doing a broad summary here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:16, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I like that version even better. Just a few syntactic adjustments: Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm. A 2016 review that reanalyzed the data of some of these studies found that the statistical methodologies were often flawed, that as a group they do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence, and that conclusions about GMO crop safety should be drawn from "the totality of the evidence... instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies." --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

that as a group they do not show evidence of harm or lack of substantial equivalence I don't support this version. You've just circled back to giving Panchin far too much weight. They only tenuously connect their six-study reanalysis to all other studies, it's mainly left up to the reader to make the connection, so it is hard to have Wikipedia state that connection directly. And where does substantial equivalence come from, it's not mentioned in Panchin, and it generally refers to a regulatory definition, so using it otherwise seems misleading?

If you want to insist on trying to use Panchin to negate ALL negative GMO findings, then we're back to looking more closely at the strength of the study, looking for citations, reviews, critiques. Negating ALL of a diverse group of studies is an exceptional-sounding claim, so in fact it probably requires multiple sources. --Tsavage (talk) 01:23, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Tweaks. I think the "they" refers only to the reanalyzed studies, not to the group as a whole. Lfstevens (talk) 02:22, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm. A 2016 review that reanalyzed the data of some of these studies found that their statistical methodologies were flawed, that as a group they do not show evidence neither of harm nor lack of substantial equivalence and that conclusions about GMO crop safety should be drawn from "the totality of the evidence... instead of far-fetched evidence from single studies."

Such a difference a word or two can make - why say something less clearly, when we already had clear wording in the pre-last-Kingofaces43 Lfstevens version?

Panchin make clear what they're trying to support with their six-study review. Let's avoid the OR of nuancing degrees of...extrapolation, as Tryptofish put it, and either say what the study did as far as actual research, or say what conclusion it wants to infer from that research. The latter, that therefore ALL studies are (likely) invalid, is an exceptional claim. The former is that they looked at six studies.

The use of quotes in the previous version is consistent with covering controversial material. Use of the Bonferroni method is controversial, made clear even in the sources Panchin cites: Despite the widespread use of the Bonferroni method, there has been continuing controversy regarding its use. Hence, there are those who believe no correction should ever be made13 and those who consider correction should be mandatory.14,15[53] If you read Panchin, they go so far as to cite "important social consequences" in justifying their choice of analytical tool. Using quotes is a prudent and recommended way to avoid ambiguity with a tricky-enough source. --Tsavage (talk) 07:10, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Domingo and Krimsky

• I have not yet reviewed Pachin, but I have reviewed both Domingo (2011) and Krimsky. The beginning of the sentence "Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm,[199][200]" is not an accurate NPOV description/summary of what those reviews say. I was shocked to see the footnote references added to this existing for this sentence where the material in the reviews did not support the material in the sentencewhere the material was added. A more accurate description of what Domingo talks about can be found in the Abstract:

The number of citations found in databases (PubMed and Scopus) has dramatically increased since 2006. However, new information on products such as potatoes, cucumber, peas or tomatoes, among others was not available. Corn/maize, rice, and soybeans were included in the present review. An equilibrium in the number research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was currently observed. Nevertheless, it should be noted that most of these studies have been conducted by biotechnology companies responsible of commercializing these GM plants.

Krimsky says:

I found twenty-six animal feeding studies that have shown adverse effects or animal health uncertainties.

I see a big difference between saying studies "raise still serious concerns" vs. saying GMOs "can cause harm". This is typical of the misrepresentation of Seralini's study which never claimed that GMO corn causes cancer--Seralini instead said the finding were of concern and pointed to the need for long term cancer studies. These studies typically say there is insufficient study and too much of the studies are from industry. In Krimsky:

David Schubert, professor at the Salk Institute, summarized the state of affairs of the GMO controversy as follows: ‘‘To me, the only reasonable solution is to require that all GM plant products be tested for long-term toxicity and carcinogenicity before being brought to market’’ (2002, 969). Until the twenty-six studies, or at least the best of them, are replicated and shown to be false positives, we have an obligation to treat these studies with respect and concern.

* * *

It has been well established in social science research that in some fields there is a funding effect in science from corporate sponsorship of research. That means that corporate-funded science tends to produce results that are consistent with corporate financial interests.

I frequently see statements like these even from those who support the "scientific consensus" (e.g. the AMA [54]), and yet that is not what our articles say about the science. We need to report what is in the WP:RS rather than this black/white causes harm or does not cause harm. It seems some editors prefer to write what they think the RS says and then look for RS to back it up. It should be the other way around. Because of that, I often find sentences that look like PR that is twisting material to suggest conclusions that are not at all in the RS, just as Petrchan47 pointed out above. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:03, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I've read your comment a couple of times, and I'm confused as to which footnote you mean when you say "I was shocked to see the footnote references added to this existing sentence..." Which footnote is that? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

You are correct. I thought the sentence "Some studies have claimed that genetically modified crops can cause harm" was there and the footnotes were added to it. I am almost sure I have seen it in the article before, but the diff indicates the sentence and the footnote appeared at the same time. Hence I have corrected my statement above. Sorry for the confusion. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! No problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that Domingo does not really say that there are studies showing harm, so much as describing the ways in which Domingo felt that the literature was not yet complete. And I have wondered why some editors have seemed so eager to cite Domingo as a source "against" the scientific consensus.--Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

How can something be declared safe if it has not yet been adequately/fully studied/tested? --David Tornheim (talk) 09:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I do not think that Domingo actually declares GMOs safe, which is why I favor citing that source along with Krimsky as representing a view that to some extent disagrees with the sources that say that there is a "scientific consensus". --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

What does "adequately/fully studied/tested" mean? They do safety testing, e.g., for allergenicity and have cancelled products based on the results. GM Salmon were "studied" for 17 years before gaining approval. Is that enough? How much is enough (according to an RS)? Aren't they tested adequately according to consensus science? Lfstevens (talk) 02:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Krimsky, on the other hand, does clearly say very explicitly that sources such as Seralini should, in Krimksy's opinion, be treated as serious science. And I looked at that Huff Post piece about the AMA, and I'm not seeing the AMA saying anything there about corporate interest. What they do say is what all the mainstream sources say about "case-by-case" testing. The piece also cites advocacy groups that criticize the FDA for not requiring such testing. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I mostly agree. I did not notice any mention of the corporate interest issue by the AMA, but they clearly called for pre-market testing in the Huffington post [55] and Chicago Tribune [56] articles. That is what I was referring to above. In other words, the AMA is echoing both Krismky and Domingo saying there is insufficient study/testing. And I do bring this up again here. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:45, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

(Just noting that you divided my post above into two parts for purposes of replying.) I think there is an important distinction to make. Krimsky says that he thinks the scientific evidence actually demonstrates that GMOs are not safe. Domingo does not conclude that, but says that there wasn't enough testing to establish a scientific consensus that GMOs are safe. The AMA, in contrast, agrees with a bunch of other sources that testing must include case-by-case testing that occurs pre-market, but they explicitly agree with other sources that there is a scientific consensus about existing GM foods. To portray the AMA as taking the position that there is not enough science to justify the safety of existing GM foods seriously misrepresents what that source says. They insist instead that case-by-case testing must continue, which is entirely in accordance with the WHO and many other mainstream sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I did not say "the AMA as taking the position that there is not enough science to justify the safety of existing GM foods", but you can look at what the Chicago Tribute reported:

The American Medical Association called for mandatory pre-market safety testing of genetically engineered foods as part of a revised policy voted on at the AMA's meeting in Chicago Tuesday.

Currently biotech companies are simply encouraged to engage in a voluntary safety consultation with the Food and Drug Administration before releasing a product onto the market.

It seems hard to conclude that the AMA feels the current requirements of pre-market testing are sufficient. So, I'm not really clear on what exactly you think I am misrepresenting. Are you interpreting it to say that they think the current system is fine as it is and has plenty of required testing to ensure food safety? --David Tornheim (talk) 06:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

If we have 1700+ safety studies, isn't it reasonable/likely that 5% (85+) of those that show statistical significance at the 95% confidence level are simply random (both pro and con)? And given the above reanalysis, don't we have to reject the conclusions of some of the con studies (and possibly pro studies, too) based on their demonstrably poor methodology? (I'm asking for more sources who address these matters.) Lfstevens (talk) 02:04, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

That's a bit of a misunderstanding (though common) on how stats work, but I won't get into that here. The short of it is that studies not showing an effect don't fall into that 95% error rate. It's only those that claim statistical significance that matter for that. Panchin describes that a little bit in why they only needed to analyze significant studies if you're wondering. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation! Lfstevens (talk) 04:59, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

At this point, it is getting difficult to see what the objection was to how Domingo and the AMA are described on the page, but I guess it comes down to the fact that the AMA, on the one hand, agrees with the scientific consensus that existing GM foods are no more dangerous than conventional foods – but on the other hand, the AMA is in favor of legally required testing instead of voluntary testing. But there is a difference between scientific conclusions, and opinions about law. To my knowledge, nothing on the page says that the scientific consensus is that legislation about testing is sufficient. But there is no problem with the fact that the scientific consensus is that the testing that has actually occurred is sufficient to establish the safety of the crops that exist up to now. There is nothing illogical about saying, in effect, we scientists think the testing that has occurred has been fine, but we caution against abandoning that testing in the future. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I made the objection at the top and it is just as correct as it was when I first articulated it (with the slight revision). The AMA is just one more example along these lines. The sentence I pointed out does not articulately accurately and summarize the concerns raised in the articles or by the AMA. This sentence is in the body under "controversy" not as part of any "scientific agreement" or "scientific consensus". I will try a WP:BRD that is more true to what these articles are saying. My problem is this black/white thinking of either "shows harm" or shows "no harm": Krimsky and Domingo say it is gray, which is what Seralini was saying as well, and they suggest a need for more study per the Precautionary Principle. The AMA is saying IMHO that there is no KNOWN harm from GMO, that being a GMO does not inherently make it more dangerous than ordinary food, so therefore why label it? But that there is potential for harm for reasons and mechanisms unknown, which is why it needs to be tested, which is not required, unlike in Europe where it is tested the way artificial additives are in the U.S. And Seralini is saying that even the required testing in Europe is insufficient because the studies are all 90-days feeding trials by the companies who keep the data confidential. and he thinks they should be at least 2 years. So a sentence like the above just does not show what the authors are saying. --David Tornheim (talk) 01:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)