06-16-2014, 09:34 AM
The source PLOS article, referenced in the "collective-evolution" link, study states that DNA fragments from plants can be found floating free in blood plasma. They mention the bean, cabbage, tomato and grass (e.g. wheat) families. Which means that any part of the DNA of everyday vegetables we eat can potentially show up in blood samples. Which then means that we humans have been dealing with plant (or, one supposes, animal) DNA in our blood streams essentially forever. They are simply part of our internal landscape.
There was no analysis in the "collective-evolution" article of how, even if they were present, bits of GM DNA in a fragment, consisting of a single gene or two, made of exactly the same base pair molecules as any other gene, would behave any differently than the thousands of biologically active genes of the original plants.
The academic PLOS study doesn't mention GMO other than to note that articles focused on GMO issues have been interested in blood plasma DNA. Looking at one of those references noted, an article discussed finding a cauliflower mosaic virus in the blood of fish fed a GM diet versus a non-GM fish food. As one problematic issue, there was no mention in the abstract about checking whether the source fish foods differed in their virus contamination.
The connection to GMO's is entirely made up. There was no claim in the PLOS article that the the bloodstream DNA fragments they found affected health. More bloodstream DNA was found in persons with certain illnesses. There was no claim that GM DNA fragments were discovered (they looked at chloroplast DNA).
The PLOS authors conclude:
There was no analysis in the "collective-evolution" article of how, even if they were present, bits of GM DNA in a fragment, consisting of a single gene or two, made of exactly the same base pair molecules as any other gene, would behave any differently than the thousands of biologically active genes of the original plants.
The academic PLOS study doesn't mention GMO other than to note that articles focused on GMO issues have been interested in blood plasma DNA. Looking at one of those references noted, an article discussed finding a cauliflower mosaic virus in the blood of fish fed a GM diet versus a non-GM fish food. As one problematic issue, there was no mention in the abstract about checking whether the source fish foods differed in their virus contamination.
The connection to GMO's is entirely made up. There was no claim in the PLOS article that the the bloodstream DNA fragments they found affected health. More bloodstream DNA was found in persons with certain illnesses. There was no claim that GM DNA fragments were discovered (they looked at chloroplast DNA).
The PLOS authors conclude:
quote:Another example of anti-GMO proselytizers claiming scientific (and less-than-scientific) results as supporting their position without ever demonstrating how their position is actually supported. Probably because, other than ginning up unsupported fear, they can't.
The analysis of all the publicly available circulating cell-free DNA sequencing data of over 1000 human subjects confirms our hypothesis that the presence of foreign DNA in human plasma is not unusual. It shows large variation from subject to subject following strikingly well a log-normal distribution with the highest concentration in patients with inflammation