In 2016 and its aftermath. For more information, check out wer site at booktv. Org. Greeting and welcome to todays meeting from the commonwealth chair of california. I am bill grant chair of this program. It is my pleasure to extend a special welcome to club members. At this time, please turn off all cell phones and noisemaking devices. The event is being video graphed and recorded for pod casts so we dont want extraneous sounds. Many tup topics are coming up and i invite you to visit our website at commonclub. Org or call our 24 hour reservation line. Stevens book will be for sale in the hobby after the program and he is happy to sign the book. If you have friends who want to be here this program and were not able to, the pod cast should be online in about a day. Cspan is here to record it for tv. And he is speaking again thursday in palo alto at the community center. You have want to find out more about that go to the szhi. Com i believe. Schi. Com to find out more information. That is a good place if people want to go there as well. I printed out question cards on all the seats and when you fill out the question card, pass them to aisle and pass them up. I will be sitting here and that way i wont have to go up and down the aisle and block the tv people while recording this. Okay, now i will start the program officially. Greetings and welcome to todays meeting of the commonwealth of california. I am bill grant cochair of the forum and chair of this program. It is my great pleasure to introduce steven drucker. He is a Public Interest continue who initiated a lawsuit against the food and Drug Administration, or the fda, that reve revealed the agency covered up scientist warnings about the risk of jumet genetically engineered food. He has spoken at numerous universities including harvard, cornell and columbia and met with government officials worldwild for the uk, canada, france, ireland and australia. He received a law degree from uc berkeley and elected to the California Law review and a Legal Honor Society as well. His articles on genetically engineered food have been published in many forms. His book altered genes, twisted truth how the venture to genetically engineer our food has subverted science, corrupted government, and systematically deceived the public was released in march 2015 with it being hailed as without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 yearsism among the other scientists who praised it is a professor at the institute for biological studies who called it insightful and truly outstanding. He received the luxemburg peace price. Mr. Drucker . Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with such a great organization. I would like to begin by tell me what would you think if at the snap of my fingers everybody in the world suddenly, instantly became aware of all the facts about jgenetically engineered food . If he adhere to the routine we would predict a worldwide wave of enlightenment could cause them to vanish. In addition to reality, all of the opposition has been based in ignorance and the concerns about risks are due to an improper understanding of science. But in reality, in this world we actually inhabit the phenomenon that would vanish is not the opposition to the foods but the foods themselves. That is right. If the actual facts became widely known the entire genetically engineered adventure would collapse. And that is why the proponents of genetically engineered foods have dissorted critical facts. My book documents case after case in which imminent scientists have stooped to deception in order to enable the ge food venture to advance. Basic facts of biology have been twisted and there process of creating genetically engineered foods has been described in order to make it appear far less disruptive and far more precise than it is actually is. And false statements have consistently been issued about the tests on these foods to cover up troubling results. The evidence that demonstrates the distortion of the evidence is solid and solidity has been tested by experts. For instance, a professor of Agricultural Economics at the of missouri stated the evidence in my book is comprehensive and irrefutable. And a professor at the sock institute for bio logical studies hailed the book as outstanding and said quote it disspells the cloud of misinformation that has misled people into believing that ge foods have been accuratery tested and dont entail risk accurately. And the fact that the facts have been misrepresented is concrete evidence of how strongly the evidence weighs against the soundness of the ge foods. If the evidence was supported of the venture safety, there would have been no need to distort it. I think that is a nobrainer. If the facts are on your side, you are not afraid of them. In fact, you are proud of them and it is your joy and privilege to present them. During the next 25 minutes, i will point out some of the key distortions and falsehoods and clear up the confusion they have created. In the process, it will become evdependent there is strong sciencebas sciencebased reasons for reaching new conclusions. Producing new foods with genetic engineering is risky. Every genetically engineered food pose an abnormal level of risk. Three, the safety of those on the market has never been adequately established. And four some of them have already been shown to be harmful. I will explain how the ge food venture is not normally risky from the stand point of biological science but how they have disregarded the hard learns lessons about the risk of altering complex Information Systems. The routine assertion the food is safe and this claim is claimed to be on par with the consensus about humaninduced climate change. There has never been one in regard to ge foods. Whereas every group of experts that examined the data with climate change, many raised cautions about ge foods and several scientific institutions have done so as well. The Royal Society of canada issued a major report concluding a that the default prediction should be the genetic altereration induced unintended and potentially harmful side effects and it is scientifically unjustifiable to regard any ge safe unless the safety has been established through a course of testing far more rigorous than any regulators require. The editors of the lancet, a premier meadical journal expressed concerns about the risk and the Public Health association of australia called for a moratorium on the marketing and planting of ge foods. The scientific experts at the u. S. Food and Drug Administration have likewise recogniz recognized noticed that within the memos from the agencies own scientists expressing concern about the risk for the process and the need for the food it produces to undergo safety testing capable of detecting the potential harmful side effects. The pervasiveness of the concerns is tested by an expert official who studied the input and declared quote the processes of genetically engineering and breeding are different and they lead to different risks. Moreover, the fdas own Bio Technology coordinator noted there is no consensus. But the fda hasnt created an agenda to foster biotechnology. When it issued its policy in may of 1992 after receiving the input it claimed it was not aware of any information showing that foods derived by genetic engineering differed from other foods in any uniform or meaning ful way. And there was overwhelming consensus that ge foods are so safe they didnt need to be tested even though it knew no such consistent existed. They allow the ge foods to enter the market without requiring a smidgen of testing. If they told the truth and exposed the concern of their own experts the subsaharsiacquaint journey would be different subseque subsequent. That is one claim. What about the claim that no ingested product has been linked to a Human Health Problem . That is also baloney. It is starkly at odds with reality. In fact, the technologys very first ingestible product caused a major epidemic. It killed dozens of americans. It seriously sickened between 45,000 and hundreds are still invalids to this day. That product was a food supplement of the essential amino acid tryptofan that contained minute amounts of impurities. Unlike the conventionally produced supplements, one or more of its additions was highly toxic even at extremely low levels. Because none of these supplements had been linked to disease and genetically engineering can create unintentioned disruptions there was the inspection of the process creating the calamity. To do so, they had to issue a string of deceptive statements. Those deceptions have been so successful that despite the evidence points to genetic engineering as the most likely cause of the contamination most people who know of the tragedy are under the illusion the technology has been exonerated and worse because the ge proponents claim nothing has been linked to a Health Problem and most are not aware of the event happening. And that includes most professionals within Public Health i have spoken to. Oblivious to the fact that the very First Genetic engineered item caused major epidemic in the United States. It is important to note that the toxic incident has serious implications for all foods produced through genetic engineering. Those bacteria had not been altered with foreign genes but were endowed with extra copies of some of their own and not engineered to produce anything other than a beneficial substance they orderinarily make. But the forced over production of this normally benign substance apparently put abnormal stress on the organisms that led to the creation of an unintended highly toxic by product and almost every genetically engineered food is being propelled to overproduce one or more chemicals components. The standard claim that the safety of ge foods has been thoroughly established by reliable testing cannot survive scrutiny either especially considering that many well conducted studies published in peer review journals have detected harm to the animals that consume ge food. In fact, in 2009 a systematic review on ge foods that was published in a peer review journal concluded the results of most of them indicate the products may was hepatic, pancreatic, renal effects and may alter biological parameters to which is unknown. Another review that was published until august 10 provided cause for caution. It concluded there was equilibrium between those suggesting ge crops are as safe as their counterparts and those raising serious concerns. The fact that more than 15 years after ge foods first entered the market, half the published studies on them raised serious concerns mt in the eyes of objective science reviewers undermines the claim their safety has been established. This examines the results that occurred before and after that date. For instance, a team of European University scientists published a paper in 2011 in which they reviewed the data from 19 of the feeding studies on ge, soy and corn varieties that had already gone through the regulatory process, were on the market and comprised 83 of the ge foods people have been eating. What they found was disturbing. 9 of the measured parameters including blood and urin e biochemistry was disrupted in the animals that ate the ge food. Moreover, the greatest disturbances were to the kidneys of the males and livers of the females. And the scientists emphasized that because livers and kidneys are the major reactive organs in cases of chronic food toxicity these should be danger signs. The research is reteunely misrepresented. Routinely. The worlds oldest and most Prestigious Institution declared no research has been indicated that the genetic engineering isnt the problem but the gene introduced or agricultural processes. This assertion is false. It was the same level of protein produced within the modified potatoes and the research concluded that some aspect of the ge process itself was significantly responsible for the result because they have ruled out the other possible factors. So it is only through the systematic misrepresentation of the facts by respected institutions and individuals and their willingness to disregard the ominous implications of the evidence that the ge food venture has been able to continue. And this disgraceful activity is being carried out in the name of science when it is actually subverting the basic principles of science. The extent to which the ge food venture has failed to be evidencebased and instead has rested on the denial and disregard of the efrd evidence by the king school of medicine. If the kind of detrimental affects seen in the animals fed the ge food were observed in a clinical setting the items used would be halted to determine the cause and find solutions. What repeatedly happens in the case of ge food is despite increasi increasing evidence of serious adverse test results government and industry continue unabated with the development, enforcement and marketing of these foods as if nothing hap n happened to the point where they even seem to ignore the results of their own research. When it is analyzed from the point of Computer Science the picture is more troubling. This is relevant because genetic engineering and Computer Science are engaged in altering complex Information Systems and Computer Science learned a lot about the risks of making such alterations and learned these risk are not escapable. When the Information Systems they created become large and cop pm plex there is no way to alter them with complete precision. Even when the alteration is a small refinement, the mere process of revising it is such a minuscule manner is likely to destruct one or more of its other parts. Software systems are designed to be linear meaning they are structured so a specific operation only produces a specific result. Operation x should only produce y. However, despite the programmers best interest their systems transcend the limits and behave in a non linear manner. There is a high likelihood some of the parts will interact in ways that were not planned and cannot be predicted which means operation x will not only yield y but might also generate q and z. Consequently, to reduce the potential for unintended interactions Software Designers separate components that shouldnt interact and try to insulate them from such interaction. What they try to avoid is creating code that resembles a plate of spaghetti because they want to avoid writing what they call spaghetti code, a program in which the components are comlexly interacted and you cant really work on one without jostling around some of the other ones. What they instead aim to create is ravioli code. They try to Design Systems in which the components that are not supposed to interact are as independent from one another as the package of cheese and vegetable and separate packages of pasta even though programs have succeeded in designing systems that are far more analogous to a plate of ravioli to a plate of spaghetti and have not been able to eliminate. Before examining how the risks are dealt with, lets compare human Design Systems with those of bio information. Lets compare manmade software with nature software. Human systems are designed to be linear. And although they unavoidably become linear to some degree they are separate systems. But bio Information Systems are inherently non linear. Every action can create a wide range of effects many of which cannot be predicted. In their endeavor to maxinize manageability maximize Software Engineers avoid creating spaghetti code but bio Information Systems are the most extreme instances of spaghetti code and if a human being has been able to create them he or she cannot comprehend the varurous interaction. Despite the knowledge we have gained about the systems and extent our understanding is deficient should be profoundly humbling. The rules governoring how the parts interact are expressed in written form but only a small fraction of the rules of bio Information Systems are known and most of those pertain to the mech mechanics of gene expression. Bio Information Systems transcend the innate and extend throughout the entire organism while extending far beyond our coverage and. In addition to the vast differences in the degree to which humans understand how the two types of systems operate, there are also glaring differences in how they make revisions to them. Software engineers insert new code precisely where they want it without accidentally disrupting the way in which other code is written. Further, no unintended code enters the system. In contrast, bioengineers have been inserting dna haphazardly. Their insertions have been disrupted sections of native dna and unintended pieces of dna have almost always entered as well. So, in revisions precise and mentally disruptive in the case of the human design system, in the case of bio Information System the revision through genetic engineering are imprecise and highly disruptive. In the light of these enormous differences, it would be reasonable to think that genetic engineers should exercise far greater caution that do Software Engineers, but the unfortunate reality is they exercise far less, shockingly less. Software engineers recognize that inescapable risk of altering complex Information Systems and they deal with them responsibly, accordingly when they revise programs they conduct test to conduct whether any problems have been created. Moreover, there is a special class of software for which the testing is extremely rigorous. Is called life pivotal software, software that can cause loss of life if it malfunctions with examples that govern pace makers and xray machines and the ones that serve as airplane guidance systems. In the us and the European Union, not only are such programs required to undergo strict testing before they are allowed on the market, they also must be rig