Monsanto and PCBs

blamanj writes: "While this story isn't about the gadgetry that typically appeals to /.ers, it's worth a look. The Washington Post has acquired documents showing how a Monsanto Corp. PCB plant polluted a small town in Alabama with full knowledge of what it was doing. Their own tests showed that when fish were placed into a local stream, "Their skin would literally slough off." They showed no concern for the residents, only about potential expensive regulations or bad publicity. Why is this relevant? Well, Monsanto is currently one of biggest proponents of GM (genetically modified) foods." Very thorough investigative article about how a corporation reacts when a profitable business line is threatened, or a cautionary tale about wonder technologies, take your pick.

Comments

Re:Guilt By Association, don't buy it

[scrote-ma-hote]

Read the post, Monsato deliberatly poisoned a waterway. They did this with no regard for animal or human safety. Now, explain to me how I am supposed to trust a company that does things like that with something that is as potentially as dangerous as transgenic crops. That's why it's relevant.

And of course that's not the biggest arguement, if you don't know that, then you shouldn't be posting stuff like that in the first place!

here's the news, you're a twit

[streetlawyer]

By the way, how does your first point of "all hybrid seeds are infertile" tie in with your second point of "new seed comes from new healthy hybrids grown for seed"?

Read again, you comprehensive idiot. The word "infertile" in my post is contained in scare quotes and followed by the phrase "in the sense that descendants do not have the desirable properties of the hybrid". Any decent English teacher ought to be able to help you understand the significance of these facts, and their role in the meaning of the sentence. Hybrid plants are produced by hybridisation, not grown from seed.

While, yes, as a farmer I supplement my existing gene-lineages (both plant and animal) with external lines for hybrid vigor and outside traits every year; I also breed my existing plants and animals for specific traits. If I started off with one line of genes, and attempted to maintain that line forever, yes, I might have problems. But I don't. I select outside strains to enhance certain qualities that I believe my strains are deficient in.

Just one question; while you, as a farmer, personally, yourself, are carrying out this attractive Mendelian exercise, who's looking after your fucking farm? Monsanto sell their products to real farms, run to make a profit or for subsistence, not to loony thought experiments.

If I've got some sterile corn that swoops across the pasture and cross-pollinates with my good "breeding" corn, I've got a problem

No you haven't, because as we discussed earlier, you'll be buying new seed next year.

here's the news - you're an ass

[MadAhab]

You reek of elitism. Right, the poor farmer should shut up and keep slaving in the fields, and leave it to the intelligent scientists to keep him in business. What scum-sucking yuppie twits like you don't know is that farmers, like fishermen of all stripes, and folks in a lot of other professions that keep you from starving, have an intense interest in science relating to their fields. Sure, they are focused on applications and not on basic research, but their financial well-being depends on not being passive grunts. Breeding is not a loony thought experiment to them, but something that affects their bottom line year by year. And they could give a rats ass whether you think they must be blue collar and ignorant. They know things the eggheads often don't - for instance, fishery stocks have in some places been grossly underestimated simply because no one could find the fish for a few years, and when they came back, they were mature, not young as if the stock was simply rebounding. Fishermen knew this from daily observation, and eventually scientists realized they were on to something. Go back in your cave.