Slashdot Mirror
Drug Making Genes Added To Corn Jump To Soya
Anonymous Cowdog writes "Google News turned up a scary item today: Apparently, genetically altered corn, designed not to repel pests or withstand bad weather, but rather to grow pharmecuticals (for diabetes and diarrhea) has been accidentally mixed with soy plants in the field, resulting in 500,000 bushels of contaminated soybeans being quarantined by the US FDA. Ooops. Here's the story, and here's another story about the same case. The company who brought us this nice event is called ProdiGene. Looks like they're also working on an edible AIDS vaccine (kinda makes sense, eat Tofu, enjoy free love!) Now, I was thinking, will our government protect us from doom-by-hand-me-down-genes? and on a hunch (honest!) I did this google search for keywords ProdiGene and "george w bush". Result? A not so reassuring article."
See, this is why a lot of people are cautious about genetically altered foods.
The potential hazards combined with the legal tanglements of a company being
able to hold a patent on seeds, so far, hasn't been worth it. Perhaps now, the
na-sayers who derided the decision of the leader of that African country to
refuse genetically altered foodstuffs have some "food for thought". Sorry, pun
intended.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
The headline on this story seems misleading - the genes did not jump to soybeans from the corn, the genetically-modified corn was accidentally added to some unmodified soybeans.
AFAIK, genes don't have the ability to do an inter-species jump like that...
0x0D 0x0A
It sounds like there are whole corn plants in the soybean fields (which presumably the automatic harvesting grabs together), rather than cross-species gene jumping. Still worrying but not unexpected when the US has such a cavalier attitude to segregation of GM/non-GM crops. It might also be worrying if you were allergic to normal corn (if they still grow that in the USA) (and found it in your soy food).
How is it practically possible to completely isolate these new genetically "enhanced" strains anyway? Surely as long a they're being grown in the big wide world, the genetic changes will crep into the food chain anyway...?
Of course, I speak as a complete idjit when it comes to all things biological...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Off course I didn't RTFA, but I guess it says that Bush ate a lot of genetically altered corn. That sure explains a lot
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
Those Fritos! They may grow you a second head.
The bio-corn - which is grown to produce trypsin and another compound to treat diarrhea - has not been approved for human or livestock feed.
Trypsin is a primary digestive enzyme in stomachs. I wonder what could possible go wrong with ingesting more trypsin, even if it was from another species. This other compound used to treat diarrhea couldn't be that bad either. I don't see what the real problem here is besides the small potential that someone might be allergic to this protein. I know that the FDA has to be conservative but there is no real need for a scare.
Sorry for replying as an Anonymous Coward
Perhaps they were trying to solve the "whole kernel effect" problem ...
See, this is getting ridiculous. Posting process on slashdot:
1. Slashdotter finds distuirbing article.
2. Slashdotter doesn't read it closely.
3. Slashdotter makes gross oversimplifications, including specifically some sort of doomsday scenario.
4. Slashdotter assumes there must be some GW Bush conspiracy going on.
The sad thing is that there is potential for harm here, but the overstated claims and conspiracy theories really hurt the credibility of the posted story, which itself was good.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Nobody is really going to care about this issue until contaminated foods leak into the market and people start dying. When the lawsuits start flying, and when the connection between Bush and ProdiGene is covered by Dan, Peter and Tom (or perhaps Brian by then), THEN we'll start seeing some real action.
Until then, pass that Cap'n Crunch/flu vaccine this way.
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
Gene swapping is common among strains of bacteria (and several other microscopic buggers that undergo asexual reproduction), but not in eukaryotic or multicellular critters. Here's a brief discussion of the process
I'm not usually one to side with the anti-bush puppet-protesting Stankoists commies; but I'll give the Devil its due on this one. A similar Google search for Prodigene + "Bill Clinton" turned up nothing similar.
Politics aside, this business of releasing geneticly altered crops into the wild smacks of the kind of overconfidence and "put on your manager hat" thinking that lead to the sinking of the Titanic and the Challenger disaster. It's only a matter of time before we do something really silly like kill all the corn or turn our wheat into poison.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Monsanto has a known history of misplacing toxic waste. If someone firebombs the wrong facility, they could irreversible contaminate the environment for hundreds of thousands of people. It is a good idea to first know what you are firebombing before the actual commision of the act.
Whatever happened to 'amber mutations' for this sort of genetically engineered 'drugs factory'? An amber mutation is one which will not kill the plant/animal with it, provided it gets some substance not commonly available in the environment. But if the susbtance is not provided then the organism simply dies.
It was originally used with lab and sealed-vat based organisms to protect against accidental releases, but it could easilly be applied to farm based plants. Since the kind of farming that uses genetically modified organisms also tends to use a significant quantity of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers it would be simple to add one more non-toxic chemical to the mix, without which the plants would simply die (or fail to reproduce). You could then deal with any problems by withdrawing the supplement, and any escapees would quickly die. There would still be a slight risk of genetic 'contamination' of nearby crops, but it would be much lower than at present.
If I were a cynical type I would suspect that biotechnology companies are counting on accidental contamination to make it impossible to ever go back to a 'GMO free' state, thus safeguarding their business. Another (cynical) alternative is that to build in a safeguard is tantamount to admitting that you *need* a safeguard, which would adversly affect their sales.
Sometimes it's hard not to be a cynic.
This is not the first time that there have been mix-ups with genetically engineered crops. Such mix-ups are becoming entirely too frequent. Although no injuries have happened to date, that we know of, this is a dangerous situation.
The frightening thing is that this is very likely to become far more common as more and more genetically engineered crops are developed and their use becomes more widespread. So far, the mix-ups have been caught, or so we hope. But, the likelyhood of such crops escaping into the consumer market and the wild is rapidly increasing and the unknown dangers that go with them are frightening.
Man has always tampered with nature with many disaterous results to show for it. The transplanting of non-native species has almost always resulted in a proliferation of the species which then becomes a niusance. Think killer bees, cane toads, rabies, lethal yellowing, dutch elm disease, citrus canker etc...
No one knows what negative effects these genetically altered crops will present in the future. All that we do know is that the opportunity for disaster is enormous.
Gene hacking is not the same as the gradual breeding proceses that have gone on for millenia. In the latter, each step is relatively stable, in the former, large potentially disruptive leaps can be made more or less overnight. Unfortunately, unlike with computers you don't have the comfort of chroot and/or virtual machines.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
See, all of you people were over-reacting! Genetically modifying crops is perfectly safe and we understand all of the ramifications of everything we are doing. I mean sure there was a leap from corn to soy beans, but that's well within tolerances. Now, if the gentic modifications had jumped to say, badgers, then that would be something to have concern about. As it now stands this just demonstrates that all precautions are being taken and that we are perfectly safe.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I'm very split over this end of biotech. On the one hand, using gen-tech plants (and possibly animals) to produce drugs and vaccines is one of the most exciting and potentially revolutionary applications of genetic engineering technology. It's much more efficient to produce big organic molecules in suitable organic systems than it is in test tubes... It seems to me to be a much more worthy application of the technology than using it to increase profit margins and control farmers behaviour.
On the other hand, producing biologically active compounds - which, one would hope, drugs and vaccines are - raises the stakes on control of seeds and pollen, and the need for safety assurance,sky high.
So what do we do? Cover acres with air-conditionned glass-houses? Give up on the huge potential benefits just in case something goes wrong? Can we trust the biotech companies given how snuggly in bed they seem to be with most of the governments of the Western world...?
Why aren't GM crops grown in greenhouses?
Wouldn't this avoid this sort of thing in the future?
Maybe you are right, but the study on cross polinisation make a lot of people kinda warry in EU, and a lot of people there says that definitly 3 or 4 years was not enough to study the complete "life" cycle and possible jump a gene might make between plants, and the possible bad results of , say, a gene resisting desherbant into a wild specy.
And when such SLOPYNESS comes to light, I can certainly give reason to people asking for more study of impact.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Perhaps the moderator was unaware that it wasn't George W. Bush that said that, but his father.
In any event, that's more of a blatant troll than interesting or insightful.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I grew up farming corn and beans. Soybeans are a broadleaf plant. Corn is a grass. Grass killer sprayed on soybeans will kill the corn plants that come up.
Also, corn grows about four feet taller than soybeans. Picking out the corn should be no problem.
Really though, GM stuff should be grown in totally separate fields and the fields kept separate.
Maybe I'm dense, but I don't understand the huge fear about genetically altered food. Sure it would be bad if say, a large number of plants were altered to take in oxygen and release CO2, but why can't I eat such a plant? It's not like my body is going to absorb their DNA, actually my enzymes and acids will break the food down and absorb the nutrients, then get rid of the waste. As long as a company can show that any genetic alterations do not make the plant produce poisons, what's the big deal? I've been wondering this for a while, and help would be appreciated.
Why? Because it happens to include a couple words that you find frightening? I don't, and if a GM food or other product has properties that I, as a consumer find desirable, then you can bet your Dr. Weil fanclub membership that I'll buy it and use it.
Last I checked Corn and Soybean plants can't cross-pollinate. Nor do they have any other means to transfer their genes from one species to another.
I highly doubt that the Corn stalks were 'gettin it on' with the Soybean plants, spreading free love and pollen accross the species barrier. This would be like a pig mating with an elephant, and is thus merely the stuff of dreams and fantasies in a biologist's world.
It's highly likely that what actually happened was wrongly interpreted, and a totally misinformed journalist created a hyped up headline that didn't even begin to convey what actually happened. Most likely the farmers that grew the genetically altered corn used harvesting equipment (combines) which like nearly all combines are unable to be 100% effecient in gathering the crops, and as such allow some of the corn to fall back to the earth and become seed. Next year the farmer goes back in, tills up the land, plants his soybean crops in the same field, and soon enough a couple of corn stalks crop up. You'll see this in many soybean fields in the midwest, a couple of stalks of corn standing up in a vast field of what is otherwise soybeans. Even if there are few to no weeds, you'll still usually see some corn, because the herbicides are designed not to kill corn and soybeans, but everything else. When the soybeans were harvested, a couple of corn stalks were harvested along with it, even though a bean head on a combine is not designed to harvest corn, it usually is able to pull a few kernels off the cobb when plowing through the beans. Low and behold, some genetically altered 2nd generation corn gets into the soybeans. Big deal.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
Another example...
There is a lot of study on cross pollinisation and inter specy gene jumping. This is also why EU has some "fear" of GMO :/ con8en_en.pdf[/url]
[url]http://www.europarl.eu.int/charter/civil/pdf
Sorry I don't know HTML to transform an URL into link. PS: you will find a lot of such link in google, just go past the first few page.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Read farther down in the posts. Some leftover GM corn kernels were allowed to mature in fields which had been replanted with non-GM soybeans. The resulting harvest had soybean seeds mixed with a tiny amount of GM corn kernels.
The soybeans did not acquire genetic material from the corn.
It is my (possibly flawed) understanding that such a transfer might, might, conceivably (we're talking one in several million odds or so) happen with a viral vector, but such a virus would be considerably more likely to glom onto a completely different corn gene and transpose it. Even if the modified gene did jump, the virus carying the gene would have to infect one of the soybean's sex cells to be present in the end food product, or to be passed on.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
The "Not so reassuring article", doesn't look so bad to me.
He was appointed to the USAID, note the "I", as in International Development. This is an obscure trade board with little or no policy making power that is likely to do little more that waste some more money. It's not as if he was appointed to head the USDA. Also, the fact the you'd go looking for GWB connections with this rather screams your conspiracy theorist paranoia, eh?
Now, if I was in Russia I might be concerned that this guy is going to push a bunch of mutant corn down my throat but, in Niceville, USA he's not going to have much impact.
Of course, if genetically engineered food escapes into the wild, even on another continent, it will eventually come back to haunt us.
Homer:this corn looks normal to me
Marge:That's baby corn
Homer: WHAAAAT?!?!!
Lisa: Mom...my potato is eating my carrot
$cat
The article says that an inspector first became suspicious because he noticed corn plants among the harvested soybeans. IANAF (I am not a farmer), but I would imagine that it doesn't take too much intelligence to discern corn from soybeans and any mixing of the plants can be quickly dealt with at a processing plant.
Also, given that only a few corn plants were present among tons of soybeans, what is the real danger of poisoning someone? Since soybeans are processed into edible and non-edible products, is there a REAL, measurable danger?
Vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs generally help a lot more people than they hurt. Are we going to ban GE foods because a few people might have a problem with them? Why not ban the peanut plant, since peanuts DO cause allergic reactions in some people?
5. Slashdotter submits oversimplified misinterpretation of would-be conspiracy for publishing.
6. Slashdot editor press "Publish" button without even thinking twice.
You know, when I search for stuff on Google, I don't append "george w bush" to it - not ever.
WTF? Why would you do that?!
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
> Tell us what is safe!
... ah, the free market at work .. and we only had to kill off a few folks!"
I'm glad that you're so all knowing that you couldn't _possibly_ eat something thats bad for you without being aware of it. I mean, you're too smart for that, right?
> but stuff like this brings out the free-marketer in me
Scratch that. What on earth does this story have to do with the free-market? This sounds like a fuckup made by a company; are you saying the FDA has no business identifying and notifying the public when stuff like this happens?
And how does the free market work in the drug trade when you dont regulate it? I can hear it now, "See how people stop buying the bad drugs/food once a few dozen people die
"Old man yells at systemd"
Just send a couple swarms of these grasshoppers to eat up all the mutant crops. Of course, getting rid of the grasshoppers would become a problem. But, those biotech companies can always just make some mutant lizards.
way cool, man, and i'm sure any survivor will love the USA, and will be very eager to learn to "fly" a 747.
i had a sig, once..
Sorry for replying as an Anonymous Coward
You should be apologizing for posting as "Ann Coulter" instead. Eeeeeeew.
how about option #4, showing some fucking self-restraint and not breeding like rabbits!
Being a farmer, there is nothing to worry about in this case, or really any other crops. Corn and soybeans have been genetically modified for a long time, mostly to result in larger harvests, and lately to resist some herbicides that would normally kill it(RoundUp). The tiny bit of corn that grew in this soybean field is 2nd generation, known to farmers as volunteer corn. Any volunteer corn is far from the original in its chemical makeup. It will never grow to what its parent was due to the treatment the original seed corn gets at the seed corn plant. (Seed corn being the corn you buy in bags to plant in the spring.) So, if you think you're going to be harmed by this genetically altered corn, it's too late, corn has been altered for years. Although, this corn was altered for a different reason, but a tiny bit of this mixed in with thousands of bushels of soybeans isn't anything anyone should give a shit about.
Why? A great deal of what you eat already has been GM'd. 85% of any soy products grown in the US are roundup ready. Brazil says they're not planting GM soy, but you'd be a fool if you belief that. Tomatoes and carrots have been GM'd, as has beet sugar. What about the alfalfa you're using as feed for cows? Yup. Or the source of the BSE used in dairy stock? Or insulin for you diabetic? Or corn-bore resistent maize? Most of you have no idea the extent to which this has already been implimented, and you use it's products every day. I'll be none of you has two heads as a result of it.
This knee-jerk reaction that if it's GM, the world's gonna end is nothing more than uneducated witch burning. Of course, as with any emerging technology, you must be cognizant of the potential dangers. Getting Greenpeace to fabricate scary stories based on half truths isn't doing anyone any good.
From the sounds of the article, they left enough corn in the feed that it took seed, then planted soybeans with it, so next year they had soybeans and corn and were harvested together. Though I could be wrong.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Wake up. Most plants and animals associated with agriculture are
- not native to the region in which they are grown
- heavily inbred and hardly recognizable
- displacing the "natural" biota
- a huge source of pesticides, fertilizers, and waste products
- heavily dependent on fossil fuel
Modified crops can and will turn sunlight into complex molecules for industry and medicine. There is already an addressed need to monitor our food supply for chemicals and pathogens. So new tests and controls are now necessary. So what?First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
It makes total sense that this would happen. In order to keep fields fertile, it's best to rotate which crops get grown each year -- often soy,soy,corn. So it stands to reason that you're going to have some corn "volunteers" the years you grow soy.
If you think that scientists are just randomly changing genes in foods intended to be sold, you've lost your grip on reality. Experimentation happens, but no sane food/drug company would risk the impact of such a level of carelessness/unconcern.
While I tend to agree with that assessment, I am still troubled by the amount of resources these same food/drug companies spent in order to defeat bills that would have required mandatory labelling of any products containing GM products.
If GM foods are *so* safe, why do they not want us to know when they are being consumed? It's sad that the last line of defense is the threat of massive class-action lawsuits in the event that GM foods are not quite as safe as their purveyors would have us believe!
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
You think this is bad? Is the thought of a few modified genes leaping into another crop scarry to you? How about the hundreds of thousands of experiments where people modified hundreds, even thousands of genes at once, with no idea of the outcome or its impact on other species?
Well, that's called traditional cross-breeding, and it's been practiced by humans intentionally and unintentionally pretty much since the day when we started building mud huts and stopped following animals around.
The reaction to genetically altered foods in this country (and Europe), espcially the reaction of people of reason, is baffling to me.
When these "big bad" bio companies modify plant genes in an effort to create products, they're doing it with a kind of specificity that was unthinkable 10 years ago. They modify a handful of genes, and they know the exact outcome of that modification.
Is it possible some of these modified genes will "jump" to another plant species? Yes. In fact, it's likely, especially if the plants are grown outdoors rather than in a greenhouse. Is that bad? Maybe. But probably not, and it most cases, it's no more dangerous than the situation created when plants are cross-bred in the "traditional" (read: random) way to produce desireable traits.
Bioengineering faces a lot of hurdles, but one hurdle it should not have to face is educated people rising up in terror against the benefits it could provide.
The headline isn't just misleading, it's just plain wrong. The story is less than an hour old and there are already a fistful of comments pointing this out.
If any of the editors are reading this thread, the headline needs to be corrected!
BTW, I reread the summary a few times, and it seems that the person who submitted the story got it right. The poster makes no mention of any sort of horizontal gene transfer between the corn and soy, but only claims the crops were "accidentally mixed", which is what happened. It's Hemos who fscked this one up.
"Although unwanted corn often sprouts in soybean fields, ProdiGene failed to pull out its bio-corn in Nebraska and removed it too late in Iowa, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. ... As a result, ProdiGene was ordered to destroy 155 acres of corn in Iowa and may have to buy 500,000 bushels of soybeans quarantined in Nebraska because of possible contamination."
And the other one,
"The USDA quarantined the soybeans in Nebraska after discovering the possible contamination during harvest last month. Investigators suspect the contamination occurred when a small amount of ProdiGene's corn plants mixed in with soybeans subsequently grown on the same field and adjacent fields. In Iowa, the company was ordered to destroy 155 acres (63 hectares) of corn in September because windborne pollen from its bio-corn may have contaminated nearby fields."
No gene transfer, no mutations, no animated Frankencorn coming for your children. Just some self-catch corn plants in a soyabean field which were either not removed before harvest (unlikely) or were removed at a time later decided by some dickhead bureaucrat to be the wrong time (very likely).
In Iowa we have a case of definite burocratitis, where one guy officially blessed the planting and another guy said "NONONO!!!" later on, after the corn was in the ground. No evidence of actual contamination in Iowa was found in the articles, just potential for it.
So what we actually have here is the politically motivated attempt by the agriculture bureaucrats to bankrupt a perfectly reasonable company, one which is following all the rules.
So all you Greenie boys and girls need to read the friggin article, and possibly go read up on gene transfer technology.
You left out the part about what his being in
the "Working Group on Food Security". Nice
to know that we have independent oversight for
the food supply. I guess there just weren't any
other qualified applicants.
The genes did not jump from corn to soybeans.
Genetically-modified corn was planted in a small field. Soybeans were planted in that field the next growing cycle. Volunteer corn from the previous crop sprung up with the soybeans. The company did not weed out the volunteer corn, and at harvest time a small amount of corn was gathered with the soybeans and eventually mixed with 500 tons of soybeans in a silo.
The modified genes being detected are in the corn kernels, not the soybeans.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
I grew up on a farm and I know how hard it is to make a profit nowadays. With the price of a new John Deere Combine running around half a million dollars (NOT KIDDING!!), farmers will embrace any new technology that could improve profits (the price of wheat per bushel 3 years ago was less that its worth in the 1950's, NOT KIDDING EITHER!). When Monsanto, among others, started releasing GMO corn and soybeans, those product significantly lowered the cost required to spray and maintain fields for insects and weeds. Instead of spray costing around $75 an acre, it now costs around $20 an acre. Unfortunately, no one wants to buy these anymore because they are "dangerous" or, whatever.
Additionally, for those people who are horrified by the idea of eating GMO's, I'd like to tell you a little secret that has been withheld from you. VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING YOU EAT TODAY HAS BEEN GENETICALLY MODIFIED BY HUMANS. For example, give me one example of a wild cabbage plant, (if you can find this, then you will realize what else was created from its ancestor). Or, since we are on the subject, has anyone seen a real wild corn plant or Soybean plant? The reason we have them today, is because long ago selective breeding made them what they are. The only difference with Genetically Modifying an organism is that it can accomplish a variety of plant in a much smaller amount of time. Additionally, while GMO's synthetically splice new DNA, which in turn creates new organic compounds, selective breeding HAS THE SAME EFFECT ON PLANTS.
anyways, I'm stepping off the soapbox now
Large Scale Biology in Vacaville, California is doing just that. They use tobacco.
The reason that so many GMO efforts focus on food crops is that many of these crops have well understood genetics and are extremely productive in converting sunlight to biomass.
Greenhouses could be used, but the extreme expense could invalidate one of the main purposes of complex molecule production in plants: cost.
TNF in your gut would be digested into small, biologically inactive peptides. Nutritious and delicious!
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
Trypsin is a primary digestive enzyme in stomachs. I wonder what could possible go wrong with ingesting more trypsin, even if it was from another species.
Depends how much, if it's just a small amount the body can simply cut back on its own sythesis. But what happens if you exceed the stomach's ability to contain the enzyme?
Monsanto -- making things "Greener than You Think"
(HINT: Moderators, if you're not familiar with the book in question, DO NOT MODERATE!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Frankenstein is now a food group, eh?
Chances are good that even your dog has been genetically modified.
It's called selective breeding, and has been around for quite a while.
Selective breeding of dogs involves using regular sexual reproduction and all the genes involved were in the dog species to start with.
However, with today's technology it is much less of a crap-shoot than it used to be. You can isolate and change a gene rather than stirring up a whole shitload of them and seeing what happens.
Actually it's even more of a crap-shoot, since you can't simply stick the gene you want into a dog's genome.
You stand a much better chance of getting a faster dog with genetic engineering, rather than a fast, stupid, blind dog as a result of too much inbreeding.
Making a fast dog probably involves many genes in the right combination. With all sorts of complex interactions with other genes. A much harder problem to solve with genetic engineering than simply making an organism produce one chemical.
First there weren't any genes jumping. The farmer raised the pharmaceutical corn last year for Prodigene. This year he planted soybeans into the field. Some of the corn seed from last year grew in the field this year as a weed. The farmers call it volunteer corn. The farmer received warnings from Prodigene's representative and the government that the volunteer corn must be eradicated. The last warning was less than a week before harvest. By the time the government checked back and learned the farmer wasn't in compliance the soybeans were at the elevator. The 500 bushels (3000 lbs) of soybeans were contaminated with 60 grams of corn stalks. Unfortunately they got mixed into a 500,000 bushel bin at the elevator. What we learned is that the government (believe it or not) actually did a good job of protecting our interests. Prodigene will buy the soybeans and they will be destroyed. Current use of biotech corn has reduced farmers use of insecticides by million of pounds. Pharmaceutical corn has the potential to greatly lower drug costs for seniors. Here's a URL from the Omaha Herald Here and another from the BIO organization Here Man Holmes
You planned to pick thru your bowl of soybeans and only eat the stray corn grains?? :)
Maybe if that GM corn was your only diet, it might be a significant amount. But even the most heavily-modified corn is still made of starch, oil, fibre, and several OTHER proteins. I'd expect only a tiny fraction to be trypsin (anyone got a percentage?)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You're right to be cynical, unfortunately you're being cynical about the wrong side in this debate. The truth is that Monsanto wanted to put in a "terminator" gene to control the spread of GMOs, but the luddite/green left screamed bloody murder. They claimed that Monsanto was using this as a cynical ploy to make third-world farmers dependent on GMOs, and then starve them to death unless they paid Monsanto. Fortunately they seem to be finally coming around to the realization that a Terminator gene is actually a good idea as a result of stories like this one.
While it's becoming clear that the headline is misleading and that we're actually talking about harvested crop mixing and not gene jumping, jumping is still a problem. I don't know about intra-species jumping, but two corn fields seperated by miles of Illinois flatland can definetly cross polinate. There are supposed to be "buffer zones" of soybeans or other plants around "special" corn, but those only work about 90% of the time. There is a definte chance for long distance cross-polination.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
A quick search on opensecrets.org shows that Anthony Laos has made numerous contributions to George Bush's political campaigns since 1994, and to other Republican campaign funds. Anyone who thinks Bush appointed him to BIFAD solely on the basis of agricultural expertise is simply naive.
Now why would he want to serve on such a board? To help consumers understand the issues? For the opportunity to push his company's products more widely into a market reluctant to embrace GM foods? For the opportunity to advise on the kinds of safeguards and constraints that should be imposed on companies developing such products?
Is it Bush-bashing or leftist psychobabble to raise such questions?
If it isn't true, don't say it. If it isn't helpful, don't say it. If it's true and helpful, wait for the right time.
...and it's meaningless. What does BIFAD do? You might have checked that out first, while we're following links...
t er.htm
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/freeman/board/char
As can be clearly seen, BIFAD is NOT an oversight board. They have NO power. All they do is advise the head of some other group on international food aid. I can think of no greater waste of time. And I'd rather have this organization be used for paybacks than something that isn't a figurehead position. Bush deserves credit for getting this Laos idiot out of the way, if anything.
This is obviously a political payback, where some irrelevant organization is created or filled with the intent of making contributors feel important while not having them actually do anything. This goes on all the time.
And if you want to talk wrong person for the job, I have a Jocelyn Elders for you...and that WASN'T a Bush appointee.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Giving a transgenic crop blanket immunity to a given insect or disease simply encourages said insect or disease to mutate into something potentially worse.
Vaccines do the same thing, aye, but not quite as quickly. There's a bit of a difference between 'stimulating the organisim's immune system to do what it would do anyway, only a bit more safely' and 'gengineering the organisim to produce a chemical that the beasties can then develop, in turn, an immunity to.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Is this corn that has contaminated the soybeans the same frankenfood that Zimbabwe rejected for fear it would be planted? I suspect so. I would reject it, too.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Is that after you get sick eating their contaminated food, they SUE you for appropriating their technology....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
This is just plain false, unless you know how to selectively breed a fish with a corn plant. It's ISN'T the same, and common sense should tell you so.
Using GM foods is a mistake for the simple reason that it narrows the gene pool of our food supply. When(not if) a blight attacks a weakness of the GM plants, if they are a majority of our supply, we're screwed, because the crop is homogenous. See: This article for a comprehensive article on the danger of GM crops being released in to the environment.
Missed one.
4. Remove governments that use starvation as a weapon against political rivals.
Caution is right. The genes didn't jump anywhere.
Both "news" stories are from an agenda-driven web site and read more like propaganda press releases than real news stores. Hemos was either asleep at the switch or has an axe to grind. Regardless, this is just nonsense.
I don't really understand the "I did this google search..." part of the post. Who was Bush supposed to appoint, some retard that can't read, spell, or understand simple plant cultivation? If there's a job with those requirements, "Anonymous Cowdog" should submit his resume & you could be his travelling secretary.
What part of 'science' includes a title like 'Drug Making Genes Added To Corn Jump To Soya' when referring to a story about a logistical mistake?
Here we have one crop, untested and whose long-term effects have never been fully studied, growing accidentially side-by-side with seed currently undergoing testing of the crop's potential long term effects.
It's these kinds of tactics that hide the weak underpinnings of the anti-GM rabble-rousing, which is not to be confused with informed debate. Posting this story in this fashion is as ethically valid as fighting corporatism by smashing a row of small shops. Such attempts to raise people's awareness of the problems undermines the very attempt to educate by clouding the issue with baseless accusations.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
OK, Just to clear this up a little bit.
/. editors put in a little addendum correcting the article submission a bit on that score. Its not that there's not legitimate cause for concern, but lets make sure that we've got the right concerns before we go off half-cocked. /.ers rightly complain about FUD coming from Wintel supporters. We should be equally careful not to spread unwarranted FUD regarding other subjects.
Cross-pollenation occurs between plants of the same species. Cross-pollentation is where the pollen of two different corn plants of two different lineages are intentionally introduced to each other. This is the same idea as people marrying somebody from the next town over, rather than their cousin.
The pollen of a corn plant, cannot, under any circumstances, land on a soybean flower and create a seed. Two different species cannot create viable offspring unless they are very closely related (where they produce a cross-species hybrid, such as a mule), and even then these offspring are always infertile.
Genetic Modification still has to follow the laws of biology. No matter what the source of the genes, you can't just put two species in close proximity and have genes cross from one to the other. You really do have to have all that spiffy lab equipment and clever people with test-tubes and droppers and microscopes and so forth.
The genes of the corn plants did not contaminate the soy.
So what's the fuss about? Well, those corn plants were producing diabetes and diahorrea drugs. These drugs are probably not something that you really want healthy people taking, as it could possibly have adverse effects. The soy was planted in feilds that contained the GM corn previously. A few of the seeds left over from the previous planting sprouted when the soy was planted. Now it is entirely possible that these corn plants could still be producing these drugs. This is relatively harmless in the wild where they won't be coming into contact with people, but when they're growing in the middle of food-plants, its possible the soy could absorb some of the drugs, simply due to their proximity. This is a legitimate concern, not becuase of some possible 'genetic contamination', but the more mundane but infinitely more plausible pharmecuetical contamination. You won't get soybeans that produce the chemicals themselves, but they might pick up the chemicals from the nearby corn.
The reason that the food manufacturers are upset about using food-plants for pharmaceuticals is that you don't want people eating corn that's been producing diabetes drugs. Eating a tortilla which messes with your insulin levels would be a Bad Thing. There's no reason these drugs couldn't be produced in, say, millet, which nobody on this continent eats as a food. Therefore, nobody accidentally takes drug-millet and makes cornbread from it, becuase nobody eats it anyway. You still wouldn't want to grow soy in that field the next season, though, for the reasons put forth above.
I'd kinda like to see the
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
It is the only reason! A lot of people could die because that dictator of the country want's to punish those that disagree with him. Just do a google search and you will see.
... definitely have to start growing my own food in my environmentally-sealed biosphere, real soon now. even getting "genetics-engineering-free" crops is no guarantee that pollen from one of these "genetics-engineering-full" fields has not been brought in by wind or carrier pigeon.
shouldn't the ante be on those producing this kind of crop to grow them in contained areas? or is it my responsibility to contain my crops to protect them?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Now I understand! Its like not expecting the ./ editors to have actual editing and research skills or like expecting the story submitters to actually read the story they are submitting. I bet that Anonymous Cowdog spent more time researching how he could blame Prez Bush with something than he did reading the story. His title and submission really suggest he didn't read much of the story.
If you want people that could have no possible conflict of interest involved in making the core decisions about how things are done, ( energy, agriculture, health and environmental policies), then they won't really be familiar with the subject. By familiar, I mean an intimate understanding of implementation from beginning to end ( delivery of service/product). Giving me the task of defining health care policy would be disasterous. It is very easy for someone to proclaim their understanding of a better way, but the decisions usually get handed to people that have proven they can follow through while the people that are mostly talk get left behind.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
The problem here is that genes normally don't transfer laterally among species, but the methodology of genetic engineering uses methods that encourage lateral transfer. The materials used to do this horizontal transfer in the lab don't all get dstroyed and can wind up in the wild.
If you haven't read "Mutant" by Peter Clement, do so. Genetic engineering is a nightmare waiting to happen. While "Mutant" is a fictional book, everything in it is quite possible, and I looked up everything in it at both the library in medical journals and online. Scary as hell, and the companies doing all the experimentation don't want you to know how dangerous it really is.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
It's not the Washington Post, it's a right-wing scandal sheet run by the Unification Church, aka The Moonies. Take what they say with a hefty pinch of salt.
High-tech introduces risk in several ways.
First, we may become very dependent upon the technology - like electricity and the combustion engine.
Second, the technology may be intricate enough to make safety procedures so complex that they will be difficult to describe closely enough that they be mandated. Furthermore, technology owners can also obscure the argument, since most people don't posess the knowledge to detect the bullshit being presented to them. Computer security is an example of this.
Third, insufficient oversight of dangerous technology is also a risk. Even though there are regulations, it may be expensive to enforce the rules, or the technology owners are the only ones capable of performing the oversight. I would say GM field trials MIGHT fall into this category - and that security in Microsoft products probably falls into this category.
Stop the brainwash
elakazal, I have to take issue with a lot of what you've said.
A: During the harvesting process, a certain amount of seed will be left behind. Seeds have a tendency to grow naturally, even when it's in violation of the EULA.
B: This happens because nature actually doesn't give a shit what the lawyers say. However, if your crop contaimnates my land, that creates a nuisance and waste of my property for which you are liable. You might be responsible for destroying my crops too.
C: A farmer in Canada was successfully prosecuted by Monsanto for growing their corn. He maintains it blew in from a neighboring farm. He lost. Google will tell you more, or I'm sure you can learn all about it elsewhere in this thread.
D: "Mr. Farmer, we're so sorry we had to sue you for inadvertantly using our technology (also known as corn.) Since you've already paid for it, feel free to begin using our Better Than Nature corn."
As the GMO product becomes more widely dispersed throughout the environment, there will evetually be no non-GMO stuff out there. Then, you will need an EULA for your lawn, and a special Monsanto Happy Tyke brand bowl for your GMO-corn flakes. Farmers will have to suscribe to Corn 6.0, which allows them the license to plant corn, but only for two years. Terms subject to change.
What mechanism exists for those who prefer non-GMO products to stem the tide? Lawyers and patents and evil corporations are co-opting the right to fucking put shit in dirt and make it grow.
We live in a dark age, we just can't see it for all the fluorescent lights in our cubicles.
Please dont sneeze on me, I dont want my children to have blue eyes !!!
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Given the gratuitous Bush-bashing toward the end of the article, the latter is the more likely conclusion.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
My real problem here is with the amazing jumping genes. Something that, if true, would certanly be both Nobel prize and Armagedon material. Imagine a self-adapting, species-neutral gene. Such a criter would quickly mold the whole planetary ecosystem to its image.
As for Bush, he is a faithful servant of the the big capital in general. If he is involved in this particular incident is irrelevant to the picture.
Yes, the facts are the Zimbabwe goverenment CLOSED many of its OWN FARMS down due to racial and financial ties. They caused thier own starvation. Of course there will be no revolution, the army gets the food first.
From the BBC link...
"in June, the United States gave 8,500 tonnes of maize to Zimbabwe but a further 10,000 tonnes was turned away by the government because it did not have a certificate saying that it was GM-free."
And the original poster did not state what country he was talking about. Both Zimbabwe and Zambia have refused aid.
Maybe it's because people have a history of overhyping 'bad' products so that people have a fear of them out of proportion to the risks.
That's a pretty poor excuse for suppressing information.
Why include nutrition information?
Why list ingredients at all?
People have a right to know what they put into their bodies, and then to make up their own minds, whether or not their decisions are based on logic or emotions.
Some people have an extreme allergic reaction to a substance in peanuts.
What happens if the gene that makes this substance is transplanted into corn?
(OK, this particular allergen is well known, so it's unlikely that this would happen in this particular case, but there are many, many allergens out there, in many different plants and animals.)
In addition, some people do not eat various types of plants or animals for ethical or religious reasons.
What happens when a pig gene is transplanted into other plants/animals?
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Turns up just a few pages.
Feeling lucky?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The article reads more like an Opinion piece than a scientific article. The paper contains no "proof", only scary statements and unprovable assertions. For example, the author writes: "...false assurances were made that "humans were not at risk."" Is the author accusing someone of lying? What proof is there? How does the author know? Statements such as "I was not surprised...", are found throughout. the article concludes with "All the risks...far outweigh any potential benefits." I'm glad Dr. Ho took the time to perform a full non-biased cost/benefit analysis. Or perhaps he's just stating an opinion here.
Additionally, more than half of the citations are written by the author of the paper. These citations are ones with obviously biased titles such as: "GM maize approved on bad science in the UK". Let me cite myself, and I could "prove" anything too!
Everytime I speak out against genetically altered foods the majority of the "scientific" community pass me off as a layman who's afraid of scientific advancement.
The bottom line is, there's some things in nature that we shouldn't mess with, because the potential consequences can be huge. We just can't know for sure how something may negatively affect us, and this story is a very small and isolated example of how things can go awry (and may have without us knowing). Decades of additional research and observation need to be completed before we can truely appreciate the complexity of the nature that we are altering.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Looks like they're also working on an edible AIDS vaccine (kinda makes sense, eat Tofu, enjoy free love!)
/. readers would take the safe food.
given the choice I think most
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Actually the FDA has said that the genetically modified crops aren't much different from none-GM crops. I agree that the article is bleak but so far I don't think the battle over GMO has a clear winner.
(The standard HIV test is for HIV antibodies, which would show positive if you've been vaccinated. The PCR test, which costs about $200, tests for the RNA of the HIV virus itself, so it wouldn't show a false positive.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
You can do a number if interesting things. Trees that produce more than one kind of fruit. Potato plants that sprout tomatoes. Curious cacti.
The technique has more than novelty value. In the late nineteenth century, a louse (phylloxera) was inadvertantly imported to Europe, and it loved to feast on the roots of the wine grape plant (vitis vinifera). We wouldn't have wines from France, or Germany, or Italy, if the viticulturalists of the day hadn't grafted some of the vinifera stalks on to roots of more phylloxera-resistant species. That's right--your glass of Pinot Noir is Frankenfood.
Grafting can go awry, however. There was an incident in Tennessee a number of years ago involving a farmer who wanted his tomatoes to better cope with early fall frosts. He grafted a tomato vine to a local weed. Voila--tomatoes later in the season. His neighbour thought it was a great idea and performed the same trick. Unfortunately, when he shared the fruits of his labour with his family, they all ended up in the emergency ward with high fevers and hallucinations.
It turns out that the plant to which both farmers had grafted their tomatoes was jimsonweed (datura stramonium) which produces psychoactive chemicals in its leaves. Because of different pruning practices, the second farmer's tomatoes contained a much higher concentration of the active ingredient, leading to the poisoning. For more details, consult The Medical Detectives, Berton Roueche, Plume, 1991).
Despite the risks of unpredicted reactions (even after centuries of use), grafting is an accepted and essential part of modern agriculture. We don't have angry demonstrators storming our grocery stores demanding the removal of foods and wine because grafting has been around so long. There may be small risks associated with GM foods--but because of intense public scrutiny, GM foods will be better characterized and more frequently tested than anything else on your plate.
Manufacturers will shy away from introducing obvious potential allergens (peanut proteins and the like, for example) to products for human consumption. Most GM crops are designed to be infertile anyway, severely limiting their spread.
Tempest in a teapot, people. Move along. The ethical sense of agribusiness can be questioned, but not their greed. Simply put, they're going to be damned careful about doing anything that might expose them to ruinously costly lawsuits.
~Idarubicin
Finding someone without a conflict of interest who also happens to be an expert in a field is more difficult than you allow. Scientists work for companies or research facilities. Policy experts generally work for think tanks. Companies, research facilities, and think tanks all eat government dollars, just in different ways.
By the way, your analogy serves this point as well. Are you saying that mechanics NEVER take advantage of clueless clientele? In some situations, the person who wants to sell you a new something versus repairing your old something will wind up costing you less money. Once again, it comes down the analyst, not their trade.
I saw millet for sale in a so-called "natural foods" store, in bulk, so I bought some. Boiled it up, ate it. Liked it.
Another "nobody eats that stuff" story I remember had to do with the arsenic level in the Wailoa river in Hilo, Hawaii ("the shortest river in the USA"). Techs found high levels of arsenic in the intestines of a certain kind of fish, but disregarded it because "nobody eats fish guts". But guess what? Filipinos call it "baloong".
"Twinkies are considered a delicacy in my country"
Because each label costs money and hassle and if they forget one somewhere they are open to lawsuits. It would be useless and make the products cost more.
GM foods are perfectly safe excepting the occassional plant that has been modified to have poison leaves and take over the planet (okay I admit watching Little Shop of Horrors to often). With all the things you live with that you know are dangerous what difference does that little extra risk really matter?
Any time I eat something I risk it could be bad and kill me. It could have came from a plant or animal with a disease, it could have came in contact with something along the way, the guy that handled the food could have got off masturbating in the bins. There are to many variables to be 100% safe.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
"Unbeknownst, even to its own employees, the company's massive profits are generated by: military research, genetic engineering, viral weaponry."
Anyone seen the Resident Evil movie?? Anyone else worried about ProdiGene being given a presidential sanction for its activities?? Anyone want to take a quick trip to Racoon City??
I will admit, I'm not much of an alarmist when it comes to this sort of thing, I generally believe that no one is organized enough to do things like create a real life version of the T-Virus, but this scares me. A company that specializes in genetic modification for pharmecutical purposes making an "error" like this.
The chains are broken
Loki is free
Ragnarok is at hand...
I was trying to think of how to argue against your assertion when it occured to me that potatoes are a ground crop. I was thinking "I don't believe many food plants flower underground", then it occured to me that food plants like potatoes are often cultivated from roots.
Duh.
Nitrifying bacteria that absorb the GM gene could conceivably remain long after the GM crop had been harvested. Successive *root* crops would have the potential of absorbing the GM gene. The next generation of <insert regional tuber of choice here>, if grown from that root stock, could potentially have flowers that carry the GM gene. When they release their pollen, they could then contaminate seed within their own species.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
The viruses/bacteria/liposomes that are created to be the vectors for the new gene could cause terrible harm if they were to find their way out into the wild. I disagree with the shoddy pseudoscience of /.'s Cliff Notes version of the referenced article, but there are significant, terrible dangers in the technology used to create genetically modified organisms.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
I'll go ahead and reproduce the e-mail verbatim. Make what you will.
2 &item=228 7
2 m l
Five hundred thousand bushels of soybeans in Nebraska have been
quarantined because the biotech company ProdiGene allowed
pharmaceutical-producing corn to contaminate the soybean harvest.
This incident reinforces the need for a strong regulatory system
overseeing pharm crops. Until a new system is in place, tell the USDA
that it should impose at least a one-year moratorium on field tests
and commercial production of engineered pharmaceutical and industrial
crops and seriously consider banning the use of engineered food crops
to produce drugs and chemicals.
Hit reply to send the letter below. If you'd like to edit this
letter, go to the UCS Action Center,
http://www.ucsaction.org/index.asp?step=
Additional information:
UCS November 13, 2002 press release
http://www.ucsusa.org/news.cfm?newsID=30
UCS Pharmaceutical crop report
http://www.ucsusa.org/pharm/pharm_open.ht
*
William T. Hawks
Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs
US Department of Agriculture
Whitten Building, Room 228-W
14th and Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20250
Dear Mr. Hawks:
I strongly urge the USDA to act on behalf of public health and halt
field trials and commercial production of genetically engineered
pharmaceutical and industrial crops for at least a year, until the
federal government has sought advice from the scientific community
and the public and has put in place a strong, transparent regulatory
system for ensuring that the food supply will not be contaminated by
these crops. The USDA should also seriously consider banning
engineered food crops for the production of drugs and industrial chemicals.
The recent revelation that pharm corn contaminated a half-million
bushels of soybeans heightens my concern that this industry is
outpacing the government's ability to control risks. The failure of a
leading biopharm company, Prodigene, to properly confine its
engineered corn confirms the vulnerability of the food supply to
contamination by drugs, vaccines, and industrial chemicals produced
in engineered food crops.
Yes, I am in the union of concerned scientists which is why I get these e-mails.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
They caused thier own starvation
Well, this makes sense if you assume that all people in Zimbabwe are actually one person starving him/herself, but the reality is that that nobody caused "their own" starvation - one group of people (the citizens) are the victims of the actions of another group of people (the corrupt government and the so-called "veterans" which take over the farms). The citizens did NOT "cause their own starvation", they are entirely victims, and we all need to remember this. The situation is precisely akin to that of the people (& especially the women) of Afghanistan. The "people of Afghanistan" did not "cause their own repression", they were victims of the actions of another group, the Taliban.
Comments like yours bother me only because they tend to provide contrived "rationalizations" for people who want to ignore the problem. Its an "easy out" for first-worlders who want to turn their backs, they convince themselves that those very same people brought their situations on themselves, in which case "its their own fault". But the fact is the victims in this did NOT bring the situation on themselves.
This is VERY different to an individual who brought a situation upon himself and now wants help, e.g. some beggar on the street who was lazy and dropped out of school and now can't get a job, or something. He "brought it upon himself". Its not the same, "Zimbabwe" is not an individual.
Note I'm not saying the first world has any obligation to respond, but just don't make oversimplistic BS justifications for why not to respond. Rather, just be honest about it and admit the truth, i.e. say "well we don't want to help because its just plain not our problem, if millions of people die of starvation, well, its not our problem, sorry". And its true, its "not your problem". If you don't want to help, fine. If you do want to help the victims, wonderful.
People often seem to use "it wasn't my/our fault" as a reason/excuse why they're not going to help another person. You hear the same sort of thing all the time here from young white South Africans: "I had nothing to do with apartheid, so why should I lift a finger to help the blacks". This has begun to seem like a silly excuse to me. I had nothing to do with apartheid either, but I don't see why that should somehow *prevent* me from wanting to help uplift these people (by giving up my time to help provide them with better educations etc). If they don't want to help others , fine, but I wish they'd be honest about their reasons: that they just don't give a shit.