Genetic Engineers Barking Up the Wrong Trees?

Rick the Red writes "In a commentary titled 'Genetic engineering for better suburbia', Vincent Barnes says, 'Cures for diseases and feeding the world with genetically modified foods is well and good but the real money is in solving the problems of homeowners, the vast silent majority of Americans who toil away every spring and summer fighting pests and every fall injuring their backs and falling off ladders.' Should Monsanto bring us designer maples that don't shed leaves? Would you buy designer grass that grows two inches and stops? Even if you won't eat GM food?"

Comments

Not if its patented

[argoff]

The problem isn't genetic technology, it is who controlls genetic technology. If you get rid of that unhealthy controll (PATENTS!), then lots of good things will happen with it naturally.

I don't have a problem with uning genetic technology for anything, what I have a problem with is that if someone controlls a specific piece of genetic technology - then they have a strong incentive to push/impose it even if it is not in my best interest. People are what they hold themselves accountable to, if Acme company has a patnet on a technology that sucks - they will push that technology even if they have the capability to make something far safer or better - that's just the way it is in a patent world. You can see this hapening in the pharmacutical industry all the time nowdays.

Genetic Marketing

[Doc Ruby]

Genetic engineering is just like any other engineering: companies promise features, features, features, and ignore the bugs. GM's fundamental bugs, like proliferation, unintended consequences, ecosystem competition and unknown risks, have never been adequately addressed. The difference is that this engineering is messing with our ecosystem, upon which all life, especially ours, depends. We can't just roll back from a failed rollout. More GM marketing, rather than science to eliminate those risks, shows that the danger is just increasing.

Re:No

[Bastian]

The problem with the Terminator Gene is that there was talk of (and specimens of) versions of it where the plants that have it cannot produce offspring on their own, but they can cross-pollinate with plants that do not have the gene to produce offspring that do have the gene.

The plan was that you could introduce plants with the gene in an area, let nature do its thing, and suddenly have all the farmers in the area be forced to buy seed from you every year instead of using seed from last year's crop.

Yes, Monsanto has publicly said they will never release their sterile-seed technology to the market, but only after major international outcry, the fact that they even gave this plan serious consideration, let alone fleshed it out and let the world know they were thinking it, shows that there are some exceptionally evil people at the controls of that corporation.