Slashdot Mirror
Judge Rejects Approval of Engineered Sugar Beets
countertrolling writes "A federal judge has ruled that the government failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of genetically engineered sugar beets before approving the crop for cultivation in the United States. The decision could lead to a ban on the planting of the beets, which have been widely adopted by farmers. Beets supply about half the nation's sugar, with the rest coming from sugar cane. The Agriculture Department did conduct an environmental assessment before approving the genetically engineered beets in 2005 for widespread planting. But the department concluded there would be no significant impact, so a fuller environmental impact statement was not needed. But Judge White said that the pollen from the genetically engineered crops might spread to non-engineered beets. He said that the 'potential elimination of farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food' constituted a significant effect on the environment that necessitated an environmental impact statement. There's still hope, isn't there? That we can at least get this stuff labeled properly?"
I believe you are confusing organic, food grown without pesticides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food, with genetically un-modified foods.
Except that the latest crops are now patented. If someone's crops get pollinated with the patented strain, even unintentionally just by wind from a neighboring field, then he can be sued by the inventor and subjected to license fees.
Not even the summary says anything about end product safety. The concern is environmental impact, which has nothing to do with what the beets are eventually turned in to.
There have been reported cases of Horizontal gene transfers caused by viruses and bacteria in Nature.
Some genes are thought to be transferred across plant/fungi/animal boundaries by certain pathogens.
Granted it takes a log time for such gene transfers to contribute to useful attributes for the target organism.
But this discovery of Naturally occurring Horizontal gene transfer is causing some issues in Molecular evolutionary genetics.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Well, sort of. I myself think all of the anti-GMO crap is BS fear mongering. Having said that, Monsanto is run by a bunch of assholes. They created the terminator corn, that sought to protect their " intelectuall property" by creating corn that wasn't fertile. So you couldn't grow corn, harvest it and then plant the seeds for another crop. ( Note they did remove it from the market place over widespread criticism. )
From Monsanto's perspective, growing corn from seed that was grown from their seed is theft. You do not have the "right" to plant that. You must buy new seed from Monsanto.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Actually, the main complaint against Monsanto is that they sue you if you save the seeds from your GM crops, they sue you if you operate a seed-preservation business (whether it's for GM crops or not), and they sue you if seeds from GM crops make their way into your fields, as plants often do naturally.
In short, they're patent-wielding litigious bastards. If their position wasn't opposite that of environmentalist, Slashdot readers would be on the anti-Monsanto bandwagon like white on rice.
Secondary complaints are that their safety and environmental impact studies are suspect. These studies are fairly important when you're performing drastic biological change in a small number of generations. (Non-GM plant engineers do the same sorts of studies, but when the term "GM" is added, suddenly it's unfair government regulation.) They're also creating a significant risk of destroying genetic diversity, made worse by the fact that they own patents controlling the genotypes that are hedging out the others. Crop genetic diversity isn't just important in some hippie "plant multiculturalism" sense -- it's important if you plan on your children being able to eat in the future.
Do we really have the confidence in our understanding of genetic mechanisms to rule out harmful side-effects?
Turn that question around: What are the side effects of non-GMO crops? How do you know that this mushroom is safe to eat, and not that one? It's very simple: people tried them, and they discovered that this particular type made them sick and die. At least GMOs get tested for this in a lab before they're released into the environment.
Keep in mind that with GMO crops you're taking two things: corn and chrysanthemum, for example, and pasting them together to create corn with a borer-resistant root. It's not like that mix is going to result in corn that grows gills and glows in the dark. So you test the corn that comes out, and if there's no permethrin in the kernels, what difference does it make to you in the food chain? None.
The radical greens who try to scare people about GMOs play upon people's gullibility. They want us to not understand that we animals don't merge with the DNA of the foods we eat. Our stomach acids break the cells down, and our bodies collect and use only the raw nutrition components. If it didn't work this way, eating a cow could give you hooves, or eating corn might make a tassel grow out of your head. For those bits of food where the digestion process opens the cell walls, the same digestion process breaks up the DNA into amino acids. The undigestible bits come out the other end.
I do agree that the Terminator gene is as evil as DRM, but from a humanity/political point of view, not from a scientific view.
John
Call me a "green" if you wish but lab results on some of the genetically modified food have shown stomach cancer in lab rats. You think this federal judge ruled against the crop without any reason at all?
If you want a ton of specifics (just too many to list here) about GM food and it's health effects, there's a good documentary (which also covers how farmers get screwed) call "The Future of Food" located at TheFutureOfFood.com.
I suggest you read your own link. "Organic" labelling does not just mean "without pesticides", it also usually includes "not genetically modified".
Unless you happened to live in California for a few years in the 1990s you've never tasted a genetically modified tomato (and I understood they sold quite well during that time).
Unless you were at one point a grad student who engineered them yourself (or worked in a lab with someone who did) you've never tasted a GM strawberry.
If I'm wrong please point me toward where I can buy the GM seed for either of those.
For the record the only GM fruit or vegetable anyone will probably encounter right now would be a papaya from Hawaii engineered to resist papaya ring spot virus, as GM papayas were introduced after ring spot virus decimated the conventional papayas.
The case you're thinking of involved a farmer who specifically gathered cross pollinated rapeseed and selectively bred them for the Monsanto gene. He wasn't sued for genetic drift.
Oh, and linking to hulu is a real jerk move. They block non-Americans.
Direct insertion of DNA sequences from other species is different to breeding and selection.
End of story.
Beginning of story, actually.
Viruses are not precisely reliable. They'll frequently inject genetic material into a cell but then the reproductive phase will fail. This can cause cancer, various metabolic faults in the cell including immediate cell death, or frequently nothing at all because the genetic material will usually remain inert. Usually it's nothing to worry about because it's just one cell.
But what if the cell is a reproductive cell that turns into a zygote, forming an embryo? What'll happen is that the viral DNA will get replicated into every cell in the embryo --- including the embryo's own germ cells. This means the change will breed true. Viral DNA has now part of the animal's bloodline. It's rare, but it happens --- and the viral genetic material may not stay inert; it's frequently coopted and used. Apparently it's fairly well proven that the genetic sequence that protects babies from the immune systems of their mothers was stolen in this way from a retrovirus like HIV.
But this also works in reverse. A virus can attack a cell, reproduce, and accidentally scoop up host DNA. Now the animal's genetic material has entered the viral bloodline (as it were).
Add the two together, and what do you get? A mechanism for directly inserting DNA sequences from one species to a totally unrelated species. And it's all completely natural.
It's called horizontal gene transfer.
That's just animals. Plants are even worse --- they're extremely lax about cellular security, and will happily swap genetic material with organisms nearby. If you look on the verges of fields planted with a pesticide-resistant crop, you can frequently find unrelated weeds that have become pesticide resistant themselves; they've snapped up the useful genetic sequences from the crops nearby. I don't know if they've found the mechanism for this yet --- anyone know?
[CITATION NEEDED]
That's right, ooh scary - GMO's are a bit scary. No human safety tests were done - ever. Were all just supposed to trust the warm an fuzzy Monsanto would never sell us anything bad. It's just the company who made agent orange.
Now that studies are being done, GMO's are shown to cause increased allergenicity, as well as other problems:
"Animal studies consistently indicate serious health risks associated with GM food, including infertility, immune system dysfunction, organ damage, and increased mortality. Smith warns, "The only published human GMO feeding study confirmed that genes from the genetically engineered foods transfer into intestinal bacteria of humans and that these genes continue to function."
Sounds like you are talking about hothouse vegetables and fruits grown out of season or ones from another region that are picked well before ripening to increase shelf life. As stated in another reply these are not GM crops.
Said, "It's just like dice but it's got more sides And it tells me who lives and who dies"
King Corn
Food Inc.
The Omnivore's Dilemma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#As_plaintiff
Fructose is a monosaccharide and is derived primarily from glucose extracted from corn. While there are natural sources of fructose, corn isn't one of them.
To a certain point, this is feasible, but generally manufacturers don't just stick to one single strain GM crop. In one of my classes back in college we discussed Monsanto and some other GMO manufacturers in the US. While they did develop strains that were more prominent than others, theywere continually working to create new strains so that this precise scenario would NOT occur. If I were a farmer, though, I would ensure that I was not using the same GM corn that all of my neighbors were, just to make sure that this didn't happen to me.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Look, he wasn't caught because Monsanto was rooting around testing people's crops. He was caught because Monsanto noticed he was buying vast quantities of Roundup, which was weird. Further investigation revealed the farmer was spraying Roundup indiscriminately over his crop.
Now, if your crop doesn't have the Roundup Ready gene, spraying it with Roundup kills it. So this farmer knew that the crop he was planting was all Roundup Ready. Then when he was caught, he then made up a cock-and-bull story about inadvertent contamination in hopes that he could avoid the legal consequences of deliberately, intentionally, and systematically violating Monsanto's patent.