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Publicly Funded GMO Research Facing Destruction In Italy
ChromeAeonium writes "Shortly after the events in Rothamsted Research in the UK, where a publicly funded trial of wheat genetically engineered to repel aphids was threatened by activists with destruction and required police protection, another publicly funded experiment involving genetically engineered crops faces possible destruction (original in Italian). The trial, which is being conducted by researchers at the University of Tuscia in Italy on cherries, olives, and kiwis genetically engineered to have traits such as fungal disease resistance, started three decades ago. When field research of GE plants was banned in Italy in 2002, the trial received an extension to avoid being declared illegal, but was denied another in 2008, and following a complaint from the Genetic Rights Foundation, now faces destruction on June 12th, despite appeals from scientists. The researchers claim that the destruction is scientifically unjustifiable (only the male kiwis produce transgenic pollen and their flowers are removed) and wish to gather more information from the long running experiment."
If you are genitically modifying crops they MUST be kept isoated from nature and ensure that they cannot contaminate conventional or organic farms with patented gene. Sealed greenhouse whatever. IF you can accomplish that then carry on and label your product as such.
(only the male kiwis produce transgenic pollen and their flowers are removed)
Until a single seed gets away, then the cat is out of the box.
Then there's the human factor. If anthrax can get out of controlled labs, I'm quite sure that pollen or seeds can get out that way too.
GE/GMO should have never happened in the first place, i don't care about the so called good reasoning.
they're doing it on everything except for good reasons (feeding Africa? yeah kiwi's and mango's are a real important food source over there...)
and then there is all the animal testing on the safety which are pretty much 80% negative...
male kiwis produce transgenic pollen
In NZ, "kiwis" are only either the people (New Zealanders) or the birds, but never the kiwifruit plants! Very confusing...
/MC
their trying to stop something to HELP humanity what noobs they need to learn to get with the times we live in a world of science and magic now its not the dark ages
i bet the people angling to have these crops destroyed also count amongst their concerns fighting hunger, alternative fuel sources, better nutrition, fighting pollution, water conservation, etc.
all of which can be achieved through genetic engineering
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The anti GMO lobby needs to get with the program. GMO is a reality. You can't oppose it. You can moderate it. But it's happening.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The West rejects some research, so find a welcoming alternative.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's cool activists... Monsanto will continue doing their research, with armed guards protecting their facilities, then they'll patent it and spend the next 100 years getting a nickle every time you eat.
Good work with that.
My kingdom for a donkey!
It's not only the US that's full of fucking idiots.
the 'green revolution' of pesticides and fertilizer did not end hunger. hunger is not caused by a lack of supply , but by the distribution methods. many countries that experience starvation are also experiencing brutal wars, dictatorships, lack of civil society, property rights, etc etc etc. afghanistan, for example, from 1979 to the present. they had to set aside things like crops and farming so that they could grow opium and fight a proxy war on behalf of the two the superpowers.
then there is the fact that most costs of food nowdays in places like the US go to marketing, and 'value added' stuff like freezing, dehydrating, processing, and otherwise repackaging basic wheat, corn, soy, etc, into pizza rolls, snack chips, etc etc.
for speaking their mind about issues of the day, the use of their land + water, etc etc etc.
If the activists had real knowledge of what these fruits needed protection from, they might give this a second thought. There are a lot of things happening that concerns the welfare of vegetation worldwide. They (activists) may need to do their own research before they destroy this. If certain factors are amped up which affect the weather and components of the chemical makeup of rainfall, they may regret this action. Its very secretive, still there is more than ample knowledge available concerning this.
Who knew aphids had such rabid fans?
Italians have voted to not do this. They're tired of US corporations like Monsanto pushing them around. Actually, the US with the push of its power elite was heavily involved in fixing elections and installing a puppet government in Italy, and then making sure that government couldn't be tossed out once it was in. Now Italian workers are told they have to suffer under "austerity" (for them) and be ruled by foreign banks and foreign corporations.
Good for Mario Capanna and company. The Italians democratically voted this in, I have no desire for the Monsantos of the world to find some way to weasel around this. What does Monsanto do anyhow? Create plants with sterile seeds, so Monsanto can then grab all of the farmer's money? Sue farmer's whose fields are next to Monsanto seed fields, alongside the blowing winds, and get the courts and government's to side with them against small farmers?
The antiquated, anti-enlightenment ideas are not the working people and small farmers trying to protect themselves against a small handful of parasites trying to take ownership of everything. The backwards, antiquated ideas are the corporate newspapers and websites who attack anyone against against handing the whole world on a plate to the parasite heir Monsanto majority shareholders. In Italy, in Greece, in Spain, at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy everywhere, people are fed up with the high unemployment, and the expropriation of surplus value from the majority of working people to a handful of parasitic 1% heirs. This Monsanto GM IP deal is no different than the big companies in IT who own all the patents and are parasitically suing everyone around, and harming economic growth.
A major problem that isn't generally discussed is the pests and diseases don't just cry uncle and move on to non commercial food sources. The problem is evolution kicks in and they get resistant. They are already finding it in some GMO crops. Ultimately the pest and diseases get tougher so they potentially are even more damaging to traditional crops while GMO crops go back to the drawing board. It's very similar to what is happening with antibiotic resistant diseases. It's very much like the old cold war where each side builds bigger weapons. Eventually one side looses and I doubt it'll be nature. The problem is if we loose this war billions potentially starve. Basically all staple crops are being genetically modified so the entire food supply is at risk. I know the belief is science always solves every problem but the antibiotic analogy proves that isn't the case. There are now many incurable strains of diseases with no solution on the horizon. Do we really want to go through the same nightmare with food? It'll take 20 pr 30 years for us to be in the same position with food production but by then it will be far too late. If you don't believe it's happening in GMO crops do some web searches.
Anti-GMO is anti science. You GMO haters might as well become creationists and start going to anti-vaccination meetings. I know you THINK you arrived at your precious conclusion via reason, but, seriously, you are way the fick off base here and well into woo territory. Try getting some information from a source that isn't some batshit insane ideological morass.
Anti Science precautionary principle ecofreaks are a REAL threat to human prosperity and possibly to hman survival. If there wre ever an arguement for imposing the eath panalty, it would be against those dangerous idiots. Perhaps the crops could have a gene added that releases cynanide gas if anyone attempts to harm the crops? Love to see it.
I kind of think this is an example of a first world problem...
In the not too distant future the earth will reach its carrying capacity with regard to non-GMO food production, and then we'll have an entirely different ethical problem on our hands -- shall we allow dark skinned babies die of starvation even though we'll have the ability to produce more than enough food if we use GMO? Will we be so high minded then as to mix GMO and non-GMO food together so that we're all playing Russian roulette together? I doubt it. We'll ship millions of tons of GMO to poor countries, and we'll keep "the good stuff" for North America and Europe no doubt. We are a disgustingly short-sighted and greedy species... barely evolved beyond cannibalism frankly.
That is, of course, true. The only thing that will end hunger is if everyone lives in a free open democratic country with a decent market economy and a government that actually cares about its people, with decent education, healthcare, infrastructure, ect. Obviously, hunger is a complex social issue and a scientific solution isn't going to change the root cause of the problem. However, it is not a binary choice between GMOs will save the world vs GMOs are no help. Improved genotypes, be they transgenic drought tolerant traits or viral resistance traits, or conventionally bred traits (I follow some very fascinating research that seeks to alter the internal structure of roots and the overall architecture of the roots to improve nutrient uptake), can help people. They won't solve every problem, but look at it this way: assume you are a poor sustenance farmer in Africa where your soils are poor (phosphorus is a problem). Would you want the improved root genotype? Or maybe BXW is going to wipe out the banana crop you rely on, even if it doesn't fix all your problems, would you rather have a GE banana resistant to BXW or lose your crop? Improved crops, GE or otherwise , are no silver bullet (and I'd add biodiverse underutilized crops to the list of things of great importance...the amount of research in that field is so stupidly low it is quite frankly dangerous), but lets not forget that does not imply they are without a role, and most likely a significant one, to play in ending hunger and improving agriculture in general.
frankly we have ZERO idea what those extra strands of alien DNA are gonna do long term.
First, these sequences, they're not alien DNA, they just come from different species. Alien is a technically correct but way-over-the-top term. Please don't use it. If you must, use "foreign" DNA or some such.
Second, we know exactly what these strands are going to do : they're going to evolve and adapt to their environment, just like any other gene. They're no more scary that any other piece of DNA that's loose in nature, in other words, they're no more scary than any other part of nature. Which is to say, they're somewhere between terrifyingly dangerous, like h1n1, and a puppy. But they're no different from any other piece of DNA.
Third, and this one really makes your argument fall apart, humans are not the only ones doing cross-species DNA recombination. And we're not all that good at it compared to our competition at all. Meet the dangerous GMO experimenters that having been pulling a Monsanto for about 3 billion years, maybe more. They're, as the article shows, not doing this randomly, but with the express purpose of preventing the treatment of lethal diseases (which is what nature is trying to do to us). They're also very good at it.
In other words, it's not monsanto that's dangerous, nor their competition, nor is the spreading of a infinitesimal amount of genes in any way dangerous, nor the spreading of large amounts of DNA. It's world-travel, the fact that the world is connected, without millions of totally uncrossable natural obstacles. Tolerance and travel is what's destroying the varieties present in the human species, and import/export is doing the exact same thing to every other species. If you aren't prepared to live your life as a scared medieval peasant, self-sufficient, never even to see products made further away than the next city, and extremely unlikely to ever cross the nearest mountain he/she can see from his home, the only hope we have to survive in the long term as a global group of humans, is to keep outsmarting evolution. The only hope we have, is GMO.
Mind you, I'm not denying that patents on GMO genes are a horribly bad idea, as nature will simply not obey the law, no matter how self-important humans feel. Frankly, this is something I appreciate about "extremists" : they accept that they will bend to the will of the "nature" of the universe. Even if I don't agree with their views of the universe, it is refreshing to see people capable of appreciating that their world is not what they want it to be. In this way, of course, someone like Richard Feynman is far more extremist than most extremist Christians, and he too would have had very little tolerance for this whole attitude of "science is bad", propagated by people the vast majority of which cannot solve a simple equation, and who, of course, do not see the problem in defending ideas without data or theory behind them.
Frankly, you're little better than the original "gaia" worshippers who locked people into huge wooden puppets and set them on fire to appease nature. Except of course, that if you ever get listened to, far greater numbers of people will die.
It somehow fails to amaze me that, like every other party, the greens are the very opposite of what they claim to be, just like there's nothing republican about the republicans, just like there is hardly a trace of democracy in the democrats.
I am for scientific research and GMO, but please stop spreading the lie / misinformation that adding gene from a totally different genera, is like hybridization. Yes plant hybridize readily, it is know and what game us for example the limequat. But there is no way to hybridize a fish with a plant, a feat which can be done with general genetic modification. And even between plant some of gene transfer discussed would not ever happen because they can't cross polinize even with human help. There is enough idiot making stuff up against GMO without having people adding more lie in an attempt to defend them.
Would it be possible maybe to "save" some of the research by de-planting the tree and replanting them in a more friendly country ? Maybe crowd source it ? I would not mind to pass a few day in italy doing hard work for science, with a shovel.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
All it will do for aphids is breed hyper-resistant variants. Nature works around obstructions.
on dumpster diving.
There is your data.
Remember: every single piece of data is anecdote, and therefore data IS a collection of multuple anecdotes.
Weird. You fluffers go on about transgenic hybridisation (which isn't pollination and fertilisation) having happened for tens of thousands of years, yet here you are saying that because they don't produce fertilisable pollen, there's no way for the modification to get spliced into the normal population.
Really weird disconnect going on here.
Do we have any better feasible option than to require the use of greenhouses to reduce unlicensed pollination? I don't think that "you can be sued by a big corporation because of something perfectly legal your neighbor did" is a state we should put farmers in.
I believe we should switch to completely indoors farming with artificial lighting, thus saving the land area, saving energy otherwise spent on agricultural mechanization, saving nutrients and water (excess captured and reused) and making all environmental variables, such as temperatures, light spectrum, O2 and CO2 atmospheric content completely controlled, and turning the whole year into a continuous harvest time. GM could then be applied on the factory floor and develop breeds optimized for growing in factories, e.g. small stalks and resistance to infective diseases that could hit closely packed plants.
Or cut down on population. Which is doable without resorting to war or murder (but, I repeat myself). Put the money into sex ed uncontaminated by religion, free prophylactics, and rewards for not having children. Positive reinforcements, not negative like China did.
There is no global overpopulation. Some places (such as Japan) are already experiencing population aging and decline, which is bad in many ways. Other places (such as the USA and specially Europe) already have sub-replacement fertility rates, and their population only grows because of demographic lag and immigration. It is predicted the the European Union population (now at 503M) will reach zero natural population increase by 2015 and zero total population increase in 2035 (at 520M), then start declining.
The USA will grow from 310M in 2010 to 403M in 2050. [1]
Asia will increase from 4.2B in 2010 to 5.1B in 2050, then start declining. [2]
The only region that is really growing is Africa. It will increase from 1B in 2010 to 2.2B in 2050. [2] Then its population density will be 67/km2. [3] Compare that to the current population density in Portugal (115/km2), in South Korea (487/km2) and in Taiwan (641/km2). [4]
Global population is predicted to grow from 7B in 2011 to 9B in 2050 and 10B in 2100 [5] and start falling soon after [6].
And according to [7], 40-50% of America-produced food is thrown away. According to [8], 1/3 of the world food is thrown away.
And this does not take into account that people eat, just for pleasure, excessive quantities of resource-intensive food (such as meat). If Americans/Europeans want to help the poor, an easy way would be to decrease (say, by 30%) their diet of meat. This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity. And much arable land is wasted on subsidized inefficient corn-based ethanol. You can lobby your government to stop that.
Plus, there does not seem to be a negative correlation between population density and GDP per capita. [9]
African hunger is not caused by overpopulation. It is caused by corrupt and authoritarian governments, and by guerrillas/terrorists motivated by Marxism, Islamism, ethnic hate or simply greed.
Overpopulation fear-mongering is very old - at least as old as Malthus. One of its more recent incarnations was the 1968 book "The Population Bomb", which predicted mass starvation to occur in the 1970s.
Anyway, for better or for worse, there is already strong action taken by individuals, foundations, and Western governments, to restrict fertility in Africa.
1 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_11.htm
2 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_2.htm
3 : According to [2], Africa will have 2.2B people in 2050, and according to Google[10] and Wikipedia [11], the area of Africa is 30,221,532 km2
4 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density
5 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_1.htm
6 : esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Analytical-Figures/htm/fig_6.htm
7 : http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=56376-us-wastes-half
8 : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/
9 : http://sanamagan.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/population-population-density-gdp-per-capita-ppp/
10 : https://www.google.com.br/search?q=africa+area
11 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
are funded by monsanto