Slashdot Mirror
Majority of EU Nations Seek Opt-Out From Growing GM Crops
schwit1 writes: Nineteen EU member states have requested opt-outs for all or part of their territory from cultivation of a Monsanto genetically-modified crop, which is authorized to be grown in the European Union, the European Commission said on Sunday. Under a law signed in March, individual countries can seek exclusion from any approval request for genetically modified cultivation across the 28-nation EU. The law was introduced to end years of stalemate as genetically modified crops divide opinion in Europe. The requests are for opt-outs from the approval of Monsanto's GM maize MON 810, the only crop commercially cultivated in the European Union, or for pending applications, of which there are eight so far, the Commission said.
It's not about science. It's also about the stupid IP stuff that comes with it.
At least our anti-science hystericals aren't succeeding that wildly at anti-science legislation. Our successes are much more "pork for me, not for you" style victories.
It only applies to the evil kind.
The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to do with the way in which profits are derived from GM. The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependancy on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.
What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness. What that means is that not only do consumers of GM products become dependant on the product, but the producer is able to sustain an indefinite monopoly of it.
This isn't about science. Never was. It's about becoming Monsanto's bitch and not being able to do anything about it.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
We'll see all the usual "you're anti-science!" strawman arguments flung around here, I'm sure. A lot of us (my self included) happen to think the science is sound.
My beef is I don't like how Monsanto behaves, and I don't want to (knowingly) spend my money purchasing a product they might profit from.
And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.
There will be a move to ban pork soon too.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Their loss is our gain.
As it is we pay farmers to waste land. No need for GM.
While GM applied properly could lead to crops that can be grown in otherwise difficult places to grow anything, allowing local production of food in places that need it.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Yeah, i think that in order to save the planet, we need to embrace GMO, and leave Monsanto and the like dying in a ditch. No patents on living organisms, and only sustainable farming practices (like the crop rotation we figured out centuries ago) should receive any subsidies. If you plant corn year after year after year, you're on your own.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The headline says "crops". The articles specifies one crop (MON 810). Adjust your level of outrage/rejoicing accordingly.
It's only a thin line if you want to be a facetious ass and make it one. Genetically modified crops are just that, They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM. Adding the DNA from a jellyfish to a potato pant, just to make it glow when thirsty, is.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I'll bet not. I'll bet it's driven by the frankenfood oh noes folks, who are themselves interested in power and selling books.
In any case, if it's not frankenfood fears, it's genetic diversity fears. If not that, fear of lawsuits by Monsanto of poor farmers whose seed got tainted.
A prediction: And if not that, something else.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As opposed to the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc. Clearly you've never interacted with a real farmer, and are entirely ignorant of how your food is produced. Farmers buy GM seeds because it makes economic sense. No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time. When GM seeds first came out, most farmers only planted a portion of their fields with them to see how they'd work out. The next year, most switched over almost entirely. Farmers can do math, and the math for GM crops works well for most.
They're crops that have had their DNA altered with DNA from other species. Cross pollinating a grapefruit with a tangerine to make a tangelo is not GM.
That's exactly what a GMO is... Or did the grapefruit and tangerine have consensual relations to get that tangelo? Humans have been genetically altering crops for thousands of years.
Soon we will all be drinking Brawndo, all the crops will be dead, and the only water available to the entire planet will be floating in toilets.
Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.
When all non-GM seeds end up with genes from Monsanto's GM crops, Monsanto will own the legal right to the food chain.
You can't pay, you starve.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market. Without a patent then anyone will grow some of your seeds and then sell them next year to compete with your seeds and they had to do none of the work.
If you want to replace this system you must come up with an alternative.
No patents on living organisms would also screw over the biotech industry. What if I make a new tumor supressor gene from scratch that is better than any human gene and would 100% prevent cancer. As soon as I treated the first person someone would just have their DNA read and find the sequence and sell it without doing any of the R&D.
I understand not liking patents on living things but if you want technology developed our current economic system required a profit motive and without that motive the technology won't be created. This is not like computer programming where a few people on no budget can do amazing work and change things. This stuff is insanely expensive and hard to do. Reaction ingredients alone would bankrupt most people.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
you spew in ignorance, scientific testing would make a valid argument for or against GMO
already there are studies pointing to problems with Monsanto's corn
Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
You are wrong, Monsanto does use methods of questionable safety, such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic. Any normal person seeing the mutant plants would be horrified. You are the anti-science one, you claim Monsanto's methodologies and products are harmless without a shred of proof. You shill in ignorance
The problem includes GM by methodologies such as Monsanto employes, obviously it is at least possible to alter DNA of something to make it harmful to humans, but the pro-Monsanto shills here would deny that possibility of such a problem should even be subject to testing. The are the ignorant anti-science shills, calling for blind faith in a mega-corporation that buys laws and seeks to take control of the food supply. How vile and evil, without a concern for human well being.
Patents are an inefficient way of funding research of any kind, which might have made sense 200 years ago, but is complete nonsense today. Just fund this research directly. Most of the discoveries happen with government funding in university labs anyway, we just allow companies like Monsanto to steer it into more profit driven direction and make money off of it.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.
The US patent system is no more and no less broken than the European patent system. In fact, intellectual property laws were largely created in Europe and imposed on the US. Now that US corporations are successful at using them, Europeans whine and complain, while still having the same or more draconian laws at home.
Whether a farmer becomes "Monsanto's bitch" or not is a choice any farmer can make individually, the same way you decide whether to buy an iPhone or an Android phone, run Windows or Ubuntu, etc.
No, what really bugs you is that Europe is highly dependent on US high tech manufacturers and products, and that the European economy and agriculture would collapse if the US stopped supplying Europe with these products.
mutating plants with radiation
That's not what GMO is.
That's what organic is.
So, ugly plants are unsafe? Interesting theory you have there. Any, you know, actual evidence that this is so?
Because otherwise, it sounds like you're, what's that phrase, "shilling in ignorance" as well....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I have farmers in my family. I've, -er-, interacted with farmers from Nebraska, Ukraine, Nepal, India, UK, Germany, Holland and France.
Many of the farmers have used hybrids, sure. Many of them have decided against using hybrids for exact the same reason that they don't want to choose GM seeds. Some have heirloom crops that they are very proud of. Not all.
Some of the farmers I've talked with hate the other dependancies that you mention - pesticides are a pain, and farming legislation is increasingly tough. But there are choices, and there is competition. You have an idea about what your spend will be, you know what the current environmental risks are for your own farm, and you can do something about that. GM grain sells poorly in Europe. Legislation requires that, when used as ingredients, all GM crops are labelled as such, so that the consumer can make a choice. Blame an incredibly bad PR department from Monsanto if you wish, but GM has a truly bad reputation in the consumer sector of Europe.
You state that 'most' farmers switched over entirely to GM crops within the second year of using them. The USDA disagrees. In the USA, its true that most (ie, over 50%) soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola are GM crops. but that's it. GM is a choice, yes. But actually there's a far greater move towards premium value crops in EU - such as the organic market, which is high risk, but very high reward. The reward is so high that it covers a bad year without difficulty. What may surprise you is that EU consumers will prefer a small non-uniform non-hybrid organic vegetable to a beautful, big, bouncy GM one.
So, why was MON 810 barred from some countries? It's yet another Bt maize, so what's the fuss?
Wickson and Wynne suggest that debates over the quality of science for policy in the case of MON810 are inherently shaped by unstated normative commitments and value judgments. Finally, they argue that for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
It has less to do with the Science of GMO and potential issue that my come with the new combo of genes. It has more to do with the Patent on a core food and even more to do with pesticides.
GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.
love the taste, hate the texture
monsanto can easily buy the governments of 19 nations. the problem is not gmo, it's about cash flow.
Prof Trewavas said the GM plants would be removed before the main crop was harvested so there was no danger of them being eaten.
He said: 'These "watchers" are planted at the same time as the crop in the same field but in a different area and regularly monitored for signs of dehydration. He added that because potatoes are tubers they do not cross fertilise using flower pollination and therefore would not infect other plants.
So you're problem is that you don't trust them to remove the potatoes before the harvest? OK, the solution there is to tighten regulations, not to outlaw this rather ingenious indicator crop. A solution in my mind is to demand that they inject a gene that makes the "indicator" potatoes grow with a highly unnatural and noticeable color and\or an undesirable smell so that they are easy to spot if they happen to make it to the grocery stores.
It is not the nutbag "It's poison" argument the wierdows make that is driving their decision. Allowing GMO allows Monsanto to OWN your country's crops. With the United States poised to defend corporate patents with guns and missile strikes, nobody sane would allow patent encumbered life in their country.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic.
You're absolutely right! We should ban all sources of radiation that might affect the DNA of an organism in a way that could result in the appearance of a specific characteristic.
It's a way to Monsanto out and protect EU companies developing GM products.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
His point doesn't address what the OP said.
He is making a line you can't cross in the taxological tree because reasons. Why can we manipulate the genes in species but not Kingdom? Oh, I know... God did it, right? That was the whole point of OP when he said: "It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?" There are concerns with Monsanto, (see below in thread) that seem legitimate. But to label "ALL GM is bad" is proclaiming ignorance. Just like the GP misunderstanding what a species is.
"DNA that's totally foreign." What is foreign? When do you define DNA as foreign? How far up the taxological tree do you have go when it becomes foreign? how far back in evolutionary history do you have to go? How do you define that line in taxonomy? As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses, or the 60% of DNA we share with a banana plant.
The misinformed nature of his post is modded (as of now) +4 informative. It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
"So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? "
The same way the american indians did when they invented CORN
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Now pray tell me how european agriculture would collapse without american whatever? I think you are rather full of yourself, but you are welcome to prove me wrong.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
"No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time."
No you cant. Once you grow a GMO crop your fields are contaminated with the crap for years. and if your neighbors are growing it, you are FUCKED. as the cross pollination will taint your entire crop and then yuo get fined for growing a monsanto crop without a licensing fee because the genetic markers are there.
Why dont you actually TALK to a farmer, I have 3 in my family and I know the reality of this. You grow what your neighbors are growing because you have a legal nightmare trying to sell your crops if it's patent tainted by cross pollination.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
well know that organisms can normally deal with background radiation levels, back to biology class for you
For an answer to some of your retorts, see my response to AC above.
Let's look at this another way. The EU market is different from the USA. I'm sure we can agree on that.
For whatever reasons, possibly because it's the 'old world', EU consumers are innately conservative when it comes to the basics. We can probably agree on that.
Monsanto has a very bad name in the EU. Blame the PR department, or ignorant (but communications savvy) activists, but it's true. We can probably agree on that.
Fortunately for the EU, the countries within it are democratic. These means that the governments depend upon a popular vote for continued terms of office. So, while the ignorant, yet communications savvy, activists are able to state the case against Monsanto, it really makes little difference if you or I are wrong on this. Given a choice (and thank goodness for living in a free country that gives me choice), I would choose against Monsanto's versions of GM crops. We will have to differ on that. However, you may ask why. So I shall explain:-
As I say to AC above, citing Wickson and Wynne's paper which you know about if you are in the industry, and could read if you are not, for agricultural biotechnology, there are a range of conditions that make current practices of assessing the quality of biosafety science unethical. These include: a lack of open access to testing materials; limited resources for independent research; lack of transparency concerning the transgenic constructs in use; lack of consistency in the application of evidentiary and interpretive standards; and no clear processes ensuring accountability and consistency in assessment processes.
Whether or not you agree with Wickson and Wynne, it's hard to dispute that they assert that. I agree with them. I believe that several countries in the EU also agree with them. So on this issue, let's agree to differ.
When Monsanto comes back with good science - a willingness to share all data to the point of reproducibility, and a willingness to work for the good of mankind rather than for profits, come back to me. Otherwise I'm done here.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
I only suggest plants horribly mutated from normal *might* be unsafe or have DNA sequences that are not safe, and do not accept safety on blind faith in profit and power driven mega-corporate agendas
The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependency on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.
What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.
This is a tangent, but comparing this response with the typical systemd response yields some insight on both the perceived arrogance of Monsanto and the conjectured hidden agenda of systemd. We'll call this kind of response the 'systemd defense'
---
NT is silly in the way that it doesn't work, and it's sick in the way that it does work. In a way.
Genetically modified crops have already dispersed sufficiently throughout the world through cross pollination to make the damage to the ecosphere irreversible. If it turns out that 50 years from now we discover that the tampering done to them produces foodstuffs harmful to humans in the long run, it'll be far to late to do anything about it.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You are still overgeneralizing.
-GMOs are *NOT* bad.
This is a broad generalization. It's akin to saying "Chemical sweeteners are *NOT* bad" because you tested sucrose and aspartame and saccharine, while not testing ethylene glycol. Were a company truly evil, for example, they could probably create a plant that would be deliberately dangerous. Or, there could be a side effect that's not well caught in testing, such as a change to potatoes that make them taste like magic but also occasionally contain high levels of solanine.
Are any of the GMOs on the market bad? Well no, probably not. But saying "GMOs are *NOT* bad" full stop is giving up on a valid argument for oversight and regulation, and against using untested products in our food supply. That argument complements your point about the harmful indirect side effects of using certain GMOs; it doesn't compete with it.
(To the pro-GMO audience, of course traditional cross-pollination techniques could also yield things dangerous to eat. But saying "we've been doing it for thousands of years" is a worthless point, because that means we've had thousands of years of other people to test on to learn what seems okay versus what sickens and kills them.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Selective breeding is to a shotgun as Gene injection is to a scalpel
It's the same thing just different precision.
http://www.sciencemediacentre....
Cross pollination is something that will likely happen in nature as well, and has been happening. In fact, it's using natural selection modified by human intervention.
GMO (Monsanto's efforts) are absolutely not anything like this process. Injecting man-made or cross species genes into plants is nothing like the above statement.
That said, I will note it is possible that some genetic material will go cross species thanks to certain viruses and bacteria, but that is quite limited in scope and range of potential subjects.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to with the way profits are derived from GM.
The modern farmer is first and last a business man.
He specializes. He raises grains, fruits or vegetables for sale in the retail or wholesale markers he understands or he evolves into a seed company or a nursery. Never both, because the labor and capital requirements are so very different and so very demanding.
When he buys seed from Monsanto, he is looking at the return on his investment, as any business man must. He is looking at how the product stands up against the competition. If it is sweet corn, he is looking at color and flavor. Yields. Resistance to insects, drought and disease.
The price of seed isn't what keeps a farmer awake nights. It is the environmental variables which can destroy any hope of a successful ---- profitable --- harvest.
It's a mad world we live in. My wife and I avoid anything that is labeled non-GMO. We didn't realize how bad it was until we saw pink Himalayan rock salt was labeled as non-GMO.
Heh... Look! I found the guy that is doing the "that is the way of their kind" posts and other absurd junk posts. You can deny it if you want but your writing style matches it too well for it to be a coincidence as does your... Um... Manner of expressing yourself.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
They're banning it for the same reason that requiring labeling for cell phone radiation levels is now banned: It's a pointless indicator designed to create consumer FUD because of somebody's silly religious belief.
Seriously, GMO food is safe people. So far the best argument against GMO food is "We haven't found any actual scientific evidence that there's anything wrong with it, but you never know, therefore it should be labeled and/or banned." File this under other phobias like Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity.
This is exactly what I hate about the anti-GMO movement: They cite examples like this even though no food like the example above actually makes it on your plate. That's just done for research purposes to better understand genetics.
No, radiation is optional in organic. Organic just means you grow it in cow shit and don't pasteurize it, which is why organic farming is responsible for hundreds of death and thousands of illnesses every year.
http://www.geneticliteracyproj...
But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.
In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.
http://www.geneticliteracyproj...
Meanwhile, guess how many got sick or died from GMO food? Zero. Not a one.
Another thing: Organic food requires a LOT more farmland for the same yield, and it's worth pointing out that making way for farmland is the biggest cause of deforestation.
Possibly, but if I want to wear a tinfoil hat, I don't want someone to sell me a shiny plastic one because it is nonsense to wear tinfoil
---
Actually, I don't think Monsanto's patent on the GM seeds are in and of themselves a problem. What's a problem is that the court decisions revolving around this IP have decoupled the risk from the reward. If you use Monsanto's patented seeds, you have to pay Monsanto. But if you don't want Monsanto's seed but some of it blows onto your farm, Monsanto isn't liable for it. In fact you'll probably be forced to pay Monsanto if you don't detect it and get rid of it yourself.
That's what's broken. If you want a patent on a living, growing organism, I don't really see a problem with that. But like with your kids, you take full responsibility for everything it does - good or bad. Your kid goes and becomes a TV star and makes lots of money, you reap the financial rewards. But if your kid goes and contaminates some organic farm's fields and makes the farmer unable to sell his crop, you pay to compensate the farmer and make him whole again. You want the reward, you pay for the risk.
FYI it's sugar beet. As of 2014 in the USA, over 50% of the entire production of soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola (aka rapeseed) are GM crops.
Lots of that is used in derived ingredients - beet and corn are big sources of sugar and hfcs (high fructose corn syrup - the killer sweetner found in almost all consumer foods in the USA). Canola is used for cooking oil (french fries, etc). Soy is used for all sorts.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
Bullshit. I am a food scientist for Agriculture Canada and earlier worked at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
There are no properly executed studies showing what you claim.
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
You should watch the documentary "The Future of Food". You may not want to support Monsanto and their GMO products afterwards.
No. They're diving into the, "I don't care what Monsanto-toady 'scientists' say in preference for real science" end of the pool. You're jumping into the, "Corporate toady-funded science is akin to religion and must never be questioned" end of the pool.
We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Cherry-picking or bad science. or you are just a conspiracy nutter.
I go with all of the above.
Then if it's so important, design the seeds to not do that. Montsanto is famous for "terminator genes" that do just that. Except well, they don't work. Turns out plants generally evolve out those traits. At which point, tough.
And there's plenty of "GMO" stuff that doesn't involve Monstanto - usually done by people cross-breeding or plants acquiring genetic material from bacterial and other things. And people STILL do it today - they still crossbreed. The world's hottest pepper was cross-bred, and was not genetically modified. It takes a little longer (it's generally easy to cross breed it, but a LOT harder to make the cross actually stick through subsequent generations)
And yet, farmers do it all the time because they want their crops to grow better. Survival of the fittest helps.
But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.
Since there are no labeling requirements regarding GM products in the US, how would someone even know?
file:
My opinion of GMO food has nothing to do with Monsanto. When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
In fact, that's another reason why the anti-GMO movement is so full of bullshit that it's falling out of their ears: They constantly create false dilemmas. "You support GMO? You must support monsanto then!" or "You support GMO? You must eat frankenfood!" It's all a load of crap.
Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.
So anybody who seeks to minimise his/her intake of Monsanto's GM crops in "anti-scientific"? And furthermore I suppose it could not possibly be the case that their opposition to Monsanto and the rest of that ilk has just as much to do with DNA patents, i.e. corporations turning staple crops into "intellectual property" and then using it as a tool with which to abuse the public? Personally it is the latter that worries me more than the former.
It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed.
I'm trying to think of a scenario in which you wouldn't be claiming something stupid like that, regardless.
Nope, not coming up with one.
Then surely you will post those studies yes?
Of course you won't. You're making them up.
Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".
Cross pollination happens all the time and results in failure the majority of the time. Things like today's corn (pre-GMO), potato, cabbage, rice, wheat, etc would have never naturally occurred. It took humans hundreds of years of cross breeding, selective breeding, and accidents coupled with constant environment adjustments & control to produce today's crops. The veggies you see at the super market are monstrosities to their natural cousins.
We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.
And we have been making weapons since the stone age but the difference between breeding cattle by traditional means and what geneticists can do today, never mind what they will be able to do over the next century, is about the same as the difference between a hand-axe and and a cruise missile. How many times haven't we heard scientist say that some new technology or the other is perfectly safe (anybody remember DTT) only to see them fall on their face and admit that they (surprise surprise) overlooked something. This idea that anybody who has reservations on going to town with GMO technology is a stupid luddite, because GMO is a technology that cannot possibly cause any unforeseen harm, is pretty idiotic in it self. I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.
Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
So, how do you feel about selective breeding processes that include drenching the organisms in radiation or mutagenic chemicals in order to dramatically increase the mutation rate? Nearly everything in your grocery store was bred via this method, which has been in use for at least a century, because it works really well. By massively increasing the mutation rate you can get your desired characteristics orders of magnitude faster than relying on natural mutations and cross-breeding.
If you're not okay with that method, then there's not much available for you to eat.
If you are okay with that method, can you explain how insertion of single gene to produce a desired effect is worse that thousands of random mutations, all of which are completely unknown outside of the immediately-observable phenotypic effects?
The fact is that humans have been doing various degrees of genetic engineering on our food crops for millenia, and massively increased it in the last couple of centuries (once Darwin explained how it worked). The methods of the last couple of decades are refinements which, if anything, should be dramatically safer than what came before, since the changes are smaller and better-controlled.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Brought to you by the same people who swore up and down for years that pesticides like DDT were practically safe enough to swim in.
No, Monsanto is actually doing both things. Some traits are improved more rapidly through transgene technology (ie herbicide resistance or insecticide production in the roots), whereas most traits that they farmer actually gets paid for (ie yields) are more rapidly improved through "traditional" cross breeding. Monsanto does both. May sound like a nitpick, but it shows your ignorance (as in lack of specific knowledge, not stupidity) on this matter.
Also, they are not "entirely different". The same technology that can be used to insert a transgenic trait can also be used to transfer a single gene between cultivars within the same species. IIRC, the LPA (low phytic acid) allele was original discovered in corn by accident, and then using the same gene insertion technology was inserted into more productive strains of corn. The product ultimately failed on the market due to practical considerations (lower viability of the plant, and problems associated with segregating LPA corn from commodity corn in order to be able to get a higher price). More recent work along this line has solved the first problem by delaying the activation of the LPA allel until after the plant is fully grown so that it primarily affects phytate P deposition in the seed (which is desirable), but that doesn't adequately address the basic logistics question of how to get the higher priced corn to someone who will pay the higher prices. Especially since feed enzymes (phytase) can be used to break down the phytic acid in cheaper commodity corn just fine.
Furthermore, new CRISPR technology will make it possible to edit genes in place with no need to transfer DNA from another plant or species in order to get the desired gene into the genome. It is expected that this will be used to modify plants in all sorts of ways without crossing the species barrier. The future is here, and it has been shown to be safe thus far. At some point you need to just get over the fear and accept that we've got this covered, so you can worry about something that might actually hurt you.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
The science is pretty simple. GMO is a tool, nothing else. Like most tools it can be used for good, eg making a tomato that has more vitamins and flavour, or for making a tomato that ships better with no flavour or nutrition.
It's impossible to generalize that a tool is always going to be used in the best manner or the worst manner. Each use has to be evaluated separately. Throw in the motivations of the for profit agribusinesses such as Monsato and the odds of some uses of GMO not being for the benefit of the average person goes way up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.
The fact of the matter is there is NO science about how these GMOs interact in nature when left to their own devices, free to cross-pollinate other organisms. That kind of wilfull blindness is engaged in by companies whose goals are not science, but which are solely the pursuit of profit ( via omonopolistic wnership of genetic material).
As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers of "foreign" DNA: how does such an argument stack up against "foreign DNA" when it's wrapped up inside "invasive species"?
Not very well I would assert.
We've barely got our heads around the problems of plastic bags: from bags to the sea, where it's broken down, which is then eaten by microscopic organisms, which is eaten by larger ones which, quelle surprise! ends up inside us. Did we forsee that when we wrecklessly cast these plastic bags about the place? Did we hell.
Such wanton disregard and ignorance for the consequences of our actions seesm to be the human way. Wrapping up the persuit of profits with the guise of LIMITED science and subjecting the genetic material of the entire ecosystem to a vast experiment is not a sound, rational or wise thing to do.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I'm struggling to figure out how Monsanto can create a dependency upon something that's self-replicating and for which any legal restrictions they try to impose can only last 20 years. Also how "20 years" constitutes an "indefinite monopoly".
Round-up doesn't have patent protection any more. And Round-up ready seeds won't have for much longer.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Err....you don't wash your food before you cook or eat it?
Geez, I'll bet those same people get a bit sick every time they cook chicken, or cross contaminate between raw meats and foods that aren't cooked.
A bit of a straw man there, eh?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?
http://www.startribune.com/twi...
Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?
Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.
I'm of the mind that YOU would NOT have supported the basic food labelling we have now for ingredients....
You're wrong; of course I support that. The purpose is to help anybody who has allergens or other dietary concerns to avoid foods that might bother them specifically. For example, as somebody with CKD caused by IgA Nephropathy, I look at the ingredients list for items containing phosphorous, and if they're high in the list, then I avoid that food.
Phosphorous is safe (and indeed, healthy) for 99.9% of the population, just not me.
That's what food labels are for. They aren't intended to scare people just to satisfy YOUR anti-science ideology.
Not to mention, that we are also now, currently selecting for insects and other critters that are pesticide resistant.
It is analogous to the over use of antibiotics selecting for super "bugs" which we're already starting to see the negative effects of....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Do you mean DDT? Instead of using your memory you might want to look into that. The science used to ban it was based on fraudulent data and the WHO has since allowed its use again because it turns out to not be all that bad when used properly. What they do mind is that it shouldn't be used as a treatment for crops but they've since realized that the whole egg shell thing was crap and the health issues were also (mostly) crap. It does, indeed, turn out that using it to soak down children daily is in fact not healthy but used properly it works to control mosquito populations and is quite safe to be used in conjunction with other preventative methods.
No, you don't have to worry about waking up to zombie corn stalks.
Nothing, not ever, is proven safe. Science does not work that way. Everything is potentially harmful. Instead, we've found these reasonably safe to date and I suggest more studies be done while not crippling ourselves with fear because you think you've an obligation to tell others what to do based on your feelings.
Finally, stop with the strawman shit. Nobody is arguing that we should deregulate anything. This isn't a corporate thing - it's an anti-science and fear mongering thing and you're partaking in it. That's fine but please, for all that is good, do it quietly and stop trying to prevent progress because you're scared. If they were, in fact, bad we'd have a huge outcry based on the science and not FUD.
"Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand, for the times they are a-changing." Bob Dylan
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What alternatives? The only one I'm aware of is irradiating plants to trigger mutations to speed up the selective selection process. I'm not sure what makes you think that is safer than small (usually less than 200 nucleotides) deliberate DNA modification based on the science of proteomics.
This idea that anybody who has reservations on going to town with GMO technology is a stupid luddite, because GMO is a technology that cannot possibly cause any unforeseen harm, is pretty idiotic in it self. I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.
No-one is claiming that having concerns about GMO is stupid, but in order to have strong reservations about the technology today you do have to be largely ignorant (as in unaware, not stupid) of the vast body of knowledge that currently exists as to the safety of the GMO products currently on the market. The fact that most of this information can be found with a simple search of pubmed or the USDA's website.
I can't speak for all nations, but no one is attempting to deregulate GMO in the US. Not mandating a GMO label is not the same thing as not regulating GMO. Each and every GMO variety has undergone Individual Review before being allowed to be sold commercially. The USDA/APHIS, FDA, and EPA all weigh in on the safety within their bailiwick before the product can be approved, and then post them on their website (linked to above). No one is even trying to prevent companies from labeling for GMO status voluntarily. What is happening is that regulators are trying to strike a balance between the costs and benefits of a label, by making sure that those paying the cost of the label are those who want it. I should not have to subsidize the irrational fears of my neighbors if they are fully capable of footing the entire bill themselves.
Finally, greedy corporations, are a completely separate issue from GMO. If you don't like the way the US seed industry operates (professional seed breeders have required contracts that preclude seed saving for many years before GMO seeds came along) then pass laws that change that aspect of their business, not some other, completely unrelated aspect. Monsanto et al. sell both GM and non-GM seeds, and there are non-profit companies developing GMO crops that can literally save lives and plan to GIVE AWAY the seeds they develop.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
What anti-science?
If nothing else, the increase of GMO and the ever altering of them to allow, more and more pesticide use (due to us now selecting for more and more pesticide resistant insects and weeds) which does build up on the foods we eat, and are now ingesting more and more of.....glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful. This is directly linked to more GMO crop usage.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Strawman argument.
One can get food poisoning from ANY restaurant that does not follow basic food safety and preparation standards (like washing produce, etc).
As for me personally? I rarely eat fast food....I love to cook and do most of my cooking and dining at home. Rather than waste money on crappy fast food....I save my pennies and every couple of weeks go somewhere for some fine dining, with good service and wine selection.
But any time you dine out, if the establishment doesn't clean and properly handle the food, it can be unsafe, this has nothing to do with GMO or non-GMO.
Next argument please?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
DDT was widely used because it is highly effective at stopping the spread of infectious diseases by killing the vector.
This was before anybody took a critical look at it, and it had already been in use for nearly a century before anybody had. The people saying it was still safe were the ones following the long term momentum, much as the anti-GMO crowd is saying that millennia old organic farming is safe (and in reality it's not safe compared to modern synthetic farming methods.)
I'll tell you what: If glyphosate shows up in any material quantity (one or even a hundred parts per million isn't significant at all) then we can put it on the food labels.
glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful
It's only been shown harmful to people coming into direct contact with huge quantities of it. Though I think coming into direct contact with cow shit used for organic farming is probably more hazardous to your health, yet people like you don't go around espousing the dangers of organic food.
Furthermore, glyphosate isn't the only application of GMO food. If you want to attack glyphosate, then make your issues with glyphosate instead of genetic modification.
But you won't, because that would actually make sense. You're in this for an ideology, which doesn't necessarily have to make any sense at all, just so long as it fits your personal world view.
I know, right. If you feed a cow nothing but GMO feed for 10-20 years, the cow will die.
Since the scientific consensus on the safety of current GMO crops is HIGHER than the scientific consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming, YES it is anti-science.
If you don't like gene patents, get involved in politics and lobby to have laws passed that strongly curtail or eliminate gene patents (I'd be right there with you, BTW). But blaming a technology because you don't like the ways in which one company is using it, is a little like railing against incompetent hammers because the contractor you hired to renovate you bathroom fucked it up.
Aside #1 - The original patent on glyphosate resistance should be expiring in the next 12 months (if it hasn't already), so we will see how reviled that particular technology is once everyone can use it free of charge.
Aside #2 - Much of the practices documented by politically biased film makers like Polan have been industry standard practice for longer than GM technology has been available. For example, no-seed-saving clauses have been pretty standard in contracts for generations. Farmers consider them a fair trade because dedicated breeders can improve seeds much faster (even without modern molecular GM techniques) than busy farmer can do it themselves, and there are plenty of places one can buy non-contract encumbered seeds if one is so inclined. The fact that the vast majority of farmers have chosen the GM seeds (despite the higher costs) should make it pretty clear that farmers consider them worth the cost.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
What is special about the 80 to 120 year post-market approval date? Oh, you didn't know that the first GM seeds hit the market ~20 years ago?
Also, you may not be aware, but Monsanto tested their first GM seeds for several years before they received approval to sell them from the USDA/APHIS, FDA and EPA. How many years of testing is enough for you, and what do you base that requirement on?
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
"Communist ideology" became a laughing matter? Most days it seems as if the overwhelming majority of /. whole-heartedly agrees with communist ideology and can't wait until the whole world is living under it. See the hatred for corporations in general, the love of government provided everything, etc.
Well the nice thing about biology is that we can get to a good cause-and-effect description of why something might cause harm to you.
In the case of organic, it's simple: Cow shit is well known to have many parasites, salmonella and e. coli among them. Both are known to cause people to get sick, and in some cases kill people, because both excrete chemicals into your intestines that are highly toxic, which your intestines try to flush out, giving you bad diarrhea.
As for GMO...let's see, we have a few studies suggesting a very shaky "link" to cancer in rats, immune problems, and digestive problems. Yet every single one of these studies has proven to be A) borderline fraudulent B) scientific misconduct, or C) both. And furthermore, there is no cause and effect description in a single one of these studies.
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
Oh yes, adding a bar-code to every potato or ear of corn out there will be very easy to do.
One can get food poisoning from ANY restaurant that does not follow basic food safety and preparation standards (like washing produce, etc).
Try again. Reading the article this time:
At least 17 Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota have been linked to a Salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 45 people and sent five to the hospital.
So you're telling me that SEVENTEEN restaurants didn't follow basic food safety? This is your ideology speaking again: If the food is tainted badly enough, then short of scrubbing each leaf with antibiotics, you aren't going to remove the parasites.
Of course, we could run some simple tests such as determining what compounds are actually in the consumable portion of the plants to see how they differ from the original.
Or are we still worried that we will get reversed electron spins in those amino acids.
Wow. That just had everything didn't it. A non sequitur, an unstated major premise and TWO ad hominems.
You seem to have a misconception on the state of the art of science in the year 2015, we do not know all the "compounds" in a plant nor do we have a way to detect them all. You might be interested to know we are still discovering new "compounds" that comprise normal cow milk, for example
Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.
That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.
And banning GMO labeling is just authoritarian bullshit. Now requiring GMO labeling might be unreasonable.
Umm...you completely misunderstand. You're welcome to stick a GMO label on food if you want; the ban is against laws that require labeling (i.e. governments telling other governments what to do.) The laws that require labeling are authoritarian.
Yes, easily....IF they were using pre-bagged and supposedly pre-washed lettuce...then whomever they bought it from, did not clean it properly.
You see this all the time with other products, like ground meat. If produced in a large food factory and is infected, then loads of it go out to many different restaurants, etc and can cause sickness in many different stores and homes all over the US.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Eee...ahhh.... sorry. I hate to argue when I basically agree with you, but there's a strong similarity. And there's also the historical cross-species gene transfer that's been managed by viruses and parasites. So GMO is not qualitatively new, only quantitatively. But that *is* an important difference.
Now sexual recombination *is* different from GMO, so the example of the tangelo isn't strictly to the point, nor is the nectarine. Nor even hybrid corn. But GMO isn't new, it's just been an extremely low frequency natural phenomenon. But frequency is significant.
GMO organisms should undergo rigorous testing to prove that they are safe, such testing being done by parties that have NO stake in the outcome. This isn't being done. Traditional foods hat were created through natural GMO have had centuries of testing to allow people to decide whether they are worth it or not, starting with small populations so there wasn't a large initial exposure. This doesn't happen with commercial GMO foods. And the pharmaceutical companies have shown us how much we can rely on testing by those whose profits stand at risk.
Even that, however, isn't my real objection. My real objection is that GMO foods centralize control over the food supply. This is a real, clear, and present danger.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If I was not a GMO product..then, I'd not be worried about glyphosate levels in my food.
And too...if you want to have a more specific selection of GMO so as not to be as broad as things like selective breeding, or perhaps cross pollinating to select for traits, then maybe just label the ones where they splice in genes from such disparate species as a jellyfish into corn.
I have my doubts on the long term safety of this, as that we don't fully know what problems it may also cause further up and down the dna chain, and other proteins being coded.
This technology just hasn't been tested long enough to know it is safe...we've been guinea pigs for these years, and it often takes a LONG time to see really bad things happen, or have things slowly build up in the environment and in peoples' bodies.
Much of the problem GMO things I've been discussing have to do with the same companies that brought us Agent Orange, and DDT...which were perfectly safe*.......till decades later when we found out they weren't safe at all.
All I"m asking for is a label so I can make my own decisions on what I'm buying at the store and putting into my body. That should be a basic piece of information for anyone....
I can't see your objections to just adding a simple label? I'll pay the extra $0.01 it may take to change the labelling.
Why is it so bad to just let folks know? No one is advocating for anyone to hold a gun to the consumer's head to force them to buy or not buy the foodstuffs.
And, at the very least...if there is a consumer push towards more non-GMO's, it might push the industry to have more food diversity, which cannot possibly be a bad thing. Right now, the monoculture of many of our foods, could potentially be a problem. What if a new bug or bacteria comes and wipes out all of one strain of wheat/corn/tomato/ and it is all gone because we don't have other strains of the foods that might be resistant....
If nothing else, if it did have this effect on food growers, that alone would be a good side effect of this.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
FWIW, the people who got salmonella from lettuce didn't get it from organic lettuce. I think your prejudices are contorting your judgment.
That said, properly composted cow shit is reasonably safe on food. You won't get parasites. Raw cow shit has all the problems you mentioned. I *believe* that most organic farmers know proper composting procedures, and that most of them use them, but this is a belief, not a study. (OTOH, you didn't mention any studies either.)
That said, I *was* surprised recently to learn that there's a endoparasite of rice that can live through the drying, storing, and cooking of rice to multiply if the rice is left unrefrigerated. But this doesn't seem to distinguish between organic and regular rice.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Sorry, but no, you can't. Those test would need to be the same that are used to test a new drug, unless you can show that all molecular forms present are exactly the same as those in the unmutated food. Including double-blind studies of large populations.
So while tests are theoretically possible, they aren't simple, and they are never done.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually if you ever go to a Chipotle, you can watch them prepare the ingredients, which is a deliberate restaurant design choice they use for that reason. And yes, you can watch them wash the lettuce (it's been this way for years.)
Your talking points are what we call denial. You sound just like Greeenpeace. Here, read this article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
Namely, read the arguments Greenpeace makes about Bt plants. Tell me how your arguments are different from theirs.
. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.
Your reading comprehension seems poor. Emphasis added.
Lets talk about what is on the table. On the one hand you have the ecological factor of pesticide producing plants and the pests that grow resistant to them. On the other hand you have limited pesticides to give to various populations. In one decision people are fed and in future generations of pests they might become more resistant to modern pesticides, but people do not starve to death. On the other hand, crop yields are halved because no good access to pesticides, people starve to death.
Which would you choose? Save thousands now for an unknown. Or risk the unknown and let thousands die? Before you make a decision starve yourself for 2 weeks and then tell me about your pompous opinion.
As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses
As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers of "foreign" DNA: how does such an argument stack up against "foreign DNA" when it's wrapped up inside "invasive species"?
Holy reading comprehension... What the fuck do you think an endogenous retrovirus is you twat? Where did I say "non-dangers"? No technology is prefect. But let's not forget that the same virus that causes aids could be used to cure leukemia. But who cares right? Fuck gene therapy because scary GMO.
You underestimate how many people starve to death, how many people have been fed because of modern advances to agriculture, how every technological advancement to agriculture resulted in a population boon, how many more people could be saved with GMO, and the amount help the environment could get from GMO.
If you actually provide scientific evidence for ecological damage or some kind of "consequence" then DO IT. Just remember your belly is full because GM has increased the food supply. That is a fact.
If you keep it a secret, it makes people much more nervous about it as if you tell. If there is no problem with it, why not be honest about it? If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok? Everyone thus can see it.
Every post from you is either insulting or denying other people's claims. Had you attempted to perform a simple Google search you would have found that Monsanto has sued numerous farmers in numerous countries for a variety of claims, including but not limited to violating IP.
One such case shows up in the top 2 results.
In 1998, Monsanto learned that Schmeiser was growing a Roundup-resistant crop and approached him to sign a license agreement to their patents and to pay a license fee. Schmeiser refused, maintaining that the 1997 contamination was accidental and that he owned the seed he harvested, and he could use the harvested seed as he wished because it was his physical property. Monsanto then sued Schmeiser for patent infringement, filing its case in Canadian federal court on August 6, 1998.[4] Negotiations to settle the matter collapsed on August 10, 1999, leading Schmeiser to file a countersuit against Monsanto for $10 million for libel, trespass, and contaminating his fields.[6][7]
Go back and read some of your other insulting posts from this thread and take some of your own advice.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Hitler was elected by a democratic system as well. Giving the majority whatever it wants is not a good recipe for a free and prosperous society.
No, he was not elected. You failed at trying to Godwin the discussion because you failed at 3rd grade history. Companies are so sloppy when hiring shills sometimes...
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Loss of Biodiversity and Genetically Modified Crops
And Pesticide Tie-in by Monsanto who also sell and heavily lobby for bee-killing neonicotinoids.
Dirty practices by GM companies.
Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto, Against Organic Farmers
50 HARMFUL EFFECTS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) FOODS
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
So far the best argument against GMO food is "They can grow it next to someone else's fields and then successfully sue that person for patent infringement."
FTFY
I agree that the tech side of it seems fine, but (at least in the US) they absolutely should not be allowed in the wild until the insane patent laws surrounding GMO crops are dealt with.
Schmeiser never stated that the 1998 crop was compromised, but that the seeds he planted were from 1997. Do yourself a favor and read the whole page, or else you will simply embarrass yourself.
However by the time the case went to trial, all claims had been dropped that related to patented seed in the field that was contaminated in 1997; the court only considered the GM canola in Schmeiser's 1998 fields, which Schmeiser had intentionally concentrated and planted from his 1997 harvest. Regarding his 1998 crop, Schmeiser did not put forward any defence of accidental contamination.[2]
The ruling was, and is, completely irrational. Read that last sentence and compare to the first. The farmer owns the field, but can't sell the field if it contains a genetic modification. So yeah, the farmer was screwed over.
Canadian law does not mention any such "farmer's rights"; the court held that the farmer's right to save and replant seeds is simply the right of a property owner to use his or her property as he or she wishes, and hence the right to use the seeds is subject to the same legal restrictions on use rights that apply in any case of ownership of property, including restrictions arising from patents in particular. The court wrote: "Thus a farmer whose field contains seed or plants originating from seed spilled into them, or blown as seed, in swaths from a neighbour's land or even growing from germination by pollen carried into his field from elsewhere by insects, birds, or by the wind, may own the seed or plants on his land even if he did not set about to plant them. He does not, however, own the right to the use of the patented gene, or of the seed or plant containing the patented gene or cell."[4]
So while the seeds were his to use, he could not use them. Money and politics is bad, but money and courts is worse.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Well, again, I just want labels so "I" can make my own decisions. I can't see that it would be the end of the world just to label them.
If that's all you're after, then it's simple: Food manufacturers who go out of their way to make GMO-Free products label them as such just to make an extra sale. So just follow those labels. Meanwhile, the GMO food doesn't have to be stigmatized by your religion.
There, problem solved, no legislation required.
If I was not a GMO product..then, I'd not be worried about glyphosate levels in my food.
I thought we went over this earlier: If you have an issue with glyphosate, then make your issue with glyphosate, not GMO. While I'm here, I'll take this opportunity to point you to one of your fellow religious zealots who points out that glyphosate is sometimes found in organic food:
http://healthimpactnews.com/20...
then maybe just label the ones where they splice in genes from such disparate species as a jellyfish into corn.
Except no such food exists. Nobody has ever spliced genes from an animal into a plant and then sold it in a grocery store. When you hear about that kind of thing happening, it's for research purposes to understand what the gene does.
So any such "law" wouldn't serve any useful purpose.
I have my doubts on the long term safety of this, as that we don't fully know what problems it may also cause further up and down the dna chain, and other proteins being coded.
This technology just hasn't been tested long enough to know it is safe...we've been guinea pigs for these years, and it often takes a LONG time to see really bad things happen, or have things slowly build up in the environment and in peoples' bodies.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit A: A classic example of FUD.
Much of the problem GMO things I've been discussing have to do with the same companies that brought us Agent Orange, and DDT...which were perfectly safe*.......till decades later when we found out they weren't safe at all.
So now you're equating the technology with one company. This is like saying that Microsoft has done evil things in the past, so we should ban all personal computers. A completely idiotic thing to say, but it is your opinion nonetheless.
All I"m asking for is a label so I can make my own decisions on what I'm buying at the store and putting into my body. That should be a basic piece of information for anyone....
I can't see your objections to just adding a simple label? I'll pay the extra $0.01 it may take to change the labelling.
Why is it so bad to just let folks know? No one is advocating for anyone to hold a gun to the consumer's head to force them to buy or not buy the foodstuffs.
This is like saying "All I'm asking for is a label on all Jews so that I can make my own decision on whether to associate with them." It creates needless stigma even though it doesn't impact you one way or another, except for maybe bothering your religious viewpoint. I mean why is it bad to just let folks know?
And, at the very least...if there is a consumer push towards more non-GMO's, it might push the industry to have more food diversity, which cannot possibly be a bad thing. Right now, the monoculture of many of our foods, could potentially be a problem. What if a new bug or bacteria comes and wipes out all of one strain of wheat/corn/tomato/ and it is all gone because we don't have other strains of the foods that might be resistant....
Monoculture is a problem, however it's not unique to GMO. We've been doing this for millennia. Look at the papaya problem in Hawaii; they were all dying out because of a single virus. You know what solved it though? Genetic modification to insert a gene that would make them resistant. The very technology you are hating on solved a HUGE agricultural problem in Hawaii.
Did you miss this sentence? "While the origin of the plants on Schmeiser's farm in 1997 remains unclear, the trial judge found that with respect to the 1998 crop, "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's 1998 crop.[5]"
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Personally, I'd like to know whether my food was grown near power lines. Voluntary labeling is not enough. Mandatory labeling is a must. Anybody who disagrees hates free choice.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The likely long term health risks? Given that you basically conceded we don't have concrete data showing anything bad, how are you assessing the probability and coming to the conclusion that health risks are likely? Is there some obvious mechanism for producing health problems that's specific to transgenics?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
If you graph any disease that has increased over the past generation or so, you'll find an excellent correlation between it and the consumption of organic produce.
What conclusions should we draw from that?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I don't think you're going to hear a lot of support for totally deregulationg GMOs (at least, not from anybody except corporate PR firms). Most of the people complaining here are just against banning GMOs simply because they're GMOs. That's a ridiculous thing to do.
No, there's no guarantee that any GMO will be safe. I'm sure that it's possible to design a tomato that produces botulism toxin if you want to. But that doesn't mean that GMOs are unsafe by definition. A transgenic plant is just a new type of plant that needs to be tested and examined before we put it into the food supply, just like we would with any of the crazy new hybrids and mutants we've produced over the last century. Nothing more, nothing less.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
OK, for the sake of argument, citrus is citrus. What about moving a gene from peppers into tomatoes to resist a bacterial infection? Close enough, or crime against the universe?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
What mechanism are you proposing for "genetic damage" to happen? Is it something we should worry about with other products?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
DDT was and is safe, for humans. But we don't eat insects that have died from it.
DDT is responsible for the elimination of malaria and several other diseases from the US. Most people have no idea of that because DDT has been so disparaged and the elimination happened more than a generation ago. In the early part of the 20th century Americans in the south routinely died of tropical diseases, malaria and others. DDT eliminated those diseases from the US by killing the hosts, disease carrying mosquitoes. It's for this reason that DDT is actually still allowed to be used in the US, under circumstances where diseases are being spread by mosquitoes again and other pesticides are ineffective. It's also still made a sold to regions that suffer from these diseases.
I'd like to hear some details about this. What are the cross-pollination rates between this year's crop and a previous year's crop that has been removed and replaced? What plants are doing this and what's the mechanism?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
"We present for the first time a comparative analysis of blood and organ system data from trials with rats fed three main commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863), which are present in food and feed in the world" ref
Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".
What do you mean by "borderline". They've been caught deliberately lying.
I have no issue with labelling GMO foods, it's just a label and it's better to have overly stringent labelling laws than overly lax laws IMHO. However it should also go the other way. So called "organic" foods also should be labelled with something like "This item is known to be produced in conditions that may not meet Australian/FDA/other safety organisation standards and can cause illness."
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Monsanto voluntarily agreed not to produce terminator seeds in the 90's because there was a shit-flinging fit over the idea, not because it didn't work. It's too bad, because if GMO seeds had that feature, nobody would have to worry about the possibility of IP protection lawsuits or an unwanted GMO escape.
The nightmare scenario of our precious wild corn and soybean populations being devastated could be avoided.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
You further a strawman argument. People who don't fear GM food would still want to choose between products. For example, we have the "made in " labels. It isn't because we consider Chinese products unsafe..
Monsanto products should be simply banned in the EU on the basis of being an invasive monopoly which, if left unchecked, will take over the whole agricultural sector. Their patented genes escape in the wild, infecting GM free cultures. Their policy about these GM infected plants is that anyone have them should pay their tax and/or destroy their own seeds. What is this, if not a hostile takeover?
Even if you are not scared by GM stuff, i'm only mildly afraid, you should be scared by the fact, that Monsanto will be the Microsoft of agriculture. And in this case, if they mess up something, they take everyone with themselves.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Yes they do that for their organic lines of seeds. It I a very common method and not a questionable one to anyone without a fear of science.
For their GMO lines it is not needed to do this since they implant the specific genes they are helpful and needed.
The fear is not that the GMO crop will kill a person. The fear is that the genes will begin spreading and affecting non-GMO crops.
Why would that be a problem? Because nobody knows how the new genes will interact with different strains. The GMO corn may be perfectly healthy with the strain of corn it was spliced in to but it may not be healthy with another strain of corn. Or it may introduce weaknesses into other strains of corn and all corn crops except the GMO one might get wiped out.
In summary, there are lots of unknowns about GMO crops and being wary of artificially modified organisms appears to be wise; especially when it is a corporation pushing it.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
No, the best argument against GMO food is that it's owned by companies like Monsanto.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
Outside of the lab, there is no such thing as pure science. You cannot divorce this from economics and politics.
And if you're talking about large US corporations like Monsanto, many people in Europe start from the premise that they are evil unless they can prove otherwise.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.
That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.
In the EU we have food mountains. We don't actually need genetically modified foods to feed our people. It is not analogous to banning computers to control Microsoft
The real concern is with countries becoming indebted to undemocratic corporations like Monsanto. The fear is that they will make it impossible for anyone to compete with their patented crops. It's really very little to do with GMO foods themselves. Monsanto are the assholes in all this.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit.
That is an absolutely ridiculous argument. You don't actually eat the cow shit you grow vegetables in. Most normal human beings wash their food first, if only to remove the chemical coating much non-organic food arrives with.
It's like saying you shouldn't keep pets because if you let your dog or cat shit on your floor and your kids eat it, it might make them sick.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?
http://www.startribune.com/twi...
Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?
Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.
You're getting a bit desperate here. If I go to a restaurant, I expect them to observe normal hygience rules too, and this definitely includes washing raw vegetables before serving them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't follow your argument here at all. Are you saying that GMO foods magically destroy any external contamination, and you can just dig them up and eat them even if they've come from a farm where workers handling diseased livestock then process vegetables, and they're servied in a restaurant by a chef with gastro-entiritis who doesn't bother washing his hands very often?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Cross pollination is something that will likely happen in nature as well, and has been happening. GMO (Monsanto's efforts) are absolutely not anything like this process.
Ok. I think the key question is who cares. Houses, cars, airplanes, the internet, twinkies, lightbulbs, cell phones, roads, bacon, hats, speakers, tylenol, vacuum cleaners, scissors, multimeters, cages, cameras, pianos, boxes, nuclear power stations, kettles, pants, chairs, spaceships, windows and video games don't occur naturally either.
Those items will not be let loose in the wild and start to intermingle with other non-patented houses etc so that the patent owner can demand you pay them for copying part of their original house.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem a lot of US libertarian/free market slashdotters seem to have is that they cannot conceive of anything that makes a profit being bad.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Contrary to popular belief, one that I held for many years, Monsanto has dropped all lawsuits in which the seeds were found to have naturally drifted into other fields. Think about it, their buisness is GM crops. Presuming they aren't stupid, they will have worked out that while the gain of suing a farmer is minimal, the public outcry against the cornerstone of their buisness would be huge (and anyway they would be unlikely to win such a case because there is no Mens Rea). Unofrtunately they seem to have managed to get the worst of both worlds.
It is the failure to do something like this which makes people extremely suspicious.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'll bet not. I'll bet it's driven by the frankenfood oh noes folks, who are themselves interested in power and selling books.
In any case, if it's not frankenfood fears, it's genetic diversity fears. If not that, fear of lawsuits by Monsanto of poor farmers whose seed got tainted.
A prediction: And if not that, something else.
No, primarily it's about the ridiculous IP stuff and how the world's largest military-industrial complex enforce it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In the case of organic, it's simple: Cow shit is well known to have many parasites, salmonella and e. coli among them. Both are known to cause people to get sick, and in some cases kill people, because both excrete chemicals into your intestines that are highly toxic, which your intestines try to flush out, giving you bad diarrhea.
In what bizarre alternative reality do you live where people take vegetables (or pieces of dead cow?) covered in shit and eat them without washing them first?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Also, all your work is based on thousands of people before you, are you going to let them share in the profits of your discovery?
Finally, if you want to make a profit, find another field to do it in. Become an investment banker, football player or the next Justin Bieber. I don't care, but getting a PhD in science is not supposed to be a guarantee of vast wealth in the future.
If everyone had your attitude, things like the LHC wouldn't exist.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc
And who says that's a good thing?
We should nationalise the lot of them and treat the cost like we do Defence, i.e. something everybody has to contribute towards through taxes for our mutual security and safety.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I have no idea why you keep mentioning religion...it has nothing to do with the GMO labelling arguments....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependency on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.
What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.
This is a tangent, but comparing this response with the typical systemd response yields some insight on both the perceived arrogance of Monsanto and the conjectured hidden agenda of systemd. We'll call this kind of response the 'systemd defense'
It's a variation on the old Windows defence: you've always been able to switch to another OS, therefore you're freely choosing to use Windows, therefore Windows is the most popular OS because people choose to use it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If this is not about starving people Why would people reject food during a famine?
Why don't you make the same case with bandages, antibiotics, pesticides, fertilizers, construction equipment, medicines, doctors, clothes, shoes or anything that extends life? You know why, it all costs money. To your specific example, is there a precedent for the government taking a patent (that has not expired) from a private entity to release in the public domain? I have not heard of it. If you were a company doing GM RnD, why would you continue that investment if there were a strong possibility that the government would take your patent away and the profit you expected to pay back investors and continue other RnD efforts? If you have a better idea that would keep companies investing in that RnD (it is very expensive) for patent law while servicing more people, lets see it.
Monsanto does some crappy things(I think below in the thread talks about that more and better), but that doesn't undermine the utility of GM (the point of this thread). The utility of GM to stop people starving is there regardless of the actions of the entity that currently markets them. The real harm is the misinformation spread about GMO,
It is the failure to do something like this which makes people extremely suspicious.
It has more to do with FUD and you know it. GGGP made arbitrary lines in taxonomy to promote his political agenda because he doesn't understand species. GP misunderstood endogenous retroviruses and how much of our DNA is from "foreign" sources or how much DNA we share with other species not even closely related to us.
While they are comfortable with full bellies spreading misinformation about GM, that crap influences governments all around the world to reject GMO all this despite the good they can do to the environment and farmers.
In the EU we have food mountains. We don't actually need genetically modified foods to feed our people.
Why don't you send some of that food to people who need it then? Or what about the environment and farmers?
not analogous to banning computers to control Microsoft
Yes, it is. You are blaming a technology because of a company. You even said in your own post.
real concern is with countries becoming indebted to undemocratic corporations like Monsanto.
That is not a problem of GMO.
It's really very little to do with GMO foods themselves. Monsanto are the assholes in all this.
See, you even said it yourself. Stop trying to ban/blame a technology because company is an asshole.
I've heard about the lawsuits, but every one I have actually looked into featured a farmer deliberately using Monsanto genetic material without paying Monsanto. I'm perfectly willing to believe evil things about Monsanto, but would it be too much to ask for a cite of one or two cases where Monsanto sued farmers that did not deliberately violate Monsanto patents?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm curious about your proposed testing procedure. Somebody not connected with the companies that do genetic modification should undergo rigorous studies, OK. Who is this somebody, and how does a company get that somebody to do the testing? Who pays for it? If it's the company, there's potential conflicts of interest, no matter how removed the testing group is. Should it be the taxpayers? How much testing should we finance, and how should we select which tests to do?
The usual FDA practice is to have the manufacturer do the tests, and then verify them. Some tests will be fraudulent, and it may not be amiss to have some sort of investigative unit that would interview people involved in the tests.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
A patent (in the US anyway) is a limited-time monopoly designed to encourage progress. Monsanto gets compensation for their R&D by being sole supplier of their product for a number of years. That has the distinct advantage of scaling the compensation to the usefulness, unlike any government rating scheme.
There is absolutely nothing to prevent any government from contracting with Monsanto for seeds to distribute to local farmers, or buying food from farmers who use Monsanto seeds. Nothing about this keeps people starving.
Famines, nowadays, are due to politics, not lack of food. We really are that good at agriculture.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Organisms do mutate from background radiation levels, which is a good thing, because otherwise evolution wouldn't work very well. Subjecting a plant to lots of radiation just speeds up the process.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
but would it be too much to ask for a cite of one or two cases where Monsanto sued farmers that did not deliberately violate Monsanto patents?
Not at all! I was thinking back to stuff like this Slashdot story from a few years ago and to similar reports that have come up in the comments here in the years since. The link to the article referenced in the summary is dead, but a bit of searching around turned up the original article. The site, admittedly, seems rather biased.
And, to be fair, I'm biased too, since I have a major problem with the notion that genetic material can be patented. It's one thing to patent the process for engineering something, be it a chemical or a particular type of seed, but it's something else entirely to patent the material itself, whether it's chemical or genetic in nature, such that no one else can devise their own method. Seems to me that it should be protected by copyright since it's an expression of information, in which case it wouldn't be protected in the case of pollination like what I was talking about, given that they would have effectively been giving it away for free, akin to people living near an amphitheater being able to enjoy concerts since the music is loud enough to be heard from outside.
A lot, maybe most, of basic discoveries are indeed made in government-funded labs. Suppose a lab comes up with a gene that appears to have some beneficial effect. Now what?
Now, a company like Monsanto looks at it. The gene has a desired effect. Does it have undesired effects? Will plants with it grow well? Is there a problem with the resulting food? If there are problems, can they be overcome by doing something a bit different? That takes testing, the sort that generally doesn't get people Ph.D.s and government grants, and is expensive. Moreover, not all promising genes will turn into products.
Monsanto doesn't just take lab results and productize it. There's a lot of very expensive work to be done first.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What sort of dependency? Crack, heroin, and tobacco are single products with withdrawal symptoms that can be nasty (heroin withdrawal can kill). Seeds are available in multiple different forms, and there's no problem with switching from season to season. The dependency is much like the dependency at a good restaurant where you like the food: sure, you'll go back numerous times, and it might look like you've got a dependency on it, but if the restaurant closes you'll find another one you like, or cook at home more, and there won't be a problem.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Actually, no. Hitler ran for president against von Hindenburg, and lost. His party did well in the elections, getting about 40% of the Reichstag (the legislative branch), but was slipping in the last free election.
Hitler was then appointed Chancellor by von Hindenburg, for reasons that turned out to be bad, and the then got himself voted emergency powers by the Reichstag, banned the Social Democrats, and went around solidifying his power.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok?
The average joe who is generally uninformed IS eating GMO food all day today, and statistically is as healthy as the control group. But the only reason they are eating it today is because they do not see scary GMO labels that they have only heard of because their friend on facebook shared a meme saying it was a bad thing. In the end it is wasted productivity - the actual labelling, the enforcement, the consumer confusion. I'm all for allowing companies to label GMO products as GMO voluntarily to cater to the anti-science types, but forcing all companies to do so is just promoting quackery.
I have no issue with labelling GMO foods, it's just a label and it's better to have overly stringent labelling laws than overly lax laws IMHO
Even though it's just a label, the process surrounding the label is not zero-cost. Companies have to add the labels, and add a process to ensure they are complying with the label and that their supply chain is complying. This requires certification of parts of the supply chain, etc, etc. This drives up costs, which drives up the cost of the product. Also, labels are useless without regulatory enforcement. So you need a regulatory body to inspect/audit the processes to ensure compliance, and the cost of that will either be billed to the food company (again driving up product costs) or is simply paid for by your taxes. So in the end, everyone pays more for a process that arguably provides no benefit to society.
I did not make that up, though I'll admit that I did mis-remember the magnitude of the difference. I thought it was more than a single percentage point. Would have been more accurate to say that they were essentially equal, instead of one being stronger than the other. Doesn't really change my point much 88 and 89% are both pretty high.
BSE - Has nothing at all to do with GMO. No GMO has ever inserted a prion protein into a plant so BSE and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (Kuru, CJD, and variant CJD in humans; chronic wasting disease in deer, etc.) are not relevant. EXCEPT that some researchers have developed a gene knock-out strain of cattle that does not contain the gene for the prion protein in the first place. Clearly a GMO that could make food safer.
Thalidomide - lots of chemicals can affect fetal development by interfering with the genome. That's why multigenerational genotoxicity studies in lab animals are part of the normal battery of tests to which a GMO are subjected before they can be considered safe. Generation interval for humans (disregarding the moral issues raised by testing on humans) is measured in decades. Generation interval in mice is measured in weeks. We can therefore look at multi-generational outcomes, with controlled doses, much more quickly and thus make decisions as to the safety of a new GMO in years instead of decades.
I've got no idea what you were getting at with regard to the jellyfish gene. All GMO at this point are based on well characterized single gene traits. The presence or absence of a single gene, producing a single protein, which performs a single well characterized action. It's not like companies are inserting random DNA segments to see what happens (that's what viruses do every day BTW). It is certainly *possible* that something could go wrong, which is why companies perform extensive internal testing before they decide to seek regulatory approval. The pipeline for developing gene traits is ~ 10 years from first concept to commercial approval, with the majority of that being internal testing. It's not like a new gene is discovered today and in seeds next year for sale.
Finally, you are essentially advocating infinite testing, which is both impractical and unnecessary. Testing under all possible permutations, no matter how similar they may be to permutations already tested. That is not science, that is paralysis based on irrationally high fear. This kind of testing is not really a call for testing, but a backhanded way to prevent approval. To pull out the tired old automobile analogy, cars kill thousands of people every year in the US yet we don't DEMAND that auto manufacturers make a perfectly safe car. We don't call for them to be tested on every single road in American at every single conceivable speed. Instead we've developed a battery of safety tests that we believe are highly predictive of the ultimate safety of a car. We simulate specific driving conditions and specific accident conditions, and base assessments on that. The same thing is done for GMO crops, with a much better success record thus far since no death or harm has ever been attributed to consumption of GMO food. Ironically, the same cannot be said for non-GMO organic foods.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Any number of things can cause genetic damage that could be passed on to the next generation. I honestly don't believe they've tested or are even able to test adequately for these possibilities. Of course as previously stated it's way too late to even worry about it now, the stuff is already in the wind and proliferating. We'll know in some decades to come if what they've released into the ecosphere is OK or if it's going to cause damage.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Well I'm already 99.9% sure, and so are all of the worlds top science organization and regulatory bodies.
If you applied the 2 human generation requirement to all other new products and chemicals, you would be limiting yourself to the state of the art medical science circa 1965 (average human generation interval is about 25 years). If you are unwilling to give up the last 50 years of medical advancements, I can understand. I wouldn't want to give them up either. Fortunately there is a way to determine the multigenerational impact of a new chemical, drug, or treatment regime WITHOUT having to wait 50 years to be sure it is safe. This is achieved by the use of Surrogate Models. Basically we use animals with much shorter generation intervals that are measured in weeks or months instead of decades, expose them to very high levels of the chemical every day for several generations, and look at the 2nd or 3rd generation and see if they are any different from the control animals who were NOT exposed. This is a basic requirement for safety testing for a range of different industries such as GMO seeds, pharmaceutical testing, chemical hazard testing for the chemical industry, etc.
That you are apparently unaware of this concept suggests that you should probably learn a bit more about the testing performed and the requirements for regulatory approval before deciding it is inadequate. I'd suggests the USDA/APHIS website as well as the FDA website.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
My question isn't really, "Could this cause genetic damage?" so much as, "Is there a reason to believe this particular thing is more likely to cause genetic damage than any number of other things?" That's where I'm getting hung up. We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Because you have absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever behind your arguments against GMO. You may as well say that every product that isn't actually Kosher or Halal must have a "Not Kosher" or "Not Halal" label prominently displayed on it. It's immaterial information, so there's no point in mandating a label.
No, what I'm showing you is that we have agricultural methods that are known to cause harm:
http://www.realclearscience.co...
Meanwhile you choose to pick on the one method that is not known to cause ANY harm, and you do so just because you're religiously opposed to it, forgoing scientific rationale entirely.
That is an absolutely ridiculous argument. You don't actually eat the cow shit you grow vegetables in. Most normal human beings wash their food first, if only to remove the chemical coating much non-organic food arrives with.
You're very wrong here. If the food has been tainted with e. coli, then short of scrubbing it with antibiotics or cooking it, simply rinsing it off won't work. There have also been numerous cases of restaurants using proper sanitary methods that still have organic food they serve cause sickness anyways.
I'm trying to understand exactly how Monsanto is supposed to achieve that. There are other seed vendors selling GMO and non-GMO products that farmers can buy any time they want. If farmers decide that the GMO product isn't worth the money, wouldn't they just start buying different seed from a different source? As it is, it certainly looks like the GMO seeds are worth the premium. Nobody is being forced to use any products they don't want to use.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
If it really was just about labeling things GMO/non-GMO for people to make real informed decisions, that would be fine. But the real goal is to encourage people to make uninformed decisions based on fear. Here's how it will really go:
Greenpeace: "If these GMOs are safe, why do you oppose mandatory government labeling?"
The Public: "Good point!"
Monsanto: "OK, fine. Labels it is. We'll stop opposing it."
Greenpeace: "If these GMOs are safe, why does the government mandate labels on them!!??!"
The Public: "Holy shit, good point!"
We're still trying to convince much of the public that vaccines don't cause autism. For the same reason, I wouldn't be a big fan of mandatory labels on vaccines that say something like, "Contains preservatives," or "Contains traces of virus." It's technically true, but it doesn't provide any useful information to the consumer. It's just a cudgel for crazy activists to swing around to cause more confusion.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
That article describes a bunch of people who have not been sued by Monsanto asking for preemptive relief in court because they're worried that Monsanto might sue them. That's them being afraid that Monsanto will sue them over accidental cross-pollination, not Monsanto actually doing it. The problem is that people have turned a theoretical concern into "Monsanto actually did this!" They haven't. They've filed a relatively small number of lawsuits against obvious offenders, and they donate the money they get in settlements to charity because they know that actually doing what people accuse them of would cause a huge (and well-deserved) shitstorm.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
1) When has this ever happened?
2) If this is actually a real problem, do you think there might be a way to deal with the problem short of completely banning a tremendously promising technology?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food.
Yes, we actually can tell you that. We can tell you that because, and this may be shocking, your government routinely tests foods for the presence of poisons, carcinogens, etc, and makes recommendations on maximum allowed presence of these contaminants. I'm sure there have been thousands of proposed pesticides that were never used because they could not get government approval due to negative effects on either humans or the environment. Honestly, sugar is killing you far more surely than these regulated substances are.
The article describes what you said as well, but not to the exclusion of what I was citing. Specifically, the Slashdot summary I linked pulled this choice quote from the article (emphasis mine):
Monsanto went after hundreds of farmers for infringing on their patented seed after audits revealed that their farms had contained their product — as a result of routine pollination by animals and acts of nature.
Now, they don't back up their sources, and I'm not invested enough in the topic to give it any further research at this point, but that's what I was referring to when I linked the summary and article I did. I'm aware that it also talks about people who asked the courts to pre-judge in their favor, but that is a separate issue from the one I was referencing.
What is poison, though? If you're a dog, onions and chocolate are on the list of things that are poison, but not so much if you're a human. If you're a caterpillar, Bt toxin is on the list, but not so much if you're a human. If you're an organism that produces EPSP enzymes, glyphosate is a deadly poison, but not so much if you're a human.
Also, nobody seems to be curious about the pesticides that Bt and glyphosate replaced. A lot of those are seriously nasty, and we're better off with more modern methods that use more benign chemicals.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I've never quite understood this argument. On the one hand, people rail against the use of glyphosate. Then they turn around and point out that evolution is eventually going to produce glyphosate-resistant weeds and glyphosate will become less useful. First, that's going to be true for any weed control method. Second, why are they worried about the day when "super weeds" make us stop using glyphosate and move on to something else when what they really want is the elimination of glyphosate?
They're generally not arguing, "use glyphosate judiciously to slow the creation of resistant weeds," like we are with antibiotics. They're generally arguing, "Glyphosate turned me into a newt! It should all go away! Also, glyphosate creates glyphosate resistant superweeds!"
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
All of this appears to be complete horseshit. Unless you have some sources to back it up, of course.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Are there corn or soybean compatibility issues I'm not aware of? Because I'm pretty sure Microsoft held on to its monopoly because people who used other software had a hard time inter-operating with the dominant software. Is there something about most farmers growing one type of corn that makes it too difficult for some farmers to grow another type of corn?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Your instincts about the article smelling kind of skechy are almost certainly right. Yes, that's what your source says happened, but as you note, they don't back it up with anything. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that anti-GMO activist groups are, if anything, even less trustworthy than international megacorporations when it comes to spinning the truth, omitting important factors, or just making stuff up from whole cloth. They're up there with creationists and anti-vaxers when it comes to needing to follow up on the primary documents for every claim they make.
If an article quotes those activist groups and they phrase something in such a way as to "not exclude" what they want you to think but not to actually come out and say it, it's usually not a real thing. If it was, they'd be pounding the drum and saying it outright and stating the facts clearly. My guess is when you hear meaningless phrases like "Monsanto went after" instead of "Monsanto threatened/filed suit against" what they really mean is that an investigator went to the farmer and asked if they were saving unlicensed GMO seeds, didn't find evidence of a violation, and then closed the case.
From what I've actually been able to verify, actual actions against farmers are extremely rare. Only a handful have actually gone to court, and the cases I've followed up on by reading the court decisions have been obviously one-sided with the farmer obviously intentionally violating the rules. The fact that when they're asked for specific cases, their big figurehead "victim" is usually Percy Schmeiser (side note: This is Monsanto's web site summarizing the situation and they link to the relevant decisions, which should tell us something) is an indicator that there isn't much in the way of real collateral damage here.
I'm generally pretty quick to believe accusations against big corporations because they're very often true. Unfortunately, the anti-GMO lobby has done so much to burn my trust that I'd take a peek outside if they told me the sky was blue. Will Saletan at Slate has a good summary that just scratches the surface of the whole mess here.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
We don't do 100 year studies on newly bred hybrids or plants produced via induced mutation. We don't do 100 year studies on new types of plastic, medications, floor coverings, artificial sweeteners, or anything else. Should we be doing 100 year studies on everything new we create on the off chance that they produce slow-moving problems, or is there some specific thing about transgenic plants that warrants it?
Here's my problem with GMO crops in general: There's a big difference between hybridizing crops the way farmers have been doing it for centuries, and the way they're doing it in a lab, directly splicing genes together, sometimes in ways that couldn't be done the way farmers can do it. Here's my problem with Monsanto, and companies like them: They don't act in a way that encourages you to feel like you can trust them. Here's my problem with the testing of things like this in general: They have to make assumptions based on testing on other animals over a relatively short period of time. You can't test these things directly on humans, either. There's also a big uncertainty factor because you can't wait decades to see if what you've created is actually going to be harmful. If it was just some product, and it turns out 20 years from now that the product causes harm, they stop producing it, or change it so it's safe. If you're futzing around with genetics, then your product, if it's harmful, may cause permanent, irreversible harm to either the environment, animal life, or human life. There have been plenty of drugs that the FDA initially approved, but then decades later it's discovered they were harmful; our testing methodology, in my opinion, is not sufficient. But as I keep saying: It's already too late.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I thought it was "Opt-Out From Glowing GM Crops"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
You have it quite wrong. EU is not big on consumer crap like Facebook or Twitter or whatever you consider "high tech", but when it comes to industry software there are enough local companies that provide it. And European mechanical and chemical engineering is at the very least on par with anyone else, and often actually better. In fact, large scale machinery, chemicals, drugs, food processing and packaging is what Germany and the Netherlands export to the USA.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Yea, because it is perfectly fine for a company to genetically modify a food product to create poison that kills insects and just take their word for it that it is safe for us to eat on a large scale.
There is nothing inherently wrong with genetically modified food, but you should not assume that it is benign without honest testing.
If you think that companies like Monsanto are trustworthy enough to perform their own safety testing then you are a fool among fools.
It's called self projection.
So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents?
Expecting only profit driven companies to do research and development will end with us having products and advances that only benefit those companies' profits.
You know there existed a time before patents and we managed along just fine. That said, I'd rather see us adequately fund research and development in Universities, government labs, and grants to private firms to research things that benefit the public. That is a very good use of public money.
Researching how to develop a seed that produces a sterile plant, just so someone has to buy seeds from you every year, only benefits a company's profits. It doesn't benefit the farmers or public.
whole egg shell thing was crap
I never heard anyone in the news bring up a study that says the thinning was "crap". Wikipedia still lists it as fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_wildlife_and_eggshell_thinning
Do you have another study / article you could provide? I'm curious, because I come from an ag background, family in ag consulting, etc.. and still to this day believe ddt is bad for birds.
Google scholar also has a bunch of old and new studies saying ddt thins eggshells.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1897/05-619R.1/abstract;jsessionid=FCE001FCC8095B53C7BE497B474DA122.f02t02?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=
Or
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ddt+eggshell+thinning+mechanism&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0CBwQgQMwAGoVChMI656mn762yAIVipqICh3rqQjz
You made me get off my tablet. Damn it. ;)
Anyhow... http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF...
In addition, later research refuted the original studies that had pointed to DDT as a cause for eggshell thinning. After reassessing their findings using more modern methodology, Drs. Hickey and Anderson admitted that the egg extracts they had studied contained little or no DDT and said they were now pursuing PCBs, chemicals used as capacitor insulators, as the culprit.20
How about:
After many years of carefully controlled feeding experiments, Dr. M. L. Scott and associates of the Department of Poultry Science at Cornell University “found no tremors, no mortality, no thinning of eggshells and no interference with reproduction caused by levels of DDT which were as high as those reported to be present in most of the wild birds where ‘catastrophic’ decreases in shell quality and reproduction have been claimed.”23 In fact, thinning eggshells can have many causes, including season of the year, nutrition (in particular insufficient calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, and manganese), temperature rise, type of soil, and breeding conditions (e.g., sunlight and crowding).25
There are many others. That's just but one. My understanding is that they really don't want it being used in agriculture because it's persistent. I'm a mathematician and not a chemist nor a biologist. I can't really opine on it. What I can opine on is that the original studies and the book were bullshit and need to be removed from the collective conversation if we want ethics in our science.
A little more effort will find more information, I've found piles of it in the past after hearing about it being used by the Gate's Foundation and wondering what the hell was going on. Bastards... Not the foundation but the people who pushed this shit to begin with.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
See above post for one rebuttal by people more informed than I. I've quoted some of the useful information but there's a lot more to be had.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."