I trust the scientists hired by biotech companies at least as much (and generally more) as I trust those hired by the biotech scaremongers. Everyone has an agenda, everyone has bias, everyone is trying to sell something. The difference is that the Biotech companies actually have an interest in limiting their liability, whereas the scaremongers, when shown to be wrong, will move on to the next scare, with no repercussions amongst the fanatics that support them.
I can't say I disagree with you on either issue. I'm oppossed to patents, and I'm opposed to public research. So we come to the same place with different paths.
Perhaps you meant to say no representation without taxation? That I can agree with. I would personally stop taxing corporations, though.
I'm no friend of the USPTO, but I think a lot of people here need to stop and think. These 'giant monoliths' are trying to make money by solving real problems. Millions of blind kids in undeveloped countries would love to be able to choose to buy "natural" foods, but they can't afford it, and they wouldn't be able to read the label anyway because they're blind from Vitamin A deff. Who's going to solve this problem so the next generation doesn't go blind? It's not going to be John Q. Organic Farmer. It's going to be a 'giant monolith' who wants to make money by solving real problems experienced by real people whose lives are just as valuable as yours.
Arpad Pusztai's 150-second interview on British television two years ago left the biotechnology industry reeling.
The research scientist, now visting Canada, likened consumers to guinea pigs and said genetically modified (GM) food on supermarket shelves was not properly tested.
A media frenzy followed. Pusztai's work was widely condemned, and he was fired from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Last week, Pusztai, with his wife and colleague, Susan Bardocz, spoke about their research in Toronto, Guelph and Ottawa. They were hosted by Canada's anti-biotech triangle of power: Greenpeace, the Council of Canadians and Ann Clark, a Guelph professor and GM opponent.
"We would like to give an account of our actual research," said Pusztai, "not all that has been said about it."
But details of his experiments are hidden in a Catch-22. Pusztai won't use the Internet to show his work. "If something goes on a Web site, it will be difficult to publish [in a scientific journal]," he said.
When asked if he will ever publish his complete work, he said "that would be a very uphill job," partly because the Rowett institute's Web site briefly displayed it, "against our wishes."
"It is in the public domain," added Bardocz, "but no one has access to it."
Meanwhile, Pusztai and Bardocz are on a speaking tour, accusing biotech companies of keeping safety test results under lock and key.
"Where is the transparency?" he asked.
"We are feeling very concerned about GM foods on the market today," said Bardocz. Their concern grew out of research with GM potatoes that contain a lectin gene. Lectins are proteins naturally produced in plants that have insecticidal properties.
The effects of feeding these potatoes to rats were being studied, and a small part of the research was published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Pusztai is most criticized for blaming the "construct" -- the extra bits of DNA put into the plant along with the lectin gene -- for causing cell proliferation in the rat intestine. That is not damage or disease in itself, but such proliferation is bad in toxicological terms.
The construct includes a "promoter": a switch to make the lectin gene work and a marker gene for antibiotic resistance.
The idea that this construct DNA could be toxic has been seized upon by anti-GM activists, because most GM crops now eaten were made with a similar construct. Many of Pusztai's colleagues found the idea laughable.
He admits his experiment lacked an important control. Potatoes containing only the construct DNA -- minus the lectin gene -- should have been fed to the rats. He said he planned such a test, but was fired before he could do it.
Where is the science to clarify Pusztai's findings?
The co-author of the Lancet article, Stanley Ewen, said last week there is no continuing research on the potatoes in question.
"That would have been the logical way to silence us," said Bardocz.
Other studies have emerged that mimic Pusztai's. A vice-president of Peking University, Zhang-Liang Chen, fed GM peppers and tomatoes to rats. Researchers at the Japanese Institute of Health Sciences fed GM soybeans to rats and mice. No adverse effects were found in either study.
Bardocz said two groups in Norway have funding to repeat Pusztai's experiments with GM corn and GM soya, but have been delayed. "The problem is getting the parent lines [for the potatoes into which the lectin gene had been put] from the biotech companies," she said. "The Norwegian government had to request the material."
Karen Dodds, director general of the Office of Biotechnology and Science at Health Canada, does not seem worried. On Feb. 4, the Royal Society of Canada issued a 263-page report after almost a year of work. It provides advice for making sure new food products being developed through biotechnology are safe.
The report offers many suggestions to improve Canada's regulatory system, but importantly, "they were clear they had no concerns about the GM foods that have been approved to date," said Dodds.
Interpretation of the Royal Society's report will continue as new research comes to light.
Pusztai is doubtless right on one count. "In the end this question should be decided by scientific methods," he said. "People can come up with other explanations than ours, but there has to be a debate."
Please, show us how the budgets for the dept's of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Education relate to SAT scores. Draw us a nice graph.
There is no spectacle more agreeable than watching an old friend fall from a roof.
Confucious
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Optimism was based on over-simplistic model
on
A Map to Nowhere?
·
· Score: 2
given the evolutionary origin of the genome, it seems likely that it is full of garbage. It would be surprising if the genome was optimised for space, which in my agnostic mind would be enough to start me going to church or something.
While I don't agree with the assertion that there would be a problem with using the tides to generate power, it is known that the tidal bulge on the oceans actually leads the moon and the gravitational effect of this bulge actually is pushing the moon away from us... Since they're talking about harnessing the tides at the shore line, one can imagine that the effect of harnessing that power on the orbit of the moon will be negligible.
I was under the impression that you could create for your own use, a device of any kind, whether patented or not. It is only illegal to sell the product.
This is not true. If you infringe on the patent, you're liable for damages, whether you sell it or make it for personal use. If you buy something someone else made which infringes a patent, you're guilty of contributory infringement. If you sell something that someone else made which infringes a patent, you're guilty of contributory infringement. There are damage multipliers and everything.
Under the FCPA, U.S. jurisdiction over corrupt payments to foreign officials depends upon whether the violator is an "issuer,"
a "domestic concern," or a foreign national or business.
An "issuer" is a corporation that has issued securities that have been registered in the United States or who is required to file
periodic reports with the SEC. A "domestic concern" is any individual who is a citizen, national, or resident of the United
States, or any corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, business trust, unincorporated organization, or sole
proprietorship which has its principal place of business in the United States, or which is organized under the laws of a State of
the United States, or a territory, possession, or commonwealth of the United States.
Issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable under the FCPA under either territorial or nationality jurisdiction principles.
For acts taken within the territory of the United States, issuers and domestic concerns are liable if they take an act in
furtherance of a corrupt payment to a foreign official using the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate
commerce. Such means or instrumentalities include telephone calls, facsimile transmissions, wire transfers, and interstate or
international travel. In addition, issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable for any act in furtherance of a corrupt
payment taken outside the United States. Thus, a U.S. company or national may be held liable for a corrupt payment
authorized by employees or agents operating entirely outside the United States, using money from foreign bank accounts, and
without any involvement by personnel located within the United States.
Prior to 1998, foreign companies, with the exception of those who qualified as "issuers," and foreign nationals were not
covered by the FCPA. The 1998 amendments expanded the FCPA to assert territorial jurisdiction over foreign companies and
nationals. A foreign company or person is now subject to the FCPA if it causes, directly or through agents, an act in
furtherance of the corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States. There is, however, no requirement
that such act make use of the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce.
Finally, U.S. parent corporations may be held liable for the acts of foreign subsidiaries where they authorized, directed, or
controlled the activity in question, as can U.S. citizens or residents, themselves "domestic concerns," who were employed by
or acting on behalf of such foreign-incorporated subsidiaries.
Thanks, until I read your responce, I thought that companies and politicians were always acting in the public interest. You've convinced me of the error of my ways.
Do not get into a 'my cynicism is bigger than yours' battle with me, you will lose.
American companies are forbidden to bribe foreign governemtns, etc. This is actually a matter of dispute with some European countries whose companies are not thusly restricted.
I don't think that would be good for IBM. I think they're aware of the kind of outcry that would ensue if they bought their way into the de facto standard. They're better off being friends to the community. I'm sure if IBM wants something put into linux, they can acheive that simply by writing it well, in full view of the community. It's not going to piss me off when jfs is finished. Besides, no one has proven that managing a distribution is profitable. If Red Hat, et al fail, IBM and others would pick up the pieces, and no one could really critisize them for it...
That's a very implausible. Palm Beach county has a substantial Jewish, black, and
Latino population. The idea that Buchanan would get several times as many votes
there as he did in most other Florida counties just doesn't make sense.
I think there is a mistake in this assumption. Firstly, you claim that the population in the county is heavily Jewish, Black, and Latino, inferring they would vote for Gore. I'll give you that. But that does not reveal any information about the non-Jewish, non-black, and non-latino population there. Take them away, and what do you have? Probably some of what's left are old, bitter, white, christian conservatives who don't like Jews, Blacks or Latinos! => Buchanen Supporters. Buchanen said he beat Brown by 5:1 in other parts of the state, and he said that if that were the case in Palm Beach, he'd see 3400 votes. That's probably not the case, but how useful is probability in this matter? You can't just apply the national population statistics to the county of Palm Beach- you have to study the population of palm beach! And if 8k voters liked him more than Dole, it's quite probable that 3k liked him more than Bush.
Slashdot Mirror
I read that already.
I trust the scientists hired by biotech companies at least as much (and generally more) as I trust those hired by the biotech scaremongers. Everyone has an agenda, everyone has bias, everyone is trying to sell something. The difference is that the Biotech companies actually have an interest in limiting their liability, whereas the scaremongers, when shown to be wrong, will move on to the next scare, with no repercussions amongst the fanatics that support them.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I hearby license my motto under the General Evil License and donate the copyright to the Free Evil Foundation.
With apologies to RMS,
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I can't say I disagree with you on either issue. I'm oppossed to patents, and I'm opposed to public research. So we come to the same place with different paths.
Perhaps you meant to say no representation without taxation? That I can agree with. I would personally stop taxing corporations, though.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Yes, I believe that GM foods have something to do with feeding the poor.
Do you actually believe that the biotech companies have posters on the wall saying 'What natural system can we fuck up today?'
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I'm no friend of the USPTO, but I think a lot of people here need to stop and think. These 'giant monoliths' are trying to make money by solving real problems. Millions of blind kids in undeveloped countries would love to be able to choose to buy "natural" foods, but they can't afford it, and they wouldn't be able to read the label anyway because they're blind from Vitamin A deff. Who's going to solve this problem so the next generation doesn't go blind? It's not going to be John Q. Organic Farmer. It's going to be a 'giant monolith' who wants to make money by solving real problems experienced by real people whose lives are just as valuable as yours.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Mr. Pusztai should release his data if he wants to be taken seriously.
= /s tories/20010220/479847.html
---
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f
Arpad Pusztai's 150-second interview on British television two years ago left the biotechnology industry reeling.
The research scientist, now visting Canada, likened consumers to guinea pigs and said genetically modified (GM) food on supermarket shelves was not properly tested.
A media frenzy followed. Pusztai's work was widely condemned, and he was fired from the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Last week, Pusztai, with his wife and colleague, Susan Bardocz, spoke about their research in Toronto, Guelph and Ottawa. They were hosted by Canada's anti-biotech triangle of power: Greenpeace, the Council of Canadians and Ann Clark, a Guelph professor and GM opponent.
"We would like to give an account of our actual research," said Pusztai, "not all that has been said about it."
But details of his experiments are hidden in a Catch-22. Pusztai won't use the Internet to show his work. "If something goes on a Web site, it will be difficult to publish [in a scientific journal]," he said.
When asked if he will ever publish his complete work, he said "that would be a very uphill job," partly because the Rowett institute's Web site briefly displayed it, "against our wishes."
"It is in the public domain," added Bardocz, "but no one has access to it."
Meanwhile, Pusztai and Bardocz are on a speaking tour, accusing biotech companies of keeping safety test results under lock and key.
"Where is the transparency?" he asked.
"We are feeling very concerned about GM foods on the market today," said Bardocz. Their concern grew out of research with GM potatoes that contain a lectin gene. Lectins are proteins naturally produced in plants that have insecticidal properties.
The effects of feeding these potatoes to rats were being studied, and a small part of the research was published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Pusztai is most criticized for blaming the "construct" -- the extra bits of DNA put into the plant along with the lectin gene -- for causing cell proliferation in the rat intestine. That is not damage or disease in itself, but such proliferation is bad in toxicological terms.
The construct includes a "promoter": a switch to make the lectin gene work and a marker gene for antibiotic resistance.
The idea that this construct DNA could be toxic has been seized upon by anti-GM activists, because most GM crops now eaten were made with a similar construct. Many of Pusztai's colleagues found the idea laughable.
He admits his experiment lacked an important control. Potatoes containing only the construct DNA -- minus the lectin gene -- should have been fed to the rats. He said he planned such a test, but was fired before he could do it.
Where is the science to clarify Pusztai's findings?
The co-author of the Lancet article, Stanley Ewen, said last week there is no continuing research on the potatoes in question.
"That would have been the logical way to silence us," said Bardocz.
Other studies have emerged that mimic Pusztai's. A vice-president of Peking University, Zhang-Liang Chen, fed GM peppers and tomatoes to rats. Researchers at the Japanese Institute of Health Sciences fed GM soybeans to rats and mice. No adverse effects were found in either study.
Bardocz said two groups in Norway have funding to repeat Pusztai's experiments with GM corn and GM soya, but have been delayed. "The problem is getting the parent lines [for the potatoes into which the lectin gene had been put] from the biotech companies," she said. "The Norwegian government had to request the material."
Karen Dodds, director general of the Office of Biotechnology and Science at Health Canada, does not seem worried. On Feb. 4, the Royal Society of Canada issued a 263-page report after almost a year of work. It provides advice for making sure new food products being developed through biotechnology are safe.
The report offers many suggestions to improve Canada's regulatory system, but importantly, "they were clear they had no concerns about the GM foods that have been approved to date," said Dodds.
Interpretation of the Royal Society's report will continue as new research comes to light.
Pusztai is doubtless right on one count. "In the end this question should be decided by scientific methods," he said. "People can come up with other explanations than ours, but there has to be a debate."
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Who cares about feeding the poor around the world. It's the wail strains of canola in canada that matter.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I wish the government didn't care about the environment. They screw up everything they care about.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Please, show us how the budgets for the dept's of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Education relate to SAT scores. Draw us a nice graph.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
There is no spectacle more agreeable than watching an old friend fall from a roof.
Confucious
Surfing the net and other cliches...
given the evolutionary origin of the genome, it seems likely that it is full of garbage. It would be surprising if the genome was optimised for space, which in my agnostic mind would be enough to start me going to church or something.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(a felon cannot hold public office)
Thats just not true.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
While I don't agree with the assertion that there would be a problem with using the tides to generate power, it is known that the tidal bulge on the oceans actually leads the moon and the gravitational effect of this bulge actually is pushing the moon away from us... Since they're talking about harnessing the tides at the shore line, one can imagine that the effect of harnessing that power on the orbit of the moon will be negligible.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I was under the impression that you could create for your own use, a device of any kind, whether patented or not. It is only illegal to sell the product.
This is not true. If you infringe on the patent, you're liable for damages, whether you sell it or make it for personal use. If you buy something someone else made which infringes a patent, you're guilty of contributory infringement. If you sell something that someone else made which infringes a patent, you're guilty of contributory infringement. There are damage multipliers and everything.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
THe dangerous electronics are a crucial part of the Quantum Copyright Rights Protection Management Scheme now being developed by Microsoft, IBM, the RIAA and Sandia Labs.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
From the article -
Under the FCPA, U.S. jurisdiction over corrupt payments to foreign officials depends upon whether the violator is an "issuer,"
a "domestic concern," or a foreign national or business.
An "issuer" is a corporation that has issued securities that have been registered in the United States or who is required to file
periodic reports with the SEC. A "domestic concern" is any individual who is a citizen, national, or resident of the United
States, or any corporation, partnership, association, joint-stock company, business trust, unincorporated organization, or sole
proprietorship which has its principal place of business in the United States, or which is organized under the laws of a State of
the United States, or a territory, possession, or commonwealth of the United States.
Issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable under the FCPA under either territorial or nationality jurisdiction principles.
For acts taken within the territory of the United States, issuers and domestic concerns are liable if they take an act in
furtherance of a corrupt payment to a foreign official using the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate
commerce. Such means or instrumentalities include telephone calls, facsimile transmissions, wire transfers, and interstate or
international travel. In addition, issuers and domestic concerns may be held liable for any act in furtherance of a corrupt
payment taken outside the United States. Thus, a U.S. company or national may be held liable for a corrupt payment
authorized by employees or agents operating entirely outside the United States, using money from foreign bank accounts, and
without any involvement by personnel located within the United States.
Prior to 1998, foreign companies, with the exception of those who qualified as "issuers," and foreign nationals were not
covered by the FCPA. The 1998 amendments expanded the FCPA to assert territorial jurisdiction over foreign companies and
nationals. A foreign company or person is now subject to the FCPA if it causes, directly or through agents, an act in
furtherance of the corrupt payment to take place within the territory of the United States. There is, however, no requirement
that such act make use of the U.S. mails or other means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce.
Finally, U.S. parent corporations may be held liable for the acts of foreign subsidiaries where they authorized, directed, or
controlled the activity in question, as can U.S. citizens or residents, themselves "domestic concerns," who were employed by
or acting on behalf of such foreign-incorporated subsidiaries.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Just last week, I was trying to set up an arms deal with India, but I lost out to a bunch of undercover reporters because I wouldn't pay the bribe.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Yes.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Nope:b .h tm
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/dojdoc
"Foreign Corrupt Practices Act"
From the article:
The FCPA makes it unlawful to bribe foreign government officials to obtain or retain business.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Thanks, until I read your responce, I thought that companies and politicians were always acting in the public interest. You've convinced me of the error of my ways.
Do not get into a 'my cynicism is bigger than yours' battle with me, you will lose.
chris
Surfing the net and other cliches...
American companies are forbidden to bribe foreign governemtns, etc. This is actually a matter of dispute with some European countries whose companies are not thusly restricted.
Chris
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I don't think that would be good for IBM. I think they're aware of the kind of outcry that would ensue if they bought their way into the de facto standard. They're better off being friends to the community. I'm sure if IBM wants something put into linux, they can acheive that simply by writing it well, in full view of the community. It's not going to piss me off when jfs is finished. Besides, no one has proven that managing a distribution is profitable. If Red Hat, et al fail, IBM and others would pick up the pieces, and no one could really critisize them for it...
chris
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Probably TMD is Theater Missle Defence, and NMD is National Missle Defence.
TMD would probably be a system which could cover a battlefield (eg, europe in WWII).
Surfing the net and other cliches...
That's a very implausible. Palm Beach county has a substantial Jewish, black, and
Latino population. The idea that Buchanan would get several times as many votes
there as he did in most other Florida counties just doesn't make sense.
I think there is a mistake in this assumption. Firstly, you claim that the population in the county is heavily Jewish, Black, and Latino, inferring they would vote for Gore. I'll give you that. But that does not reveal any information about the non-Jewish, non-black, and non-latino population there. Take them away, and what do you have? Probably some of what's left are old, bitter, white, christian conservatives who don't like Jews, Blacks or Latinos! => Buchanen Supporters. Buchanen said he beat Brown by 5:1 in other parts of the state, and he said that if that were the case in Palm Beach, he'd see 3400 votes. That's probably not the case, but how useful is probability in this matter? You can't just apply the national population statistics to the county of Palm Beach- you have to study the population of palm beach! And if 8k voters liked him more than Dole, it's quite probable that 3k liked him more than Bush.
Somewhat joking!
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Just like to pint out that Jeb recused himself from the certification group.
Surfing the net and other cliches...