GM is not Monsanto any more than pharmacology is Merck. They don't own science and technology. And the problem with the pigweed was something avoidable, even Monsanto predicted it would happen. Using one chemical to kill things is always a bad idea, and even before the resistant weeds became news scientists were advocating the use of GMOs with resistances to multiple active ingredient herbicides. It isn't resistant to all herbicides, just Monsanto's herbicide, which is one of the most commonly used. Also, it may come as a surprise, but even GMOs that resist herbicides tend to, surprisingly, be a net gain for the environment. And look up nitrogen use efficiency technologies...people are working on GMOs that use fertilizers more efficiently to enable less usage of inputs. Don't know if Monsanto is, but it is happening.
As for biodiversity, monoculture has never been good. While we must not forget economies of scale, plenty of times extensive monoculture has ended poorly, like the Irish potato famine, the 70s corn failure, and the fall of the Gros Michel banana, none of which involved GMOs. Genetic engineering is just a means of altering a plant, how we use that is up to us, just like how we use breeding, tractors, or harvesters, which, need I remind you, rarely help biodiversity either.
I personally would love to see genetic engineering be done or more diverse crops to help them integrate to the larger food supply. 'New' fruits like salak, zabla, cloudberry, and safou, new vegetables like chaya, lotus root, and yacón, new grains like teff and quinoa, new spices like rosita de cacao and dorrigo pepper...there is a huge world of agricultural and culinary diversity out there, hundreds and hundreds of species, and we're not growing them, and it is a darned shame from both a scientific/agricultural view and a cultural/culinary/economic view. There is no scientific reason whatsoever why they cannot also be the recipients of genetic engineering to help them move along into the food supply. Just because it's not being done doesn't mean it can't be or shouldn't be. Heck, don't know about veges, you can't get any much, if any, pomology funding to do normal breeding on such underutilized plants, but that isn't an argument against breeding. I understand the concern about lack of biodiversity in the food supply, but understand, the current usage of genetic engineering is a symptom of that, not a cause.
And I'd like to see more meats used, but just try getting people to accept guinea pig, kangaroo, black iguana, or (heaven forbid) an type of insect on their plates...ha, not happening. People are slow to accept new plants too (how many years have kiwi and mango been widely available and many people still do not view them on the same level as apples, oranges, grapes, and bananas), so there is a big hindrance to expanding biodiversity there too, more so than any cultivation issue. Change the minds of people, and maybe genetic engineering will follow. And as for GE, don't forget that anti-GMO groups protested the Rainbow papaya too...made by universities, needing no additional input, worked flawlessly, and they were still against it. Don't kid yourself into thinking that all, or even the majority, of anti-GMO sentiment is about Monsanto.
You're right, wrong, and right. Right in that, yes, they are different processes. Wrong in that it is not a good argument. A lot of the anti-GMO crowd claims to be against GMOs because they are not natural (as if that means anything anyway), but then whenever you point out that we have been altering genes for thousands of years. I'll bet if you compared the genes of modern corn, potatoes, tomatoes, apples, wheat, ect to their wildtype ancestors, you'd see tons of genetic differences and new genes. Look at the diversity of some of the crops we cultivate and tell me that we're not playing with a multitude of genes. In this way, the parent poster is right. But you're right again in the sense that, in a more rational world, we would all know that, and that argument would hold less weight. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world.
I spend a lot of time dealing with GMO topics, and there are really two groups that have concerns: the denialist group that goes through every bad argument and logical fallacy in the book, and knows almost nothing about the science and research behind the topic, and the smaller, more nuanced group that tends not to be more concerned about things like patents. I think you're taking an argument against the former as the latter. It's kind of like the whole debate has layers.
But yes, there is a difference between the two, but there are more similarities than differences. One is more powerful, and as such must be watched more closely, although the other absolutely has it's risks and uses. But in the end, the end result is still a plant with modified genes. That's why I like to make the distinction between genetically modified and genetically engineered, the former referring to something where the genes were changed, and the latter referring specifically to direct genetic manipulation, although in practice they both interchangeably mean the latter.
If this post didn't make much sense, it's kinda hard to describe what I'm getting at with the overall environment and people of the GMO controversies.
Let me point out that what they resist is actually herbicide, not pesticide. Round-up is actually fairly benign, and breaks down pretty fast. The pesticide they produce is the Bt protein, long used in organic farming of all things, and I know of no good research showing human health concerns from it. While that may not seem good to you, the end consumer, it is pretty nice for the farmer and the environment that GMOs reduce pesticide applications and the need to till and deweed. Also, Monsanto is indeed working on second generation GMO crops. The only increased nutrient one I know of that they're doing is soybeans with omega 3 in them. I'm not saying Monsanto the company is your friend here, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that their GMOs bad.
It wasn't so much what they were doing as much as how they were doing it. It wasn't over use of herbicides that produced herbicide resistant weeds, but over-reliance on a single compound. If GMOs are designed to resist multiple herbicides, and those multiple compounds are sprayed, it will be much, much harder for resistant weeds to form. There are only two herbicide resistant GMOs out there right now, Monsanto's Round-Up ready, which resists glyphosate, and Bayer's Liberty Link which resists glufosinate and has a much smaller market share. If the two traits were used together, things would be much nicer. The herbicide resistant traits are, believe it or not, actually a good thing. They make it easier for the farmers, they reduce stress on the soil and surrounding ecosystem (no till), and they the active ingredient of Round-Up breaks down pretty quickly into harmless substances.
Small. Canola can't cross with those any more than a cat can cross with a dog, and while there is horizontal gene transfer, that isn't all that likely; when was the last time you saw a gene go the other way? Ever found urushiol producing genes in a tomato? And even if it does happen, the two genes in this canola aren't be all end all superplant genes. It would just mean that Round-Up doesn't work on them (other herbicides would) or that they produce the Bt gene, which prevents some insects (but not all) from eating them. In the case of poison ivy and kudzu, I don't think either trait would help the plants too exceptionally.
Having said that, we really don't know enough to be certain of the long-term effects. Much more research needs to be done, but companies like Monsanto are forging ahead now, and from what I can tell, with little regard for consequence.
I gotta disagree with that one, because there has been quite a lot of research on GMO crops that have found no significant difference between them and normal crops. They are not known to produce any compounds that they're not supposed to, and the idea that the gene itself will hurt you (which is an argument I have actually seen) is just silly, considering that normal breeding and mutagenesis produces far more altered genes than GM, and besides, your body can handle everything from kepel fruit to kangaroo, and that's a lot more new genes than simple genetic modification. One could make the argument that the Bt protein used in insect resistant GMOs (also used in organic farming) is harmful, but I've never seen a shred of evidence to indicate it.
Could there be long term consequences of eating GMOs? Absolutely. They could kill us all tomorrow for all I know. I can't disprove the possibility that there is some sort of complex interaction via presently unknown mechanisms that will ultimately hurt us. But as Stephen Gould said, 'Apples may start rising tomorrow but such a possibility doesn't merit equal time in physics classrooms.' The smallpox vaccine might have some sort of sort of long term effect, so could cell phone and wifi radiation, but, like GMOs, we have no evidence to indicate that they do, and until there is, I wouldn't really worry about it. Yeah, there have been those 'smoking gun' type studies, they always turn out to be baloney. And keep in mind, when you reject scientific consensus to hastily over a single study, bad things can happen (remember the Wakefield study?). And of course, there is no reason to assume that all GMOs are good, they can be pretty complex when you're running a gene that produces a certain compound in one plant through entirely different pathways, as this potentially harmful GMO demonstrates, but notice that the problem was found and explained. No one has ever found, let alone provided a science based reason for the existence of, and causative agent for the harm that GMOs are occasionally claimed to cause.
Now, had you said ecological long term consequences, that is a much more complex issue, but there, if we use GURTs, genetic use restriction technology, which we are not currently using due to protests from the anti-GMO crowd, that can be kept to a minimum. And of course, there they do not need to be perfect, only a net positive over agriculture without them. For example, they currently provide known ecological benefits, so in the case of this escaped canola, it is not a matter of 'How bad is the canola' but of 'Is this worse than the damage that would be caused to the soil and water and local flora/fauna without GMOs.' I think we still come out ahead, as it isn't like this canola is some sort of 'superweed' or whatever just because it has an extra human inserted gene.
I agree with your first paragraph, just pointing out that human health is one of the least likely areas for GMOs to come back and bite us in the rear.
Correct. At the moment, we do not need GMO crops. What we need is for every country to have a stable, functioning government that cares about the well being of it's citizens and doesn't consider food a method of control. Guess which one we can give people in third world countries. Or would you like to see an invasion of the DRC to kill Mugabe and try to set up a decent government? You're right, there is no global shortage of food, many of the countries that need more food could easily produce it (the DRC for example has tons of very fertile farmland), and GMOs are not a silver bullet, but you know what, they're a start. You can change plants in a lab it resist bugs, or disease, or drought, or be more nutritious, but there is no way to change human nature. You can insert the gene for beta carotene into rice but you can't insert compassion into an evil regime. So until they do fix their governments, we have to do what we can for the people who are starving now, and that includes GMOs.
Yes, ban an entire field of science and technology because a group of non-experts who know nothing about it except the half truths and whole lies of other non-experts who know nothing about it don't like it. Nope, I don't see how that could possibly go wrong.
Nor are plant patents. People have had those for years, and they occasionally have controversies. I don't think it unreasonable to allow people to make a profit off their work, be it writing a book or breeding a plant. It took 20 years for some guy to breed the Redlove apple, is the time and effort of horticulturalists so meaningless that they should not be allowed to have a patent, for a reasonable time, on their work? And GM tech is no different. Now, suing someone because they were cross pollinated, there needs to be a better way worked out (although in the most famous case of that there was more to the story).
Since you mention that,you would be surprised at the amazingsimilarities between the vaccine denialists (and the AIDS denialists, for that matter) and the GMO denialists. Course, when you think about it, they're not that amazing. Most forms of crankery are the same thing, with just a few words switched here and there. But it is, make no mistake, the exact same line of thought that produces both groups.
Which, if we had used, we would not be seeing this story right now. There are other types of what are called GURTs, genetic use restriction technology, that prevent this sort of thing from happening. One of them, called traitor seed technology (nice name, and they wonder why people get scared) means you can save your seed (although I don't think too many large scale farmers do that), you just need to bathe them in a a certain mixture to activate them. But you see, if anyone were to try to implement them, the anti-science/GMO crowd goes bonkers. It's like how people were so afraid of nuclear power that we ended up with coal pollution. Had those poeple shut up, and said 'Maybe I shouldn't try to dictate things I don't understand' the end result would be much nicer. Not that I think this is too is too horrible, not that it's great either, the original article was actually very calm, didn't make this out to be another OMG GMO End of teh Wurld! situation that doubtless many will make it out to be.
If that's what you're worried about, you should support GMO crops. Nitrogen use efficiency. I'm sure there are other traits to reduce fertilizer inputs out there, but that's a big one people are working on now.
Whoops, my bad, Starlink isn't a herbicide resistant on, it was the one that caused the taco shell controversy a while back. It was a Bt corn only approved for animal feed, not human consumption, which was not one of the FDA's brighter moves. Liberty Link is the other herbicide resistant one, and it is made by Bayer, not Monsanto, and it is resistant to glufosinate, whereas RR is resistant to glyphosate. Yet another reason why, just like in plant species, I hate common names.
IF you are concerned about safety, FDA or no, there has been extensive research on it. Verymanystudies demonstrate no difference between GMOs and non-GM crops, and as a result, the general scientific consensus is that they're safe. Even if we assume Monsanto is influencing the FDA, I doubt they exert the same influence over countless relevant experts. Heck, even countries like Iran and China have developed their own homegrown strains of GMO. Iran made the worlds first Bt rice. Is Monsanto bribing off what one of most anti-US countries in the world?
Those who claim that GMOs are dangerous haven't done a very good job of proving their claims, either. For something to be dangerous, I think we can all agree it must have a reason, yes? Just being GMO is not a valid reason, it must have some sort of chemical compount, not present in the unmodified counterpart, that is dangerous. To date, no such compound from a commercially approved GMO has been identified. No genetic reasoning, no chemical pathways given for the production, and no proven cases of people actually hurt by them. No reason in theory, no evidence in practice. Starfruit and kiwi have presented more problems than GMOs, yet no one protests them. And of course, GMOs must be reviewed on a case by case basis, maybe someday the FDA royally screws up and one that kills people is released , but if it is, there'll be a reason for it. And since there is neither a known reason as to why any of the commercial GMOs would hurt anyone nor evidence that it happens, I guess the FDA just puts them in a catagory similar to Generally Recognized As Safe after the testing has been done.
As for the weeds, that is a very real problem. The thing there is, everyone saw that coming. Even Monsanto said it would happen. The problem was that there are only two traits for herbicide resistance, Starlink and Round-Up Ready, and only Round-Up Ready was extensively used. The problem wasn't overuse, but over-reliance. If there were more approved traits, and people used multiple herbicides, it would much more difficult for a weed to develop resistance. Even if it were to acquire the resistance through horizontal gene transfer, if there were multiple genes confirming resistance to multiple compounds, it is still very unlikely. These weeds aren't really 'superweeds' by the way, just regular weeds that are resistant to the most popular herbicide, so they can still be taken out by other chemicals and methods, but still, this never should have been allowed to happen in the first place. I don't know why it wasn't done, why those traits weren't pushed out there, maybe the FDA was lax in approving them, maybe activists protested, maybe the companies just didn't care, whatever, but yes, someone screwed the pooch on that one.
Funny you mention Africanized bees, because that was just conventional breeding. With absolutely anything, be it new biotech or techniques we've used for thousands of years, there is the potential for unforeseen side effects and unknown unknowns. Without some sort of omnipotence, you can't know every possible side effect that might come about. For example, look at the combustion engine. After years of usage, now we are told it is causing global warming. How could people at the start of the Industrial Revolution have foreseen this? Should we have expected them to never put the fossil fueled combustion engine into use because of what might happen? It is impossible to know what exactly each and every outcome of our actions may be. The smallpox vaccine could have some sort of complex, as of yet undescribed, intergenerational effect that could wipe out hundreds of millions tomorrow, and you can't disprove that statement. GMOs could do the same thing, either in terms of human health or ecologically, and you can't disprove that statement either. That's why the argument isn't 'Prove that there will never be a problem.' The argument is 'Sufficiently prove that there are no foreseeable problems.' And really, it isn't even that, the argument is 'Is the damage they cause (if indeed they do) less than the damage that agriculture will cause without them?' And in the meantime, the evidence we suggests that they are beneficial, so should we forgo those benefits in fear of a potential, but merely hypothetical, problem?
The other problem I recall hearing is that often the modified plants are less hardy than the natural version, so if your seed is contaminated it will no longer grow as well *without* roundup. I'm not entirely certain on this one though.
I would say that is extremely dubious. That's a claim that's often thrown around by the anti-GM lot, that GMOs need to have those chemical inputs, but really, the resistance to Round-Up does not have trade offs that significantly impact the plant. If there is a trade off due to that gene, and I've never heard any scientific literature suggesting there is, it is negligible. They don't need it, they can just take it.
The difference is that if you selectively pollinate one strain of plant with another strain of the same plant, you end up with a combination that could have occurred in nature.
Same with genetic engineering. Sure, it might take a while, but horizontal gene transfer does occur. And what can happen in nature or not is wuzzy too. What about species that cross, but extremely rarely, like apples x pear crosses, or Burbank's strawberry x raspberry cross? Or crosses between species that would never meet without humans, like the various black/raspberry and grape crosses that have parents from Old & New World species? Not that that matters, because what happens in nature is irrelevant. Glasses, vaccines, and chemotherapy don't happen in nature either. An appeal to nature is meaningless. Plants don't care how a gene got there, if by a particular gene came from breeding, a natural mutation, a mutagen induced mutation, natural horizontal gene transfer, or genetic engineering, or whatever, they just act on what's there.
With genetic engineering, you can modify organisms in ways that no amount of selective breeding of existing plants could have produced.
Not necessarily true. Every trait arose via some mutation somewhere, and I find it dubious that it could not happen again, given time. You may need evolutionary amounts of time, but it can be done.
The funny thing is that you believe these two scenarios are comparable in anything more than the most superficial sense of "yeah, something was modified by human activity" with no regard for the magnitude of the modification or whether it could have occurred without human intervention.
Sure, we have to be more careful with one than the other, but the principle is still the same, even if the process is different. Ever heard that old story about Churchill, the one where he asks a woman if she will sleep with him for a million pounds? She says yes, and he asks if she'll do it for five, and she asks him what type of lady she thinks she is. He replies, 'My dear, we have already established that, now we are just arguing over the price.' No one has a problem with breeding across species, or selecting mutations, or eating something that is just the product of a billion year old strain of mutant bacteria (that's everything). Compare the diversity of crops we've used extensively, like apples, melons, tomatoes, grapes, or corn, with something like jaboticaba, cassabanana, mauka root, safou, or teff, and tell me we're not playing with tons of altered genes. We've already established that all the forms of all the crops we've created over the years are ok, in principle, this really is just one more step, and in this case, you're only working with one gene at a time, not the half genes of each parent. Genetic engineering is just one more tool. Again, yes, it's more powerful, and with power comes responsibility (and if recent events have shown anything, it is that we can't always trust companies with that power), but the end result is still a plant with altered genes.
Speaking morally or ethically, it's already backwards from how it should be. A farmer can grow natural crops near another farmer who raises patented Monsanto crops. The wind blows and cross-pollination occurs between the two fields. If any legal action is to happen at all, it should be that the farmer growing natural crops can sue Monsanto or the other farmer for failure to contain their customized crops, as they are an unsolicited and unwanted invasion onto his private property.
And can I sue you if your standard hybrid corn cross pollinates my Country Gentleman or Blue Jade corn? I've never heard of that happening, why should it be any different for GMO pollen? That opens up as many cans of worms as Monsanto suing you for 'stealing' my trait.
I'd take that a step further. Everything we eat is just piles upon piles of random mutations stacked up on top of each other. Beyond that, odds are pretty darned good that everything you eat has had gene transfer from some completely different species at one point. As more genomes are sequenced and examined, I'd be willing to bet my left nut that were going to find out that every crop we eat has DNA from various viruses, fungi, bacteria, and insects somewhere in it's genes.
Not that that particularly matters, because in the end, it's just magical thinking to assume that a plant cares if a particular gene came from breeding, a natural mutation, a mutagen induced mutation, natural horizontal gene transfer, or genetic engineering, or whatever. Trust me, plants really aren't all that smart, they really don't know either way.
Just saw Splice, huh? Well, I regret to inform you that real life is not, in fact, a scifi movie. Just like how radiation doesn't spontaneously give people super powers, genetic engineering doesn't randomly create monsters. I realize this may be harsh news for those of you who can't live without the constant threat of a world wide zombie apocalypse, but it's the truth.
What could go wrong? Well, we could forgo a potentially lifesaving new biotech application because laymen don't understand it and like to complain about things they can't be bothered to take the time to understand because they've convinced themselves they know more than the poeple actually doing the science. Bloody hell, sometimes I think Slashdot should change the slogan to 'Stuff for nerds (except biogeeks, they want to kill us all), stuff that matters (except half of what kdawson posts).' It's kind of funny that it sounds like this vaccine is being produced with by transgenic means, which kdawson recently lead an uninformed rant against, including a link to a anti-vax/conspiracy site. Now he posts this. Not very consistent.
Yeah, I don't get the bad rap carb foods seem to be getting. I'm not a nutritionist, but it is my understanding that the deal with carbs is just that they are high in energy, and if you're burning a lot of energy, no problem. But today, we're not using all that energy, but we still want our carbs, and our fats, and our sugars, and in large quantities. We want our big greasy burger, and that pile of fries, and a nice cold soda to wash it down. And then the laws of physics rear their their ugly head. All those excess kcals have to go somewhere, and the body still thinks a lion could chase us away from our food supply at any second, so it won't poop them out, and they end up around our middles, and with that comes the problems associated with obesity. If you look at China, they've been eating large amounts of carb filled rice for so long, but only now, with the increased demand for the fats and oils and sugars to go with their rice do we see obesity really rising. The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with what carbs do, all they do is provide higher quantities of energy, just so long as you match your energy in with your energy out.
If by 55% you mean 11%. So does white wheat flour. Quinoa comes in at 15%, although it can be higher, so it's a good source of protein, and it has a lot more essential amino acids than most things, so it's a good crop for sure, but it is still akin to a carbohydrate staple food.
Is that why the FDA produced a "food pyramid" which bases the diet on carbohydrates which we know and for centuries have known will cause heart disease and obesity in cases of overconsumption?
Which for centuries were also what built civilizations before our age of abundance. Societies around the globe were built on carbs, whether wheat, or rice, or maize, or sorghum, or potatoes, or cassava, or ensete, or amaranth, or quinoa, or sago, or breadfruit, or plantain, or teff, or millet, or whatever. High carb foods are what sustained humanity throughout most of its existence. This is because we've known for centuries that those foods provide the large amounts of energy that the body needs to keep going, and in the case of the food pyramid, it is assumed that you're using that energy. You can't retcon a conspiracy because lifestyles changed.
that the FDA requires any dairy product which states that it does not use rBGH to carry a notice that the FDA has detected no difference between milk from cows with and without rBGH
Slashdot Mirror
GM is not Monsanto any more than pharmacology is Merck. They don't own science and technology. And the problem with the pigweed was something avoidable, even Monsanto predicted it would happen. Using one chemical to kill things is always a bad idea, and even before the resistant weeds became news scientists were advocating the use of GMOs with resistances to multiple active ingredient herbicides. It isn't resistant to all herbicides, just Monsanto's herbicide, which is one of the most commonly used. Also, it may come as a surprise, but even GMOs that resist herbicides tend to, surprisingly, be a net gain for the environment. And look up nitrogen use efficiency technologies...people are working on GMOs that use fertilizers more efficiently to enable less usage of inputs. Don't know if Monsanto is, but it is happening.
As for biodiversity, monoculture has never been good. While we must not forget economies of scale, plenty of times extensive monoculture has ended poorly, like the Irish potato famine, the 70s corn failure, and the fall of the Gros Michel banana, none of which involved GMOs. Genetic engineering is just a means of altering a plant, how we use that is up to us, just like how we use breeding, tractors, or harvesters, which, need I remind you, rarely help biodiversity either.
I personally would love to see genetic engineering be done or more diverse crops to help them integrate to the larger food supply. 'New' fruits like salak, zabla, cloudberry, and safou, new vegetables like chaya, lotus root, and yacón, new grains like teff and quinoa, new spices like rosita de cacao and dorrigo pepper...there is a huge world of agricultural and culinary diversity out there, hundreds and hundreds of species, and we're not growing them, and it is a darned shame from both a scientific/agricultural view and a cultural/culinary/economic view. There is no scientific reason whatsoever why they cannot also be the recipients of genetic engineering to help them move along into the food supply. Just because it's not being done doesn't mean it can't be or shouldn't be. Heck, don't know about veges, you can't get any much, if any, pomology funding to do normal breeding on such underutilized plants, but that isn't an argument against breeding. I understand the concern about lack of biodiversity in the food supply, but understand, the current usage of genetic engineering is a symptom of that, not a cause.
And I'd like to see more meats used, but just try getting people to accept guinea pig, kangaroo, black iguana, or (heaven forbid) an type of insect on their plates...ha, not happening. People are slow to accept new plants too (how many years have kiwi and mango been widely available and many people still do not view them on the same level as apples, oranges, grapes, and bananas), so there is a big hindrance to expanding biodiversity there too, more so than any cultivation issue. Change the minds of people, and maybe genetic engineering will follow. And as for GE, don't forget that anti-GMO groups protested the Rainbow papaya too...made by universities, needing no additional input, worked flawlessly, and they were still against it. Don't kid yourself into thinking that all, or even the majority, of anti-GMO sentiment is about Monsanto.
You're right, wrong, and right. Right in that, yes, they are different processes. Wrong in that it is not a good argument. A lot of the anti-GMO crowd claims to be against GMOs because they are not natural (as if that means anything anyway), but then whenever you point out that we have been altering genes for thousands of years. I'll bet if you compared the genes of modern corn, potatoes, tomatoes, apples, wheat, ect to their wildtype ancestors, you'd see tons of genetic differences and new genes. Look at the diversity of some of the crops we cultivate and tell me that we're not playing with a multitude of genes. In this way, the parent poster is right. But you're right again in the sense that, in a more rational world, we would all know that, and that argument would hold less weight. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world.
I spend a lot of time dealing with GMO topics, and there are really two groups that have concerns: the denialist group that goes through every bad argument and logical fallacy in the book, and knows almost nothing about the science and research behind the topic, and the smaller, more nuanced group that tends not to be more concerned about things like patents. I think you're taking an argument against the former as the latter. It's kind of like the whole debate has layers.
But yes, there is a difference between the two, but there are more similarities than differences. One is more powerful, and as such must be watched more closely, although the other absolutely has it's risks and uses. But in the end, the end result is still a plant with modified genes. That's why I like to make the distinction between genetically modified and genetically engineered, the former referring to something where the genes were changed, and the latter referring specifically to direct genetic manipulation, although in practice they both interchangeably mean the latter.
If this post didn't make much sense, it's kinda hard to describe what I'm getting at with the overall environment and people of the GMO controversies.
Let me point out that what they resist is actually herbicide, not pesticide. Round-up is actually fairly benign, and breaks down pretty fast. The pesticide they produce is the Bt protein, long used in organic farming of all things, and I know of no good research showing human health concerns from it. While that may not seem good to you, the end consumer, it is pretty nice for the farmer and the environment that GMOs reduce pesticide applications and the need to till and deweed. Also, Monsanto is indeed working on second generation GMO crops. The only increased nutrient one I know of that they're doing is soybeans with omega 3 in them. I'm not saying Monsanto the company is your friend here, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that their GMOs bad.
It wasn't so much what they were doing as much as how they were doing it. It wasn't over use of herbicides that produced herbicide resistant weeds, but over-reliance on a single compound. If GMOs are designed to resist multiple herbicides, and those multiple compounds are sprayed, it will be much, much harder for resistant weeds to form. There are only two herbicide resistant GMOs out there right now, Monsanto's Round-Up ready, which resists glyphosate, and Bayer's Liberty Link which resists glufosinate and has a much smaller market share. If the two traits were used together, things would be much nicer. The herbicide resistant traits are, believe it or not, actually a good thing. They make it easier for the farmers, they reduce stress on the soil and surrounding ecosystem (no till), and they the active ingredient of Round-Up breaks down pretty quickly into harmless substances.
Small. Canola can't cross with those any more than a cat can cross with a dog, and while there is horizontal gene transfer, that isn't all that likely; when was the last time you saw a gene go the other way? Ever found urushiol producing genes in a tomato? And even if it does happen, the two genes in this canola aren't be all end all superplant genes. It would just mean that Round-Up doesn't work on them (other herbicides would) or that they produce the Bt gene, which prevents some insects (but not all) from eating them. In the case of poison ivy and kudzu, I don't think either trait would help the plants too exceptionally.
Having said that, we really don't know enough to be certain of the long-term effects. Much more research needs to be done, but companies like Monsanto are forging ahead now, and from what I can tell, with little regard for consequence.
I gotta disagree with that one, because there has been quite a lot of research on GMO crops that have found no significant difference between them and normal crops. They are not known to produce any compounds that they're not supposed to, and the idea that the gene itself will hurt you (which is an argument I have actually seen) is just silly, considering that normal breeding and mutagenesis produces far more altered genes than GM, and besides, your body can handle everything from kepel fruit to kangaroo, and that's a lot more new genes than simple genetic modification. One could make the argument that the Bt protein used in insect resistant GMOs (also used in organic farming) is harmful, but I've never seen a shred of evidence to indicate it.
Could there be long term consequences of eating GMOs? Absolutely. They could kill us all tomorrow for all I know. I can't disprove the possibility that there is some sort of complex interaction via presently unknown mechanisms that will ultimately hurt us. But as Stephen Gould said, 'Apples may start rising tomorrow but such a possibility doesn't merit equal time in physics classrooms.' The smallpox vaccine might have some sort of sort of long term effect, so could cell phone and wifi radiation, but, like GMOs, we have no evidence to indicate that they do, and until there is, I wouldn't really worry about it. Yeah, there have been those 'smoking gun' type studies, they always turn out to be baloney. And keep in mind, when you reject scientific consensus to hastily over a single study, bad things can happen (remember the Wakefield study?). And of course, there is no reason to assume that all GMOs are good, they can be pretty complex when you're running a gene that produces a certain compound in one plant through entirely different pathways, as this potentially harmful GMO demonstrates, but notice that the problem was found and explained. No one has ever found, let alone provided a science based reason for the existence of, and causative agent for the harm that GMOs are occasionally claimed to cause.
Now, had you said ecological long term consequences, that is a much more complex issue, but there, if we use GURTs, genetic use restriction technology, which we are not currently using due to protests from the anti-GMO crowd, that can be kept to a minimum. And of course, there they do not need to be perfect, only a net positive over agriculture without them. For example, they currently provide known ecological benefits, so in the case of this escaped canola, it is not a matter of 'How bad is the canola' but of 'Is this worse than the damage that would be caused to the soil and water and local flora/fauna without GMOs.' I think we still come out ahead, as it isn't like this canola is some sort of 'superweed' or whatever just because it has an extra human inserted gene.
I agree with your first paragraph, just pointing out that human health is one of the least likely areas for GMOs to come back and bite us in the rear.
Correct. At the moment, we do not need GMO crops. What we need is for every country to have a stable, functioning government that cares about the well being of it's citizens and doesn't consider food a method of control. Guess which one we can give people in third world countries. Or would you like to see an invasion of the DRC to kill Mugabe and try to set up a decent government? You're right, there is no global shortage of food, many of the countries that need more food could easily produce it (the DRC for example has tons of very fertile farmland), and GMOs are not a silver bullet, but you know what, they're a start. You can change plants in a lab it resist bugs, or disease, or drought, or be more nutritious, but there is no way to change human nature. You can insert the gene for beta carotene into rice but you can't insert compassion into an evil regime. So until they do fix their governments, we have to do what we can for the people who are starving now, and that includes GMOs.
I like this review of that movie.
Yes, ban an entire field of science and technology because a group of non-experts who know nothing about it except the half truths and whole lies of other non-experts who know nothing about it don't like it. Nope, I don't see how that could possibly go wrong.
Nor are plant patents. People have had those for years, and they occasionally have controversies. I don't think it unreasonable to allow people to make a profit off their work, be it writing a book or breeding a plant. It took 20 years for some guy to breed the Redlove apple, is the time and effort of horticulturalists so meaningless that they should not be allowed to have a patent, for a reasonable time, on their work? And GM tech is no different. Now, suing someone because they were cross pollinated, there needs to be a better way worked out (although in the most famous case of that there was more to the story).
Since you mention that,you would be surprised at the amazing similarities between the vaccine denialists (and the AIDS denialists, for that matter) and the GMO denialists. Course, when you think about it, they're not that amazing. Most forms of crankery are the same thing, with just a few words switched here and there. But it is, make no mistake, the exact same line of thought that produces both groups.
Which, if we had used, we would not be seeing this story right now. There are other types of what are called GURTs, genetic use restriction technology, that prevent this sort of thing from happening. One of them, called traitor seed technology (nice name, and they wonder why people get scared) means you can save your seed (although I don't think too many large scale farmers do that), you just need to bathe them in a a certain mixture to activate them. But you see, if anyone were to try to implement them, the anti-science/GMO crowd goes bonkers. It's like how people were so afraid of nuclear power that we ended up with coal pollution. Had those poeple shut up, and said 'Maybe I shouldn't try to dictate things I don't understand' the end result would be much nicer. Not that I think this is too is too horrible, not that it's great either, the original article was actually very calm, didn't make this out to be another OMG GMO End of teh Wurld! situation that doubtless many will make it out to be.
If that's what you're worried about, you should support GMO crops. Nitrogen use efficiency. I'm sure there are other traits to reduce fertilizer inputs out there, but that's a big one people are working on now.
Whoops, my bad, Starlink isn't a herbicide resistant on, it was the one that caused the taco shell controversy a while back. It was a Bt corn only approved for animal feed, not human consumption, which was not one of the FDA's brighter moves. Liberty Link is the other herbicide resistant one, and it is made by Bayer, not Monsanto, and it is resistant to glufosinate, whereas RR is resistant to glyphosate. Yet another reason why, just like in plant species, I hate common names.
IF you are concerned about safety, FDA or no, there has been extensive research on it. Very many studies demonstrate no difference between GMOs and non-GM crops, and as a result, the general scientific consensus is that they're safe. Even if we assume Monsanto is influencing the FDA, I doubt they exert the same influence over countless relevant experts. Heck, even countries like Iran and China have developed their own homegrown strains of GMO. Iran made the worlds first Bt rice. Is Monsanto bribing off what one of most anti-US countries in the world?
Those who claim that GMOs are dangerous haven't done a very good job of proving their claims, either. For something to be dangerous, I think we can all agree it must have a reason, yes? Just being GMO is not a valid reason, it must have some sort of chemical compount, not present in the unmodified counterpart, that is dangerous. To date, no such compound from a commercially approved GMO has been identified. No genetic reasoning, no chemical pathways given for the production, and no proven cases of people actually hurt by them. No reason in theory, no evidence in practice. Starfruit and kiwi have presented more problems than GMOs, yet no one protests them. And of course, GMOs must be reviewed on a case by case basis, maybe someday the FDA royally screws up and one that kills people is released , but if it is, there'll be a reason for it. And since there is neither a known reason as to why any of the commercial GMOs would hurt anyone nor evidence that it happens, I guess the FDA just puts them in a catagory similar to Generally Recognized As Safe after the testing has been done.
As for the weeds, that is a very real problem. The thing there is, everyone saw that coming. Even Monsanto said it would happen. The problem was that there are only two traits for herbicide resistance, Starlink and Round-Up Ready, and only Round-Up Ready was extensively used. The problem wasn't overuse, but over-reliance. If there were more approved traits, and people used multiple herbicides, it would much more difficult for a weed to develop resistance. Even if it were to acquire the resistance through horizontal gene transfer, if there were multiple genes confirming resistance to multiple compounds, it is still very unlikely. These weeds aren't really 'superweeds' by the way, just regular weeds that are resistant to the most popular herbicide, so they can still be taken out by other chemicals and methods, but still, this never should have been allowed to happen in the first place. I don't know why it wasn't done, why those traits weren't pushed out there, maybe the FDA was lax in approving them, maybe activists protested, maybe the companies just didn't care, whatever, but yes, someone screwed the pooch on that one.
Funny you mention Africanized bees, because that was just conventional breeding. With absolutely anything, be it new biotech or techniques we've used for thousands of years, there is the potential for unforeseen side effects and unknown unknowns. Without some sort of omnipotence, you can't know every possible side effect that might come about. For example, look at the combustion engine. After years of usage, now we are told it is causing global warming. How could people at the start of the Industrial Revolution have foreseen this? Should we have expected them to never put the fossil fueled combustion engine into use because of what might happen? It is impossible to know what exactly each and every outcome of our actions may be. The smallpox vaccine could have some sort of complex, as of yet undescribed, intergenerational effect that could wipe out hundreds of millions tomorrow, and you can't disprove that statement. GMOs could do the same thing, either in terms of human health or ecologically, and you can't disprove that statement either. That's why the argument isn't 'Prove that there will never be a problem.' The argument is 'Sufficiently prove that there are no foreseeable problems.' And really, it isn't even that, the argument is 'Is the damage they cause (if indeed they do) less than the damage that agriculture will cause without them?' And in the meantime, the evidence we suggests that they are beneficial, so should we forgo those benefits in fear of a potential, but merely hypothetical, problem?
The other problem I recall hearing is that often the modified plants are less hardy than the natural version, so if your seed is contaminated it will no longer grow as well *without* roundup. I'm not entirely certain on this one though.
I would say that is extremely dubious. That's a claim that's often thrown around by the anti-GM lot, that GMOs need to have those chemical inputs, but really, the resistance to Round-Up does not have trade offs that significantly impact the plant. If there is a trade off due to that gene, and I've never heard any scientific literature suggesting there is, it is negligible. They don't need it, they can just take it.
The difference is that if you selectively pollinate one strain of plant with another strain of the same plant, you end up with a combination that could have occurred in nature.
Same with genetic engineering. Sure, it might take a while, but horizontal gene transfer does occur. And what can happen in nature or not is wuzzy too. What about species that cross, but extremely rarely, like apples x pear crosses, or Burbank's strawberry x raspberry cross? Or crosses between species that would never meet without humans, like the various black/raspberry and grape crosses that have parents from Old & New World species? Not that that matters, because what happens in nature is irrelevant. Glasses, vaccines, and chemotherapy don't happen in nature either. An appeal to nature is meaningless. Plants don't care how a gene got there, if by a particular gene came from breeding, a natural mutation, a mutagen induced mutation, natural horizontal gene transfer, or genetic engineering, or whatever, they just act on what's there.
With genetic engineering, you can modify organisms in ways that no amount of selective breeding of existing plants could have produced.
Not necessarily true. Every trait arose via some mutation somewhere, and I find it dubious that it could not happen again, given time. You may need evolutionary amounts of time, but it can be done.
The funny thing is that you believe these two scenarios are comparable in anything more than the most superficial sense of "yeah, something was modified by human activity" with no regard for the magnitude of the modification or whether it could have occurred without human intervention.
Sure, we have to be more careful with one than the other, but the principle is still the same, even if the process is different. Ever heard that old story about Churchill, the one where he asks a woman if she will sleep with him for a million pounds? She says yes, and he asks if she'll do it for five, and she asks him what type of lady she thinks she is. He replies, 'My dear, we have already established that, now we are just arguing over the price.' No one has a problem with breeding across species, or selecting mutations, or eating something that is just the product of a billion year old strain of mutant bacteria (that's everything). Compare the diversity of crops we've used extensively, like apples, melons, tomatoes, grapes, or corn, with something like jaboticaba, cassabanana, mauka root, safou, or teff, and tell me we're not playing with tons of altered genes. We've already established that all the forms of all the crops we've created over the years are ok, in principle, this really is just one more step, and in this case, you're only working with one gene at a time, not the half genes of each parent. Genetic engineering is just one more tool. Again, yes, it's more powerful, and with power comes responsibility (and if recent events have shown anything, it is that we can't always trust companies with that power), but the end result is still a plant with altered genes.
Speaking morally or ethically, it's already backwards from how it should be. A farmer can grow natural crops near another farmer who raises patented Monsanto crops. The wind blows and cross-pollination occurs between the two fields. If any legal action is to happen at all, it should be that the farmer growing natural crops can sue Monsanto or the other farmer for failure to contain their customized crops, as they are an unsolicited and unwanted invasion onto his private property.
And can I sue you if your standard hybrid corn cross pollinates my Country Gentleman or Blue Jade corn? I've never heard of that happening, why should it be any different for GMO pollen? That opens up as many cans of worms as Monsanto suing you for 'stealing' my trait.
So, we a
I'd take that a step further. Everything we eat is just piles upon piles of random mutations stacked up on top of each other. Beyond that, odds are pretty darned good that everything you eat has had gene transfer from some completely different species at one point. As more genomes are sequenced and examined, I'd be willing to bet my left nut that were going to find out that every crop we eat has DNA from various viruses, fungi, bacteria, and insects somewhere in it's genes.
Not that that particularly matters, because in the end, it's just magical thinking to assume that a plant cares if a particular gene came from breeding, a natural mutation, a mutagen induced mutation, natural horizontal gene transfer, or genetic engineering, or whatever. Trust me, plants really aren't all that smart, they really don't know either way.
Just saw Splice, huh? Well, I regret to inform you that real life is not, in fact, a scifi movie. Just like how radiation doesn't spontaneously give people super powers, genetic engineering doesn't randomly create monsters. I realize this may be harsh news for those of you who can't live without the constant threat of a world wide zombie apocalypse, but it's the truth.
What could go wrong? Well, we could forgo a potentially lifesaving new biotech application because laymen don't understand it and like to complain about things they can't be bothered to take the time to understand because they've convinced themselves they know more than the poeple actually doing the science. Bloody hell, sometimes I think Slashdot should change the slogan to 'Stuff for nerds (except biogeeks, they want to kill us all), stuff that matters (except half of what kdawson posts).' It's kind of funny that it sounds like this vaccine is being produced with by transgenic means, which kdawson recently lead an uninformed rant against, including a link to a anti-vax/conspiracy site. Now he posts this. Not very consistent.
Thanks, I used up a nice chunk of time writing them (duty called), I'm glad someone read them.
Yeah, I don't get the bad rap carb foods seem to be getting. I'm not a nutritionist, but it is my understanding that the deal with carbs is just that they are high in energy, and if you're burning a lot of energy, no problem. But today, we're not using all that energy, but we still want our carbs, and our fats, and our sugars, and in large quantities. We want our big greasy burger, and that pile of fries, and a nice cold soda to wash it down. And then the laws of physics rear their their ugly head. All those excess kcals have to go somewhere, and the body still thinks a lion could chase us away from our food supply at any second, so it won't poop them out, and they end up around our middles, and with that comes the problems associated with obesity. If you look at China, they've been eating large amounts of carb filled rice for so long, but only now, with the increased demand for the fats and oils and sugars to go with their rice do we see obesity really rising. The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with what carbs do, all they do is provide higher quantities of energy, just so long as you match your energy in with your energy out.
If by 55% you mean 11%. So does white wheat flour. Quinoa comes in at 15%, although it can be higher, so it's a good source of protein, and it has a lot more essential amino acids than most things, so it's a good crop for sure, but it is still akin to a carbohydrate staple food.
Is that why the FDA produced a "food pyramid" which bases the diet on carbohydrates which we know and for centuries have known will cause heart disease and obesity in cases of overconsumption?
Which for centuries were also what built civilizations before our age of abundance. Societies around the globe were built on carbs, whether wheat, or rice, or maize, or sorghum, or potatoes, or cassava, or ensete, or amaranth, or quinoa, or sago, or breadfruit, or plantain, or teff, or millet, or whatever. High carb foods are what sustained humanity throughout most of its existence. This is because we've known for centuries that those foods provide the large amounts of energy that the body needs to keep going, and in the case of the food pyramid, it is assumed that you're using that energy. You can't retcon a conspiracy because lifestyles changed.
that the FDA requires any dairy product which states that it does not use rBGH to carry a notice that the FDA has detected no difference between milk from cows with and without rBGH
There's an xkcd for everything.
which is an outright lie?
Got a strong source for that? And no, sites like this are not valid citations.