GM products

GuanYin

A recent government initiated public survey in the UK has found that most of the british public see GM food products as a potential health and environmental hazard.

Despite the huge public outcry it would cause, most people believed that pressure from the US would eventually lead UK to start growing and producing GM food products anway.

The main concern with GM food is that not enough is known about the long term health and environmental implications. There are fears of rogue genes being passed on to pathogens and pests, or (wildly inaccurate) claims that GM foods can have potentially harmful mutagenic effects.

Nobody knows, the usually stringent FDA sat on the fence and then leaned towards GM foods. The media scaremongered and the environmentalists protested and the result is that its almost impossible to construct or publish an unbiased arguement for or against that won't envoke an extreme reaction from some group.

What do people think? Will GM food eventually win over, will it be a good thing? Would you or have you ever used GM food?

ecksor

How exactly do rogue genes get passed on to pathogens or pests? I've heard this argument, but I didn't think you could just 'catch' a gene. Is this something to do with pollination?

GuanYin

Originally posted by ecksor
How exactly do rogue genes get passed on to pathogens or pests? I've heard this argument, but I didn't think you could just 'catch' a gene. Is this something to do with pollination?

Well, with crops, yes its pollination. They showed in studies that hybrid crops grown 60 metres upwind of natural crops gave rise to cross pollination. The extent of cross-pollination decreased with distance ranging from 1% at 60metres to about 0.1% coming up to approx. 600 metres. The arguement is that once GM crops become the norm, their regulation and that of non-GM crops will be difficult. Add to that the possability of cross pollination with weeds, that may give rise to, say, herbicide-resistant weeds, and the big fear is that an incident like this may lead to mass crop-failures. It has some basis in theory, but its a bit like the weather, nice maths and computer models will take you so far, but real life throws in variables that can swing the results widely in either way.

The pathogen issue is an even bigger question mark. As you may know, one of the big problems with bacteria is that they have the ability to inherit DNA from different species and due to their (relatively) super fast replication rate, evolution of bacterial resistance to, say antibiotics, can occur rapidly. Intestinal pathogens are particularly good at doing this, and were they to take up DNA from the residue of an "unatural" sequence from a GM food product, we may see supre resistant bugs, or worse.

Worse has allegedly already occured. In 1989 37 people dies and over 1000 were left permanently disabled after consuming genetically engineered Trptophan. Tryptophan is a food supplement and it can be synthesised using fermentations with genetically engineered bacteria (bacillus amyloliqueformis). However, at some stage the bacteria mutated (what actually caused the mutation is still under debate) and started producing a lethal toxin that is not nomally associated with that strain.

Finally the less convoluted fear is that GM engineering may lead to production of enzymes in the food that are unnatural (in a food context) and therefore the body will not have appropriate mechanisms to break them down. This happened with some GM potatoes in 1999 which, when fed to rats caused liver and kidney damage.

Now I'm not anti-GM. I'm not really convinced by either argument.

ecksor

Originally posted by sykeirl
As you may know, one of the big problems with bacteria is that they have the ability to inherit DNA from different species

I didn't know that.

Now I'm not anti-GM. I'm not really convinced by either argument.

Well, I'm not swayed by either side either, but that's generally because of how the information/arguments are presented. I don't think I've seen matter-of-fact examples such as the one you've just presented without some wild leap of logic accompanying to demonstrate why this is obviously (not) proof that GM is terrible.

GuanYin

Originally posted by ecksor
IWell, I'm not swayed by either side either, but that's generally because of how the information/arguments are presented. I don't think I've seen matter-of-fact examples such as the one you've just presented without some wild leap of logic accompanying to demonstrate why this is obviously (not) proof that GM is terrible.

Oh, you have no idea... the best (as in funniest) anti-GM article I read was based on the "superweed" theory. It basically went along the lines of "....and crop failure may not be the worst aspect of the situation, increased food sources may lead to a population explosion of beetles and insects that thive on them as a food supply, beetles are already the most abundent and diverse species on the earth, and GM-food may be what they finally need to inherit the planet" etc etc etc

"Planet of the Beetles" doesn't have quite the same ring

Syth

A question about the poll: How are we to know if we have eaten GM food? One could eat only organic, but otherwise how are we to know?

Also I think it's funny that when a company wants to get a patent on a new organism they have 'invented', they claim it so different that it must get a patent, but when it come to demands of labeling the food as 'GM' they claim it's no different from natural food.

GuanYin

Hrm... well th epoint is most people eat GM food every day in some manner an don't realise.

I think its whether they are ok with the idea

Victor

How about a "I will consider it on a case by case" option in the poll?

Sarky

The concept of genetically modifying food is perfectly fine, in my opinion.

The only problem is that in the rush to get some money out of it, long exhaustive tests are being ignored, and nobody can fully guarentee the safety or stability of a modified foodsource.

I'd prefer to wait until a lot more testing was carried out before willingly eating GM things, although the chances are I've already eaten plenty of it.

Anyway, the "natural" crops we eat are the result of a form of genetic modification, namely selective breeding. Not quite the same thing as mucking about with micropippettes and cells, but close enough in my book.

Victor

Originally posted by Sarky
Anyway, the "natural" crops we eat are the result of a form of genetic modification, namely selective breeding. Not quite the same thing as mucking about with micropippettes and cells, but close enough in my book.

Typically over dozens of generations and hundreds of years.

Capt'n Midnight

GMO GOOD - when used for Medicines etc.
for things like artificial insulin or inteferon which can't be produced economically by any other way. Say what you want about the big pharma companies they have excellent QA and have to answer to the FDA and the margins are so large that there is no excessive temptation to skimp.
I'd also extend this to engineering materials and some other non food items.

GMO BAD when used for food
simply because there is no need at all except to generate profit or patenting a monopoly. GMO will not solve the world food problem, because there isn't one (or if there was it could be solved by replacing cash crops for food in many cases).
GMO harvests sound great but they cost more to produce so compared to traditional breeding techniques and improvements in ferteliser and land management and storage and distribution don't offer that much.
The ethics of current GMO leaves much to be desired,
there is a bacteria that acts as a nucleation site for ice crystals - a naturally occuring varient is smooth. By having one instead of another you can get a three degree difference as to when a crop would be affected by frost. Since you can't patent the product of nature they mutated the rough form to a new artificial smooth one and then patented it. (ahhh that phrase "nature identical")
GMO crops have been developed that have higher pesticide resistance, this means the parent company can sell more pesticide and we could ingest more if any shortcuts are taken in havesting or processing...
There was a team sent to the Andes to look for other varities of potato, less productive but naturally more pest resistant. As one person put it - the team was so excited when they found it - they could remember everything about that day - what they had for breakfast, what socks they wore, everything except for the name of the family that had nurtured that strain for generations... - It's nice to know that family will be able to buy any new GMO developed. It's just that they will have to buy it each year because it's patented so they can hold on to seed potatos....
And we want to allow these tehnologies to be used by all food companies, including those even less ethical ??

Note: many weeds are just less specalised forms of crops and even if there is no cross pollination gene transfer can still take place via phage and retroviruses.. - since there is a very low porbability of this taking place, it will happen. The more GMO is used the more likely this is to happen earlier than later. (If GMO food stuffs were banned then it might be possible to put the genie back in the bottle.)

Victor

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
GMO GOOD - when used for Medicines etc.
for things like artificial insulin or inteferon which can't be produced economically by any other way. Say what you want about the big pharma companies they have excellent QA and have to answer to the FDA and the margins are so large that there is no excessive temptation to skimp.

I had a further conversation with my brother on this last night (yay, free dinner!!).

I raised the point that, let us say, we can save a child from a rare genetic disorder for €1m. That child grows up and has children, some of which have the same disorder and each costs society €1m to cure (I'm sure the price would come down over time, but you get the point). From generation to generation a greater percentage of the population would have the defective (or absent / whatever) gene.

Now I'm not advocating the work of Dr. Mendel et al and I indeed recognise that once-fatal conditions like diabetes and haemophilia and many others are now treatable at a reasonable cost (in crude terms the person can contribute more to society than it costs to treat them), but at what price do we call a halt to **all** Darwinism.

If an in-vitro treatment for female haemophilia (female haemophilia is exceptionally rare as most female foetuses with haemophilia are miscarried) came about, should it be used? In the knowledge that haemophilia would increase exponentially?

---

Another possibility is we genetically alter rice with bits of mouse genes and yeast genes and antibiotics and give it out free, because it is “good for people”, because it carries extra supplements. 25 years down the road, we realise that 50% of the world’s population has developed a new chronic (i.e. permanent but treatable) disease from eating this rice. **Now there is a profit opportunity for the pharma companies.**

GuanYin

Originally posted by Victor
I raised the point that, let us say, we can save a child from a rare genetic disorder for €1m. That child grows up and has children, some of which have the same disorder and each costs society €1m to cure (I'm sure the price would come down over time, but you get the point). From generation to generation a greater percentage of the population would have the defective (or absent / whatever) gene.

Its an unlikely scenario. Usually when you hear the term "live a normal life" in these cases the small print reads compared to the life without treatment There may still be alot of medication, they may have hypersensitivity to some foods or medications, but the long goal aim of the treatment is that they don't die or suffer. The scenario you are suggesting would never really be an issue.

An analogy would be HIV. The blurb says "with the proper regimented medication, a person with HIV can lead a long and normal life".

What the blurb doesn't say is they can't have unprotected sex (and hence children) the drugs they are on have such a low forgiveness time that missing a dose by 3 hours could cost them years of their life (and require an alternative treatment regiment) and that they must get used to the side effects (such as nausea and insomnia. Most will agree, that despite this, its a comparitively normal life.

---

Originally posted by Victor
Another possibility is we genetically alter rice with bits of mouse genes and yeast genes and antibiotics and give it out free, because it is “good for people”, because it carries extra supplements. 25 years down the road, we realise that 50% of the world’s population has developed a new chronic (i.e. permanent but treatable) disease from eating this rice. **Now there is a profit opportunity for the pharma companies.**

And that my dear friend is why we have the FDA.

Capt'n Midnight

No my point was
GMO Food BAD
GMO medicines under current FDA regulations, acceptible*

*I am of course opposed to any of those retrovirus treatments where people have their genome modified - we still don't know how E-coli works never mind higher single celled organisms like yeast.

Re: rare genetic disorders - US insurance companies have already refused health cover for the offspring of such people. The poing about GMO is that what to day might cost $1m might be produced in sheeps milk one day. (no you don't drink the milk - the active ingredient would have to be collected, probably by high pressure liquid chromatrography or some such - ye see your stomach kinda digests most natural compounds)

TransititionMan

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

GMO GOOD - when used for Medicines etc.
for things like artificial insulin or inteferon which can't be produced economically by any other way. Say what you want about the big pharma companies they have excellent QA and have to answer to the FDA and the margins are so large that there is no excessive temptation to skimp.
I'd also extend this to engineering materials and some other non food items.

GMO BAD when used for food
simply because there is no need at all except to generate profit or patenting a monopoly. GMO will not solve the world food problem, because there isn't one (or if there was it could be solved by replacing cash crops for food in many cases).
GMO harvests sound great but they cost more to produce so compared to traditional breeding techniques and improvements in ferteliser and land management and storage and distribution don't offer that much.
The ethics of current GMO leaves much to be desired,
there is a bacteria that acts as a nucleation site for ice crystals - a naturally occuring varient is smooth. By having one instead of another you can get a three degree difference as to when a crop would be affected by frost. Since you can't patent the product of nature they mutated the rough form to a new artificial smooth one and then patented it. (ahhh that phrase "nature identical")
GMO crops have been developed that have higher pesticide resistance, this means the parent company can sell more pesticide and we could ingest more if any shortcuts are taken in havesting or processing...
There was a team sent to the Andes to look for other varities of potato, less productive but naturally more pest resistant. As one person put it - the team was so excited when they found it - they could remember everything about that day - what they had for breakfast, what socks they wore, everything except for the name of the family that had nurtured that strain for generations... - It's nice to know that family will be able to buy any new GMO developed. It's just that they will have to buy it each year because it's patented so they can hold on to seed potatos....
And we want to allow these tehnologies to be used by all food companies, including those even less ethical ??

Note: many weeds are just less specalised forms of crops and even if there is no cross pollination gene transfer can still take place via phage and retroviruses.. - since there is a very low porbability of this taking place, it will happen. The more GMO is used the more likely this is to happen earlier than later. (If GMO food stuffs were banned then it might be possible to put the genie back in the bottle.)

You dont by chance have a link for that information, do you?

Chunky Monkey

I'd be all for GM foods if it helped out in Africa though I heard that in one of the African countries, fairly recently I think, when there supposedly was a famine, there was also a bumper coffee crop.

Knowing next to nothing about them, I'm not wholly against them though the enzyme stuff talked about above sounds a bit scary.