GM Foods

Dogster

Here is Bonny Prince Charlie giving out about GM foods

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7557644.stm

really I happen to disagree with a lot of Charles' campaigning hobbyhorses but I think GM food is a very bad idea.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Dudess

LOL

djpbarry

If Charlie Boy said it, then it must be true. After all, he is the planet's supreme authority on all matters scientific.

Cookie_Monster

That was a bit of a rant wasn't it?!

GM is the way forward.

Rice and carrots have been GM for centuries already anyway. Not quite the same as producing new strains of plant in a lab, I know, but i really don't see the big deal.

More food, grown on less land, with a higher resistance to disease and less use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Where's the problem there?

Dogster

djpbarry wrote: »

If Charlie Boy said it, then it must be true. After all, he is the planet's supreme authority on all matters scientific.

Well Charles probably does not have PHD in plant biology but at the same time having heard supposed experts with a prestige scientific qualification defending GM foods technology, that does not mean that Charles is wrong to be concerned about GM or the people defending it for all their scientific qualifications are not talking a lot of dangerous cow doo.

One of the traps that scientific experts who seek to defend GM technology regularly fall in to is that they treat nature as if it was a static system and one could do things with GM technology and nature would just sit there and doing nothing in response.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Kernel

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

That was a bit of a rant wasn't it?!

GM is the way forward.

Rice and carrots have been GM for centuries already anyway. Not quite the same as producing new strains of plant in a lab, I know, but i really don't see the big deal.

More food, grown on less land, with a higher resistance to disease and less use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Where's the problem there?

Whats the problem?!?!?! Haven't you ever seen Day of the Triffids?

Dogster

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Rice and carrots have been GM for centuries already anyway. Not quite the same as producing new strains of plant in a lab, I know, but i really don't see the big deal.

That statement is nearly wholly incorrect, food producers have been selecting specimens from crops for desirable charactoristics for centuries they have also been cross pollinating plant species to produce hybrids for a very long time and it is fair and accurate to say this is Genetic Modification. But to go on to say this legitimates GM modification involving gene splicing for the purpose of the introduction of utterly foreign genetic materiel in to a plant or animal genome is illogical. If GM gene splicing was e.g. used solely for the purpose of of creating hybrids between plant species which could naturally hybridize or hybridize through traditional human intervention I would not have a problem with it. The problem with GM gene splicing it is mixing genetic materiel in a way which could never have been achieved using traditional methods e.g. there is no way using traditional hybridization techniques that once could get a fish and a plant to produce a viable offspring. One could argue that why should anyone care, whether scientists would mix animal and plant genetic materiel, in that really if one does not like it one can go to the organic food store and buy organic food there and the people who do not have a problem with it can buy their GM baked beans or whatever. Why people should care, is that nature will not just sit there and do nothing but will respond to this development.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

so you're saying that the GM plants being sold around the world are mixed with fish dna?

really?

Genghiz Cohen

Dogster wrote: »

That statement is nearly wholly incorrect, food producers have been selecting specimens from crops for desirable charactoristics for centuries they have also been cross pollinating plant species to produce hybrids for a
<snip>
care, is that nature will not just sit there and do nothing but will respond to this development.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

That was pretty hard to read dude, but I get your meaning. except for nature responding to GM foods, how do you mean respond? (<- Genuine interest BTW)

Dogster

|-*SxyDubGrrl93*-| wrote: »

so you're saying that the GM plants being sold around the world are mixed with fish dna?

really?

Sorry I have not got info to hand on the state of play as regards commercial marketing of this product or not.

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~brownk4/BBC_GMfood.pdf

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Cookie_Monster

Dogster wrote: »

But to go on to say this legitimates GM modification involving gene splicing for the purpose of the introduction of utterly foreign genetic materiel in to a plant or animal genome is illogical.

Why? Just more sophisticated tools being used

Dogster wrote: »

If GM gene splicing was e.g. used solely for the purpose of of creating hybrids between plant species which could naturally hybridize or hybridize through traditional human intervention I would not have a problem with it.

This, to me, would be the logical and practical appraoch.

Dogster wrote: »

there is no way using traditional hybridization techniques that once could get a fish and a plant to produce a viable offspring.

Why would you want to do that anyway??

Dogster wrote: »

Is that nature will not just sit there and do nothing but will respond to this development.

How exactly do you see this as the major problem? That has always been an issue with farming, from day 1. How will the introduction of GM change this so massivly?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yes, that's called science. you know, research? experimentation? The very basis of our understanding of the universe?

it's a good thing. If that product were ever to make it to the commercial market it would be subject to very strict regulation, iirc there are 3 seperate departments of the Us gov which monitor and regulate Gm food.

These are research crops, not intended for commercial use. And they are nothing but a benefit to us.

Dogster

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

That was pretty hard to read dude, but I get your meaning. except for nature responding to GM foods, how do you mean respond? (<- Genuine interest BTW)

Well to explain where I am coming from on this, I really detest the use of the slogan "save the planet" in relation to the Carbon Dioxide causes Global Warming debate in that if manmade Carbon Dioxide is causing Global Warming the planet is perfectly capable of saving itself. The World has been seen hit by big meteorites and this has caused huge devestation and mass extinctions of animal species and within time they were replaced with a just as diverse eco-system as pertained before the Meteor strike, so people pumping lots of Carbon Dioxide in to the atmosphere is hardly going to kill the planet when being hit by meteorites that makes the largest Hydrogen bombs ever exploded look like a Moore steet sparkler could not do it. As an Apex Mankind might well be one of the first species to go extinct in a global catastrophe but we are only species not the planet and if we go got extinct nature would just carry on as if nothing had happened. So we should be worried about saving ourselves not the planet.

To come to the specific issue of how nature might respond to GM crops if one introduces GM plant crops which contain animal genetic materiel, predatory organisms such as e.g. viruses will seek to attack these plants as they would any other plant, if one starts mixeing up animal and plant DNA one risks creating new predatory organisms which may be able to attack not only the GM plants but their human creators.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

lostexpectation

gm food isn't 'science' its industry. its patenting, its market share, its monopolises, its contracts...

Jack Sheehan

To me he always sounds like William Shatner in The Twilight Zone.

'Theres a monster on the plane, you've gotta listen to me!'

Dogster

|-*SxyDubGrrl93*-| wrote: »

yes, that's called science. you know, research? experimentation? The very basis of our understanding of the universe?

it's a good thing. If that product were ever to make it to the commercial market it would be subject to very strict regulation, iirc there are 3 seperate departments of the Us gov which monitor and regulate Gm food.

These are research crops, not intended for commercial use. And they are nothing but a benefit to us.

Your argument would have validity if science was not morally neutral, in that the scientists who devised Hitler's gas chambers or who would have if given the opportunity to do so, exploded Nuclear bombs over London, New York and Washington DC for the purpose of maintaining a Thousand Year Reich were being every bit as scientific as Alexander Fleming in discovering Penicilin and saveing countless lives.

Is this the same US Government, that apparently let relatives of a certain Osama bin Laden fly back to Saudi Arabia aboard a chartered private aircraft when all other commercial US air traffic had been grounded by Government order even air ambulances used to carry donor organs?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

ScumLord

Dear Adrian Wainer,

Hello how are you? I read your post with some interest but find this,

Your argument would have validity if science was not morally neutral, in that the scientists who devised Hitler's gas chambers or who would have if given the opportunity to do so, exploded Nuclear bombs over London, New York and Washington DC for the purpose of maintaining a Thousand Year Reich were being every bit as scientific as Alexander Fleming in discovering Penicilin and saveing countless lives.

To be poppycock. The scientists that developed nuclear technology probably didn't do it with the specific intention of making bombs, there is and has to be some morals in science, those that say there aren't are just sole less bastards. There's no such thing as morally neutral science that's more of an excuse than anything.

Lots of kisses
Scumlord

Dogster

Jack Sheehan wrote: »

To me he always sounds like William Shatner in The Twilight Zone.

'Theres a monster on the plane, you've gotta listen to me!'

Didn't know William Shatner appeared in the twilight zone, what the original series or the remake?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

wow

that's me convinced.

djpbarry

Dogster wrote: »

One of the traps that scientific experts who seek to defend GM technology regularly fall in to is that they treat nature as if it was a static system…

Do they? Could you provide an example of such an expert?

Dogster wrote: »

…food producers have been selecting specimens from crops for desirable charactoristics for centuries they have also been cross pollinating plant species to produce hybrids for a very long time and it is fair and accurate to say this is Genetic Modification. But to go on to say this legitimates GM modification involving gene splicing for the purpose of the introduction of utterly foreign genetic materiel in to a plant or animal genome is illogical.

Why? The principle is the same, is it not?

Dogster wrote: »

The problem with GM gene splicing it is mixing genetic materiel in a way which could never have been achieved using traditional methods e.g. there is no way using traditional hybridization techniques that once could get a fish and a plant to produce a viable offspring.

Someone has produced a plant-fish hybrid? Cool!

Dogster wrote: »

Why people should care, is that nature will not just sit there and do nothing but will respond to this development.

How will it respond?

Dogster wrote: »

Well to explain where I am coming from on this, I really detest the use of the slogan "save the planet" in relation to the Carbon Dioxide causes Global Warming debate in that if manmade Carbon Dioxide is causing Global Warming the planet is perfectly capable of saving itself.

I think it’s humans that most people worry about when it comes to climate change; I don’t think anyone fears the planet will explode or anything like that.

Dogster wrote: »

To come to the specific issue of how nature might respond to GM crops if one introduces GM plant crops which contain animal genetic materiel, predatory organisms such as e.g. viruses will seek to attack these plants as they would any other plant, if one starts mixeing up animal and plant DNA one risks creating new predatory organisms which may be able to attack not only the GM plants but their human creators.

Why would anyone want to combine animal and plant DNA? What does that even mean? What sort of predatory organisms are we talking about here? Omnivorous fish-plant eating tigers?

Dogster

ScumLord wrote: »

Dear Adrian Wainer,

Hello how are you? I read your post with some interest but find this,

To be poppycock. The scientists that developed nuclear technology probably didn't do it with the specific intention of making bombs, there is and has to be some morals in science, those that say there aren't are just sole less bastards. There's no such thing as morally neutral science that's more of an excuse than anything.

Lots of kisses
Scumlord

Well I agree with you, that it is imperative that scientific activity is carried out within a moral framework but at the same time I would argue that science itself is morally neutral. Why I feel that is important distinction to make, is unless one makes this distinction....... it enables people who are scientists to demand support for their activities on a spurious premise that their work because it involves science is somehow a moral good. As for Atomic scientists, the US scientists who approached the US Government to fund what later became the Manhattan project did so with the exact intention of producing a nuclear weapon, does that make them evil people not necessarily so in that one might reasonably argue that in dealing with a state like Nazi Germany extreme measures were thus legitimate.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Dogster

djpbarry wrote: »

Why would anyone want to combine animal and plant DNA? What does that even mean? What sort of predatory organisms are we talking about here? Omnivorous fish-plant eating tigers?

Why would anyone want to combine animal and plant DNA

To produce new products with unique charactoristics, which could make a lot of money.

What sort of predatory organisms are we talking about here? Omnivorous fish-plant eating tigers?

That's just being silly, if GM could lead to Ominivorous fish-plant eating tigers, which it couldn't, but if it could all one would need to do would be buy some guns and shoot them end of problem, I am talking about Viruses here, ever heard of them...........you might have heard of AIDS that's one.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Terry

So if I eat a GM tomato, I'm going to get AIDS?
Sweet.

djpbarry

Dogster wrote: »

To produce new products with unique charactoristics, which could make a lot of money.

What sort of products?

Dogster wrote: »

That's just being silly...

You started it.

Dogster wrote: »

...if GM could lead to Ominivorous fish-plant eating tigers, which it couldn't...

Why not? You seem to think GM research will lead to fish-plants? In such a scenario, it's not such a big leap to envisage animals that could eat them.

Dogster wrote: »

...I am talking about Viruses here, ever heard of them...........you might have heard of AIDS that's one.

Eh, yeah, thanks, I've heard of AIDS; what's your point? That GM research will inevitably lead to the creation of viruses that will kill us all? How exactly?

Dogster

Terry wrote: »

So if I eat a GM tomato, I'm going to get AIDS?
Sweet.

No terry you can fully enjoy your GM Tomato, on the basis that whilst nothing is inherently impossible the chances of catching aids from a Tomato because it is a GM Tomato are probably as unlikely as wining the national lottery top prize several times in a row with the only tickets you ever bought for it, it is just so unlikely it is not worth consideration. What is certain that predatory organisms such as Viruses will seek to attack GM plants and if those plants contain animal DNA this generates a threat of creating whole new variants of viruses that may well have unique characteristics, one of those unique characteristics of viruses which develop to attack mixed plant animal DNA plants is that such viruses may then mutate to attack animals including people.

Best and warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

ART6

This is not something I am qualified to have a firm opinion on, but three points occur to me:

1. If major American multinationals are doing their damndest to sell the idea, I worry. They are the epitomy of the principle "don't matter what it is as long as it makes a buck."

2. Someone thought it was good idea to grind up slaughterhouse residues and feed them to bovines. "Oh feck...BSE....CJD". OK, not genetic engineering I know, but it's in the same league of fiddling with natural processes for fast financial gain.

3. Blind faith in scientists has a habit of leading to unexpected consequences, particularly when they are employed or funded by large commercial undertakings.

Macha

djpbarry wrote: »

What sort of products?

All sorts of products. All sorts of seeds. Animal feed. Crops that are immune to pesticides, etc.

There are two problems with GM:

1) Control. GM foods are very hard to control/contain. Many, many crops pollinate using wind. So the threats of cross-pollination are very real. Hundreds of organic farmers in the US and Canada have faced bankruptcy with their organic crops contaminated (for want of a better word) with gm pollen.

Realistically, there is very little that can be done about this. It's like Pandora's box. Once you release it, how easy will it be to get it back in the box?

This also raises issues of domesticated vs wild plants. There is a common weed in Ireland, closely related to the beet. If we introduce a GM beet here that is resistant to pesticide, what happens if this cross-pollinates with the wild species? We are left with a wild plant, that is now resistant to our pesticides.

2) Control again. The force behind GM research etc is the seed & agriculture industry. Companies like Cargill & Monsanto are in control not only of many sources of seeds but also of the means of distribution. A few years ago, both these companies went on shopping sprees & bought up lots of smaller seed companies. The obvious aim is to gain a monopoly of seed sales.

These companies have even more tricks up their sleeves in the form of genetic use restriction technology, otherwise known as terminator technology (looks forward to arnie jokes). With these seeds, the 2nd generation seeds would be sterile, forcing the farmer to buy a new set of seeds every year. This technology was banned but instead these companies enforce a legal agreement on farmers to buy new seeds every year.

I am all for genetic advancements for medicinal reasons but I fail to see how GM in food is helping anyone but Cargill, Monsanto and the like.

Dogster

djpbarry wrote: »

Why not? You seem to think GM research will lead to fish-plants?

I never said anybody is out to produce something that physically looks like a cross between a tomato and a fish, for a start the technology to do that is likely to be years off and I could not see any commercial application for it anyway.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Phlann

Dogster wrote: »

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Your reckless disregard for the conventions of the medium is turning me on.

Dogster

taconnol wrote: »

These companies have even more tricks up their sleeves in the form of genetic use restriction technology, otherwise known as terminator technology (looks forward to arnie jokes). With these seeds, the 2nd generation seeds would be sterile, forcing the farmer to buy a new set of seeds every year. This technology was banned but instead these companies enforce a legal agreement on farmers to buy new seeds every year.

Thanx for that info, didn't know the terminator technology was banned, to me that is bad news in that this means that if there is a problem with a plant one can not look to the terminator technology as a line of defence but one has to physically wipe out every example of the plant that has been released in to the environment. Really there are plenty of multinationals that whatever their motives do a lot of good, but frankly the whole GM business looks to me so un consumer and so un small to medium food producer driven with their interests hardly figuring in the risk benefit equation at all, I find it hard not to have suspicions that the terminator technology if it has been banned didn't upset the GM multinationals too much in that if there had been a problem with a plant which had Terminator technology and then terminator technology did not work they might have been opening themselves to huge litigation.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Prof.Badass

Well there should obviously be a law saying you can't patent DNA.

Craig Venter tried to patent some DNA a while ago... i don't think he got away with it.

I don't see how making a plant produce more/larger edible bits will create new viruses. IMO that's about as rational as denying chemotherapy for all cancer patients on the basis that the radiation could create new viruses.