Europe, Africa and Golden Rice

[NecronLord]

Trolls would be different, since trolls aren't unique to the US.

Anti GM fearmongers aren't unique to the EU...

[Colonel Olrik]

Now that's hardly true, there's whole piles of food that have illeffects.

Known illefects, meaning that those who suffer particular conditions known what to avoid (for example, alergies) and you know how to have equilibrated meals

The number of people who contracted nvCJD was in double figures. Don't make a fuss about it, it's nothing.

Still an example of a condition that needs a generation to develop.

[Gil Hamilton]

Genes could migrate to other plants, as has been observed.
No one really knows what effects the additional, or changed, genes might have on the human body in the long term. No one ever tried it.
And just because so far no bad effects have been observed is no proof that it is perfectly safe.
Remember Asbestos, Contergan, TBT, etc.

First of all, you are making a strawman. Just because those products turned out of have problems, it doesn't logically follow that GM foods will have a similar sort of problem.

Second of all, genes themselves cannot hurt you. Let's take the example I used, the tomatoes with the gene spliced from flounder, which makes the tomato better able to survive colder weather and cold snaps. The chemical that this gene is responsible for creating has no effects on people, after all, people eat flounder and do not get sick from it (yes, there are people with fish allergies, but it is not caused by that gene). Logically, but splicing in that particular gene to the tomato, there is still nothing in the tomato that can harm anyone, unless they were allegic to tomatoes in the first place. It doesn't suddenly become a Toxic Ultra Cancerous Mutant Super Tomato, it's still just a tomato.

And where is your evidence that GM foods are fundamentally bad for people compared to non-GM? So far I've seen alot of empty rhetoric from you, but no actual evidence that indicates that GM foods could be potentially harmful, no actual facts, or even indications of fact. Just alot of irrational hysteria.

So start posting some facts or admit that you are being irrational.

But when agricoprs like Monsanto are forcing their products into the market, and pushing "normal" crops out, they take away the choice, don't they?
As is our right, we refuse to cave in just because the almighty USA tells us it is oh so safe, and oh so good. Of course you can sue at the WTO, and even succeed.
But since there is a labeling obligation now, I doubt GM food would fare well in selling and would swiftly drop from shops... And the labeling is something the WTO can't affect.

As it is, the US is free to eat that shit. As are all other countries. Just don't expect it to be sold in Europe.

It's your choice if you want wasteful and inefficently grown food chosen out of an irrational fear founded with no evidence, then that's your perogative. Of course, you will probably just become snide when our food production outstrips yours and we actually took the right steps to actually fight hunger in starving nations, while your food production becomes stagnant and outdated.

[Dahak]

Genes could migrate to other plants, as has been observed.
No one really knows what effects the additional, or changed, genes might have on the human body in the long term. No one ever tried it.
And just because so far no bad effects have been observed is no proof that it is perfectly safe.
Remember Asbestos, Contergan, TBT, etc.

First of all, you are making a strawman. Just because those products turned out of have problems, it doesn't logically follow that GM foods will have a similar sort of problem.

I just pointed out that there are many products that were told to be completely harmless, and then was found out they weren't.

Second of all, genes themselves cannot hurt you. Let's take the example I used, the tomatoes with the gene spliced from flounder, which makes the tomato better able to survive colder weather and cold snaps. The chemical that this gene is responsible for creating has no effects on people, after all, people eat flounder and do not get sick from it (yes, there are people with fish allergies, but it is not caused by that gene). Logically, but splicing in that particular gene to the tomato, there is still nothing in the tomato that can harm anyone, unless they were allegic to tomatoes in the first place. It doesn't suddenly become a Toxic Ultra Cancerous Mutant Super Tomato, it's still just a tomato.

I menat that they are prone to migrate to other plants, which in return will gain that geneered effect. It has happened, and I don't think it is wise to have genes spreading around..

And where is your evidence that GM foods are fundamentally bad for people compared to non-GM? So far I've seen alot of empty rhetoric from you, but no actual evidence that indicates that GM foods could be potentially harmful, no actual facts, or even indications of fact. Just alot of irrational hysteria.

So start posting some facts or admit that you are being irrational.

I am perfctly happy with a good portion of common sense, which you might call irrational hysteria.

But when agricoprs like Monsanto are forcing their products into the market, and pushing "normal" crops out, they take away the choice, don't they?
As is our right, we refuse to cave in just because the almighty USA tells us it is oh so safe, and oh so good. Of course you can sue at the WTO, and even succeed.
But since there is a labeling obligation now, I doubt GM food would fare well in selling and would swiftly drop from shops... And the labeling is something the WTO can't affect.

As it is, the US is free to eat that shit. As are all other countries. Just don't expect it to be sold in Europe.

It's your choice if you want wasteful and inefficently grown food chosen out of an irrational fear founded with no evidence, then that's your perogative. Of course, you will probably just become snide when our food production outstrips yours and we actually took the right steps to actually fight hunger in starving nations, while your food production becomes stagnant and outdated.

The EU agrar production is overflowing. As it is, we produce so much more that we have to destroy food in vast amounts each year.
Those crops et al. are not wasteful nor inefficent, in fact are highly bred crops. Just not geneered.
And you're perfectly able to "outproduce" us, which won't help you one bit without a market to sell it to. And since the EU is one of the worlds biggest markets, and won't buy your stuff.

And you won't fight hunger just by haveing GM food. With the mismanagement and warlording there, GM won't be the miraculous solution you think it is.

[Colonel Olrik]

Of course, you will probably just become snide when our food production outstrips yours and we actually took the right steps to actually fight hunger in starving nations, while your food production becomes stagnant and outdated.

The U.S and the E.U food production would be enough to feed everybody in the world. GM organisms will help to grow crops that otherwise would be impossible, and correct diet deficiencies, but the countries where people die of hunger will not improve with more food available. Wars and opressive, corrupt governments are a major factor.

[NecronLord]

First of all, you are making a strawman.

Read the fucking board FAQ, he is not making a strawman fallacy. A strawman is a mischaracterisation of the opposing argument.

A: C is not as effective as D because of study E
B: You claim C is not as effective as F because of study E, when study E does not mention F at all.

Now that is a strawman.

[Joe]

And you won't fight hunger just by haveing GM food. With the mismanagement and warlording there, GM won't be the miraculous solution you think it is.

GM will, however, drastically increase the food supply and make it more difficult for tinpot dictators to control and mismanage it.

[Gil Hamilton]

I just pointed out that there are many products that were told to be completely harmless, and then was found out they weren't.

And what does asbestos turning out to be poisonous have to do with the topic at hand?

I menat that they are prone to migrate to other plants, which in return will gain that geneered effect. It has happened, and I don't think it is wise to have genes spreading around..

So? They can't spread to other plants very easily. Genes are not variouses you know. You've got a cross breed plants or at the very least cross polinate them to make that happen, and even then what is the harm? You haven't demonstrated any evidence that they were harmful in the original plant, much less any other.

I am perfctly happy with a good portion of common sense, which you might call irrational hysteria.

How is arguing that something is harmful with out a drop of evidence or facts or anything else, in the face of actually progress and improvement, "common sense". It sounds like irrationality to me.

And you still haven't posted any evidence that indicates that GM foods are in fact harmful. Come on, Dahak, this isn't rocket science. If you are going to make an assertation, you should be able to back it up with something.

[Hamel]

Monsanto is known to have poor quality assurance procedures. Back in 1997, the company had to recall what they claimed was a small amount of GM canola seed. What they don't want to tell you is 60k bags of two types of seed were recalled because one or both types contained the wrong gene. That amount of seed is enough for 600k - 750k acres of land.

Monarch butterflies and green lacewings (beneficial insect) are fatally vulnerable to one type of Mansanto's bt corn. here

Since the FDA and Mansanto are a revolving door of employment, Mansanto can effectively force it's product onto the market, because the FDA becomes incredibly lax in investigating and researching the GM products. If GM was such a miracle and so safe, then why has the American market largely rejected it?

Everyone knows by now that they want to corner the market. Once those crops are introduced to the system, the farmers and people that don't want them are fucked. In fact, there have already been problems with GM crops being introduced into farmland without the owner's knowledge, resulting in a big WTF when the owner discovers his crops are no longer reproducing.

Another thing: transgenic DNA is far different from natural DNA. To those of you who think it's no different than natural crossbreeding, think again.

I am putting to you twelve reasons why transgenic DNA is different from natural DNA, and is more likely to spread by horizontal gene transfer and recombination, both by design and otherwise. I hope you will refute these point by point.

*All artificial constructs tend to be unstable, so much so that this is a topic in a standard text-book on genetic engineering [7]. Transgenic DNA is more likely to break and join up again, ie, to recombine. Transgenic DNA typically contains DNA from widely different sources, mainly bacteria and viruses and other genetic parasites that cause diseases and spread antibiotic resistance, and hence, has the potential to recombine homologously with all those agents, ie, due to similarities in DNA base-sequence. Homology enhances horizontal gene transfer 10 million to 100 million-fold [8]. Transgenic DNA is designed to cross species barriers and to invade genomes. They are flanked by recombination sequences, such as the left and right borders of T-DNA or the terminal repeats of viral vectors, which enable them to jump into genomes. By the same token, they could jump out again. Enzymes catalysing jumping in also catalyse jumping out. Certain ‘receptive hotspots’ have now been identified in both the plant [9] and the human genome [10]. These may also be ‘recombination hotspots’, prone to breaking and rejoining. That would mean inserted transgenes are more likely to be lost, to recombine, or to invade other genomes. There are mechanisms in the cell that actively seek out, inactivate or eliminate foreign DNA from the genome [11]. Cell and embryo culture methods are well-known to induce unpredictable, uncontrollable (somaclonal) variations that persist in the plants generated. There is now evidence that the transformation process for making transgenic plants induces further genetic instability [12-14] leading to chromosomal rearrangements, genome scrambling, in other words.

Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soya, commercially grown for years, was finally analysed by molecular methods. Not only is the gene order of the insert found to be scrambled, the plant genome at the site of insertion is also scrambled, and there is a 534 bp fragment of unknown origin in there as well [15]. All very different from the original data provided by Monsanto. -- 16 February 2002, THE BEST KEPT SECRET OF GM CROPS: DR MAE-WAN HO ON RISKS OF T25 MAIZE

Dangers of Bt crops (don't ask me about the funny text *shrug*

Bt crops are genetically engi-neered to produce insecticidal pro-teins
derived from genes of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). While
Bt is a natural insec-ticide used safely and occasionally as a spray by
conventional organic farmers, genetically engineering Bt genes into
plants so that the toxins are expressed in relatively high levels in a
large proportion of the plants throughout most of their growing period
is another matter. Abundant evidence of harmful effects on the
environment has already emerged.

Bt crops impact negatively on non-target endangered species such as the
monarch butterfly, the black swallowtail and other lepidopteran species.
Beneficial species such as lacewings that prey on cornborer were also
harmed when fed on an artificial diet containing Bt toxin or on corn
borers or other lepidopteran larvae that had fed on Bt corn.

Research conducted in China show that while Bt cotton is effec-tive in
controlling the primary pest cotton when first planted, there are
adverse impacts on parasitic natural enemies. Furthermore, populations
of secondary pests in-creased in Bt cotton fields after the target
(bollworm) had been con-trolled, some of which then re-placed bollworm
as primary pests and damaged cotton growth.

Bt toxin is released in root exu-dates from Bt corn. It accumulates and
persists in soil and retains insecticidal, immunological and other
biological activities, with potentially large impacts on soil ecology
and fertility.

More from same link

Bt toxins may be actual and potential allergens for human beings. Some
field workers are exposed to Bt spray experienced allergic skin
sensitization and induction of lgE and lgG anti-bodies to the spray. A
team of scientists have cautioned against releasing Cry-containing
plants and plant products for human use. These scientists demonstra-ted
that recombinant Cry1Ac protoxin from Bt is a potent sys-temic and
mucosal immunogen, as potent as cholera toxin.

A Bt strain that caused severe human necrosis (tissue death) killed mice
within eight hours from clinical toxic-shock syndrome. Both Bt protein
and Bt potato harmed mice in feeding experiments, damaging their ileum
(part of the small intestine). Both the groups of mice fed Bt potatoes
of potatoes piked with Bt toxin revealed common features such as the
abnormal appearance of mitochondria, with signs of degeneration and
disrupted short microvilli (microscopic projections on the cell surface)
at the surface lining gut.

[phongn]

Monsanto is known to have poor quality assurance procedures. Back in 1997, the company had to recall what they claimed was a small amount of GM canola seed. What they don't want to tell you is 60k bags of two types of seed were recalled because one or both types contained the wrong gene. That amount of seed is enough for 600k - 750k acres of land.

Monarch butterflies and green lacewings (beneficial insect) are fatally vulnerable to one type of Mansanto's bt corn. here

I need to look around, but I recall reading that in the open field there were mitigating factors that ensured that butterflies and lacewings populations were not destroyed by Bt-laced corn pollen. I'll look around and see if I can confirm this.

Since the FDA and Mansanto are a revolving door of employment, Mansanto can effectively force it's product onto the market, because the FDA becomes incredibly lax in investigating and researching the GM products.

Wait, and evidence for this is...?

If GM was such a miracle and so safe, then why has the American market largely rejected it?

Fear, uncertainty, doubt. Why hasn't the American market embraced nuclear power - it's clean and safe, isn't it? There's more to the market embracing a new product than its scientific merits.

Everyone knows by now that they want to corner the market. Once those crops are introduced to the system, the farmers and people that don't want them are fucked. In fact, there have already been problems with GM crops being introduced into farmland without the owner's knowledge, resulting in a big WTF when the owner discovers his crops are no longer reproducing.

Were these accidential or deliberate? And IIRC, even non-GM seeds are generally 'crippled' not to produce to ensure that they don't spread around and cause some enviornmental problems.

Furthermore, these crops already have been introduced into the system and people and farmers who don't want them are hardly fucked.

A Bt strain that caused severe human necrosis (tissue death) killed mice
within eight hours from clinical toxic-shock syndrome. Both Bt protein
and Bt potato harmed mice in feeding experiments, damaging their ileum
(part of the small intestine). Both the groups of mice fed Bt potatoes
of potatoes piked with Bt toxin revealed common features such as the
abnormal appearance of mitochondria, with signs of degeneration and
disrupted short microvilli (microscopic projections on the cell surface)
at the surface lining gut.

[/quote]

What concentrations of Bt toxin (and their derivatives) were in the laced potatoes and protien meal? Anybody have the journal article in which this was originally published so we might see the primary source?

[Dahak]

I just pointed out that there are many products that were told to be completely harmless, and then was found out they weren't.

And what does asbestos turning out to be poisonous have to do with the topic at hand?

It shows that although something is not considered harmful right now doesn't mean it isn't harmful *at all*.

I menat that they are prone to migrate to other plants, which in return will gain that geneered effect. It has happened, and I don't think it is wise to have genes spreading around..

So? They can't spread to other plants very easily. Genes are not variouses you know. You've got a cross breed plants or at the very least cross polinate them to make that happen, and even then what is the harm? You haven't demonstrated any evidence that they were harmful in the original plant, much less any other.

I am perfctly happy with a good portion of common sense, which you might call irrational hysteria.

How is arguing that something is harmful with out a drop of evidence or facts or anything else, in the face of actually progress and improvement, "common sense". It sounds like irrationality to me.

And you still haven't posted any evidence that indicates that GM foods are in fact harmful. Come on, Dahak, this isn't rocket science. If you are going to make an assertation, you should be able to back it up with something.

About the dangers of Geneering, I refer to the other posts upwards, which cover it quite nicely.

[Gil Hamilton]

It shows that although something is not considered harmful right now doesn't mean it isn't harmful *at all*.

Not a good reason to avoid something. After all, lots of things that we do every day could turn out to be harmful, but that doesn't mean we should stop doing them on that account, when we have no evidence they will be harmful.

About the dangers of Geneering, I refer to the other posts upwards, which cover it quite nicely.

What, the one that Phongn just tore to bits?

[Dahak]

It shows that although something is not considered harmful right now doesn't mean it isn't harmful *at all*.

Not a good reason to avoid something. After all, lots of things that we do every day could turn out to be harmful, but that doesn't mean we should stop doing them on that account, when we have no evidence they will be harmful.

Several people in here were saxing that so far nothing harmful has been observed in humans, so it never will.
I don't think that.

About the dangers of Geneering, I refer to the other posts upwards, which cover it quite nicely.

What, the one that Phongn just tore to bits?

"tore to bits"?
He didn't refute the rather large part atop of it about the spreading of artificial genome.

[phongn]

I still need to do some research about the spreading of the genome, give me a bit.

[Coyote]

Most hunger and privation in the world today is caused, I bet, more by evil politics than by actual shortage. The dictator is from one tribe and controls the imports; refusing to distribute food to other tribes so they starve; then finding some way to blame 'latent colonial mismanagement' or 'imperialism' or some other strawman reason to elit sympathy and deflect criticism...

[NecronLord]

Most hunger and privation in the world today is caused, I bet, more by evil politics than by actual shortage. The dictator is from one tribe and controls the imports; refusing to distribute food to other tribes so they starve; then finding some way to blame 'latent colonial mismanagement' or 'imperialism' or some other strawman reason to elit sympathy and deflect criticism...

*cough - Mugabe asswipe - cough*