Frankenfood

Great Debates
61

David B

Sure, no problem. Once they are deemed safe to the satisfaction of the general public (consumers). Until then, though, I don’t see why the producers can’t just be honest. It wouldn’t be all that hard. In the case of produce, a simple sign next to the pile of apples would be enough. Sounds to me like a lot of the folks here would prefer GM foods, and would buy them because of the label.
Modern pesticides, properly applied, can easily be washed off. Most people understand that. But most people also know that a gene cannot be washed away. And they’re unsure what those genes might do to them as consumers.
I don’t think it’s right for a producer to hide a fact from the public that they know is of concern to that public. They are, after all, accepting those peoples’ money.
Peace,
mangeorge (Has eaten a GM tomato)

62

  1. GM food is fundamentally different from food produced by cross-breeding. The The types of changes that can be wrought are very different (otherwise why bother doing it?)and the changes can be made much more rapidly, as has been noted above. So when a strain of corn is bred that is poisonous to corn pests it seems a good thing – until it tarts killing off other beneficial insects as an unexpected side benefit. (This actually happened.) This kind of change is less likely with cross-breeding, and the rapidity of the effect due to poorly thought-out changes could e catastrophic. This is the kind of thing people are concerned about.

  2. The question of “How much GM has to be done before you label the food product as GM?” has an easy answer – ANY modification using genetic manipulaion other than straight cross-breeding.

  3. The characterization of those opposed to unlmted and unlabeled GM food as hysterical and uninformed is a subtle and common ploy that is vastly insulting and is itself a gross distortion. It has been used before on many occasions to put an unflattering spin on opponents of unfettered technology. One example is the nuclear power industry, which originally portrayed its opponents as uninformed and technologically naive people who could not tell an atomic bomb from a nuclear reactor, thus brushing aside all those who had legitimate questions and concerns about the safety of those reactors. People opposed to gamma irradiation of their food were portrayed as backward peasants who didn’t realize that such irradiation would not cause their food to become radioactive, and brushed aside all concern about how such irradiation also causes chemical changes in the food and production of unexpected chemicals. (And the industry has been fighting against labeling gamma irradiated food the same way it’s fighting labeling of GM food. With the very ame argumnts.)The vast majority of those opposed to GM fods are not, I am sure, people who are afraid of “eating DNA”, or spooked by the idea of “genes” in their food. They have legitimate concerns about the safety of unrestricted dabbling and the possible short sightedness of those producing and marketing such foods. It will not do to say that the people doig this will be professionals who will do every thing necessary to avoid problems, and will have coningency plans in case of roblems. The odds were supposed to be vastly against oil spills in Alaskan waters before th Exxon Valdez disaster. In fact, the odds were so much against it that there was no contingency plan. And the Chernobyl plant had safety systems to prevent a meltdown.

The bottom line is that people have a right to be cautious, and it s not hysterical to be so. If GM foods are as good and as safe as they are made out to be, then there should not be any problem with labeling them as such.

63

Kimstu–Thanks for the reread of what I posted.

I don’t consider myself a ‘cheerleader’ for GMOs, in fact I think we need more debate. But, the debate I look for is from objective resources–meaning people or sources who are knowledgeable and don’t have a particular agenda. Your link to Sierra Club is an interesting read, but I think they have a agenda they want to get across, which makes me skeptical of their conclusions. They might have a point, but I’m going to have to research and decide for myself. I’m not going to take any side presented by a group with an agenda at face value. And this includes Monsanto press releases. I don’t buy all their shit either.

After all, DDT was promoted as a wonder chemical 40 years ago by the companies that made it.

The Ethiopian guy, for all I know, is one guy against GMOs. How many Ethiopian scientists are for GMOs? I can’t tell without my own search.

As Homer Simpson said:[to paraphase] “Statistics…50% of the people know you can make them say whatever you want”. The key is to know how the stats are calculated. Knowing stats allows you to smell BS.

What I was trying to get at with regard to ‘zealous groups’ is that, as I see them, all they care about is ‘crimes’ against their own morale view of nature. And they scream the loudest; the squeaky wheel gets the grease (media coverage).

These people obviously hold strong convictions. I, personally, think they are misguided. But, if you disagree with GMOs, present your beef [pun] in a way that people can digest without thinking you’re a wacko.

You don’t see legitimate scienctists dressed up as cows or whatever outside Monsanto because that’s not the way objective debate occurs. {legitimate being subjective, because you can always find degreed supporters of whatever cause. Timothy Leary liked Acid}

This topic is being debated among concerned scientists; you just don’t see it on the news. The average Joe should also have some say as to whether he wants to eat GMOs (and he can demonstrate that at the market).

And even with debate, this is a question that might not have a right answer.

64

mangeorge said:

No, because then it will never happen. We already have ways of determining if our food is safe, why should this be special?

I pretty much answered that with my first post in response – because they know people will resond with fear and avoid their products, even if they are exactly as safe as anything else on the shelf. Considering the huge amount of ignorance out there (after all, fighting it is taking longer than we thought), I can’t blame them.

The folks here are not an accurate representation of the public at large.

I’d be surprised if “most people” could accurately tell us what a gene actually is…

I’m not suggesting they hide it. If somebody is interested enough to inquire, that information should, of course, be available. But that doesn’t mean they need to put labels on everything to announce it.

65

I wonder if there isn’t some two-bit mom-and-pop food products company out there who would turn this whole thing around and market products with a really big, in-your-face label screaming “Made with 100% GENETICALLY-MODIFIED CORN!!”

I mean, it worked for Death Cigarettes…

66

I think it is unreasonable to decide if you don’t know what a gene is, how GMOs are made, and so on. I’m advocating a general improvement in the scientific literacy of the public so that people are actually knowledgeable enough to understand the issue.

At the moment, the public debate comes down to :
"Ooh, ick, get that GMO away from me. "
“But it uses less pesticide when we grow it.”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s got fish genes in it.”
"But you eat fish.
"I don’t care, it’s just wrong. "

And I really don’t think that goes anywhere.

67

What, now you want people to be rational about what they buy?
Great, we can inform the industry to stop advertising.

68

Somebody correct me here, because I was under the impression that gene transfer was carried out using viruses (virii?) and that this was a similarly hit-and-miss process, resulting in a number of strains from which the one where the gene has been inserted by chance in the right place must be selected.
Although I do understand that GM is not about ‘blindly smashing’, I thought it could be described as ‘blindly inserting’, but maybe I’m wrong, if so, perhaps someone could educate me rather than berate my puny mind?

69

The U.N. is (today) issuing a report that encourages the use of GMO food in developing nations, despite complaints from those of us in wealthier nations (and with fuller stomachs).

70

Ben wrote:

Then again, your tractor isn’t pre-programmed to stop working after 2 weeks.

By gosh, you’re right! Those wild canola plants probably produced those unsuitable-for-consumption substances for a reason. Perhaps to defend themselves against being eaten. If the seeds from the human-altered, non-substance-producing plants get out in the wild, they might breed the substance-producing plants out of existence and then the remaining poor, unprotected canola plants will all get eaten and they’ll go extinct! I think its high time Greenpeace blew up a canola storage silo to make their point.

71

Let’s try an analogy;
Say you go out and buy yourself a nice shiny new 2002 BMW. 20-30k miles later you learn that BMW had decided that new drive trains were too expensive, and installed a drive train from a totaled 1997 car they found in a junkyard. This car only had a few dozen miles on it, and was almost certainly just as good as a new one.
Do you feel cheated, even though you didn’t take the effort to check the numbers on all the parts of the car? Or even ask if the car was entirely new? And your ‘new’ car is substantially the same as any other.
Now I dislike analogies in general, because they usually don’t hold. Just as this one doesn’t. But I’m at a loss how else to get across my objection to producers selling a product that isn’t exactly what the customer expects it to be.
And this analogy doesn’t even address the fact that your drive train isn’t very likely to affect those of future, unrelated cars.
Peace,
mangeorge

72

I agree; I simply don’t have the time or resources to learn all about GM so that I can KNOW it’s safe, therefore I must decide either to accept it on trust or avoid it. Personally, I don’t feel that the Biochemical companies are fully trustworthy, which is why I’m in favour of labelling.

Now it could be (and has been) argued that when I buy an ordinary apple, I’m equally ignorant as to exactly what it is I’m buying, and it’s a good argument, I suppose, but for me it doesn’t seem to quite line up.

73

I changed my mind, Barbarian et al.
Now I do like analogies.
:smiley:
Peace,
mangeorge

74

**

Yes, and thanks to those idiots we can no longer use a viable form of energy that would go a long way towards eliminating our reliance of fossil fuels. Granted they did have legitimate questions about the safety of nuclear power but what they ended up doing was scaring the hell out of everyone.

**

Chernobyl may have been a pretty good nuclear plant when it opened. By the time of the meltdown is was underfunded and understaffed and is a poor example of nuclear power at work.

I suppose. But can the GM people sue those who speak out against it?

Marc

75

Given my professional situation I’m going to refrain from participation in these threads since I’ve decided there’s too much potential for me to say things I shouldn’t.

However, I thought I would note for the record, as discussed in a Pit rant a few months back which I think that I started, original industry strategy was pro-labeling. Very different from the strategy which emerged in the mid to late-1990s to which I was and am opposed to. However, some loud voices overtook reason, to my eternal regret.

Otherwise, my thanks to David B for the link to the review. I had missed this work bopping around as I am. I can’t resist adding that folks such as the cited Belgian “activist” annoy me to no end, above all in re some of recent ill-considered attacks on the rice principals. A number of them are my friends, as well as colleagues, and I can say I’d rather hoist a beer with Ingo than any of those idiots.

By the way Marc, nothing, repeat, NOTHING would be stupider nor more counter productive than suing GM opponents. It’s that kind of idiotic bullshit which has gotten us into trouble before. The industry lost the confidence battle. Now its time to win it back through careful, non-litigatious means.

76

**

But what you actually said was:

"The problem is that although the crop being grown in one farmer’s field is a terminator variety, the crop growing in the next farmer’s field may not be, just because the terminator variety itself doesn’t produce viable seed doesn’t mean that it must not produce viable pollen, polluting the ordinary crop with terminator genes, and ruining the non-GM farmer’s plans to save his own seed.

(I don’t know if this is the case with the terminator varieties that are currently in development, but it’s not inconcievable is it?, in fact I can imagine GM developers exploiting this sort of effect to surreptitiously drive non-GM strains to extinction and thus "

So first you talk about strains being driven to extinction- but then you’re not talking about 100% contamination “at all”?

**

You’re assuming that the terminator gene is a dominant negative mutation. Cite?

**

I’ll deal with this argument more when I address tracer’s post.

**

Before terminator technology was developed, there were probably people who said it was a logical impossibility to create and sell crop that didn’t have viable seeds.

**

Then why bother discussing this? Unless there is (for example) no pressing commercial reason to give up their entire livelihood, they won’t do that either.

**

I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. It’s just that I get the feeling that your position is that you (among other people) have a vague opposition to genetically modified food, and if anyone tries to get specific about how to resolve specific problems, you keep finding ways to make the solutions into an even worse problem. If nothing else, you fall back on “the biotech companies are driven purely by profit and will never implement any of your solutions.” But the fact is that they’ll implement pollen-free corn a lot faster than they will toss out the terminator technology.

I completely agree- I don’t think we can trust any corporation to give us the full truth, and we shouldn’t rush blindly into anything. But it seems to me that you almost feel that the untrustworthiness of biotech companies is not an obstacle to be navigated so much as an issue in and of itself, for its own sake. And thus if I present ways that we can protect ourselves from corporate greed, you reject my solutions out of hand, even if doing so contradicts your own opinions.

-Ben

77

**

In some techniques viruses are used, but I was under the impression that “gene gun” technology is what’s typically used for GM plants these days. It involves smearing the DNA on a glass plate and shooting a .22 bullet through it, so that the DNA is literally shot into the cells. The DNA used for the experiment contains the foreign gene to be inserted, along with other genes which are involved in carrying out the insertion. However, I haven’t specifically studied industrial gene-splicing technologies, so don’t take my word as gospel.

Let me also state that work is currently underway to make very directed gene splicing which can be precisely targeted to specific locations in the genome. There’s talk of using this as a therapy for AIDS, since AIDS rewrites the human genome of cells in the immune system. If you had a gene vector which recognized foreign AIDS genes within human cells and deactivated the AIDS genes, you could potentially have a very nice AIDS therapy.

If I might make a correction, I stated earlier that canola lost the bad genes. However, canola was treated with radiation, which causes point mutations. Therefore, the genes are most likely still there, but the regulatory sequences which turn them on have been damaged.

What you have to remember is that if you want, for example, for corn to express BT toxin (a bacterial toxin which kills insects, but does not, SFAIK, harm humans) as a pesticide, you insert the BT gene to a more or less random location in the genome, and typically you end up with what you want- a plant that exudes small quantities of BT toxin. So far as I know, the concern is less with the randomness of the actual genetic result so much as it is with the interaction of the new gene with other genes in the plant, or with the environment as a whole. So, for example, there’s a very slim chance that BT toxin inserted into, say, soybeans could give the soybeans a surprising and undesirable new ability, just as any sort of genetic change can lead to evolution. I’m more concerned with unexpected interactions between the new gene and the environment. If we’re spraying BT on plants and find that it kills butterflies, then we can just quit spraying BT. If BT genes escape into wild plants, and start killing butterflies… then we can do little more than rue the fact that we didn’t make pollen-free GM crops. (Incidentally, the claim that GM BT corn pollen kills monarch butterflies is, so far as I know, extremely controversial.)

-Ben

78

**

Then again, plenty of commercial software is sold on a limited license basis, so that it can only be used for a year. Why not rent seeds just like everything else is rented?

Feeling a bit testy?

I’m afraid you seem to have missed my point. By bombarding the canola plants with radiation, lots of genetic changes have been introduced, and no one knows what, exactly, those changes are, beyond that a few of them got rid of the particular undesirable substances that agribusiness wanted to get rid of. If GM genes can spread into the wild, then so, too, can the unknown mutant genes in canola.

FWIW, I try to avoid canola as much as possible, because it’s known to be a carcinogen. However, that is, in all likelihood, unrelated to the irradiation.

On the other hand, why not apply your logic to Mangetout’s fear that terminator technology will breed normal crops to extinction? I mean, if the entire point of terminator technology is that the plants can’t reproduce, why worry about those plants outbreeding non-GM crops?

-Ben

79

(a) The terminator trait research has been abandoned, officially speaking. Bad publicity killed commercialization. I can’t speak to possible continued research on an unofficial basis but there are not commercialized terminator traits to the best of my knowledge.

(b) gene guns do not involved actual bullets although they do involve projecting impregnated (with target dna) micro materials with great force, rather like a gun. The idea is to penetrate the cell achieve transformation. Obviously lots of cell deaths involved before we get a bingo. Detials vary between guns and are confidential. Besides, haven’t kept up with the technical aspects.

© BT toxin works by bidning the gut of certain types of insectal larval forms, like many catapillers. It simply doesn’t work on other things. Utterly harmless which is why the organic farmers love(d) it. It also breaks down rapidly so it has little to no persistance in the environment. Expression in plant materials throws this last bit for a loop, and is presently subject to research.

(d) In lab conditions BT toxin expressed in pollen can reach lethal levels for Monarch catipillars if the amounts of pollen ingested are very high. However, per recent research those levels are not realisticaly found ‘in the wild.’ It remains to be seen how this will work out, as it appears in natural conditions the concentrations necessary to effect Monarch catapillars do not obtain.

(e) as for insertion, although the process of insertion is relatively random (that depends on a number of factors and on specifics in the method used etc, all kinds of stuff which is not discussable by me), post-insertion you can be bloody well sure that we do figure where in the genome we have expression. Quite important insofar as different types of expression lead to different levels of BT expression, issues which are presently subject to dispute in many different fora.

(f) other forms of insertion are as Ben mentioned being developed but are not commercial yet.

80

647: *The Ethiopian guy, for all I know, is one guy against GMOs. How many Ethiopian scientists are for GMOs? I can’t tell without my own search. *

Well, if you search for information on the “Like-Minded Group”, you should find a number of sources, with many different political perspectives, that indicate that indeed, these concerns are important to many Third World scientists and have a lot of political importance in many Third World nations. I think it’s a great idea for you to prefer to do your own research on these issues; I hope that you actually will do it, instead of just using the irrationality and illogic of some of the most vocal GMO opponents as an excuse to ignore all other GMO opponents.

*What I was trying to get at with regard to ‘zealous groups’ is that, as I see them, all they care about is ‘crimes’ against their own morale view of nature. And they scream the loudest; the squeaky wheel gets the grease (media coverage). *

This is true, which is why I tried to provide you with information about GMO opponents who are not just “zealous groups” with hysterical and unrealistic fears about “crimes against nature”.

*These people obviously hold strong convictions. I, personally, think they are misguided. But, if you disagree with GMOs, present your beef [pun] in a way that people can digest without thinking you’re a wacko. *

Fair enough. So what, exactly, do you object to as “wacko” about the statements of Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher in the article I linked to or the positions of the Like-Minded Group?