My hippie roommate and I have been going off on this for a while now… I was wondering what you guys think about it…
My argument is this: the foods that we eat today are the result of screwing around with the genes of wild-type plants, using trial and error through breeding experiments or accidental pollination. Genetic engineering is a much more efficient and scientific way of making plants more nutritious and hardier. Plants produced this way could cut down on a lot of problems with food production, leading to better yields and less use of pesticides, and could eliminate many common diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies.
My roommate’s argument: it’s unnatural, it’s scary, and it could cause problems we’re not aware of.
This last point is true, I’ll admit, but what scientific advancement has come about without some scary predictions? In Edward Jenner’s time, people were afraid his smallpox vaccine (made of cowpox) would make them start acting like cows, for God’s sake. Scary predictions have less to do with scientific methods and more to do with propaganda from people who are too blind to read up on the hard evidence.
This is a delicate issue here in East Lansing, because last December a building here was set on fire because it housed a lab that was doing GM research. As a soon-to-be microbiology major and all-around science-type chick, I shouldn’t be held responsible if I turn the guy who did this into a quadraplegic, if I ever chance to meet him. To me this just signifies what stupidity and ignorance I’m up against.
I, for one, am inclined to agree with you, Tsarina. We have been playing with the genetics of plants for at least 10,000 years and have yet to destroy the planet.
The current forms of genetic modification make all of our past plant hybridization look like high school science fair projects compared with what is being done now.
As much as jumping genes have been speading around genetic codes in this world, we are, for the first time, inserting modifications that would normally never have occured in nature. There are significant causes for concern.
The terminator breed of corn is a good example. If we become widely dependent upon such “dead end” crops, what happens if there turns out to be some hidden defect in the seed type? We could be faced with massive crop failures and no seed stock to replant with.
With our conventional plant breeding programs we already have drastically reduced the biodiversity of our crops. These “monocultures” are dangerous enough as it stands with their vulnerability to fungus, rusts and molds. The uncertainties involved with intermingled genetic codes are manifold and far more difficult to prove out with short term testing.
There are many benefits to be sure, Golden Rice is one of them. This simple combination of existing plant genes stands to help eliminate malnutrition for 125 million children world wide.
The world’s agricultural productivity is not under sufficient threat to justify the hasty adoption of genetically modified “frankenfoods”. However many benefits await the earth’s population, caution should be the order of the day while venturing into such uncharted territory.
Ask your local plant pathologist about Texas male sterile corn. It became wildly popular during the 70’s, but fell from favor when a third or more of one years U.S. crop was wiped out by a fungus to which it had no resistance. Regular old fashioned plant breeding is not all that “safe”; there are all sorts of unforseen things that can crop up.
With recombinant corn, there have already been reports of recombinant toxins being excreted through the roots of the plant, as well as butterly toxicity. In soybeans it seems that the pesticide resistance may be easily transfered to weeds growing around the recombinant fields.
Please don’t take this to suggest that I think recombinant technology should not be applied to crop plants; in most cases there will probably be no problem with introducing improved plants, but the ability of recombinant techniques to produce major changes in a plant within a single generation means that the plants shold be watched carefully for several generations before anyone even thinks of letting them out in the wild.
I would highly recommend that anybody interested in this subject read the new book, Pandora’s Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Food, by Alan McHughen. It’s a good source of information to counter the misinformation we often get from other sources. His main reason to write the book was so people could discuss the issue with a background of knowledge.
I reviewed the book for the local paper, and that review is reposted on Themestream.com, but because I get paid 2 cents per person who reads it, I can’t post the link (you can either search the site or e-mail me for that).
I grow hybrid tomatoes in my garden, designed to resist the heat, resist molds and resist those damn nematodes that wiped out my last crop. I was pleased with them. Those corn nuts you buy in the store are from engineered corn. There was the ‘brokliflower’ out not too long ago (a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower) which I liked but was apparently too costly for the average public or they did not like it.
I have no problem with genetically engineered foods, though I have a big problem with what some seed companies came up with along the lines of ‘Terminator Corn’ i.e. a breed that will not produce viable seeds. The whole reason for that was to keep farmers from collecting crop seed and not having to buy as much new seed the following season and saving money.
I’d like vegetables that don’t get wiped out every year in what seems to be the inevitable price increasing crop failures, like green peppers from a drought, tomatoes from too much rain, and so on. Plus, it would be nice to have vegetables that will stay fresh longer in the cooler, resistant to freezes, and perhaps more nourishing.
The only problem I can see is surplus. Farmers already depend on fixed prices for their crops in order to make a profit. Too much of anything will hardly benefit the average buyer in the store because the middlemen and the retail outlets control market prices. They buy cheap and sell high. A farmer selling sweet peas usually determines his crop prices not only by growing expenses but a percentage of loss and the amount of other farmers selling peas.
Suddenly, if every pea farmer has a bumper crop due to genetically stronger peas, the market price will drop. We might see a few cents decrease at the store, but the bulk buyers will see the greatest profits and the farmers will actually have a loss per bushel. That would not encourage them to buy hybrid seed. A few years ago, apple growers had a major bumper crop. We saw some benefits at the stores, but growers were letting apples rot in the field in order to try to gain back growing costs by not spending money to harvest them.
One of my beloved veggies is broccoli rabe (rapini), a hybrid of spinach and broccoli. If not for genetic engineering, I would not enjoy this treat.
But, if a farmer were to continue to achieve “bumper” crops from superior seed (and thus lower profits) , wouldn’t that simply encourage them to farm more efficiently the following season, giving the farmer more control over his crops by lower percentage of predictible waste, thereby freeing up some land to plant other crops (or do whatever else s/he wishes)?
Any change in market due to shortages/bumpers is always a season-by-season occurance, a wrinkled smoothed over by successive years. It would seem to me that any farmer would jump at the opportunity to grow more efficient, desireable product.
Pros-
[ul]
[li]Pest Resistance[/li][li]Herbicide tolerance[/li][li]Disease resistance[/li][li]Cold tolerance[/li][li]Draugh tolerance[/li][li]Nutrition[/li][li]Pharmaceuticals[/li][li]Phytoremediation[/li][/ul] Cons-
[list]
[li]Unintended harm to other organisms[/li][li]Reduced effectiveness of pesticides[/li][li]Gene transfer to non-target species[/li][li]Allergenicity[/li][li]Unknown effects on human health[/li][li]Patents vs. price increases[/li]
Reading through several sites regarding GM has shown me that they have no long term data regarding effects on humans. They have no information regarding how the pollination of these plants will effect the environment and what the possible outcomes could be. The possiblilities of altering non-target species seems to be quite a high risk. The thought that the GM backers are protecting their investments tells me they will try to bury negative reports regarding their products as well. We can only hope that the regulations will be higher and labeling policies can be enforced.
Well, as a soon-to-be microbiology graduate and all around science guy, I did a 20 page research paper on this very topic a while back.
I’ll spare you the 20 pages (complete with figures and diagrams!!) and jump straight to the conclusion. While the risks and dangers involved in GM foods are real and should be taken seriously, in general they should prove to be relatively simple to control. In fact, GM foods should prove to be significantly less dangerous than traditional crops. When you have a plant that specifically kills insects that are trying to eat it instead of indiscriminately spraying the whole area with pesticide, you end up with a cleaner environment, less selective pressure for pesticide resistance, and less food processing required. That’s just one example.
As for controlling problems, one good example is hybridizing potatoes. Growing GM potatoes in the Americas is risky because there are wild relatives that can pick up new genes. OTOH, growing them in Europe is perfectly safe, because there are no native European relatives of the potato. Each case needs to be handled differently, but with enough research, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to find solutions.
My biggest concern with GM foods is unexpected allergens. That, I think, is the only possible valid reason for labelling these foods.
Your claim that engineering an insect toxin, such as Bacillus Thuriginensis or Bt toxin, into a plant will reduce the selective pressure towards pesticide resistance is entirely speculative at this point. As of last year, no one knew that Bt toxin was being excreted from the roots of gene altered corn plants, or that the pollen from certain Bt modified plants was also cross fertile with some plants of other species. If the Bt gene manages to escape from the target crops into the wild, the potential for selectively breeding pesticide resistant insects could be enormous !
“My biggest concern with GM foods is unexpected allergens. That, I think, is the only possible valid reason for labelling these foods.”
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I can’t think of a valid reason for not labeling these foods.
Why do the producers feel they have to sneak this stuff up on us?
Let the consumers decide. It is, after all, our food.
Peace,
mangeorge
Possibly. Assuming that the same insects that eat the crop plants eat the wild versions and that the pesticide genes are expressed at high levels in the wild plants. In some cases, it has been shown that expressing these transgenes actually hurts the plant’s survival in the wild, because it costs it energy to make extra proteins. Not in all cases, of course. I’m just saying that it’s not necessarily cut and dried.
I haven’t seen the research that suggests toxin is leaching out into the soil, but I do know that they have been very carefully studying the possibility of gene spread through hybridization since day 1. I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t risks, but the risks are being taken seriously and studied. I think that with enough research, the risks can be minimized.
In theory, I have no problem with labelling in a perfect world where the general public takes the time to educate themselves on issues like this and make their own informed decisions. However, we live in Jerry Springer land. Practically speaking, forced labelling would be a serious blow for this technology, because the public would see it as a negative thing.
I was going to stay away from this but… Okay, full disclosure, my employer is in fact one of the big baddies developing GM agricultural products.
No one that I know of is burying negative reports. I can not speak for other coroporations of course.
(1) On effects on humans
(a) most materials which research has been conducted on has been derived from well known substances. E.g. B.t. is a well known organic pesticide which organic farmers use. Other successful work has simply transfered genes between already known plants.
(b) the field is too new for long term studies. Of course we should monitor this, but the evaluation of risk should be logical.
(2) Species Jumping
(a) this was underestimated previously, true. More research needs to be done.
(b) the research completed is indeed largely published in peer reviewed journals. Even when in-house research is not always fully deseminated, cooperation with academic researchers means that a cover-up is highly unlikely.
Frankly, I have some personal regrets about a rush to commercialize in some areas and the overly-aggressive PR position of certain American corps (whose name start with M) but I don’t think the anti-GM scare is rational.
Also, given resistance issues and some personal reservations about the degree we can maintain resistance management programs, I rather wish the focus was on other work. I differ with Smeghead to the extent we do have an issue of B.t. lingering in the environment longer with plant residue, whereas sprays break down fairly rapidly --or such was the position the last time I worked on this (now 2 years so…), I’ve moved off of B.t. so can’t claim any definitive opinions.
There are quite a few people who preserve and trade “heritage” plants, either because of these concerns or just because they happen to like the old kinds better. These folks trade seeds back and forth. While they couldn’t generate a huge seed stock immediately, they could replenish in a few years. There are also people who preserve heritage breeds of animals, like old style chickens and such. These folks make sure that their stock doesn’t get too inbred by trading back and forth, too.
I wouldn’t be interested in doing such a thing myself…but I’m grateful for their efforts. We do need to keep as much biodiversity as possible, for our future.
I agree with you. My real concerns are regarding allergen tranfers into foods previously thought to be allergen free.
I still do not understand the aspect of not labeling these products, I believe people need to be educated a little better on these issues.
tsarina’s hippie roommate is right. GM foods are not the same as cross bred foods. To claim that they are is misleading, at best.
An apple is labeled as an apple by it’s appearance. A GM apple is not merely an apple. So to leave it labeled as an apple (by it’s appearance) is dishonest, even in a “Jerry Springer” world.
A lie by omission is still a lie.
Remember, the point of genetically modifying foods is to benefit the producers, not the consumers. That is the nature of business is it not?
Peace,
mangeorge
I too, am aware of this Lynn. I was just unwilling to lead to far astray from the OP. I might dispute the ability of Heritage farmers to replenish the massive amounts of seed stock that we use every year, but I will cheerfully applaud their efforts along with you. One of the finest pieces of fruit that I have ever eaten was a Heritage strain “Black Twig” apple.
One can only dream of what curious and undiscovered traits are hidden in this vast treasure house of biodiversity. If ever there was good cause for genomic mapping, these hardy and persistent strains deserve high priority.
Also, I think I saw at a Greenpeace site a list of GMO foods or foods that contained GM stuff (i.e. GM wheat in Bisquik, etc). Just if anyone is interested.
I, personally, would prefer a label so I know what I’m getting. They label for all other types of additives and ingredients and it would seem logical that this would be labled too. I’m not for or against GM foods; I just want to be informed so that I can make a decision that is right for me and my family.
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I HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT when somebody “plays the kid card.” What’s wrong with just saying that Golden Rice can help eliminate malnutrition for 200 million people worldwide? Why drag “children” into it? It feels like nothing more than a cheap attempt to pull on the heartstrings. It’s almost like saying, “If you stand against me on this issue, it means you hate children!”
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