Genetically modified crops largely a failure, says consumer group

jay gw said:
According to

http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/UKmanifesto/geneticengineering0.htm#dangers

Dangers of genetically engineered foods

What are the dangers?

Given the huge complexity of genetic coding, even in very simple organisms such as bacteria, no one can possibly predict the effects of introducing new genes into any organism or plant.

*
Unexpected production of new toxins and allergens in foods

*
Increased use of chemicals on crops, resulting in increased contamination of our water supply and food
*
The creation of herbicide-resistant weeds

*
The spread of diseases across species barriers

*
Loss of bio-diversity in crops

*
Increased sickness and suffering for genetically engineered animals

*
The disturbance of ecological balance
Click to expand...

It may be valid in many modernization. If we carry on ll good & bad, stong & weak, sick & healthy, fit & unfit, clones & gentically/unnaturally developed/modified/engineered things--we will get accumultions & furthur progress of both types. Who/how those will be maintained? We may then have to develop maximum means whether good or bad--to maintain similarily. Why only g.e. foods contradictary?
 
jay gw said:
According to

http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/UKmanifesto/geneticengineering0.htm#dangers

Dangers of genetically engineered foods

What are the dangers?

Given the huge complexity of genetic coding, even in very simple organisms such as bacteria, no one can possibly predict the effects of introducing new genes into any organism or plant.

*
Unexpected production of new toxins and allergens in foods

*
Increased use of chemicals on crops, resulting in increased contamination of our water supply and food
*
The creation of herbicide-resistant weeds

*
The spread of diseases across species barriers

*
Loss of bio-diversity in crops

*
Increased sickness and suffering for genetically engineered animals

*
The disturbance of ecological balance
Click to expand...

The new crops are tested for all these things.

The cross-species barrier arguments are stupid. A dandelion cannot mate with a GM wheat plant. There are protections in nature for this already. It is a non-concern.

The old way of modifying crops is far more likely to cause unknown allergies or whatvever. We're dealing with one gene at a time with GM foods.

GM foods are less likely to need pesticides since they can beat microbial infections without them by making them resistant to those diseases.

There would be more biodiversity in crops, you would have more to choose from depending on the growing conditions.

So you would not have herbicide resistant weeds...unless they suddenly became able to mate with other plants all of a sudden *guffaw*

You would have less chemicals on crops since they would no longer be needed.

There would be no ecological disturbance, you should have less actually. Less chemicals, etc.

* Increased sickness and suffering for genetically engineered animals
Click to expand...

Okay, WHAT?? I don't know where this came from, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Increased wellness would be more likely since there would be more and better food for them to eat.
 
Jon_in_london said:
Almost all of South Africa's cotton is now GM.....

The African country was Zambia IIRC... they didnt want the food aid because they thought it was better to let people die of starvation rather than risk the EU barring any future food imports.

Some people have an irrational fear of Vaccines. Should we stop developing them?

Hells teeth man! some people have an irrational fear of aeroplanes. Should we stop developing them too!?

If people are so stupid and gullible that they believe everything that eco-nazis say and chose to disbelive the almost unanimous voice of the global scientific community does sthis mean the technology has failed or that people in general are crass, ignorant and scientifically illiterate?
Click to expand...

They have stopped developing vaccines and GM food because of irrational fears. Only a few companies make vaccines compared to a few years ago. Anti-vaccinators are thrilled with the resulting vaccine shortages.

Who do you know that doesn't believe what the eco-nazis say? Haven't you seen the organic sections in foodstores grow and grow and grow? Haven't you seen the magazines with their one-sided stories spilling off the shelves?

Haven't you seen the news stories of eco-nazis saying that we want to poison 3rd world countries with our rejected GM foods?

There is no incentive for GM growers that are experiencing people destroying their research.

GM is described as "controversial" in the media. It's not simply regular old research the way you and I would look at it. The media again is not helping here at all.

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/stories/s196240.htm

In England last month, it took five hours for a jury to decide that protestors had every right to invade a farmer's field and destroy his crop.
Click to expand...

GM is getting buried under garbage, and lots of it. Of course it is going to fail to deliver. The research is destroyed and the resulting crops rejected.


We can kiss scientific advancements here goodbye.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
We can kiss scientific advancements here goodbye.
Click to expand...

Buck up! The woos may slow progress down but they won't stop it altogether. The technology, and what it produces, is too valuable. And unlike nuclear energy, there isn't a coal lobby equivalent to GM out there making it as difficult as possible to make advancements. In the U.S., almost nobody cares. A good portion of our food supply either comes from GM directly or, as in the case of grain-fed beef, indirectly.

I'll bet you, without my first even googling, that some company somewhere is isolating the gene in peanuts that causes the protein that causes some people to be allergic to them.

Hey! If peanuts were a new GM product, do you think they'd be approved for sale (no need to answer, rhetorical q).
 
Kumar said:
Are we loosing physical excercises, natural substance to which we are habitual & adapted due to all these moderns & luxuaries?What will happen to "natural selection", "survival of fittest" etc. if all good & bad, stong or weak, fit or unfit will carry on.Those things might have kept us here for so long--may be more balanced state. Let us see/assess now & future. Why we are going towards organicly grown foods etc..
Click to expand...
Wow, you really are something special. Pray tell, who is going to select who is "good," "strong," and "fit?" Who picks those that are "bad," "weak," or "unfit?"Is it going to be you? How about we just give up modern life and go back to the middle ages? Or how about we go back to being cavemen? That would make all your wonderful dreams of diseases, low life expectancy, plagues and such would come true, and you can have your little fantasy of being in "balance."
 
Rob Lister said:
Buck up! The woos may slow progress down but they won't stop it altogether. The technology, and what it produces, is too valuable. And unlike nuclear energy, there isn't a coal lobby equivalent to GM out there making it as difficult as possible to make advancements. In the U.S., almost nobody cares. A good portion of our food supply either comes from GM directly or, as in the case of grain-fed beef, indirectly.

I'll bet you, without my first even googling, that some company somewhere is isolating the gene in peanuts that causes the protein that causes some people to be allergic to them.

Hey! If peanuts were a new GM product, do you think they'd be approved for sale (no need to answer, rhetorical q).
Click to expand...

Thank you, I will try to sow some of my own seeds of hope. It's tough though.
 
Kumar has no clue what a fit gene is, and who might carry it. He only looks at outter covers and makes grand conclusions based on ignorance. He refuses to learn actual science and really has no baseline understanding of the terms he throws around.

I really wish he'd learn, but he refuses.
 
Originally posted by Rob Lister:
And unlike nuclear energy, there isn't a coal lobby equivalent to GM out there making it as difficult as possible to make advancements.
Click to expand...

Organic food is big business, sad to say.
 
BRUSSELS - Europe's supermarket shelves remain free of almost all biotech produce as top retailers shun genetically modified (GMO) foods, environment group Greenpeace said on Thursday, claiming this was due to consumer opposition.

"Europe, one of the world's largest food markets, is firmly closed to GM-labelled food, and there is nothing to indicate that this is likely to change any time soon," Greenpeace said in a survey of the region's largest retailers and food companies.

Very few GMO products can be found across Europe's 30 major retailers, nearly all of which have a non-biotech policy for the entire EU or at least in their main European markets, it said.

This contrasts starkly with the United States, where most supermarket foods have some GMO content and many consumers shrug off claims by green groups that these may be harmful.

Of the thousands of items stocked in European supermarkets, Greenpeace said it found only 77 GMO-labelled products in 10 EU countries, as of November 2004, mostly in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Czech and Slovak Republics.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29364/story.htm

Europeans are very skeptical about GM foods. There's no incentive to pursue their development if there's no profits to be made.
 
Shane Costello said:
Organic food is big business, sad to say.
Click to expand...

Sure it is, even here. The local Farm Fresh stores have a whole twenty feet of produce section they devote to 'organic', but few other stores do. When they first introduced it it confused me -- the prices -- until I realized what it was -- thanks to forums like this -- and found identical -- read larger, plumper, tastier, cheaper -- items just across from the organic section in the 'regular' produce section (several hundred sqft).

IOW, where you are organic is a big deal but it certainly isn't in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I suppose in California (certain cities anyway) it would be just as big a deal.

As far as I can see, once you exclude the marketing hype, there is zero benefit in growing/buying/eating organic. It's sort of like buying a home computer from IBM.

Or Apple. <---ignore that. I just wanted to ruffle a feather or two from Mac owners.

The organic fad --- and that's what it is, a fad --- will fade away like the hoola-hoop. Sure, like the hoola-hoop, it will spring back from time-to-time, decade-to-decade, and cause some trouble but in the long run it is a fairly worthless way to spend your money.

I'm not worried a bit.
 
Shane Costello said:
Organic food is big business, sad to say.
Click to expand...
But is "organic" really the same thing as "non-GM?" I thought that "organic" referred to the methods used to grow the food, not to its genetic make-up. Admittedly, the organic food industry has jumped on the anti-GM bandwagon, but there's no reason that GM crops can't be grown organically (other than the fact that their target market wouldn't like it, of course). In fact, if crops can be modified to make them resistant to pests without the use of insecticides it should be easier to grow them organically.
 
Mojo said:
But is "organic" really the same thing as "non-GM?" I thought that "organic" referred to the methods used to grow the food, not to its genetic make-up. Admittedly, the organic food industry has jumped on the anti-GM bandwagon, but there's no reason that GM crops can't be grown organically (other than the fact that their target market wouldn't like it, of course). In fact, if crops can be modified to make them resistant to pests without the use of insecticides it should be easier to grow them organically.
Click to expand...

As near as my little research into "organic" can determine, all one needs to be "organic" is to have the farmer wear a straw hat and smile in a photo.
 
Kumar said:
If we carry on ll good & bad, stong & weak, sick & healthy, fit & unfit, clones & gentically/unnaturally
Click to expand...

KOOKBREAKER RULE #263

You cannot make an incoherent arguement any better by excessive use of ampersands.
 
Eos of the Eons said:
They have stopped developing vaccines and GM food because of irrational fears. Only a few companies make vaccines compared to a few years ago. Anti-vaccinators are thrilled with the resulting vaccine shortages.
Click to expand...

Who has stopped making vaccines? And why? I thought it was because of lawsuits by John Edwards! But wait, maybe there is more to the fact that few companies produce flu vaccines than just the complaints of anti-vaccinators. I know snopes isn't perfect, but in general they are pretty reliable (except on matters of introduction of the tomato to England...), anyway here's a little interesting read:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/flushot.asp


We can kiss scientific advancements here goodbye.
Click to expand...

What kind of bullsh*t argument is that. Because a few people are against GM foods, everyone will completely stop research in the field? Come on... as long as there's profit to be had, private companies will develop GM crops, and as long as GM crops show some potential benefits for the population, governments will fund research in the matter.
 
In the US there are (as of a couple years ago) official guidelines that the farming process of a food must follow to be classified as organic. I'm not sure, but I think being GM is one of the no-nos and if that is true then by definition GM foods aren't organic in the US.

While the popularity of organics may ebb and flow I don't think they're ever going to go away and in fact I think they're going to continue to grow for awhile. Organic food is very popular in the area where I live and if you tell someone that you don't think organic food is any better than non-organic food they think you're misguided at best.

As far as I know there is no real difference in nutrition value between organic and non-organic food but I did read something the other day (I forget where) that said a study showed that certain organic foods had more antioxidents than there non-ogranic counterparts. (I don't know if that's true...and in fact, even if it were I don't know enough about how well antioxidents have been studied to know if it matters.)

I worry when I read about research into this (and other areas) if I can trust it or if it's valid. It is hard to say. If someone has an agenda beforehand then they can prove anything and it's hard to tell who does and who doesn't have an agenda.
 
Number Six said:
As far as I know there is no real difference in nutrition value between organic and non-organic food but I did read something the other day (I forget where) that said a study showed that certain organic foods had more antioxidents than there non-ogranic counterparts. (I don't know if that's true...and in fact, even if it were I don't know enough about how well antioxidents have been studied to know if it matters.)
Click to expand...

And not all anti-oxidants are the same. For example, benzoquinone is a great anti-oxidant, and will destroy things like superoxide. But you don't want a lot of benzoquinone in your diet.

You can talk all you want about "it has this, and this is supposed to be good" or "it has that and that is bad," but in the end it comes down to empircal evaluation of effects.

It's kind of like the old Catholic Church complaint that the HIV is smaller than the pores in a condom, and therefore condoms aren't effective against preventing transmission of HIV. The premise is certainly true, but the conclusion doesn't follow (latex pores are larger than water molecules, too, but condoms certinaly do hold water). Similarly, organic foods may have more anti-oxidants, but that does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that they are healthier or better for you.
 
From CSPI's report, it seems that most of the "failure to deliver" is due to economic and political factors, rather than technical limitations.

This is ironic, since CSPI itself has been involved in creating economic and political resistance to genetically engineered crops.

Admittedly, much of their motive was based on due caution, but they didn't shy away from playing the panic card to the public when it helped.
 
Jorghnassen said:
Who has stopped making vaccines? And why? I thought it was because of lawsuits by John Edwards! But wait, maybe there is more to the fact that few companies produce flu vaccines than just the complaints of anti-vaccinators. I know snopes isn't perfect, but in general they are pretty reliable (except on matters of introduction of the tomato to England...), anyway here's a little interesting read:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/flushot.asp



What kind of bullsh*t argument is that. Because a few people are against GM foods, everyone will completely stop research in the field? Come on... as long as there's profit to be had, private companies will develop GM crops, and as long as GM crops show some potential benefits for the population, governments will fund research in the matter.
Click to expand...


MeeeoooW!! Hey, didn't you see the part where I thanked somebody for their optimism about GM? My feelings can get down due to the destruction of Research that is ALLOWED. The jury figured it's all fine to destroy GM crops.

As far as vaccines go, there are less manufacturers now. I didn't say anything about anybody suing. The thing is there are less drug companies willing to manufacture them now.
The Post reports that the small number of American companies that make vaccines -- traditionally a "high-volume, low-profit" product -- has contributed to the shortages, as companies have "stampede[d] away from the business" in recent years. In addition, vaccines are difficult to produce, and vaccine production is closely regulated by the FDA, leading some vaccine makers to say that they are unable to operate profitably.
Click to expand...

http://www.panaceapr.com/bulletin/2002/4_29.html

I would blame anti-vaccinators from scaring drug companies away from manufacturing them, but it does not indicate that in the article.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom