More GM crop destruction

[RichardR]

You might want to google the words "Starlink corn"...

I did. Apparently, it's not harmful to humans. I'm afraid I don't understand your point.

 

[Jon_in_london]

And look how they're paying for it now. Just because they're banned GM doesn't mean they're not under pressure.

Doesnt mean they havent been impregnated by UFOs either.

 

[Jon_in_london]

BPSCG:"And what bad things have resulted thus far from me jumping off a 100 story building?". Quote from an imaginary guy as he was passing the 31st story.

Well, we could use our knowledge of physics and science to predict that the guy who jumped would die.

We can also use our knowledge of science and biochemisty to predict that there are no risks associated witht the planting growing and consumption of GM foods.

You might want to google the words "Starlink corn"

No-body has ever EVER been suffered so much as a sore-throat from eating ANY GM foods.

Starlink expersses Cry9C which is precisely what organic farmers spray indisciminately over their crops in the form of whole bacteria (Bacillus thuringensis). So if theres something speacially wrong with StarLink there is also something wrong with organic food, is there not?

Starlink has only been licensed as animal feed because of the high levels of the transgene product being produced. There is no eveidence whatsoever to sugest that StarLink is toxic or even an allergen to humans.

A few people piped up complining that they developed serious allergy symptoms after consuming food containing Starlink corn. They tested these people for antibodies to Cry and guess what!?!?!? NONE OF THEM HAD ANTIBODIES TO IT!!!

Which means either 1) THEY WERE LYING or 2) THEY WERE MISTAKEN.

Which do you think? I think the former.

 

[Quasi]

As for that Monobiot guy, he simply repeats the environmental litany, and most of his articles are hot air- his own opinion, totally unfounded by evidence. Typical of most NGO's, their very survival depends on poverty, so even if they have to embellish on the details, they feel lying is justified. First, GW is ocurring, we do not know very much about it, so taking rash action now is foolish. Two, most of the third world is farms, and by creating efficient, integrated pest management farms, the amount of land used, and food produced will be optimal for environmental conservation and the low cost of the food will allow even the poor to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. This will in turn create a healthier, wealthier society. The point is to put poor farmers out of business, and to get them into better economic positions. Third- he entirely avoids any discussion of the WTO or IMF. Both are made of three international corporations, run by the international community representatives. For example, in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Thailand has an equal voting share as the USA (around 2%) So blaming the USA or europe for the 3rd world's problems is ignoring the fact that they elect corrupt leaders and contribute to it themselves by remaining agrarian. They need to become industrialized if they want to compete. Should an uneducated farmer get paid as much as a college grad in the USA who built his or her own business? No. Nor is anyone in the US going to pay $10.00 for an apple. This guy is so out of touch.

 

[Shane Costello]

Back to George Monbiot. In his website in an article entitled "Feeding us Lies" (The Guardian 13th February 1999) Monbiot states;

"The geneticist Dr Arpad Pusztai is a dangerous man. He has released into the environment a virulent self-replicating organism, which is already running riot across Britain. It's called the truth.Yesterday, the government moved rapidly to round it up and shove it back into the flask from which it spilt. "

"When Dr Pusztai told the truth, he was sacked from the government-funded institute for which he worked. Its director, Philip James, had given him permission to speak to a television crew about his research. When the programme was broadcast, Professor James supported him. A day later, he sacked him and made him sign a gagging order. The 22 eminent scientists who wrote a statement of support for Dr Pusztai this week are among thousands who would like to know why Professor James changed his mind."

For an alternative take on Dr. Putzai:

"CBS also relied on Arpad Pustzai, a scientist formerly employed in a Scottish lab who hit the lecture circuit after publicizing a highly controversial test in which he fed a small number of rats potatoes containing a gene spliced into them from a poisonous flower.

"Pustzai says the rats that ate the genetically engineered potatoes suffered unusual thickening of the lining of the stomach and intestine and a weakening of the immune system," said the CBS narrator. "Part of his work was published by [highly-respected medical journal] The Lancet."

Indeed, it was – over the vociferous objections of two of The Lancet’s reviewers.

The Lancet also published a critique declaring Pustzai’s study was "incomplete," that the results are difficult to interpret and do not allow the conclusion that the genetic modification of potatoes accounts for adverse effects in animals."

Even Pustzai hasn’t been consistent on interpreting his data.

On a British TV program in 1998 he claimed that "the effect [of feeding the transgenic potatoes to rats] was slight growth retardation and an effect on the immune system." Yet he told a committee of Britain’s Parliament that "no differences between parent and GM potatoes could be found."

From "Organic Farming will feed the World" (The Guardian 24th August 2000)

"The advice could scarcely have come from a more surprising source. "If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world," Steve Smith, a director of the world's biggest biotechnology company, Novartis, insisted, "tell them that it is not. … To feed the world takes political and financial will - it's not about production and distribution."

Mr Smith was voicing a truth which most of his colleagues in the biotechnology companies have gone to great lengths to deny."

I cannot recall any serious proponent of GM food claiming the technology would banish world hunger. Monbiot's failure to cite examples of this is telling.

"A series of remarkable experimental results has shown that the growing techniques which his company and many others have sought to impose upon the world are, in contradiction to everything we have been brought up to believe, actually less productive than some of the methods developed by traditional farmers over the past 10,000 years."

Monbiot then goes on to claim that varius studies have shown that organic farming is as productive, if not more so than conventional farming. "We have, in other words, been decieved" he concludes. He also fails to reference the studies in question. This ignores the massive benefits wrought by The Green Revolution.

I'n short, George Monbiot strikes me as someone, who rather looks at the facts and then draws conclusions and forms an opinion, first makes his mind up and then fits the facts and "truth" around it.

 

[headscratcher4]

I cannot recall any serious proponent of GM food claiming the technology would banish world hunger. Monbiot's failure to cite examples of this is telling.

Indeed, the only claim the GM seed scientists, technology advocates and manufacturers have ever made is that in the mix of things that will be needed to feed the world...political will, economic reform, distribution, ecological sensitivity, population control, etc. ... that GM should be part of the mix.

Google Norman Borlaug...Nobel Peace Prize winner, agricultural biologist, father of the "green revolution"...he points out that to feed the world, and do so in a way that will not become completely ecologically destructive (distruction of rain forest, for example, as is going on in a GM hostile Brazil to grow soy beans), higher yields per acre are essential. Now, today, GM may not get you there, or only martinally there, but organic certainly doesn't get you there either (and, the whole argument about feeding 8 billion people in 25 years will be about yields)...so, combinations of systems, practices and technologies plus new and as yet untried technologies will be necessary.

GM is one of those technologies. It may be a failure, but it hasn't been proved yet. Organic farming has shown that it is only marginal on yeilds, it requires lots of land, labor and other inputs, is more expensive, etc. So, organic farming isn't a solution either...yet no one is condemning organic proponets and their NGO cheer leaders for misleading people by claiming that organic practices will feed the world.

 

[DanishDynamite]

I did. Apparently, it's not harmful to humans. I'm afraid I don't understand your point.

Has it been approved for human consumption now? Do you have a link?

My point was that a GM version of a basic foodstuff, specifically not approved for our consumption, nevertheless made its way into many food products.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Jon_in_london:

Well, we could use our knowledge of physics and science to predict that the guy who jumped would die.

Yes we could.

We can also use our knowledge of science and biochemisty to predict that there are no risks associated witht the planting growing and consumption of GM foods.

Can we? This is where I'm uncertain. Can we accurately predict the consequences? The mechanisms of life are unbelievably complicated, both in regard to an individual organism and even more so on an interspecies level. This is not something simple like nuclear physics.

No-body has ever EVER been suffered so much as a sore-throat from eating ANY GM foods.

It's possible you are right, but I would like to see you prove it.

Starlink expersses Cry9C which is precisely what organic farmers spray indisciminately over their crops in the form of whole bacteria (Bacillus thuringensis). So if theres something speacially wrong with StarLink there is also something wrong with organic food, is there not?

I don't see the connection. If I change plant A to plant B by giving it the ability to excrete sweat, does that make plant A sprayed with sweat the same as plant B?

Starlink has only been licensed as animal feed because of the high levels of the transgene product being produced. There is no eveidence whatsoever to sugest that StarLink is toxic or even an allergen to humans.

And why do you think that high levels of the transgene product is a problem?

A few people piped up complining that they developed serious allergy symptoms after consuming food containing Starlink corn. They tested these people for antibodies to Cry and guess what!?!?!? NONE OF THEM HAD ANTIBODIES TO IT!!!

Good.

Which means either 1) THEY WERE LYING or 2) THEY WERE MISTAKEN.

Which do you think? I think the former.

I don't know.

 

[Kimpatsu]

According to Mr Monbiot's own search engine, he has no such article entitled "A Padlock on the Food Chain".

No, no. I should have been clearer; sorry. "A Padlock on the Food Chain" is in the book, "Captive State". Alternatively, read the articles in the Genetic Engineering section of the link provided, as they cover much of the same material.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

People who were allergic to nuts were given fish into which nut genes had been transplanted, and they are now allergic to the fish.
That's one bad thing, right there.

That's impossible. It's not a peanut anymore it's fish genes, and cannot code for whatever people are allergic to in fish. So they weren't allergic to peanuts if they reacted to the fish, they were only allergic to fish.

 

[Kimpatsu]

That's impossible. It's not a peanut anymore it's fish genes, and cannot code for whatever people are allergic to in fish. So they weren't allergic to peanuts if they reacted to the fish, they were only allergic to fish.

A medical researcher begs to differ.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Medical research my @ss.

Paul Brown is the Guardian's environment correspondent.

And what training does he have in anything medical?

Not only that, but we have guy who writes a 'science' column in our local paper. He's a journalist that never took a science class. He writes science fiction too though. He has a few books out.

Just cause a company like the Guardian hires some joker and gives him a title, it doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Kimpatsu]

Medical research my @ss.

And what training does he have in anything medical?

Not only that, but we have guy who writes a 'science' column in our local paper. He's a journalist that never took a science class. He writes science fiction too though. He has a few books out.

Just cause a company like the Guardian hires some joker and gives him a title, it doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.

Actually, in the Guardian's case, they're very good about that. Randi himself even commended their approach to science.
And Paul Brown has never written a Science Fiction story.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

And so I give you my taxonomy of bad science, the things that make me the maddest. First, of course, we shall take on duff reporting: ill-informed, credulous journalists, taking their favorite loonies far too seriously, or misrepresenting good science, for the sake of a headline. They are the first against the wall.

Paul Brown should be the first to go.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

The article Paul brown wrote isn't even recent:

Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:32:25 -0800

 

[Kimpatsu]

Paul Brown should be the first to go.

Is that a personal opinion, or are you a geneticist?

 

[Kimpatsu]

The article Paul brown wrote isn't even recent:

What's your point? Three years isn't much, and if what he said is true, then it doesn't matter when it was written. Sylvia Browne has written more recently than that, but temporal proximity doesn't make her argument any less ridiculous.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

The point is that the merger happened this year, and it seems the guardian has had a problem with credibility in the past. Gee, I wonder why?

 

[Kimpatsu]

The point is that the merger happened this year, and it seems the guardian has had a problem with credibility in the past. Gee, I wonder why?

Credibility? The Guardian?
It's the best newspaper there is!
Not like the one run by that Canadian geezer, Conrad Black.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Read that article you linked in Jref. Anyways, you still haven't shown why we should listen to that know nothing conspiracy theorist that wrote the GM food articles.