Nancy, I understand your concern and passion and share some of it, but you
will get farther in alerting people to valid concerns if you are a little
more careful. In your first post you did say: "You will not be growing any
genetically engineered plants in your garden unless you sign a contract with
Monsanto.", which is not true, and in this post you are stating: "But, that
is not genetic engineering. GE puts genetic material form one organism into
another that would NEVER occur in nature. Selective breeding is just helping
along what comes naturally.", which is also not true. If you take a course
at an agricultural university you will find the term "genetic engineering"
incorporates selective breeding and many consider Mendel, the father of
genetic engineering for his work with documenting the phenotypes of peas.
You are apparently confusing the broader term of genetic engineering with
the more narrow practice of "recombinant DNA technology", which refers to
genetic engineering that takes a gene from one host and transplants it into
a different host in the hopes of transplanting a specific characteristic:

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/CONSUMER/geneng.html :
"Though the notion of tinkering with a plant's traits is thought of as
something radically new by some people, scientists have been doing it for
many years in cruder, less predictable ways. For example, farmers have a
long tradition of breeding desired qualities into crops. But this process
took many plant generations. Researchers now can isolate a known trait from
any living species--plant, animal or microbe--and incorporate it into
another species. These traits are contained in genes--segments of the DNA
molecules found in all living cells. The process of recombining genes
bearing a chosen trait into the DNA molecules of a new host is called
"recombinant DNA technology.""

For example from (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ©
FAO 1999) http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X3910E...htm#TopOfPage:

"genetic engineering Changes in the genetic constitution of cells (apart
from selective breeding) resulting from the introduction or elimination of
specific genes through modern molecular biology techniques. This technology
is based on the use of a vector for transferring useful genetic information
from a donor organism into a cell or organism that does not possess it. See
gene cloning.

A broader definition of genetic engineering also includes selective breeding
and other means of artificial selection."



--
Marta
(if you email me directly you need to remove the X )