hello david,

On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 02:26:07 GMT, "David Kendra"
wrote:

Thanks for your comments Klaus, I am fully aware of the Medline
data on plant components and routinely read the food tech
journals. However you missed the point of my comments- there is
no toxicological data on actual natural foods per se. The data is
on components and recommendations and guidelines are developed by
extrapolating results of the individual component studies.

david, would you agree, that the sole difference between corn and
rr corn is (quite simplified) a single component (with possible
implications on other traits. polymorphism and metabolism are no
fiction or a mere theory) ? i guess, you would say "yes" ? now
where's the difference to other food tested for toxicology ?
tests on the PURE component would be mostly useless, because tox
science meanwhile knows, that in a lot of substances there is a
HUGE difference between the pure component and the component in a
mixture of literally hundreds of other components. your statement
doesn't hold water. two simple examples:

a) the "lenape" potato. it was tested again and again (too late
though) as a complete food with an special protein just like
gm-corn. and most of the food i gave as examples are not only
tested by single components (a lot of these are not even known),
but as the food per se (reducing the health and toxic effects of
onions to alliciin would be ridiculous.

b) most pharmacologists would agree, that extracted components
would give different results than the whole matrix. sometimes
more efficient, sometimes less, but in any case DIFFERENT. that's
why they DO test - otherwise than you stated - the natural food
or herb per se. standardization is another thing and often not to
the best of the efficiency of the drug. the herb chaomille still
is more efficient than the analyzed components, the same for
garlic (just to mention two of the most common ones) next)

the most funny thing though seems to be, that you can find
hundreds of scientific tox data for raspberries NOONE asked for, while
there seems to be a refusal to test the gm components 90% of the
europeans definitely ask for - and do not get the results !!
somehow queer... about 10 research projects in 4 years and 5 of
them questionable or by company employees (from which noone would
expect negative results - that would be a call for getting
asked: "and when do you intend to leave our company?")

but that is not the REAL reason for refusal in europe. this is
for one the hype, the bribe, the lying, the cheating of the companies
involved and the insults to my intelligence, which results from
all that "new religion". gm food will definitely not solve the
hunger problem (read de grassi). nevertheless it is boasted by
your government. americans have always argued "as little
government as needed", now your companies are using it to sell
their products by political pressure. i've got news for them:
meanwhile they try to "convince" us for more than 10 years (one of
these convincing arguments being a WTO suit). by eurobarometer you
know, that 80-90% of all europeans are against gm-food. wouldn't
economic wisdom tell these companies to go for the overwhelming 90% of
consumers instead of spending billions on these 10% with a
questionable outcome ??

i can very well live with GM food in the german market shelves, so
even the WTO case looks just to me. but i want a choice (and that
means LABELLING), because it's the strongest weapon of consumers to
boycott products, which are produced in a way against their moral
opinion. the labelled food can lay there till it is rotting. whenever
a company comes up with an improved products, it's immediately
advertised in 24 point font in newspapers, flyers, it's boasted in tv
and radio and the company lets hardly a chance pass by to make it
public loud, shrill and proud. WHY NOT WITH GM FOOD ?? not even in
america.

to make my point clearer: there are few (yes, there are some)
restrictions for mercedes to sell their cars in the usa. but you have
definitely decided to buy a special chrysler model. your car dealer
phones you: "your car is there". you go to the car shop - just to get
handed over a mercedes smart. you get angry, but the car dealer tells
you: "what's your problem? essentially they are identical. look, it
has all the attributes of a car. and besides: the company isn't any
more able to separate their models, that would be too costy. price is
almost the same, it's even a bit cheaper. two minor restrictions
in advance: you are not allowed to sell the car without the
consent of the inventor mercedes benz (patent reasons) and you
need a special kind of gasoline called "roll-up", which comes
bundled with the car and of which you immediately have to buy 200
gallons at date of purchase of the car. for this disadvantage you
get 4 additional wheels for free."


i will give you just two of the arguments that upset me and most
of my collegues: last year our institute (i work as head of the
seed science dept. in a governmental research institute) hired 3
biologists (2 of them molecular biologists). these came so to say
directly from university. in the course of one year (and on
several external courses with "social evenings" with more wine
and beer than might have been healthy) i got several internal
information from collegues of these three. ALL of them working in
private bio-tech companies admitted, that they had to hype the
outcome of their research and fake financial reports about the
value of their research and the advances and practical
implications. (so no names, also none of the companies, you have
every right to say, i have invented this and it's therefore
absolutely useless. I DID NOT). my argument: we are 20-30 off
from enough insight in the functionality of the genome to draw
useful conclusions, but we seem to be 20 years ahead in marketing
them. i would not invest a single cent in any of these companies!
their basements are built on PR quick sand. it seems that
nothing has changed since 1968 (comment from gunter stent in
1968): "That was the molecular biology that was".

second example: you will have heard of the widely published
differences between the human and the ape genome. statements like
"we humans have 95-99 % in common with the genome of apes" are
running rampage. question: are you aware of any FULL
sequentiation of ANY ape genome ? no?? i also know of none. so
how can we give percentages in differences, when we don't have a
clue about the full ape genome ?? how can you compare something
known with something unknown and give percentages in differences?
and all this in additional full knowledge of the fact, that "HUGO"
is known to have about 60% errors (data from 2002, it MIGHT now
have been reduced to 40-50%??) and the data from celera are the
results of sequencing just 3 humans (venter himself being one of
them)


not even the argument of "anti-americanism of these luddites"
(that's us with the american computers and the high-tech hplc's,
MRS's and GC's and these paying patent-fees for thermo-cyclers
from american companies) does hold water. europeans run like mad
into cinemas with american films, they help making microsoft
getting fat, our yuppies buy gallo wine and we buy dell computers
like no other brand. we buy megagallons of coke concentrate and
million of tons of grain from you (but please, not these special
ones. where's the difference to films, computers, wine and the
choice between coke and pepsi ? we simply choose and refuse
brands and models) my opinion: your government is running wild
and is disliked (not the people, but these 5 or 6 "rambos" - as
we see them, because their only solution to problems are -
WEAPONS) it becomes a nice argument towards their voters, that
it's not them, who are disliked, but the american people. nice
excuse and and old and cheap trick.... but far off from truth.



klaus