: Everywhere I look and turn, people are telling me to get involved and
: to make a stand against GM. I have leaflets through the door, people
: on the high street with petitions and it's all over the internet. It
: seems everyone is anti-GM right now, and they all assume I will agree
: with them and want to fight the mean GM monster (or whatever
: personification of frankenstine they've given it).
:
: Well, I can't tell you if it's safe or not - but I can say the whole
: argument has lost direction. It's not about calculating the risks and
: making a fair descision, it has also got nothing to do with our future
: and has become a media hype driven by little more than emotive paper
: articles. I have never seen so many people who clearly haven't done
: their research object so loudly. Most of the people I've asked don't
: agree, yet few can tell me anything about the process, how it works or
: even name a single example of modified crops currently in usage. It
: seems to have been entirely overlooked that cross bred plants are used
: by the hundreds with excellent safe results, despite being unatural
: and alien to our ecosystem. I have a hybrid Japanese flowering cherry
: in my garden, it does not fit in with our brittish ecosystem and is
: just as alien as a GM cherry tree would be, yet it has been there
: over 80 years and despite being cross fertile with english cherry
: trees has done no harm at all. The idea unatural plants will go on
: the rampage contaminating everything in their path isn't a fully
: formed concept at all, in fact it's highly unlikely.
:
: If the propsal was to plant GM crops on mass outside the lab and sell
: them in the stores right now, yes I would totally object. However the
: propsal is to start the early stages of trials and tests in a lab,
: just simply to find out more info so we can make a better informed
: choice later when we know what its impact will be. If the government
: scrap the GM testing by outlawing at such an early stage, it won't be
: because it's unsafe or a risk, it will be because the public outcry
: presurised them in to doing it to gain popularity. If this does
: happen they will be very popular on this debate, and all of us will
: miss out on the valuable information and benifits we could gain from
: safe testing. I feel it's wrong to make a descision before we know
: all the facts, but that's what most people want to do. It's no better
: than outlawing trial by jury, after all many people have pronounced
: GM 'guilty' before we even fully know what it is or any firm data on
: it.
:
: When we have so much starvation and environmental dammage, it seems
: crazy to pass up trying the technology which could solve so much of
: it. I strongly feel we should be presurising for highly regulated
: trials with a calculated risk, then perhaps we can make the right
: descision in the future based on real facts, and not unfounded
: propaganda and pictures of evil vegitables with bolts through their
: necks. I don't want to say no to GM anymore than I want to say yes, I
: just want to know what I'm being asked to accept or reject before I
: make a descision...

Spot on, I agree with you