On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 00:39:58 GMT, Bry
wrote:

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.

It doesn't surprise me at all that there's a 'populist' backlash
against this technology.
I think it's a grave mistake to assume that simply because people
don't understand the science behind it, their opinion isn't valid.
We've listened to the scientists before, and trusted them, and then
found that babies were being born with deformities, or drugs have been
hastily withdrawn alongside dark muttering about cancer risks.
The issue is less about the science and more about integrity - a fact
not helped by some of the apparently less-than-wholesome commercial
interests in GM.

Clearly you've given the matter some thought, and you're not at all
convinced that there will be a Frankensteinien disaster on the cards -
but what about the more subtle effects?
You assure us that your hybrid cherry hasn't done any harm - and it
probably hasn't... but how do you know? What steps have you taken,
what test have you done to check what effect it had on the
environment? It grows, it flowers, it isn't surrounded by dead
bodies...therefore it must be OK?
And it's one plant, in one location - what if there were millions of
them, all over the place? How can you be sure what the environmental
impact would be?

As for plants going on the rampage, I agree, it's highly unlikely that
anyone would be so stupid as to introduce a modified plant that has
all the tenacity of, say, Ground Elder ( whoops ) - but surely there's
a case to answer further down the environmental chain. How will such
plants interact with their environment, what are the implications for
wildlife and the surrounding vegetation - and these questions aren't
just confined to the effects the plant itself might have but on it's
cultivation practice. Even something as innocuous as bringing forward
a crop's harvest time can have a dramatic effect on the landscape.

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.

I agree again. I'm sure there were people who though that travelling
faster than 30mph would be a bad thing ( Minnie Bannister, for one! )
- and time has proved them wrong ( or has it?? ).
The issue here is where and how such tests are carried out.

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...

I'm not at all convinced by the argument that GM would solve
starvation and environmental problems - we already have it within our
power to do this, the question that must be asked is why have we not
already done it?
It comes to something when a celebrity has to go on Radio 4 to beg for
thirty quid so that a community in the third world can have a
standpipe.
These 'problems' are less about inefficient technology and
agriculture, and more about greed and politics.

And that has to lead people to ask what GM is for?
Better tasting vegetables? Well, we have those already - but the
supermarkets only stock them grudgingly, and the public only pays for
them grudgingly - and the powers that be seem hell-bent on making life
as difficult as possible for the small, specialist growers and
producers.
Longer lasting vegetables? Would that be because most of our small
greengrocers have been forced out of business, and supermarkets would
make more money if they could keep stock on the shelf longer?
Better disease resistance? Is this because we now grow fewer
varieties, and wish to protect the stalwart popular ( AKA best selling
) varieties?

Who stands to gain?

And then there's the emotive issue of whom do we trust to decide what
the best way forward might be.
An argument often raised is that nature's 'at it' on a wholly
arbitrary basis. Plants cross-breed with gay abandon, GM scientists
are precise and focussed - but who's had the most experience?
Nature has a remarkable talent for devising all manner of strange and
wonderful ways to fill a niche - there can't be many places on Earth
some form of vegetation doesn't thrive - and yet every time mankind
intercedes we end up with the potential for a right-royal f*ckup - and
there have been plenty enough of those.
Whom do you trust?

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk