Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Why the fear of GM Crops?
wparrott wrote: A generic defense of GM products is like a generic defense of bacteria. Most bacteria do not kill you. You are doing the equivalent of defending all bacteria. Just because you can find example of no damage detected does not mean that all GM products are safe. Even more, some have already been proved dangerous and have been removed from the market before they could kill millions. Not so fast. There have been NO transgenic crops that have reached the market place, been found harmful, and had to be removed. Even the ill-fated Starlink corn has never been found to pose any health risks. What is your definition of "market place" mister Clinton? Rather, the approval process is designed to intercept potential problems long before marketing. So, for any crop approved for marketing, the statement can be made that it is at least as safe as the non-engineered version. The approval process has allowed for grain elevator contamination, allowed for wind cross pollination contamination. The approval process does not even look at interspecific contamination. The non-engineered versions do not allow for certain genetic combinations. The non-engineered versions have a development and testing time (in many crops) of around 15 years! In many cases "engineered" versions can be obtained in less than a year. Bottom line is that no one makes generic defenses of transgenic crops. Rather, each gene in each crop in each environment is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Only an evaluation specific to each case can answer the question of "should we do it". In fact, this evaluation is so extensive that it runs into the tens of millions. By the way, the issue of allergenic peanut genes in foods was addressed in FDA guidelines as far back as 1992. One can do it-- but labeling to the effect is required. labeling required? When?, in what country? Does your canola oil bottle say RoundUp Ready Genetically modified Canola? Last year Oregon USA tried labelling but the labelling campaign was outgunned and defeated by the biotech industry. Even traditional plant breeding can have unintended consequences There are plenty of examples of mistakes being made, including for example a mistake that could have produce a world wide famine with the failure of genes used worldwide for hybrid corn production. Traditional plant breeding at least has the safeguard, in most crop cases, of 10 to 15 years between the original cross and the final contact with a large number of consumers. Today one can GM incorporate, for example, allergenic peanut proteins into potatoes. Would that be safe? Today one can incorporate genes coding for alkaloids or many other drugs into bananas or cassava. Should we do it? Should we deny percentages of pollination by wind and insects even in cases where the crop species is not open pollinated? Should we deny crosspolinization between many crops and many of their wild weedy relatives? Should we deny the impossibility of gene recall? And what about the tools of Genetic modification? Who is going to guarantee their safe use? You argue that we have not seen the deleterious effects of GM crops. That is difficult to prove and getting more difficult to prove by the day. One can visually detect the first drop of milk in a cup of tea, but once the cup of tea has that first few drops of milk, one can not easily detect any additional milk. The background 'noise' does not let us see any obvious changes. Allergies are in the increase and we do not why. Asthma is in the increase too. Is it an increase in cat population or is it the sneak GM of the omnipresent soybean. or is it because traditional breeding has modified wheat proteins so much that they do not resemble the old cereal? Is a world with no safguards, privatized, with laws written by monsanto and Kraft foods, and with engineers and wallstreet salesmen that often fool even people that once in a while read a science article or two and that have totally lobotomized a US population that has less scientific understanding than the europeans during the middle ages. |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Why ? Why ? Why? | United Kingdom | |||
why doesn't Steve fear believably | United Kingdom | |||
Why are cereals annual crops? | Plant Science | |||
Sign petition to USDA to protect crops from being fertilized by pollen from GMO pharm. crops | Edible Gardening | |||
why human civilization is based on the staples of wheat, rice, potatoes? Why not oak acorns? | Plant Science |