On 22 Jul 2003 08:26:46 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 19 Jul 2003 12:04:27 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 19 Jul 2003 04:24:23 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 08:59:34 -0700, Dzogvi Gzboli
wrote:

Where can I find a list of the persons/cases in which diagnosable
injury resulted from ingesting GE corn? Or medical journal reports?

You are joking? Doesn't the inability to find such say something?

Not really.

Farmers are judging that cows fed on GM corn give less milk.

Which farmers? Which cows? Which corn? Where?

I shall have to search it out.

But you might expect it. It does not take much to affect milk
production, cows even have music preferences.

If you say so I've heard tomatoes do too.

As I reported before rats given the choice of GM and non-GM feed
had a preference for the latter. So that could affect the cows.

The rats play different music?

How did the rats tell the difference? Its extremely difficult for
science to differentiate.

Animals have good sense organs. They can almost sense the theoretical
limit of low light intensity. They have a good sense of smell, and the
different protein expression in the food would smell different. It is a
few percent of the plant. Besides the extra Roundup may have a taste or
smell.

So it is just *difference*, not any harmful characteristic?

Before Roundup Ready times strict withholding periods for herbicides
had to be adhered to.

Which herbicides? They are all different.
With holding times still apply.


Roundup has been promoted as safe so is
applied more.

Look, glyphosate ( a very safe plant enzyme inhibitor) can be applied
to RR crops during growth. Whereas with conventional crops it is
applied heavily before sowing, and then other more toxic and expensive
selective herbicides are applied during growth. It migh not be ideal,
but it is a big improvement on the conventional regime.

I know it is thought to be safe.

No evidence otherwise, and that's all you can ever demonstrate -- with
everything.

Nothing is ever proven safe, just "not yet shown to be harmful!"

Indeed some farmers used it to dry out a
crop for harvest.

How could you dry out a crop by applying an aqueous solution?
Oh, I see, they killed a crop with the herbicide making it look dry?
That's illegal, for use on a food crop.

Now I wonder what they do about that.

Prosecute!

Extra? Something
else?

I don't follow. Extra what? What else?

And isn't Roundup resistance transfering to the weeds so the other
herbicides are needed anyway?

Of course, to weeds in the same genus or family, but this is likely to
happen with all pesticides. We must realise that nothing will be
effective for ever. We must just keep up, or fall behind.
I dread world starvation. You ain't seen nothin' yet!

And you have to buy it with the Monsanto seed.

No you don't. You can not buy anything you like.

You can not buy anything you like.

That's what I said.

You contract to buy Roundup when you
buy the RR seeds.

Of course, like wheels when you by a new SUV.

So it will be used, most likely, since it has been
bought under the contract, whether it is really needed or not.

Hang on, why would you buy RR seed when you don't have a weed problem?

Do Monsanto
allow you to buy the seed without Roundup next time?

You can buy any other seed you like. If you don't have a weed problem,
I would advise it.

Then how do they make
their profit on the loss leader technology fee on the seeds?

Perhaps they go broke. Hope you haven't got any shares in them.

It is the
Roundup sale which makes the profit.

But you seem to think farmers are forced to buy it. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
Are you unhappy that there is no better solution to the weed problem?

So there will be more Roundup in the corn crop now.

It breaks down rapidly in plants see EXTOXNET:
http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/ghindex.html

But it does adhere to soil particles and may not break down, even in
waterways.

Yes it can reach waterways adsobed to some soil particles, but it
breaks down well in water. It mostly breaks down well in soil, after
it is adsorbed so tightly to soil particles that it doesn't go
anywhere without them.

And anyway, it is quite harmless.

Not necessarily to water creatures, or to many humans, possibly.

No evidence so far. And there's a shit load of greenies furiously
looking

It will be more
estrogenic.

Like many many molecules in the environment. But that is assuming it
has survived the breakdown in the plant.

It is soil bacteria which attempt to break it down. The RR plants will
metabolise it something else, then you have to check the toxicity of that.

And that has already been done. No problemo.

Estrogenic pasture is generally a reproductive problem.
as I have posted.

That would be some clovers?

Some more than others, and mycotoxins.

Perhaps Jim might comment on pendulous udders in developing calves
produced from cows on estrogenic pasture. They will be harder to
milk. Maybe an estrogenic mycotxin is causing it, or red clover, or
Roundup? Needs research, I would say.

And it hasn't been researched? I'm sure I've come across lots over the
years.

Who does it profit to research it?

Science just functions on know-it-all scientists wanting to be first
with the news.

Can they afford the research?

Plenty have.

Will they
be bought out?

Not and survive the peer review process.

Oh yes when zearallenones increase growth rate of animals owing to their
estrogenicity then that gets published. But how often the reproductive
problems? Not so much, I believe.

Well as you're not apparently working in the area....

It takes a while for troubles to show up in humans. If a few percent more
women have to bottle supplement their babies that may reduce a nations
great IQ test as the DHA in human milk helps eye - possibly brain
development.

A long bow to draw?

The business world is always trying to avoid taking long time spans
into account.

That's the job of the regulator, and I believe yours has taken all
this into account.

The stuff has not been around for a generation.

So? There are lots of ways to assess likely dangers in the long term.
But if there is no evidence, or likelyhood of harm, we can't wait for
50 years just to make certain. Human progress would effectively stop.
And in the meantime...

The extra Roundup in human diets of Roundup Ready crops provides extra
xeno-estrogen in the diet.

What "more Roundup"? The glyphosate, or the surfactant wetting agent?

I think it is proprietary information.

What is? Glyphosate and surfactant (dish liquid or shampoo)?

And a sticky agent, probably.

No, the wetting agent (dish liquid/shampoo) is the "sticky agent".
It's a lot more toxic than the glyphosate.

More xeno-oestrogen than what?

Than before the advent of Roundup Ready.

I very much doubt that. Have you seen the list of hormone disruptors?
Reads like the Merck Index.

Depends on how much of them or their metabolites are in the food, and
environment.

Depends where you live, and what you eat. They are pretty well
everywhere. American DDT has been found in the Arctic ice.

You may not see results till the developing
eggs in the ovaries of todays foetuses are being fertilised 30 years away.
Farmers who would have gone organic are getting caught with polluting
Monsanto genes in their crops and rather than fighting are finding it
easier to pay up and go totally Roundup Ready, rather than lose the farm.

Roundup Ready has huge advantages if a farmer can afford it.

Saves on use of far more toxic and expensive herbicides.

Roundup also can save much soil erosion from mechanical pre-seeding
weed control.

Some farmers have `succeeded' with Roundup Ready, but the technology
fee is still a loss leader.

Well don't buy it. Simple.
Monsanto don't expect folks to buy their product if it provides them
with no advantage.

Then if you happen to get it on your land you are liable.

Ah, I think if you were a little bird in the court room, you might
find that Monsanto has a good case that it's technology was stolen.

One or two
farmers in such cirucumstances have resisted going GE paying the
technology fee. Even if they think it is not providing them with advantage
they are still charged.

Only when it is found that they have actually stolen this technology.
You have been reading too much of the anti-Monsanto propaganda.

Then it is very hard to track an origin of a disease which jumps species
in one individual then spreads rapidly through the new species. The GM
technology is designed to get genes to cross barriers they otherwise would
not. The probability of a jump in one individual is very low, but in the
population of China you have to multiply by a billion.

I think you are confusing two entirely separate phenomena.

Why do you?

Well you are talking about the possible spread of gene sequences
expressing proteins providing antibiotic resistance to organisms, and
then about new diseases. I can't see the connection.

They are both furthered by the technology which increases the probability
of gene transfer.

Catching the disease? How?

The drug resistance marker in the GM crops has been warned against by
many.

But nothing has come of it? What problems has this ever caused?

The experminent going on is uncontrolled. Therefore although
infectious disease is increasing world wide it cannot be pinned on
the GM technology.

What infectious diseases are increasing world wide and of which the
cause is not known?

go to http://www.i-sis.org.uk and search for infectious diseases.

You mean you don't know what you were referring to?

One interesting point:


Linkname: SARS Virus Genetically Engineered
URL: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SVGE.php
size: 247 lines

[...]
Urnovitz believes that the spike protein of the SARS virus is the
result of genetic rearrangements provoked by environmental genotoxic
agents, much like those he and his colleagues have detected in Gulf
War I veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.

But how did the virus get to south China? A possible answer was
provided by Urnovitz: Migratory birds that frequent gene-swapping hot
spots like southeast China could have carried the SARS virus there.

Urnovitz himself doesn't think the SARS virus is the real cause of
SARS. Instead, it is the piece of reshuffled human chromosome 7 that
others are referring to as the spike protein gene of the SARS virus.
That alone is sufficient to trigger serious autoimmune responses in
people.

Hence, to create vaccines against that `spike' protein is also
tantamount to vaccinating people against their own genes (see "Dynamic
genomics", this series).
[...]

Interesting speculation. What do his peers think of this?

All bacteria have always swopped their genes,

Just like humans and all beings which reproduce sexually.

But bacteria can swap quite a percentage in a day.

Their generation span is 20 minutes in ideal situations.

But they pass on resistance more by swapping genes rather than passing
them on from parent to offspring.

But I can't see this makes a difference in practice. They are
duplicating DNA so furioualy that they can pretty much go anywhere and
everywhere.

they really have a
common gene bank,

Like all species-like groups

No really rather different. You are behind with your reading.

In what way different, then. No point saying I'm behind in this and
that and outdated. What is intrinsically different from sexual
reproductive gene mixing and the way bacteria do it. They don't do it
sexually of course.


I have explained that a bit, but you can read more in:


This is the html version of the file
http://www.nzige.canterbury.ac.nz/fi...ubmission.pdf.
G o o g l e automatically generates html versions of documents as we
crawl the web.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url:

http://www.google.com/cobrand_univ?q... l=en&ie=UTF-8
[...]
3. Issue 2.1, the difference between gene transfer and gene
transmission and how that

difference should be used in risk analysis.

3.1. Preamble. That HGT is real and an important mechanism by which
some genes

reproduce is by now widely acknowledged. Yet that acknowledgment is
only recent.

Had this application been made even five years earlier, the debate on
its

acceptability would have been at the level of arguing whether HGT
happened

at all.

This is to say that the science of HGT is young even though the
effects of HGT have

been described since the mid-20th

Century (Ferguson and Heinemann, 2002). HGT's

role in evolution is just starting to be studied outside of specialist
biological

examples (eg, Agrobacterium and plants). Technologies purpose designed
for its

study are only just appearing. So it is understandable, perhaps, that
despite the

realisation by the larger scientific community that HGT is real and
frequent, HGT is

not universally incorporated into the daily working analyses of
molecular biologists,

botanists and zoologists. Moreover, it will take time for this new
specialist branch of

genetics to become widely incorporated in curricula through the
publication of new

textbooks. Still, the incorporation of HGT in risk analysis must
transcend a cursory

knowledge of HGT and cultural barriers to these ideas within some
branches of

biology.
[...]

&c, a bit much to quote.

Thanks.

and what you do to one gets around and is made use of by
the others.

Yep, happens in all sexually reproducing gene pools.
All surviving mutations will spread into the gene pool.

You are behind. Mid 1990s the question was whether horizontal gene
transfer occurs. Now it totally accpeted. Bacteria probably pass on
more of their survival characteristics through it than through
vertical transfer.

What is the vertical transfer? Cloning?

No parent to offspring.

They don't multiply sexually. They bud off as clones.

Again, what is intrinsically
different in mixing genetic material one way or another?
Nothing is new, however. Bacteria have been doing what they do for
millions of years.

The ref I gave explains.

Speculations, of course. But how widely accepted is this extra danger?

Then you get indirect harm from GM when the drugs we have can
no longer treat the illnesses.

Examples?

I have been in a hospital ward which had MRSA. When I went back to
hospital 4 years later I had a red medicalert sticker on my
bracelet. It turned out to be an MRSA warning. Several tests were
done and some weeks before it was removed.

Was MRSA caused by GM? I thought it was bacteria doing what bacteria
do. Evolving to resist environmental attack.

GM can cause things by direct engineering or secondary picking up of
resistance from GM foods and other products.

Theoretically possible. But what proportion of resistance evolution
can be put down to GM?

In the latter case what was
treatable Staph aureus turns itself into untreatable Staph aureus.

By being exposed to partially lethal doses of the particular class of
antibiotic.

If
aniamls are being fed GM food with antibiotic resistance genes, and given
low dose antibiotic growth promoters en masse, it seems important to look
into whether that increases the rate of increase of resistance to
antibiotics.

You really think the bacteria need any help to evolve a resistance in
this mileau? The antibiotic resistance gene being fed must A get into
the bloodstream, and B be taken up by a pathogenic organism.
It must also be the same antibiotic that this gene expresses the
protein to be resistant to.

Oh, yes, as with the computer viruses made by the people who
wish to sell antidotes, it is all work for them.

Conspiracy theory noted

Resistance can develop
from animals fed antibiotics, but
what about when humans are fed antibiotic resistance genes en masse?

They are denatured and digested, along with all the other food we eat.

Not when the digestion is not perfect.

One in a million, and then there are more one-in-a-million hurdles to
jump. Yes it is possible, but the bacteria will have likely beaten you
to the jump and evolved already with out this theoretically unlikely
GM help.

For one thing transgenes from GE
food can be found in colostomy bags.

That wouldn't surprise me. They don't put these on the bulk of healthy
folk.

The antibiotics we take lightly are another matter.

But it is a bit of a different dimension of risk.

Theoretically a tiny possible increase, from what I see.

Funding of research these days is based on partnerships with profit
driven companies. So risk analysis which might take away the
quick-profit-and-get-out-of-it is a poor relation.

Well if you haven't got a strong regulator....
But don't confuse this with "science".

If we had strong Govt risk analysis we would not have had GE crops with
antibiotic resistance.

I don't think the apt word is "strong" I think more paranoid. A strong
regulator is one who goes for the middle road of truth and does not
steer either toward the industrialists point of view, or to the green
"do nothing " point of view.

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:22:44 +0200, Torsten Brinch
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:

[Re Roundup persistence in corn:]
It breaks down rapidly in plants see EXTOXNET:
http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/ghindex.html

Pulling a fastie, eh? Your reference contradicts your claim.

No. I've looked up the reference given and stand by my claim.
"Rapidly" is perhaps a misleading word. It is not regarded as
persistent in significant plants. From memory, corn was amongst these.

On 22 Jul 2003 12:45:08 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Gordon Couger wrote:

"ddwyer" wrote in message
...
In article , Moosh:]
writes

Thanks Gordon, good point.
Not thet there's much more we can do about it than what we are doing.
If you want to convert a sheep or a bacteria to produce a bioactive
material such as a protein as a theraputic agent the way foreward is not
to breed or mutate but GM a species. I.e. create a self replicating
factory. GM food has the potential to generate unwanted materials that
mutation and breeding cannot.
Unwanted material in foodstuffs will be the rare hazard that we wont
recognise until too late. Sadly whole populations will consume; not just
the ill for whom the risk would ba acceptable.

Due to testing in GM food stuffs we are much less likely to get unintended
hazards in food stuffs than we are in in normally bred food stuffs.

To my knowledge they only test people with protein that they expect the GM
plant to make. The actual plant could have the engineered promoters
switching on other genes, causing troubles you would not be looking for.

And do they look for unintended effects from mutations and cross
pollinating?

When the tryptophan from GE sources killed some people it might not have
been discovered if the symptoms were similar to some other lethal
but fairly common disease.

But that tryptophan affair was nothing to do with GE.

I can
list several cases of food stuffs that case harm bred with conventional
methods an you can't list a single one with GM methods.

They get withdrawn if they cause trouble that is plain obvious.

Just like foods from plant mutations and cross-pollinating, only these
are more likely

If you are going to use arguments use ones that you don't loose at the onset
with proven facts.

He means the promoters switching on unexpected gene expression in some
conditions.

Just like is happening in the wild every day?

On 22 Jul 2003 08:13:26 -0700, (Hua Kul) wrote:

"Gordon Couger" wrote in message ...
"ddwyer" wrote in message
...
In article , Moosh:]
writes

Thanks Gordon, good point.
Not thet there's much more we can do about it than what we are doing.
If you want to convert a sheep or a bacteria to produce a bioactive
material such as a protein as a theraputic agent the way foreward is not
to breed or mutate but GM a species. I.e. create a self replicating
factory. GM food has the potential to generate unwanted materials that
mutation and breeding cannot.
Unwanted material in foodstuffs will be the rare hazard that we wont
recognise until too late. Sadly whole populations will consume; not just
the ill for whom the risk would ba acceptable.

Due to testing in GM food stuffs we are much less likely to get unintended
hazards in food stuffs than we are in in normally bred food stuffs.

Another naif who seems to believe that governments and their
regulations will save us.

Well you elect them to regulate. If they do a bad job, whose fault is
that?

It was a British government regulation
requiring cattle to be heavily dosed with organophosphate pesticides
which may have triggered the BSE outbreak. See Mark Purdy's research.

So the govt decided on its own? No expert vet pathology advice?

BTW, how many causes of BSE are there?

I can
list several cases of food stuffs that case harm bred with conventional
methods an you can't list a single one with GM methods.

I certainly can, a company in San Diego named Epicyte. They are
producing a spermicide in corn kernals via GM.

To be fed towhat?

================================================= ============
Vast fields of maize could soon be churning out antibodies for
preventing sexually transmitted diseases.

Researchers at Epicyte, a biotech company in San Diego, say their
technology promises to make the mass production of therapeutic
antibodies easier and cheaper. At the moment, therapeutic antibodies
are produced using hamster ovary cells - an expensive method that
produces limited amounts.

But Epicyte's new "plantibody" technology allows the DNA that codes
for antibodies to be introduced into crop plants such as maize. The
antibodies are only produced in the maize kernels, making it easy to
extract them using current maize-processing methods.

Epicyte is already well on the way to producing an antibody to prevent
herpes infection, says Andrew Hiatt, who helped develop the
technology. The antibody, HX8, works by sticking to the virus and
blocking its entry into cells, and has proved highly effective in
animal tests.

Although condoms provide some protection against herpes infection,
they are not 100 per cent reliable. But HX8 can provide protection in
the vagina for 24 hours. Epicyte is also developing antibodies that
block HIV transmission and the virus that causes genital warts.

The HX8 genes have already been transferred into maize, and Epicyte
plans to start clinical trials of the antibody next year. Hiatt hopes
plantibodies will be cheap enough for consumers to buy them over the
counter. "That's the ultimate goal," he says.

Claire Ainsworth
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991373

And this has what to do with food?


================================================= ====================

I don't want my balls to be damaged every time I eat corn just because
a company wants to improve it's bottom line. Once their GM pollen
escapes into the air there's no going back, and no protection for any
other corn plant in the world. It's already happened.

How will you get this into your balls?

================================================= =================
"Biotech Company Admits StarLink
Contamination is Forever
Knight Ridder/Tribune
Biotech Firm Executive Says Genetically Engineered Corn Is
Here to Stay
Mar. 19

A top Aventis CropScience executive said Sunday that the food
supply will never be rid of the new strain of corn that the company
genetically engineered at Research Triangle Park."

http://www.purefood.org/ge/starlinkforever.cfm
================================================= ===================


================================================= ===================
"Genetically Modified Corn Spreading to Protected Wild Corn
Despite Mexico's 3-year-old moratorium on the use of genetically
altered corn, scientists have detected genetically modified DNA in
wild maize in the mountains of the state of Oaxaca.

Wayward genes from genetically modified corn that is widely grown in
Canada and the United States are spreading in remote mountainous
regions of Mexico.

Up to 70% of wild Mexican maize now carries transgenes that could only
have come from genetically engineered crops. The transgenes, which
scientists borrow from viruses and bacteria, have been engineered into
GM crops."

Nature November 29, 2001;414:541-543

http://www.mercola.com/2001/dec/12/gm_corn.htm

Good source -- not! This research was withdrawn with much
embarrassnment, wasn't it?
================================================= ======================


If you are going to use arguments use ones that you don't loose at the onset
with proven facts.

Gordon

I just used proven facts.


Yeah, that you believe anything you read.
BTW, which of the "facts" that you used came from other than
propaganda sites?

Moosh:] writes

How could you dry out a crop by applying an aqueous solution?
Oh, I see, they killed a crop with the herbicide making it look dry?
That's illegal, for use on a food crop.

Actually no. Dessicants are not that unusual in european agriculture
(and probably american as well). It's quite often used for EU canola,
and sometimes other crops, particularly where weed control has been, er,
less than perfect.

This has been going on for decades.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

On 24 Jul 2003 05:04:37 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

So you don't read Moosh:]'s articles, I have to economize somehwe
****
From: "Moosh:]"
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition,nz.general,sci.agriculture
Subject: Paying to find non-GE wild corn?
Message-ID:
Lines: 89
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 11:54:52 GMT
[...]
In the junk DNA there is just about
everything that has been tried, if it hasn't been harmlessly corrupted
over the aeons.
[...]
****

That doesn't mean that it is a "memory bank" Just a repository for
turned off sequences. What turns them on again is a moot point.
Evolution isn't using these if needed, it is being lucky enough to
have a random mutation that confers a survival benefit. And when all
your non-mutated peers are dying from some environmental change
(antibiotics) , you will outcompete them.

Where is there any evidence of this. I think you are
getting carried away with the classifications again. If you run out of
hosts
you just find more

Jump species? You would have to do that before you killed every last
one of the previous species.

which isn't a problem, those who prey on only one species are very much a
minority

Lots of viruses tend to be specific to certain classes of hosts.

Calici haemorrhagic disease jumped to rabbits in 1970s in China, though I
don't know why.

Using pig organs in humans in concert with GM is a risk that pig viruses
will jump and spread through the human population.

What on earth does GM have to do with this? It happens whether or not,
surely.

On 24 Jul 2003 10:45:20 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 21 Jul 2003 12:09:43 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

But you are leaving it to the plant to do the organisation after it is
damaged. You are not specifically implanting genes to outwit the natural
scheme of adjustment.


You believe in Gaea?

More like what I posted recently:


Fritjof Capra already in 1996 reports about Kauffman (1993):

`sytems biologists have begun to portray the genome as a
self-organizing network capable of spontaneously producing new forms
of order. "We must rethink evolutionary biology," writes Stuart
Kauffman. "Much of the order we see in organisms may be the direct
result not of natural selection but of the natural order selection
was allowed to act on... Evolution is not just a tinkering ... It is
an emergent order honored and honed by selection."'

And I called this "surmise". But of course, what happens can be
charcterised in many ways.

So if survival in the past had come about through mutating more when under
stress, then that would happen again under stress. I think that is
accepted.

Chemical reactions occur when and where they can. There is no choice.
Evolution only progresses faster when much stress is about, coz the
less lucky organisms in the lottery of random mutations are dying off
all around, and only the few lucky ones survive.
Mutations are happening all the time, just not giving great advantage
to those who win them when times are good.

And anyway it is hard to tell that sort of thing from a Gaia if there is
one.

What was the origin of the first enzymes?

Random mutation that allowed a chemical change to occur more readily.

On 24 Jul 2003 10:48:17 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 21 Jul 2003 12:01:49 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

It is subtle since if you kill all of your hosts you die, too. There must
be some of that knowledge in the genome, too.

No, it's just a survival artifact. Those that don't have the luck to
cop a survival mutation die out. Only those lucky enough to mutate not
to kill out all the hosts survive.

Once it has happened before then the knowledge is there in the genome, if
it hasn't been messed with GM.

It is being messed up all the time with cosmic rays and mutagens in
the environment.

Because bacteria can exchange genes to their advantage in the protected
environment of a human cell it is necessary to take more care with drug
resistance genes. We should not be feeding drug resistance genes to people
en masse, not checking up with control groups if it is triggering
anything.

Do bacteria have a special licence from Nature so they can do their own
thing and not need to obey Natures instructions about strict order in the
genome?
Where do you apply for this licence?

I presume you look up your memory bank to remind yourself how to keep
alive. Do not kill every last host. If there is stress start swopping
genes faster.

Gene swapping is done as fast as it CAN be done. There is NO intent.

Mutating accelerates under stress.


Are you sure? Selection does, but surely mutations are not affected by
stress. What is the mechanism?

"Brian Sandle" wrote in message
...
Jim Webster wrote:

"Brian Sandle" wrote in message
As I said 3 to 14% of hospital admissions result from prescribed drug
adverse effects.

nothing to do with it in this case, a very sick man cannot be expected
to be
able to cope with some drugs.

So you want a greater range in the arsenal. You don't want them getting
disabled by resistance.

utterly irrelevent
he was too weak to take any antibiotic



So they switched to the
antiseptic wash

Which they probably use anyway, linezolid or not?

I suppose they will claim linezolid is no worse than any other, but it
is
better to have more in the arsenal isn't it? Then say do genetic
testing
and do not prescribe by trial and error. Try not to eliminate your
choices
by feeding everybody with GM antibiotic resistance genes, especially
when
we know that DNA is not fully deactivated by digestion, and is also
getting to the unborn.

what total twaddle. As bacteria have far more antibiotic resistant genes
than GM crops,

They bacteria may have a few more types, if they have been selected by
anitbiotics, but the crop has it in every cell, so far
more altogether, and constantly present.

no, start thinking carefully
all food has bacteria so you eat it with every meal. Each meal with contain
bacteria resistant to antibiotics we haven't even developed yet but are used
in nature, bacteria resistant to antibiotics that are so old that they are
no longer used and bacteria more resistant than their fellows to heavy
metals, UV, and for all I know tedium.
With GM, firstly not every meal contains GM DNA, as opposed to every meal
which does contain GM DNA, and the GM is far more restricted in its
resistance.


and vastly more bacteria are ingested and digested that GM
food, (as everyone swallows bacteria)

Now from North America the corn is grown patch work in fields and all is
mixed. So unless North Americans go to special trouble to get non-GM they
will be getting an antibiotic resistance gene every second cell of that
food they eat. Same with soy.

then any antibiotic resistant transfer
occuring through the mechanism you suggest will be happening constantly
and
at a high frequency now

I suggested the gene packages jumping from the GM food to bacteria, yes.
You say it will be happening at a high frequency now,

and any GM addition will be a trivial irrelevence.

you say. I and several others say we do not want any GM addition we want
the whole GM contribution brought right back to zero.

tough,

you have two choices.

pay enough to make growing conventional worth while

or

eat GM

choice is entirely yours

Jim Webster

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:51:19 GMT, "Moosh:]"
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:22:44 +0200, Torsten Brinch
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:

[Re Roundup persistence in corn:]
It breaks down rapidly in plants see EXTOXNET:
http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/ghindex.html

Pulling a fastie, eh? Your reference contradicts your claim.

No. I've looked up the reference given and stand by my claim.
"Rapidly" is perhaps a misleading word.

Point is, you claim it breaks down rapidly in plants,
while referencing that information to a source which
says in some plants it remains bloody intact.

It is not regarded as
persistent in significant plants. From memory, corn was
amongst these.

Well, what can one say.

Moosh:] wrote:
On 24 Jul 2003 10:45:20 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 21 Jul 2003 12:09:43 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

But you are leaving it to the plant to do the organisation after it is
damaged. You are not specifically implanting genes to outwit the natural
scheme of adjustment.


You believe in Gaea?

More like what I posted recently:


Fritjof Capra already in 1996 reports about Kauffman (1993):

`sytems biologists have begun to portray the genome as a
self-organizing network capable of spontaneously producing new forms
of order. "We must rethink evolutionary biology," writes Stuart
Kauffman. "Much of the order we see in organisms may be the direct
result not of natural selection but of the natural order selection
was allowed to act on... Evolution is not just a tinkering ... It is
an emergent order honored and honed by selection."'

And I called this "surmise". But of course, what happens can be
charcterised in many ways.

I don't think randomity explains what goes on.

So if survival in the past had come about through mutating more when under
stress, then that would happen again under stress. I think that is
accepted.

Chemical reactions occur when and where they can. There is no choice.
Evolution only progresses faster when much stress is about, coz the
less lucky organisms in the lottery of random mutations are dying off
all around, and only the few lucky ones survive.
Mutations are happening all the time, just not giving great advantage
to those who win them when times are good.

But the bacteria acquire mutations which then allow them to compete
better, so it is not random:

This is the html version of the file
http://www.nzige.canterbury.ac.nz/fi...ubmission.pdf.
G o o g l e automatically generates html versions of documents as we
crawl the web.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url:
http://www.google.com/cobrand_univ?q...www.nzige.cant
erbury.ac.nz/finalgmd01194submission.pdf+heinemann+submission&h l=en&ie
=UTF-8


New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology

University of Canterbury
[...]

5.1.3.3. An example from the biomedical experience with antibiotics
and

resistance evolution is illustrative here. Many newly emerging
antibiotic

resistant strains of bacteria are less competitive than their
antibiotic-

susceptible parents in environments free of the antibiotic. This early

disadvantage, however, is soon lost. Many have assumed that resistance
to

current antibiotics would fade when new antibiotics were developed
partly

because resistant strains were less fit in antibiotic-free
environments.

However, it is clear now that resistant strains can acquire
competition-

compensatory mutations while growing in antibiotics (Bjorkman et al.,

1998; Bjorkman et al., 2000; Schrag and Perrot, 1996; Schrag et al.,
1997).

By the time the antibiotic is removed from the environment, the
strains are

as fit or more fit than their parents even in antibiotic-free
environments.

Antibiotics, in this case, serve as an umbrella supporting the
evolution of

initially uncompetitive phenotypes.
__________________________________________________ _______________


And anyway it is hard to tell that sort of thing from a Gaia if there is
one.

What was the origin of the first enzymes?

Random mutation that allowed a chemical change to occur more readily.

What was there to mutate before the first enzymes? What biochemical
reaction has ever worked without an enzyme?

On 24 Jul 2003 22:54:10 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 24 Jul 2003 10:45:20 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:
On 21 Jul 2003 12:09:43 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

But you are leaving it to the plant to do the organisation after it is
damaged. You are not specifically implanting genes to outwit the natural
scheme of adjustment.


You believe in Gaea?

More like what I posted recently:


Fritjof Capra already in 1996 reports about Kauffman (1993):

`sytems biologists have begun to portray the genome as a
self-organizing network capable of spontaneously producing new forms
of order. "We must rethink evolutionary biology," writes Stuart
Kauffman. "Much of the order we see in organisms may be the direct
result not of natural selection but of the natural order selection
was allowed to act on... Evolution is not just a tinkering ... It is
an emergent order honored and honed by selection."'

And I called this "surmise". But of course, what happens can be
charcterised in many ways.

I don't think randomity explains what goes on.

Well it can, so why look for fairies at the bottom of the garden?
Think of Ockham's razor.

So if survival in the past had come about through mutating more when under
stress, then that would happen again under stress. I think that is
accepted.

Chemical reactions occur when and where they can. There is no choice.
Evolution only progresses faster when much stress is about, coz the
less lucky organisms in the lottery of random mutations are dying off
all around, and only the few lucky ones survive.
Mutations are happening all the time, just not giving great advantage
to those who win them when times are good.

But the bacteria acquire mutations which then allow them to compete
better, so it is not random:

Mutations happen to them randomly. How does this (active) acquision
work?

This is the html version of the file
http://www.nzige.canterbury.ac.nz/fi...ubmission.pdf.
G o o g l e automatically generates html versions of documents as we
crawl the web.
To link to or bookmark this page, use the following url:
http://www.google.com/cobrand_univ?q... l=en&ie=UTF-8


New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology

University of Canterbury
[...]

A grant application?

5.1.3.3. An example from the biomedical experience with antibiotics
and

resistance evolution is illustrative here. Many newly emerging
antibiotic

resistant strains of bacteria are less competitive than their
antibiotic-

susceptible parents in environments free of the antibiotic. This early

disadvantage, however, is soon lost. Many have assumed that resistance
to

current antibiotics would fade when new antibiotics were developed
partly

because resistant strains were less fit in antibiotic-free
environments.

However, it is clear now that resistant strains can acquire
competition-

compensatory mutations while growing in antibiotics (Bjorkman et al.,

1998; Bjorkman et al., 2000; Schrag and Perrot, 1996; Schrag et al.,
1997).

By the time the antibiotic is removed from the environment, the
strains are

as fit or more fit than their parents even in antibiotic-free
environments.

Antibiotics, in this case, serve as an umbrella supporting the
evolution of

initially uncompetitive phenotypes.
__________________________________________________ _______________


And anyway it is hard to tell that sort of thing from a Gaia if there is
one.

What was the origin of the first enzymes?

Random mutation that allowed a chemical change to occur more readily.

What was there to mutate before the first enzymes?

Any old DNA that expressed a protein. Sounds unlikely, but over
millions of years.

What biochemical
reaction has ever worked without an enzyme?

Many of them. Enzymes just happen to be the way metabolic pathways are
"controlled". Because a reaction goes a certain way with a specific
enzyme coz the energy requirements are lower than going another way,
does not mean that there are not many reactions requiring so little
energy that they can procede without enzymes.

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:06:14 +0200, Torsten Brinch
wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:51:19 GMT, "Moosh:]"
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:22:44 +0200, Torsten Brinch
wrote:

Moosh:] wrote:

[Re Roundup persistence in corn:]
It breaks down rapidly in plants see EXTOXNET:
http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/ghindex.html

Pulling a fastie, eh? Your reference contradicts your claim.

No. I've looked up the reference given and stand by my claim.
"Rapidly" is perhaps a misleading word.

Point is, you claim it breaks down rapidly in plants,
while referencing that information to a source which
says in some plants it remains bloody intact.

"Bloodywell intact", Torsten, try to be grammatical

It is not regarded as
persistent in significant plants. From memory, corn was
amongst these.

Well, what can one say.

That it doesn't hang about long in significant food plants. IIRC.
Even if it does, so what? Over the years I've ferretted out scores of
references and always come to a dead end as far as any harm goes.
Can you mention any harm from glyphosate?

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:12:10 +0100, Oz
wrote:

Moosh:] writes

How could you dry out a crop by applying an aqueous solution?
Oh, I see, they killed a crop with the herbicide making it look dry?
That's illegal, for use on a food crop.

Actually no. Dessicants are not that unusual in european agriculture
(and probably american as well). It's quite often used for EU canola,
and sometimes other crops, particularly where weed control has been, er,
less than perfect.

This has been going on for decades.

Yes, I follow, but would you use Roundup for this?
What chemicals are used for dessicants? Curious.

On 24 Jul 2003 14:12:56 GMT, Brian Sandle
wrote:

Jim Webster wrote:

"Brian Sandle" wrote in message
As I said 3 to 14% of hospital admissions result from prescribed drug
adverse effects.

nothing to do with it in this case, a very sick man cannot be expected to be
able to cope with some drugs.

So you want a greater range in the arsenal.

Of course, and it's happening as we speak. Those damned multinational
drug companies

You don't want them getting
disabled by resistance.

No, and you don't want to get run over at the crosswalk, either.

So they switched to the
antiseptic wash

Which they probably use anyway, linezolid or not?

I suppose they will claim linezolid is no worse than any other, but it is
better to have more in the arsenal isn't it? Then say do genetic testing
and do not prescribe by trial and error. Try not to eliminate your choices
by feeding everybody with GM antibiotic resistance genes, especially when
we know that DNA is not fully deactivated by digestion, and is also
getting to the unborn.

what total twaddle. As bacteria have far more antibiotic resistant genes
than GM crops,

They bacteria may have a few more types, if they have been selected by
anitbiotics, but the crop has it in every cell, so far
more altogether, and constantly present.

But by your own strange analogy bacteria have them all in their
"memory banks" What's new? You eat bacteria with every mouthful. And
they are full of every conceivable resistance gene.

and vastly more bacteria are ingested and digested that GM
food, (as everyone swallows bacteria)

Now from North America the corn is grown patch work in fields and all is
mixed. So unless North Americans go to special trouble to get non-GM they
will be getting an antibiotic resistance gene every second cell of that
food they eat. Same with soy.

And same number of cells of bacteria with every resistance gene ever
imagined in their "memory banks".

then any antibiotic resistant transfer
occuring through the mechanism you suggest will be happening constantly and
at a high frequency now

I suggested the gene packages jumping from the GM food to bacteria, yes.

They are jumping between bacteria all the time.
And they are far more potent carriers.

You say it will be happening at a high frequency now,

Yes.

and any GM addition will be a trivial irrelevence.

you say. I and several others say we do not want any GM addition we want
the whole GM contribution brought right back to zero.

Well, yes, that's what some want, but for no demonstrated, logical
reason.

Stop using antibiotic resistance markers.

They have, haven't they?.

The argument that we are using
so many that a few more is of no consequence is as silly as saying another
drink will be of no consequence to a driver who is already drunk. We do
not want any drivers drunk in the first place.

Your analogy, although good, is based on a flawed premise. There is
infinitely more resistance genes in the bacteria we swallow than in
any amount of GE food we might eat. And then only a minute proportion
of the relatively tiny amount of ingested GM genes will survive the
gut.