0_o Yeah, no one is claiming “all ‘modification of crops’ is GM”. Weren’t you the one to jump all over me for misrepresenting something you said once?
So like I said, opposition to the method. Which isn’t and inherently an invalid position or anything. In an extreme example a condom and late term abortions are both methods of birth control, with one being greatly more acceptable than the other.
The classic example is the lenape potato. Sometimes cited as the most dangerous crop varietal ever bred. Though I’ve a feeling that’s an exaggeration.
And hey why not. https://www.google.com/amp/boingboing.net/2013/03/25/the-case-of-the-poison-potato.html/amp
It was developed entirely with conventional cross breeding techniques. And an excellent example of undesirable traits tagging along when plants are crossbred to select for desirables. In this case in selecting for genes that made for good potato chips (moisture and starch levels) the breeders accidentally also selected for increased toxin levels. Either by carrying over an individual gene, multiples ganging up, or some genes knocking each other out. Probably a combination (in fact we don’t really seem to know). The situation did not become apparent until the plant was already released to growers. People got sick.
And “genetic drift”. Risk of further mutation, crossing of those toxicity traits into other potato varieties. Lenapes ending up mixed with the rest of the food supply is (or was I’ve heard some knuckle heads still grow them for food, but they’re mostly isolated breeding stock) is just as much a thing as with a GMO crop. Which is why we pulled them from the market and instituted new controls on all new plant varieties.
We’ve been blasting plants with high level radiation and dangerously mutigenic
chemicals to break their DNA for 4000+ years?
I didn’t say you had to prove they’re safe. I said we know they’re just as safe as crops bred through any other method. Because you see there are these happy little people called scientists and regulators. And what they did rather than seeking to prove a preconceived out come. Is they take a big, objective look at something. And draw conclusions based on the actual facts. And those guys take each new crop, or animal. Regardless of how it was bred. And check it for safety and environmental impact. And Those people have shown repeatedly, continually, that GMO crops are just as “safe” either individually or taken as a whole category, as anything else.
Hear, hear. Pass the science please.
A rider to mutation- the field took off after seed patent law was revised in the early thirties.
Of course, GMOs took off after revisions in the early 80’s.
It’s not perfect, but it beats the Communists who starved millions of people in Russia, China, and North Korea. 
That isn’t perverse. A slight warming might be good overall for crop production. Just like how there was an increase after the Little Ice Age.
Fascinating. I didn’t know patent law was a mess that far back. I wonder how they enforced it pre genomic technology. Did the breeder just say “that looks like one of mine”?
I’m all for creative people making a living, but patenting living things that reproduce has always struck me as wrong. I know that GMO might not exist but for that, internal conflicts are nothing new. At least SCOTUS struck down patenting human genes.
It was spurred by Lester Burbank, the guy who made like a thousand varieties of apples. The early law was the first involving the patenting of ‘nature’ (i’m not stating this perfectly) so really stands as the precedent to any genetic patenting.
The one in the 80’s was pushed through with GMOs as the driver IIRC.
IP is weird. I have mixed feelings, and don’t want to come off as a hypocrite- I’ve got a few things with ASCAP (not that I make any money off that.) But i think it stood for a lot more, and did really help with innovation, before patent trolls became a thing. I think the process is so bogged down now that there’s a good argument that IP can be as much or more of a hindrance than an aid.
This post will absolutely not draw in the nut jobs on either side.
Funny I’ve been reading sociological studies lately purporting that, particularly in China, the western narrative of mass death from famine are significantly exaggerated. Haven’t seen as much re: Russia, but I’m pretty sure most people go off Solzhenitsyn and little else when it comes to that (disclaimer: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of my favorite novels.) It would be generous to say that well, there’s bias there…
It certainly is if those who stand to profit off of climate change push for policies which further/enable it (Hello, history of capitalism and government!) Even if they weren’t, it’s akin to throwing money in a dead pool- sure, everyone in the kitchen is doing it, but it’s still pretty gross…
There’s definitely more to know here between the baseless hysteria and the technological fundamentalism!
Does anyone know if there is any scientific merit to the concerns the Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) insecticide crops that disable a metabolic pathway found in insects (not mammals) may also adversely affect mammalian gut bacteria containing the same or similar metabolic pathways?
Whatever the case, I’m sure the current monocultural obsession with increasing poison application along with our decreasing food crop diversity does not sound like a path toward a robust biosphere and healthy hydrological cycle.
(Edit: spelling)
Who put those out, China’s People’s Dept of Agriculture? Jesus Christ, of all the things to try to spin. I suppose the Khmer Rouge were just trying to fertilize the soil?
Well you didn’t preface it with that. There are those who have accepted climate change is happening, no matter what is causing it, and planning for dealing with it is what one is supposed to do. Increase in yields in some areas may be a positive effect, while negative affects in other. I don’t think dealing with reality is perverse.
That’s exactly the wrong example to use to argue that politics and national policy aren’t a driving factor, though:
The video says that there are agencies closely checking the equivalence of the GMO vs non-GMO food. This is not true. The closer you look the less equivalent these foods appear. The genetic modifications can result in unexpected toxic proteins which was what killed several people in 1989 but this technology is so profitable that the culprit in these deaths has been obfuscated so as not to strongly implicate the role of GMO tech in these deaths, .
what the hell?
That outbreak (which I remember from my BBS days! Go me!) was caused by contaminated supplements, not anything having to do with GMO (or, natural reactions to the acid). that had nothing to do with the amino acid itself, (which makes sense, if it WERE modified, it would no longer be L-tryptophan. 
You link to the IRT, which is a huge red flag, since it’s run by crackpots who believe in yogic flying and trade in all manner of anti-scientific nonsense. But let’s say they’re legit. What does one company’s poor handling of a dietary supplement have to do with the safety of GMO food? Right, it doesn’t, except that genetic engineering was peripherally involved at some point, which means you can use it to rail against “frankenfood” like a good little fanatic. Run along.
I didn’t argue that there wasn’t historic baggage, just that ‘facts as they are now’, the country is over a reasonable carrying capacity of population. So is NYC, but it’s a functioning part of a larger national economy that makes importing food easy.
It was unexpected contaminants introduced by the GM strain of bacteria used to manufacture the L-tryptophan. You are correct. It had nothing to do with L-tryptophan although they tried to blame it on the amino acid and obscure the fact that genetically modified bacteria was used in the manufacture. It had to do with the unexpected side reactions that happen when adding a new switch into a complicated biological system.
So, here’s the problem I have with your post.
1 - it was trace contaminants caused by a multitude of factors, including an untested bacteria (they had used four generations of this bacteria in the past without issue). One of the primary causes appears, in fact, to be the company skimping out on decontamination during manufacturing.
2 - this isn’t a “food”, this is a highly specialised single-source supplement. If anything, this should be a warning to anyone who’s trying to purchased “purified” anything - standards for purification are not as strict as they should be, and contaminants could be a real concern.
The biggest thing to note, though, is that this happened because a source input to the process changed without testing while simultaneously changing the decontamination process, and not testing the result. This could happen regardless of the GMO status of the input. They changed what went in, it had contaminants they didn’t test for, they weakened the decontamination process, deaths occurred.
This is a cautionary tale about bad mechanical processing of single-source ingredients, not of the dangers of GMO bacteria.
More importantly, they’re F1 hybrids which don’t breed true.
Good or bad? That’s not a valid question. It’s a breeding technique like any other.
Yeah, patents. Which exist for “conventional” crops anyway. And, to follow the logic of anti-GMO people, patent-free crops should then be fine. Except they still foam at the mouth against the “unnatural”.
