People don’t have a choice now because there is no labeling of GMOs in supermarkets, and because GMOs are so pervasive they are almost unavoidable. No people aren’t being force fed, but they are being deceived.
1 Like
How long it takes is a different question from how frequent it is. Yes, gene transfer has been very common over the last few billion years. Carbon dioxide levels have been higher, too, but that does not make them safe. Natural gene transfer is not nearly so common that, say, someone who has learned to watch out for proteins in one plant is likely to worry about finding them in an unrelated species, and so bringing it up in this fashion is disingenuous.
This is disingenuous, too. There was never a threat to the public health. This is not, however, to say the idea there was risk was made up; investigations found that proteins had been transferred from one species to another and retained allergenic potential. Rather the risk was mitigated by testing the result and finding it wanting. Another mitigation, by the way, could theoretically have been releasing the product but labeled as containing Brazil nut allergens so sensitive people would know to avoid it.
This is just what Remus said, an example of a potential GM problem handled appropriately, which one could use to help answer concerns about it. But instead of pointing out that the risk is successfully mitigated, you’d apparently rather shout that there has never been any risk, and anyone who thinks otherwise - like people who know enough biology to understand allergen transfer, and aren’t sure how it is currently regulated - is an idiot who failed basic science.
Then some standard lines about how gene transfer is natural, about how nobody cares about disease in their food (nobody wants that was regulated), and how Greenpeace is all a giant scam, and maybe a few others carefully chosen to sound exactly like fracking advocates and global warming denialists.
Sounds like a good presentation to me. Man, if people walk away from that concerned that the industry is doing everything necessary to ensure GM is rolled out in a safe manner, they must be an illiterate moron.
Let’s all try to be civil in memory of our recently retired moderator Antinous.
And if we can’t manage civility, let’s at least be funny. Humorless insults are so tedious.
This post not (currently) aimed at anyone in particular.
Gotta go now. Work to do!
5 Likes
Pretty much every crop, especially the cereals have had massive genomic rearrangements in the last 5000 years. Most vegetables are crosses of various species. And every variety in use is the direct result of selective breeding by man. Keep in mind that many of our tree crops are so mutated that they are sterile (seedless oranges etc etc etc etc etc) and are only propagated by grafting (OMG! Clones!)
Plants can’t run from pests or climate change, so they mutate or go extinct. Plants have an enormous capacity to tolerate mutations. Plant genomes largely consist of virus sequences that facilitate natural rearrangements… And because plant populations are naturally geographically isolated, two widely separated populations of the same species can become very different genetically in the space of a few hundred years.as each population deals with different challenges.
Natural gene transfer in plants seems to be everywhere we look. Keep in mind that making plant GMOs only became possible using the natural gene transfer strategy of Agrobacterium Remember that every soybean plant and legume you ever ate was injected by bacterial DNA, and the legumes have been doing that for hundreds of thousands of years.
Antinous retired? When did that happen?
1 Like
Why, to be fair, there’s foods have been around forever can do that to folks.
Well, if all they can afford to eat is rice, is the point. We can, they can’t. Which is, like yer man said, could well be argued to be a political problem, not (or as well as) an engineering one.
2 Likes
Yeah - I just think GMO in general has been turned into a big boogyman with out a lot of evidence. As others pointed out - we have been dong genetic engineering since we first started agriculture. We just have a different degree of precision now.
I think the apprehension towards big business and our predisposed biases against it lead us to distrust this technology, much like the Anti-vacinators are against Big Pharama.
It is important to remember, that even if profits are their main concern, the product they put out has to be be good, useful, and safe. How long would they be in business if their wheat caused cancer or some other negative effect? Remember in the 50s and 60s they thought we were all supposed to be starving and eating Soylent Green by now. It was only from the advances from the Green Revolution that we have been able to continue to feed an ever growing world.
5 Likes
That’s the spirit! I like you!
1 Like
Nothing makes someone’s argument look worse than simply making stuff up.
Exaggerating the (true) fact that farmers in developing countries are prohibited from saving seeds from IP-protected species, and saying instead that “it’s illegal for farmers to save seeds” is simply poor rhetoric, as it makes everyone assume that everything you say is hyperbole.
5 Likes
Forced labeling has significant consequences.
One is free speech. You should be able to say anything you want on a label as long as it does not involve fraud or deceit. If we must have exceptions let them be minimal and based upon independent scientific findings.
Another is a lack of trust in the political process. Remember, the basic seven, promoted by the USDA?
green and yellow vegetables, 1 or more servings.
oranges, tomatoes, grapefruit 1 or more servings.
potatoes and other vegetables and fruits 2 or more servings.
milk and milk products (children, 3 to 4 cups milk, adults, 2 or more cups).
meat, poultry, fish, or eggs 1 to 2 servings.
bread, flour, and cereals, every day.
butter and fortified margarine, every day.
It has never been easier to learn about our food yet the call is for the government to replace, and atrophy, our ablility to make decisions.
Yes, of course, but now with the accelerated pace GMO development, we’re entering uncharted territory. Humans have ~100,000 known antibodies; relatively few are characterized, so I don’t believe that GMO testing has any kind of realistic coverage against unforeseen immune responses. (Not to mention that no one will tell us exactly what test coverage they do have.) I’m not going to take my chances.
To be clear, I don’t believe in property destruction nor vandalism. And I don’t want to tell anyone how to live their lives nor tell them what they can or can’t eat. But I do think that GMO foods should be labeled appropriately, especially if recombinant dna manipulation is involved.
1 Like
Just like the new and improved Nuclear plants are the ones that get the political opposition while the old dirty waste-producing ones keep running. It’s madness.
The true madness is the USA not already having a federal “Manhattan Project” for alternative, more sustainable energy that doesn’t involve fossil fuels and nuclear. The “new and improved” nuclear is still far less sustainable than solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, etc. – Don’t believe the hype.
Responsible Nuclear would, however, be an excellent bridge, especially if we went with floating cities over sediment beds. The ocean would prefer us to dump some nuclear waste (responsibly) there than to continue using as many fossil fuels a we are, we’re killing it, and it can handle some nuclear waste far better.
Heck, it’s even done an eerily good job when we’ve done it irresponsibly.
Evolution takes place in all organisms day by day. In humans, in plants, in animals. It’s just not very obvious for the eye, unless you are ready to use microscopes and statistics.
Natural evolution means that organisms adapt to a change in the environment, then survive and replicate. Humans (and even animals) can help evolution in plants along by selecting, fertilizing and spreading those plants they prefer. These changes usually occur in the plants as slowly and gradually as in the environment, over many many years or even generations. Abrupt changes, like e.g. floods or volcano eruptions lead mostly to the erradication of plants, wildlife and even humans.
For GMO supporters, to equal the abrupt genetic change in a plant to a slow, gradual evolution of plants through selection, fertilization and spreading by humans is at least obfuscation, if not a blatant lie. And if someone spreads lies you won’t trust anything else he/she says. Then, if GMO foods are dominated by a very small number of huge companies, as it is now, and these companies use and abuse their financial powers in order to monopolize the food market, the general population has every reason to be alarmed and stop it.
There is no conclusive evidence that GMO foods are healthy or unhealthy, mainly because there have been no trustworthy studies of the long term effects. GMO foods may be perfectly OK, but we don’t know that; but we want to know, before we accept their widespread use.
I’d rather compare the abrupt change of a plant’s genome to an abrupt environmental change (like flood, volcano eruption), than to a gradual change as in natural (even if helped along by humans) evolution. The incidents where new GMO plants are tested for allergens and are rejected, are due to the fact that we know what we’re looking for. We can’t test for potentially dangerous ingredients that may be devastating (long term), if we don’t know yet what these are.
The current situation is like a gamble with unlimited risks and a very limited upside of higher crop yields.
2 Likes
I wondered why there were less cutting remarks. Well, fuck.
Generally via a monopoly or in times of crisis (war, hurricanes etc)
Or the models just got cold standing there naked for so long.
I’m sure there’s a name for the rhetorical fallacy of claiming those who disagree with your position are liars and shouldn’t be trusted at all. It must be some variant of ad hominem, but I’m not quite sure which.
1 Like
I read the magazine article - it didn’t mention hands, feet and/or noses.
Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet.
(They have big shoes.)
1 Like
