Good question but that is not quite right. The concern over Terminator is that it would replicate, i.e. spread like some other genes from GM crops have done, and then could result in a loss of reproductive capacity of other crops. So it is the same point. Whether it would happen or not who knows, but that is the concern.
Except terminator uses a system which means that any seed which gets the gene construct would be sterile. The seed would still be produced, but would not germinate. So no yield loss, no transfer, no muss, no fuss.
And if you think that the idea of not being able to use stored seed for a new season is bad, then you are living waaay behind the times: hybrid crops have this built in due to reassortment.
As for âspreadingâ from other GM crops, some examples would be nice. The only one I can think of consisted of a farmer intentionally replanting old seed and then spraying it with roundup to enrich for seeds that had gotten some GM pollen from a nearby field (for which he was sued). In any case, the risk depends on the crop: maize can only transfer to teosinte (which only grows in Mexico) and then only if it is within 1km or less, the flowing times coincide, the wind is in the right direction etc.
Where I work there was a concern that a GM sorghum crop under development might cross-pollinate with wild sorghum and the project working on it was shot down. It was kind of a pity, then, that the only thing that would have gone across were genes for enriching beta-carotene levels (sound familiar?).
This is completely irrelevant. Thatâs not even an argument.
Maybe consider actually looking for information and sources, instead of cheap ad hominems when people prove you are not even wrong. You keep talking about hubris and arrogance, yet you start talking with next to zero knowledge of an issue, and from your privilege, concern driving trollies about golden rice. Of course I get very riled up. Because this is good technology that could help people, that lack of access to this technology is actually making life more difficult for hundred of thousands of people. because people go damn blind when they lack beta carotene. How the hell am I not supposed to to be riled up when I see more innuendo and ignorant arguments written here, when I know that all this FUD will just make more difficult for the technology to reach those who need it the most?
So, I guess all those yield increases after the green revolution in India were because something not related to better varieties of wheat. India just got more equalâŚ
What is the solution? Please enlighten me. Because I have been hearing this crap argument for years, I have read it in books written before I was born. There is enough money and resources to eradicate poverty. It has not happened. When will it happen? GOlden Rice and other technologies could help people until that day comes. But no, we must be prevented of touching such dangerous things, we need to wait until the Nice Kind White Rich people get their act together and convince their govt that they should feed us. Of course, if we become dependent and then the govt changes, or the Nice Kind Rich White people loses interest, we are screwed. You have had decades to solve this problem, yet you have achieved very little. Why should we keep waiting, why shoul people keep suffering and dying? No. Farmers and scientists of the developing world need better tools and better crops, and they should be making them themselves.
" In many of the poor rice-growing areas of the world people are victimized by the commodification of rice and the cartel-like results of world capital keeping the price for the crop artificially low (as one example, US government subsidies driving prices down below cost of production)."
Thatâs part of the problem, indeed. But not all. Bad crops and plagues also hurt a lot. It is absurd to claim it doesnât.
âAnd despite your funny ad hominem, rather than being fat on my cozy chair these are communities I have visited and know people living this life. Perhaps you do too - unlike you I wonât make assumptions about you.â
Itâs not an ad hominem. And I did never say fat. If you are going to quote me, do it accurately. I said âwell fedâ, which a vast majority of people in the West are. Are you not well fed? Are you hungry because you lack resources to buy food? I doubt it. I will apologize if you tell me thatâs the case. And I assume you are sited typing to write this. Maybe you are on the subway, from your smartphone. It does not change that your basic needs are covered, and from that position itâs easy to tell others âstop. No more.â. Itâs just another version of âI got mine, fuck youâ. When you just come here to make a claim without even bothering to check the amount of beta carotene of golden rice, it tells me you do not really care, you just care about saying no to GMO, whatever argument you find is good.
Why you single out GM crops, yet you say nothing of crops that have been mutated with chemicals and even radiation? You cannot recall those either. And nobody seems to care.
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I am sorry you are so angry. Good luck with everything.
No arguments, just pointless platitudes.
of course, you are not the one who is going to suffer the effects of your FUD.
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Again, sorry for your anger. It is kind of sad.
Thanks for the link. Although I did not read the entire column yet, the labeling proposed by Mr. Savage in his opening paragraphs would entirely satisfy me.
In re: your PS - I envision the labeling process working exactly as the existing labeling processes work. If a product contains or may contain GMOs (without quibbling over what that means - thatâs just another strawman argument) it should show that on the label, just like Campbellâs soup lists sodium and carrots. The text should be no smaller than the text used for the ingredient list or the nutritional information, but need be no larger.
Sensible people want to be able to inform themselves, and amoral antihuman corporations want to deny them the ability to do so by making information as incomprehensible and/or inaccessible as possible. Pick your side.
You make multiple unsupported claims. My own experience is that the vast majority of scientists support sensible labeling of all products intended for human consumption, and Iâd love to see your evidence to the contrary. But havenât you loudly proclaimed your expertise in genetics in BB threads in the past? That does not jibe with your purported objectivity.
If I am mistaken, and you are not the person I remember, I apologize for the ad hominus. Whenever the discussion board technology is changed mistaken identities will happen.
I wish you were sorry for your intentional spreading of half truths and FUD. But of course, that would require some self awareness instead of pointing fingers.
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Thanks. I am enjoying the exchange.
About Terminator this seems like a nice overview. Definitely not anti-GMO - in fact she lists the risks as mainly to a destruction of neighboring crops that would then not replicate, and considers the likelihood of further problems down the generations unlikely. But not zero. So there you go - it is a judgment call / benefit vs risk determination which is inherently subjective.
terminator article
About saving seed: you are right in so far as commercialized crops but there are still many many farmers who save seeds, in this country but even more so in poorer nations. One of the challenges with GMO crops is not the GM itself but rather our IP laws, and the courts have shown themselves to be willing to entertain the idea that a farmer who has his/her crops contaminated with modified genes may not âownâ it any longer and may be violating IP laws by saving seed. It is obscene, really and I am guessing from what you have written that you would probably agree. This is one reason so many poor farmers oppose GMOs - I am not saying all of them do. But this is a mixed bag not a black and white issue like some (not you) are trying to characterize it as.
Anyway that does get to your other point, about contamination. There are various resources out there but you could look at this: transgene wandering Again I am very deliberately sending you a link to a paper that is decidedly not anti-GMO.
Whatâs so scary about GMOs?
Well a new study links Mansantos GM corn to organ damage in rats.
http://www.ijbs.com/v05p0706.htm
Perfect sample of how reckless Mansanto and its piers have been in releasing these exotic (now common) organisms into the marketplace.
Except, as I have now explained, âGMOâ means precisely squat in terms of informing customers of anything. Itâs like a label on you car saying âconstructed using robot labourâ except with an anti-robot campaign trying to push it through.
Look, GMO advocates claim itâs unfair to characterize them based on the proven amoral perfidy of Monsanto, but you are perfectly willing to characterize a rational request for labeling by people who donât oppose GMOs simply because anti-GMO people want labeling too. You sound like a total shill when you do that. Address my points, which you completely ignored, instead of assigning me an imaginary role in a secret anti-GMO conspiracy lobby.
And donât try to shift the ground by saying itâs impossible for a regulatory body to characterize ingredients as ânon-GMOâ or âGMOâ. The many proponents of GMOs who do not oppose labeling say thatâs nonsense, since these ingredients are already tested and regulated by the FDA, USDA and EPA. Again, you destroy your own argument when you do that, since to any rational reader that argument sounds like self-evident corporate shilling. It reads like an attempt to shift the entire argument into quibbling over minutiae.
Edit: Also, I have no objection to cars being labeled âconstructed using robot laborâ. But it would serve no real scientific purpose; the only point would be to allow consumers to âvote with their walletsâ for car companies that employ humans.
This problem, of IP being attached to biology, is not confined to GMOs. Hybrids, mutagenesis lines and fall under the exact same umbrella, with marker and PCR-based testing allowing valid legal actions to be taken. As to how heinous this is, I am all for IP protection as long as it is reasonable in scope. If you, as a plant breeder, have your work stolen then it is just as bad as if you, as a large multinational, have your patents infringed. Even so, Iâd want to provide exemptions for government seed programs - by fiat if necessary. Iâd also want to carefully construct the regulatory framework for all crop development, such that small breeders and large multi-corps are on a more even footing when brining a new strain to market.
Regarding your point about contamination - you will notice that in the abstract it baldly states that it is not a concern for current transgenics, but has happened to âconventionalâ crops in the past. As Iâve stated before, Iâm all for being non-hypocritical and treating things on a case-by-case basis. Transgene escape has exactly the same issues as gene escape and requires exactly the same approaches in terms of mitigation.
Your link goes to a small journal, with no articles even remotely related to your claims.
Try again.
Youâre arguing against straw.
My argument is no more or less than this: that GM is a suite of technologies.
These can be used to put genes into/take genes out of organisms in a relatively targeted manner, including some (ZFN or TALEN-based site-directed homologous recombination are the hot favourites right now) which work with perfect accuracy. So GM can put in benign genes, harmful genes, genes from related species and genes from distant species. GM could even put in genes that have never existed before.
In this, GM is like any other technology - morally neutral. What determines whether there are any issues to consider regarding public safety is not the technology of genetic modification. It is what the modification consists of.
If you absolutely have to have labelling, then label the genes. Create a database or guide on what the labels mean, put it in the public sphere and let people decide based on what is actually relevant
To simply push for labelling something as a GMO gives no useful information and makes you sound like youâre more interested in scare tactics than actual public good.
One last point: I find it darkly hilarious that, for all that anyone talking about GMOs sans the obligatory denouncement gets labelled a shill (thanks for that, btw), the other folks who stand to gain the most from this whole never-ending circus are environmental PR firms. By which I mean greenpeace and their ilk.
The system we currently have; of ten-year field trials capped off by destructive vandalism, may as well have been designed by large agribusinesses and environmental activism NGOs. It keeps the costs of development sky high, forcing almost everyone to either join the multinationals or lean on them for support. And it gives green corp a never-ending crusade to go on, a fight against a term that has no end-point because it can morph to include every new agricultural development from now till the end of time.
It ranks up there with food aid as one of those self-perpetuating circle-jerks whose only real result seems to be profitable stalemate for both sides and bugger-all for the poor. It makes me wish that reincarnation was true, so that Norman Borlaug could come into this world again, power through our collective hate and apathy and actually make the world a better place. Sadly, I fear that we shall not see his like again.
That is fine with me. Itâs labeling, which is what sensible people want. The point is to have the information on the can. A link to a useable database is fine.
To blanketly oppose labeling is to purposely restrict information from consumers and scientists and makes you sound like youâre more interested in corporate profits than actual public good.
I believe I said your arguments make you sound like a shill, with the intent of helping you make better arguments.
I personally try to make the world a better place every day. Sometimes I do not succeed.
Gotta be the fangs
