stone wrote:
I have never done anything with GMO plants but I do work in biomedical science and genetically engineer bacteria and fish a lot (they never leave the lab except in an incineration bin/bleach).
Thank you for letting us know.
Trying to do biology without using genetic engineering would be like trying to do astronomy without using a telescope.
If the telescopes could, on their own accord, lift off from Earth, travel to distant galaxies, pick up stuff (living or not) and bring it back to Earth from those galaxies, yes, I could accept this analogy; otherwise it does not fit. Fortunately telescopes cannot do any of this without the actions of humans, at least not based on current scientific knowledge and technology. We have control over telescopes. If one malfunctions, we just turn it off and fix it and whatever bad data it generated. The harm a bad one might do is limited in scope.
The same cannot be said for GMOs used in the food supply. Their pollens travel on the wind to unsuspecting farms and contaminate the gene pools of agricultural products. Whatever toxin replicated in every cell of the GMO travels with it--including into the bodily systems of the animals (regardless of the social classifications scheme we use for the animals--game, livestock, wild animals, pets, people) that consume or otherwise encounter them.
They were released onto the unsuspecting public, particularly in the Americas, without adequate long-term testing, without a way to evaluate any future problems they might bring. Despite spending lots of wealth for health care, Americans (United States) are now the sickest people among "advanced" industrialized countries, with working-class/under-class Brits having better health profiles than uber-wealthy American corporate chieftains, who exercise, de-stress, and do everything else "right" for their health. American children are gradually becoming sick to one degree or another, to the point where researchers expect the newer generations will be the first to not outlive their parents. And Americans have frighteningly high infant mortality rates. Who knows whether or not edible GMOs have anything to do with this--there is evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, that GMOs might be implicated. The questions are worthy of genuine scientific exploration.
The notion that nutrition plays a role in ill health has increasingly become standard, and treating chronic diseases of all types--arthritis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes I and II, thyroid diseases, osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, Crohn's disease, allergies/food sensitivities, infertility, celiac disease, to name a few, requires the patients to be careful about what they're eating and drinking. It's a sad state of affairs that Americans have no choice over whether or not we know what's in the bag or box we're considering. Europeans do; we should have the same rights as theirs.
The first uses of internal combustion engines or electricity were pretty useless.
IMO, GMO technology used in food is still in that "first use" phase.
And subsequent versions and uses of the internal combustion engine have proven problematic in all sorts of unforseen ways, but at least (in theory) we can stop using them. It's not clear whether or not we can "stop" a particular GMO unleashed in food, even if we stop producing the seeds and burn up all the remaining seeds, crops, and processed foods associated with them.
Had these companies limited their use of GMO technology purely to non-food activities there would still be issues, but not as big an outcry. There were GM bacteria eating oil spills back in the early 1980s (or was that the 1970s?). There are also GMO-produced versions of hormones--insulin and human growth hormone, HGH, come to mind--that truly did solve problems associated with natural versions of those pharmaceuticals, like allergic reactions from animal-derived insulin, and HGH unknowingly harvested from people with CJD. (No good thing is without consequence; now that HGH is more readily available, otherwise healthy people now take it to buff up and potentially give their bodies an opportunity to become diabetic or to grow cancer like never before.)
At a minimum there should have been 10 to 20 years of human feeding studies before any GMOs used as food were released onto the public. Fifty to seventy years--enough time to see whether there were any effects in grandchildren of the initial eaters--would have been better.
GMOs used as food was a prematurely implemented technology with hidden and obvious dangers. The potential monetary gains looked good, but the negatives of the externalities are massive. What we have now is a human mass experiment inflicted on an unknowing public. They were released purely for monetary gain, by cronies of Monsanto et al in the Bush I/Clinton administrations, with lots of propaganda about solving the problems of feeding an expanding world population used to launch them. They need to be withdrawn until such time that they are proven safe. In the meantime people need to know if GMOs are in the food they eat and feed their children, so they can make their own decisions about them.
[/align]
[/align]
[/align]
