Genetic Modification

[Dododecapod]

GM foods are different from "naturally bred" foods in one way: they're safer.

When we make GM chimeras, companies are required to test them six ways from sunday, ensuring that no nasty side effects have crept in. On the other hand, if a farmer wants to "naturally" (HAH!) select for a specific trait (like cold resistance, or sweetness, or a richer colour fruit) and breed forth from that, he can sell his food with no special testing whatsoever.

So, consider two types of Wheat, both with a larger then normal head of grain. The GM one is perfectly documented, with every change from the "base genome" catalogued, tested, and approved. The "natural" (again, HAH!) one, on the other hand, has at least one, almost certainly many more, undocumented mutations, each doing who-knows-what to the food, and creating what enzymes and chemicals again? Oh yeah, we have no idea.

Give me GM every time.

[Cameroi]

the problem isn't whether or not they should be grown at all, or exparimented with at all.

the problem is with companies patenting them THEN trying to exclude and destroy nature,
and by doing so, putting all of us at just that much more degree of unrecouverable risk.

i wouldn't mind being genetically modified myself to live another 90 years, with fur and a tail,
if it would actually work. if we had enough knowledge to be able to know that i would then
function healthily for the remainder of that time, and that my, death, when it came, would be
relatively brief and painless.

but we don't even know things like that for sure yet, with what we're doing to the things we
depend on to have to eat.

[The Beautiful Darkness]

As a biologist working in a breeding program at the moment, I have to say, any objection to GM foods on health grounds is unfounded. To reject them on that basis when the benefits are so potentially huge is saddening.

[United Technocrats]

When something is new, it is always attractive because of its obvious positive effects. Consider the following...

Cocaine-containing medications







Opium-containing medications





Heroin-containing medications





Benzedrine (amphetamine) containing meds





I will not go into the story of Valium that was, until a few decades ago, considered completely safe and "not addictive" (like most other benzodiazepines), or the story of barbiturates, starting with Veronal... And that's just the psychoactive substances. There's also the story of aspirin use in children and Reye's syndrome, many teratogenic drugs (e.g. Thalidomide taken during pregnancy)... It's usually after a relatively long time that people realize that some stuff is not as safe as initially considered to be. The GM foods are an even greater danger, as these are not just something you take a bit of, from time to time -- this is something you ingest all the time, in large quantities, as food...

[Bottle]

The problem isn't with GM technology. It's with the patenting, and the corporate behavior regarding the GM foods. Which are, of course, a problem anyhow, and are equally dangerous in many other ways.

[Greed and Death]

Those who refuse to grow genetically modified foods should be arrested and their land distributed to those that will.

Those who refuse to eat genetically modified foods should be barred from restaurants government employment and only allowed in special stores.

[Allanea]

Amazing. It's common to have 4-5 types of apples at the really crappy local supermarkets next to my house, and there are bigger SMs where we generally go for the better choice of stuff (these are also conveniently outside of town and therefore allowed to sell non-kosher food).

Wait, do you live in Israel or something? That sounds shitty and backwards to say the least.

Yes to all three.

[Zeppy]

Those who refuse to grow genetically modified foods should be arrested and their land distributed to those that will.

Those who refuse to eat genetically modified foods should be barred from restaurants government employment and only allowed in special stores.

Sorry sir but in my opinion that is a stupid idea.

[United Technocrats]

There is one famous case of careless use of GM, the Japanese Showa Denko corporation, and its L-Tryptophan food supplement product...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa_Denko

<<In the late 1980s Showa Denko K.K. decided to change the method it used to produce tryptophan, from fermentation to the genetic engineering of bacteria. Bacteria were engineered to express certain enzymes at much higher levels than normal, and to express other enzymes not normally present in the original bacteria. Because the company had been producing an already existing product before its production was switched to genetic engineering, only standard substantial equivalence testing was required. The new tryptophan was placed on the market, and within a few months it caused the deaths of 37 people and caused 1500 more to be permanently disabled. Unfortunately the new tryptophan product was discovered to contain trace amounts of a toxic dimerisation tryptophan product which caused Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome.>>

I suppose, with all those willing volunteers, it's cheaper to put the stuff directly on the market. The research would then just be a follow-up of the state of their health (and that of their children) including any DNA alterations. I support this approach, as it's faster and cheaper than lab tests, and it is also more ethical to use willing human volunteers than to brutalize unwilling animals. I would just ask for the producers to clearly mark all the GM foods with big, visible signs, and that's it.

[JarVik]

I'm going to take a random guess and say you have cooking as a hobby?

I wouldn't call it a hobby, but I like good food, so it's a necessity.

I've been cooking (a little bit!) for myself and sometimes for Rejistania (when she visits). I've never cooked anything that requires a specific type of potato and I suspect neither have most people.

What I'm going to do with the potatoes affects which ones I buy given appropriate selection at the store, but it's not going break things not to have the right type.

[JarVik]

On the topic of GM foods/crops, I don't have an objection if things are done carefully, sensibly, and I do not approve of "sucide genes" being introduced as a patent protection mechanisim nor the concentration of gene line control in a few select hands. Monopolistic controls are going to be bad in the long run.

[JuNii]

while I'm no expert, I don't have any problem with GM foods.

but I know other countries may have issues. I remember a Nightline report where a province in Africa has a storehouse filled with grain from the US that the government refuses to distribute to the people because the grain was genetically modified.

[Tech-gnosis]

On the topic of GM foods/crops, I don't have an objection if things are done carefully, sensibly, and I do not approve of "sucide genes" being introduced as a patent protection mechanisim nor the concentration of gene line control in a few select hands. Monopolistic controls are going to be bad in the long run.

Suicide genes make it so the plant can't interbreed with wild plants and possibly run amuck. Also, in the long run the patent protection ends and it enters the public domain.

[Pevisopolis]

*walks into thread*

On the topic of GM foods/crops, I don't have an objection if things are done carefully, sensibly, and I do not approve of "sucide genes" being introduced as a patent protection mechanisim nor the concentration of gene line control in a few select hands. Monopolistic controls are going to be bad in the long run.

Suicide genes make it so the plant can't interbreed with wild plants and possibly run amuck. Also, in the long run the patent protection ends and it enters the public domain.

Ah... What? Might I ask for an explanation on "Suicide Genes"? i.e., what they are?

[Tech-gnosis]

Ah... What? Might I ask for an explanation on "Suicide Genes"? i.e., what they are?

Suicide genes make it so the plant can't produce fertile seeds

[Pevisopolis]

Ah... What? Might I ask for an explanation on "Suicide Genes"? i.e., what they are?

Suicide genes make it so the plant can't produce fertile seeds

In agriculture, considering that fertile seeds are entirely necessary, what is the point of suicide genes?

[EvilDarkMagicians]

Those who refuse to grow genetically modified foods should be arrested and their land distributed to those that will.

Those who refuse to eat genetically modified foods should be barred from restaurants government employment and only allowed in special stores.

[Tech-gnosis]

In agriculture, considering that fertile seeds are entirely necessary, what is the point of suicide genes?

Largely its so farmers have to buy more seeds every year from the company that produced the GM seeds. Note though that this is not as scummy as it seems since these farmers usually have already signed contracts that they won't produce plant fertile seeds. This just makes that impossible.

[Pevisopolis]

In agriculture, considering that fertile seeds are entirely necessary, what is the point of suicide genes?

Largely its so farmers have to buy more seeds every year from the company that produced the GM seeds. Note though that this is not as scummy as it seems since these farmers usually have already signed contracts that they won't produce plant fertile seeds. This just makes that impossible.

That's Capitalism for ya'

I really should make this into a Meme.