Dan: that Canola farmer in Canada got screwed in court.

I once had my motorcycle down wind of a bridge whose frame was being painted. The paint drifted and small specks landed on my bike. Should the paint company feel they were wronged for their paint being displayed on my bike? I don't think so. How the Canadian court came up with this verdict is way beyond me, what a horrible precedent. And I don't have any viceral opinions otherwise about GMOs, just the court. I do believe the claimant was full of poop for bringing the case to court but it should have been chucked out in the beginning.

the canadian farmer had to be an example of, don't take on
g'day dan

the gov' backed GMO companies if they finger you, you are automaticaly guilty and just pay the penalty, they lord supreme. they learnt lots from the tobacco and breast implant litigations.

and as for identifying problems caused in human health? that can never happen as none of this was ever been human trialled to create the parameters needed to say "here is a problem", they just go along with a some test tubing and say it's healthy eat it.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

"The real threat is when the first person is discovered to harbour the patented genes"

Hey cool, I won't have to wear all that protective gear when I spray!

Lloyd

organicdan asked "Can GE pollution be stopped?"

Once a new organism is released there's little way of reeling it back in. Eventually in my opinion we'll probably see some huge problems with GM products. There just isn't enough if any real world testing.

Two things.

1) Not all herbicides are equal, even if we are spraying more tonnage if we are spraying on less long-lived chemicals then there will be less in the environment.

2) By working up so much energy against GMO's we prevented them from finding a market in direct to consumer sales, so many of the GMO's that might have been (like sweeter veggies and plants with higher protein content and interesting new flavors) never were, so the only market is the industrial one.

There is no optional herbicide for Roundup-Ready GM crops.

"direct to consumer sales" - any product on the shelf or in the cooler that contains a corn, cotton or canola ingredient is GM contaminated. There is no separation of the GM crops nor any identifying GMO labelling.

If you want better crops then improve the soil management and grow heirloom crops. The hybrids are losing the desired qualities in quest for the shipping and storage qualities.

"If you want better crops then improve the soil management and grow heirloom crops."

Dan: do you mean classical plant breeding should not be used, are you opposed to breeding new non-GMO hybrids?

Classical breeding with the intent of improving shippability and storage is at the expense of nutrition and flavour qualities. There is a decline in trace elements and vitamins.

"SHARP DECLINE OF NUTRITIENTS IN OUR DAILY FOOD"

Any shopper will attest to the lack of flavour and texture in most of the produce on store shelves. There is a strengthening trend towards home gardening with hope to find the values not in stores.

Sure there a few good hybrids but you cannot save the seed nor rely on the breeders to repeat last year's hybrid; few hybrids remain in catalogues for more than 4-5 years.

Hybrids serve their purpose for mid to large farms and also in small farms and gardens for those who want to grow them.

I like to grow heirlooms and hybrids. Somethings I save seed from but most I have not.

I could be wrong but I think there are many hybrids that have been around for more than 4-5 years

Know what you are eat: "Non-GMO & GMO Brands"

These are just the processed food. Imagine what is put into your fastfood menu.

"There is no optional herbicide for Roundup-Ready GM crops." What does this even mean? I'm pretty sure that the RR gene breaks down Glyphosate, with out glyphosate the plant would probably grow normally. Anyways even if it were needed I think it would be a non-sequeter to my argument.

"direct to consumer sales" - any product on the shelf or in the cooler that contains a corn, cotton or canola ingredient is GM contaminated. There is no separation of the GM crops nor any identifying GMO labelling. I didn't say that the food didn't make it to consumers, but it makes it through the industrial food chain, it is rarely labeled as GMO and sold for a premium, as it probably should be.

If you want better crops then improve the soil management and grow heirloom crops. The hybrids are losing the desired qualities in quest for the shipping and storage qualities. The fact that they are responding to those selective pressures doesn't mean that they cannot respond to others.

I actually try to avoid buying brands that say Non-GMO. I have quite a bit of biology and know exactly what goes into making a GMO, having made a few myself recently (nothing for money or that ever made it out into the world). New untested strains of plant and animal are developed every instant of every day and have for billions of years. There is literally NO rational reason to assume that a GMO is any more likely to do you harm than a natural one off mutation that springs up on its own. Now if they were splicing bo-tox into corn or ricin into pinto beans it would be a different story, but they aren't. They aren't putting any proteins into plants that they don't already know to be safe on their own, all that leaves in protein interactions, and if you have ever studied protein interactions you know that the 3 dimensional lock and key pattern that you need to have is massively complex and only likely with repeated iterations of your attempt (like with evolution) or with some powerful computation before hand to find a match.

Brendan, The "NO rational reason" makes as much sense as "substanially equivelant."

Nature has placed barriers to cross-species genetic crossing. Introduction of a foreign gene is messing with the recipe. Can you guarentee that there is not a new protein, emzyne or amino acid created? If a gene is piggy-back to allow entry into a unrelated species what is to prevent uncontrolled entry into other species after release from the lab?

If a GMO corn now expresses its own toxin against a pest will that toxin not also be present when humans or animals consume it?

Since you are into the GMO field, do you test for NEW toxins, proteins or genetic transfer by consumption?

So you think nature was made to keep us safe? Because that is completely backwards, we evolved to adapt to survive in the environment. There is natural horizontal genetic transfer among plants in many cases, it probably happens at a higher rate than the artificial transfer, we just don't find and take care of the naturally occurring ones. Who exactly brought up "Substantially equivelant"? Is that a reference to something?

The chances of a gene successfully piggybacking with a target gene are roughly 1/10^19 (about 30 base pairs to a primer, need at least 25 to match to have any percentage work, then you have about 15 cycles where your "piggybacker" needs to be chosen preferentially to your target site, to be fair the 1/2 chances on the 15 or so cycles would probably be lower than 1/2 and the 1/4 chance of any given base pair would probably be a bit higher, because the four nucleic acids are never found in the exact same ratio, its typically between 19 and 31% for any given base). What prevents the gene from getting away outside of the lab is the lack of equipment and reagent in the environment. Yes some genes can make it through the natural way, but again we aren't choosing toxins that affect humans, so there is no reason to think that a gene in corn from pigweed will affect milkweed any more than a gene in corn from corn. The lab techniques require equipment that is never found in nature.

As for toxins against pests and against humans ... they will be in the plant. But a toxin you spray on the plant will probably be there in higher quantities. Potentially we can produce toxins in just the parts that are attacked, for instance we could produce a toxin in the stems of squash to quash SVB. However thus far we have been sticking to toxins that aren't toxic to humans, Bt for instance, binds specifically to a protein in the digestive tract of lepodoptera, humans have been spraying the whole bacteria on veggies for years and years with no problem.

I am a student, and haven't made anything worth testing, but yes they do test on animals, and sometimes they test poorly (Jules Dervase talks about a test done on rats with tomatoes and how the rats wouldn't eat them ... neglecting to mention that the rats wouldn't eat any tomatoes GMO or non).

For me the worst cases are things like golden rice, they simply moved some genes from one edible plant to another but had a huge push back, had they been successful they probably would have prevented nearly 250,000 children each year from going blind. Since it was ready to be distributed globally 8 years ago that is 2 million children.

had they been successful they probably would have prevented nearly 250,000 children each year from going blind.

This is a claim I would really appreciate some links on. I would very much like to research this on my own, but would appreciate a gentle nudge in the right direction.

"The Golden Rice Hoax"

GMOs are but another means of corporate control of our food supply. GMO soybean has already increased in price by 100% in four years. At the same time there is increased sales in herbicides.

A supplementary income is GMO pollution of non-GMO crops in fields adjacent to GMO crops/trials.

"Everything You Never Wanted to Know About
Monsanto's Modus Operandi (M.O.)"

This is just the biggest multinational.

Vit A deficiency on wikipedia The golden rice link does not work.

The business practices of monsanto are ridiculously evil, however that is kind of like demonizing trains because of what Hitler did with them. It is called the genetic fallacy and doesn't mean anything more than sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting.