Bye bye Monsanto ... don't let the door hit you on the way out
by Simon 25 Replies latest social current
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RAYZORBLADE
Thanks Megadude, seawolf and jgnat.
Great links!
Jgnat, wasn't there a case of some GM canola that got out of it's designated test zone, and infiltrated a farm in either Alberta or Saskatchewan. Caused horrendous problems.
There was an excellent CBC "Fifth Estate" program on GM foods/Monsanto and other companies.
Scary stuff. Frankenfoods , indeed.
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donkey
Resistance is futile...GM food will be assimilated by all - there is no getting around it.
It will either be by choice or it will occur by having the "pollutant foods" mixed with our "good" food.
On a further note GM food will someday be used as a tool to conduct bio-terrorism....
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Simon
Why is it ineveitable?
It's will only happen when people sit back and accept things and are 'good little people who do as they are told'.
I guess Europeans are not good little people as they have kicked it into touch.
Quite rightly, people have woken up to how important what we eat is.
Do we really want food that's been engineered to make someone more money but that will have unforseen side effects on our own health and proven negative effects on the environment.
Do we want to eat cows that have been fed on dead sheep?
No ... we want proper food.
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DakotaRed
Don't let multinationals think they can tell us what to do
I totally agree. Now, if we can get Daimler the hell out of Chrysler Corp.
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donkey
Simon,
You are farting against thunder.
Many things have started out and been harmful but then later they are refined and gain broad acceptance. It will happen, by consent or by deceipt. I am not trying to be argumentative - I just see a realistic acceptance of this in the future.
I agree that we should protest against harmful food. But they will get the processes under control. Will you argue against GM food once it is proved beneficial (assume for the sake of you answer that it will be and then think of your answer).
Genetic engineering is in its infancy, there will be mistakes - just like other scientific fields. But consider that anti-biotics are becoming useless over time...science is now returning to techniques that we started pioneering prior to the advent of the anti-biotic: PHAGES. Phages are going to play a large part in medicine. Here too we will make mistakes - I can point to some already - but many times progress needs failure to achieve success. Will you also refuse phage-treatment in the future?
Donkey - the dissident
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donkey
GM crops are now being grown either in field trials or on a commercial scale in over 40 countries including Nicaragua, Honduras, Swaziland and Vietnam. In Europe commercial growing of GM Bt maize is already underway in Spain, France and Germany.
One of the key benefits of GM - the massive reduction of pesticides!! I hope we will all be protesting the use of pesticides on our food....our "good" food is full of pesticides (in the UK also). Organic farming is aimed at reducing pesticides in "good" food. Organic farming aims for ?safe, sustainable farming systems, producing healthy crops and livestock without damage to the environment?. Organic farming relies heavily on crop rotation and the incorporation of recycled organic material (animal and so-called ?green? manures). A very limited number of simple chemical and naturally occuring pesticides are also permitted under limited circumstances. Organic is a term defined by EU law and in the UK all organic food production is governed by a strict set of rules laid down by the UK Register of Organic Food Standards. FYI...in the UK organic farming accounts for less than 0.7% of arable land!!!
GM crops offer benfits such as increased yields, reduced pesticide usage, ease of handling, reduced erosion, energy saving and a possiblity to feed the starving masses in places where food is scarce. Unfotunately idiots like Thabo MBecki declined to use the crops...preferring to let people die of starvation.
If there are millions of tons of GM food....and a country like Ethiopia is undergoing famine like they did 15 years ago - would we be against giving them the food?
Donkey
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Phantom Stranger
Well, I haven't seen anything proven yet...I think that the concern in this area is that the concerns are being dismissed out-of-hand.
The other day I saw that gene therapy which saved two French boy's lives also caused bone marrow cancer in both of them, which was successfully treated. Another example of unintended consequences, to be sure.
From another thread (but I think it applies):
...but the risk vs the reward is pretty simple. If we decide to play it safe, all it costs is money. If we don't play it safe and we're wrong about that decision, we don't get to hit "Undo" - many of those costs are irreversible.
Remember the "green revolution" of the 70's? That was supposed to feed everyone. The problems of feeding the world are political and economic, not in agricultural technology.
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donkey
The French boys...OK, thats the media playing up on fear!! The media makes money on fear - talk about money grabbing richard-heads!!!
Look at what happened: The 2 boys were 2 out of a group of 11 kids who inherited a disorder called "severe combined immune deficiency" (SCID) also known as "bubble boy disease". SCID patients have fairly high mortality rates - so the choice was SCID or "the new thing". In the case of the two boys who got leukemia the researchers found that the manipulated cells also turned on a gene that caused the disease.
The other 9 boys have been cured of SCID. The 2 boys who developed leukemia were cured of SCID and treated for the leukemia - and are now considered healthy.
As someone who appreciates the benefits of science I cannot bear to see progress stopped because of fear. True we need caution and control - not the wanton panic and Salem like mentality though. Let us not demonize things because they are new, because we don't understand the science or have not studied it fully enough. Instead of rejecting the new science - let's spend more money on it and perfect it.
In those cases where people have a high probability of dying anyway and we can give them food or medical treatment - I say lets give it to them. If I was in their situation I would want it.
Donkey