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back to article GM crops are good for you and the planet, reckon boffins

In a rebuke to environmental activists worldwide, the biggest scientific metastudy yet conducted of genetically modified foods has concluded they’re good for human health and the environment. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an advisory body of scientists, found no evidence of risks over …

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  1. Hilmi Al-kindy

    When electricity was first introduced....

    My high-school maths teach told me he came to Oman back when the electric grid was just starting to become available. He says back then there was a big discussion whether it was sinful to have electric lights in a mosque. People are always afraid of what they don't understand, people are even more afraid of change, they assume anything new is going to rock the boat and nobody likes to rock the boat.

    Activists are the worst, they are mostly people who stand behind a cause as a matter of principal and many of them have no true understanding of what they are campaigning for. Be it religious activists, green peace or political activists.

    I have a disclaimer to add to my opinion, that not all activists are equal, it's just the ones who are most vocal who are usually blinded by their opinions

    43 5 Reply
    1. David Nash Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      Yes, it's the same with people who think they are sensitive to EM radiation or wind turbines.

      I have heard it said that the same techno-fear happened when ball-point pens were invented. Although maybe that was an exaggeration!

      15 4 Reply
      1. itzman
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        Well if you dont think you are sensitive to EM radiation, go and lie naked on a beach in the carribean all day, or hang out for a week inside the containment thingy at Chernobyl. and if you dont think you are sensitive to wind turbines, go and live within 100m of one.

        It is manifestly a matter of degree, and shame on you for using such crude politically biased binary logic in a world which has many shades of grey. GM crops are different. That's the WHOLE point. And they may indeed represent some changes that are negative as well as positive. I happen to think they are overall probably a Good Thing, but that certainly doesn't mean I am in favour of stupid Windmills, which have far more negatives and no discernible positives.

        2 12 Reply
        1. DasBub
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          Re: When electricity was first introduced....

          Is it really you, Don Quixote?

          3 0 Reply
    2. blueprint
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      Maybe people just want to have a choice, and not have something stuffed down their throats by an unholy alliance of government and big business?

      The whole problem could be solved completely fairly by the Americans simply not objecting to GM foods being labelled as such. Now why do you think they don't want that?

      32 14 Reply
      1. Chemical Bob
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        "The whole problem could be solved completely fairly by the Americans simply not objecting to GM foods being labelled as such."

        Actually, we Americans do not object to labeling GM foods (at least 90% of us want to know what is in our food). What we object to is the unholy alliance of business interests making it illegal (through their bought and paid for congresscritters) to require GM foods to be labeled.

        5 2 Reply
      2. Brian Allan 1
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        Unfounded paranoia is likely

        0 0 Reply
      3. Jaybus
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        "The whole problem could be solved completely fairly by the Americans simply not objecting to GM foods being labelled as such. Now why do you think they don't want that?"

        Because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the American version of the fanatically green, anti-GM scaremonger is quite squeaky.

        0 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      Your post assumes there's complete scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs and those against are crackpots.

      Hint: There isn't and they're not.

      23 29 Reply
      1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        [citation required]

        i.e., please point me in the direction of a single credible scientist who agrees with your opinion.

        Nope? Crackpot it is then, sorry.

        23 10 Reply
        1. Sean Houlihane
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          Re: When electricity was first introduced....

          no, dangerous crackpot.

          0 0 Reply
        2. P. Lee
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          Re: When electricity was first introduced....

          Ah, the joy of cleverly designed terms of reference.

          Forget what could/might be done, what are the bulk of gm sales for? Is it pest-resistance or pesticide-resistance?

          If you could make un-ripe or over-ripe food look just right, would there be an economic incentive to do that?

          If you could make food absorb extra water to grow larger and heavier (but with no additional nutrient value) would you do that? Would that cause malnutrition?

          If you could dominate world wheat production like android and iOS dominate smart phones, what would that do for wheat genetics?

          Why were Monsanto trying to sell protein-enriched potatoes in India- the land of lentils?

          So much money, so much scope for irreversible lethal badness followed by "it isn't our fault. It isn't our job to regulate the industry."

          Tobacco was thought to improve health when it was introduced too.

          We don't have a world food shortage. We have a lack of desire to help those in need, and gm does nothing to fix that. Putting more power in the hands of large corporations has rarely been a solution to anything. It's neither needed nor desirable.

          3 0 Reply
      2. Hilmi Al-kindy
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        We have mostly organic farming here due to having a stagnant ministry of agriculture. Our lime farming industry has been decimated by disease, our banana plantations are dieing out and our national crop of dates is being threatened by a bug that kills the palm trees. I'm all for GMO if it will keep our farming industry alive

        9 1 Reply
      3. Al Black
        Reply Icon

        Re: When electricity was first introduced....

        There is and they are.

        0 0 Reply
    4. John Lilburne
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      They would have had better environmentalist response if the first GMO had been drought resistant and not designed to require the seed company's fertilizers, pesticides, and where the seeds were infertile so that farmers couldn't put aside some of the crop for sowing the following year.

      As it was the impression was that these new organisms were designed for the profits of the petro-chemical industry not 3rd world farmers.

      44 4 Reply
      1. Stevie
        Reply Icon

        Re:where the seeds were infertile (4 John Lilburne)

        The irradiation to render the seeds infertile is a separate issue to that of the heath threat posed by "frankenfoods".

        The one is s bunch of FUD put about by people who have nothing to back up their claim, the other is a practice to protect patent that has been carried rather too far for most people's taste.

        Pick your battlefield and fight a war on a single front. We all know what happens if you don't. Dick Cheney ends up on Fox News telling everyone they must stay the course and how there are secret cabals of domestic seed cartels waiting to Destroy America.

        1 0 Reply
    5. Triggerfish
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      Actually I think there's also just a general ignorance*, there's a lot of people who look at things in a very shallow manner and take it as gospel. Genuine conversations I had this year with people I normally count as intelligent.

      1. Panspermia theory - apparently disproves evolution (yes I know it's more likely bacteria clinging to the side of a comet rather than neaderthals don't point it out to me), or possibly aliens. Justification for this reasoning... "I read it on a website, I don't really know anything about this, but it sounds plausible"

      2. There's stuff wrong with farming, (I believe read from a facebook post), when pushed for what exactly, the conversation went along the lines of well you should know it's obvious, when asked for actual details more prevacation, when I suggested possible things, "Yeah them you see you do know, don't know why you were asking me to justify it".

      Along the lines of the farming conversation as well, apparently global food supply chains, changing consumer habits, changing marketing and supermarkets pushing certain foods, issues with cash crop growing, water tables etc etc are not a big thing, it just needs sorting.

      Same people have said things like just going out into the jungle and living off the land should be easy enough don't know why we all can't do it. (I'm not sure I have ever seen them lighting something without a lighter btw). Seriously it should aparently be no bother to go up to a wild buffalo and get some milk from it....

      You can have the same conversations with anarchists, it's all very well smashing the state, who runs the hospitals, how do you get a kidney dialysis machine running. (apparently we will all club together and do it....fuck me).

      *Probably does not help with some of the press thats been about either.

      I'll agree there are intelligent protesters you can tell who they are they usually know what they are talking about in depth.

      7 1 Reply
    6. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      Yet gastrointestinal problems have never been higher. So excuse me if I don't jump headfirst into a brave new bath of GM wheat with a spoon, there might be long term effects of tinkering with plant and animal genomes that we don't understand. Well, there will be, because it's a new science - we only started selling GM plants for food in the mid 90s and GM animals last year.

      7 11 Reply
    7. Citizens untied
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      You are correct, but I do think it is fair to mention that many people are afraid of what the institutions may not understand. Unintended effects are just that - Global Warming anyone?

      Human life is not the only consideration, planet wide. We keep "improving" things to make them work within our flawed frameworks, the world doesn't have starving people in it, nor do we need to sacrifice technological progress because some people want to scale back our weird abstraction (economic value) to understand nature.

      The tension provided compelling proof of validity of claims (x is safe, y is beneficial to all) is invaluable in my opinion, and proof is worth waiting for.

      1 2 Reply
    8. AlexS
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      When electricity was introduced - was it patented? Did you accommodate for it's intellectual property rights?

      GM food supplies to become crackpot dealers?

      0 0 Reply
    9. nobodie
      Reply Icon

      Re: When electricity was first introduced....

      On the other side, I was young, but not too young to read, when the cigartette companies were publishjhing reports that claimed that cigarette smoking was good for your health. That the "cancer scare" was nothing more than bad science and that they had been studying the links between cancer and smoking for 20 years and could find no reliable data that showed either causation or correlation between smoking and cancer.

      It was these "studies" that kept cigarettes in the marketplace up through the 70s and into the 80s before even the mildest health warnings were required on packaging. I am a scientist, I believe in good reliable scientific study, but I also work at a research university and know too much about what goes on behind the closed doors of the grant propsal writers and the department heads who know what the customers want. (BTW, no, I won't name names, you think I'm stupid?)

      But truly, when the only work being done on this is coming through the people who have skin in the game, when there are no disinterested players on the field, well, I just can't get excited and want to support the "science" that is supposed to show us the safety of these products.

      1 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gene escape

    I oppose GM crops, but not because of the concerns addressed here, but because it is irresponsible to release artificially modifed genes into the environment.

    We have now idea what their effect will be and that is dangerous for our planet.

    24 48 Reply
    1. David Nash Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Gene escape

      What is the difference between "releasing" artificially modified genes into the environment, and releasing what you presumably would call "naturally" modified genes as has been done for thousands of years by selective breeding?

      46 8 Reply
      1. Boothy
        Reply Icon

        Re: Gene escape

        Or naturally occurring random mutations that happen anyway in all living organisms, and have done for billions of year?

        At least with GM, we are controlling the change, and do it in a lab first, and monitor the changes etc.

        With a random mutation, happening outside away from our control, who knows what could happen!

        15 7 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gene escape

        Selective breeding is not the same as introducing genes from entirely different species. The impact of such radical changes on a balanced ecosystem are difficult to assess and could very well be catastrophic.

        18 17 Reply
        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Gene escape

          Selective breeding is not the same as introducing genes from entirely different species.

          No, but horizontal gene transfer, as practised by nature is. In fact, this is exactly the (naturally occurring) method which is used in a targeted way to insert a new gene into an organism.

          Nature does this all the time in the form of retroviruses, and horizontal gene transfer is believed to be more prevalent than inherited gene transfer in some bacterial species. This isn't often beneficial; the transferred genetic material may sometimes lend the organism an advantage, but usually it has no effect, in which case it will eventually be lost again, or it has a negative effect, in which case the organism doesn't reproduce and pass it on. What we're talking about here is essentially how bacteria and other micro-organisms evolve. I'm assuming that you aren't one of those people who thinks evolution isn't a thing...

          There's no substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about.

          20 6 Reply
          1. Triggerfish
            Reply Icon

            Re: Gene escape @LC

            Sorry as one of those who doesn't know that much, and also is to lazy to google it and spend the afternoon bringing myself up to jargon. Is horizontal gene transfer, the mechanism were they might be able to assimilate dna from a different species? Seem to remember something about some test being done where they have put damaged DNA in a living organism from a different species and they found it can be read due to original shared history of DNA throughout organisms from when life first started?

            0 0 Reply
          2. Oh Homer
            Reply Icon
            Mushroom

            Re: "no substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about"

            The biotech industry would do well to take your advice, as apparently it remains wilfully ignorant ('There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans'), a position that has more in common with a cult religion than science. The cult religion in this case would appear to be corporate hegemony, or more bluntly, money. It certainly has nothing to do with scientific method.

            The standard "we've been doing it for thousands of years" gambit is deceptive propaganda that fails to elucidate the truth behind horizontal gene transfer, and your hand waving is just yet more sophistry to muddy the waters. Humans have not been splicing bacteria and animal genes with plants for "thousands of years", and your retrovirus example is like claiming that GMO is safe because plants get diseases. It's like using Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island as examples that prove nuclear energy is safe. You've just defeated your own argument.

            The fact that "it happens in nature too" belies the destructiveness of the "it" in question. This is like claiming that because people sometimes fall to their death from high buildings, it should therefore be acceptable to push people off high buildings, that such a practice must therefore be "safe" because it mimics a "natural" event, and indeed it's absolutely essential that we desperately pursue an agenda of pushing people off tall buildings, because ultimately it's good for you, "honest" (and coincidentally makes us lots of money).

            The fact that some people miraculously survive this horror, and may even go on to cure cancer, merely lends weight to the claim that "it's safe" and "it may even be beneficial", in the same way that Chernobyl rendering a 1000 square mile area of land uninhabitable by humans for 300 years is "beneficial" ... to the wildlife, apparently, but not to the third of a million people who had to be evacuated, nor to the 4000 people who died as a result of the accident.

            My argument is not that GMO is unsafe, it's that its safety has not been proven, and that exposing the ecosystem and the general public to something whose safety has not been proven is criminally irresponsible. Science should be conducted in the lab, not the grocery store.

            And yes, I'm quite aware of the fact that GMO produce has been in the food chain since the 70s. I'm also aware of the fact that there has been an exponential rise in food allergies and other mysterious disorders over that same time frame. Are the two related? Who knows? Not the wilfully ignorant biotech industry, certainly. It's rather difficult finding the correlation between cause and effect, if you never even make the attempt to look for it, and indeed go out of your way to block independent attempts to do so, with lobbying, unscientific rhetoric and character assassinations.

            Frankly I can't understand how any rational person could support something as blatantly unscientific and corrupt as the biotech industry. It has all the hallmarks of the tobacco industry. Have we learned nothing from history?

            16 6 Reply

          3. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. Chris G
              Reply Icon

              Re: Gene escape

              @ Symon; You illustrate one of my objections to GM crops and that is that most of the Monsanto and probably other crops are resistant to the biocides that those companies that are producing as well, so that they can sell notonly the GM seeds but also more of the same dangerous chemicals that they already sell. It would be better if the genetic modification was to make better pest resitant crops and do away with chemical pest control altogether. It would have been better to have found a bug free plant in a bug riddled field than something that thrives in a chemical waste dump.

              The World doesn't need never ending use of dangerous organphosphates and choline inhibitors.

              5 2 Reply

              1. This post has been deleted by its author

                1. Chemical Bob
                  Reply Icon

                  Re: Gene escape

                  @Symon re: glyphosate is safe

                  New studies show that glyphosate harms the wee beasties living in our digestive system and that those same wee beasties are important to our health. www.mercola.com is a good place to start reading.

                  0 0 Reply

                  1. This post has been deleted by its author

          4. Tony Haines
            Reply Icon

            Re: Gene escape

            //... and horizontal gene transfer is believed to be more prevalent than inherited gene transfer in some bacterial species. ...//

            While I generally agree with the .. er... sediment... of your post, I can't leave that statement alone - I'm pretty sure it's wrong.

            Outside the most extreme and incredibly rare example, vertical gene transfer (that is, genes passed from parent to daughter cells) massively outweighs horizontal gene transfer (that is, genes transferred from one cell to another).

            To put numbers on it, a bacterium may have something like 1000 to 6000 genes. A horizontal transfer event might be 1 to perhaps 500 genes (with a mean I'd guess of less than 50, max), and that won't occur every generation. For example, for a conjugative plasmid, a horizontal transfer for every 10 cell/generations would be a high rate, and for a virus... well, most virus particles in the wild carry infectious death; only a tiny proportion are misassembled donor cell DNA. Some cells can take up free DNA, but if they took up and replaced a large proportion of their genome each generation then ... they wouldn't be like that for long, and would stop.

            But that's not to say that horizontal transfer isn't widespread.

            2 0 Reply
          5. Pompous Git Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Gene escape

            There's no substitute for actually knowing what you're talking about.

            Wish I could upvote that statement more!

            At the risk of repeating what's already been said further downthread, I make the following points:

            1. GMO is largely not about crop yields per unit area. Most GMO crops are standard varieties with the inserted genes providing resistance to herbicides, usually glyphosate (Roundup).

            2. The owners of the GMO do not allow farmers to publish crop yields of the GMO versus the standard variety. The contracts with the GMO owners (Monsanto for example) are secret.

            3. One authorised trial I saw the results of in the farming press, the researchers admitted that Roundup had not been used on either the GMO, or the control. Both plots were hand weeded!

            4. If your market is for organic or conventional but GMO-free, and your crop becomes contaminated by GMO carried in by bees, you've lost your market and possibly your income for the season. This is what happened to Percy Schmeiser in Canada. He was also fined for "stealing" the RR genes. He didn't benefit from them because he didn't use Roundup to control weeds in his crop.

            5. If growing conventionally results in spectacular yield increases as often claimed, why for example is Charles H. Wilber of Crane Hill, Alabama in the Guinness Book of Records?

            6. Further to the above point, a very great deal of organic wheat is grown in Australia and some of that ends up in Uncle Tobys breakfast cereal: Organic Vita Brits. Organic Vita Brits cost less than 5% more than the ordinary Vita Brits alongside them on the supermarket shelf.

            7. Once you grow GMO canola (for example) you are stuck permanently purchasing your seed from the supplier. You can no longer save your own seed and unsurprisingly the supplier's prices rapidly go from affordable to a significant cost. This is not a good strategy for improving your income.

            5 3 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Gene escape

              A simple google search for Percy Schmeiser destroys point 4. Presumable all the rest of the points are flaky nonsense too, but I cant be bothered looking.

              0 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Gene escape

          'Selective breeding is not the same as introducing genes from entirely different species. The impact of such radical changes on a balanced ecosystem are difficult to assess and could very well be catastrophic.'

          Genes are genes, there is no such thing as fish genes, or cabbage genes.

          We are all made of the same stuff - doesn't it even say something like that in the bible?

          The ecosystem is not balanced, it is in a constant state of change.

          Selective breeding IS the same as GMO, its just done in a different way.

          Coughing on a Tuesday could very well be catastrophic, but we don't ban it.

          2 1 Reply
      3. blueprint
        Reply Icon

        Re: Gene escape

        Well just to take one of many examples fish genes don't "naturally" get into plant genes, so they couldn't get released into the environment by selective breeding.

        You don't think that's a difference?

        14 6 Reply
        1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Gene escape

          fish genes don't "naturally" get into plant genes

          Are you sure of that?

          Horizontal Gene Transfer in Eukaryotes

          6 0 Reply
      4. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gene escape

        There is a whole world of difference between selective breeding and GM plants.

        With selective breeding, there is no way you could ever have a fish gene in a Tomato.

        Yet with GM, you can.

        Then there is the small matter of the likes of Monsanto sueing farmers because of wind pollination takes some of those patented genes into his fields and infects his previously patent free crops.

        I was 'undecided' for a number of years until I got talking to a Farmer in Kansas who was facing ruin because of a law suit from Monsanto. All he needed to do to get rid of the suit was to buy his next years seeds from Monsanto. Oh, and he could not keep seed back from one year to the next. The GM Maker apparently puts markers in the seed so that they can tell what year the seed was sold.

        Do you really want that?

        15 5 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Gene escape

          Cite needed as they say.

          How many times have Monsanto prosecuted for low levels of roundup ready in a non roundup field? And at what levels?

          0 0 Reply
      5. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        Re: Gene escape

        "I oppose GM crops, but not because of the concerns addressed here, but because it is irresponsible to release artificially modifed genes into the environment."

        How are your orange carrots?

        6 0 Reply
        1. #define INFINITY -1
          Reply Icon

          @Lost all faith... Re: Gene escape

          > How are your orange carrots?

          Any research paper to back that up? What's more likely is that the Dutch, being amongst the first colonists, found (natural) orange carrots and spread them throughout their colonies.

          0 0 Reply
          1. Pompous Git Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: @Lost all faith... Gene escape

            What's more likely is that the Dutch, being amongst the first colonists, found (natural) orange carrots and spread them throughout their colonies.

            "Natural" carrots are called Queen Anne's Lace and are white, not purple. I just dug some up from Mrs Git's garden to confirm.

            0 0 Reply
      6. Chemical Bob
        Reply Icon
        Facepalm

        Re: Gene escape

        "What is the difference between "releasing" artificially modified genes into the environment, and releasing what you presumably would call "naturally" modified genes as has been done for thousands of years by selective breeding?"

        Because when you selectively breed dogs, for example, you only end up with dogs that have dog genes. GM crops can contain genetic material from anything. Most of the GM crops available today have had genetic material from various strains of bacteria spliced into them and there is a real possibility of unintended side effects. The most common GM foods are the Roundup Ready ones from Monsanto, Roundup Ready weeds showed up within 6 years of introducing Roundup Ready crops. Monsanto's response was to tell farmers to use *more* Roundup, raising Monsanto's profits and reducing farmer's profits and putting more glyphosate in the human diet. While the human digestive organs do not process glyphosate, our gut flora do and early indications are that our gut flora is damaged by glyphosate. Medical science is only beginning to understand the link between gut flora health and human health (looks like healthy gut flora = healthy human). Also, in spite of the claims of increased yields, farmers are actually reporting lower yields than conventional crops.

        In other words, we have weird science making unnatural changes to our food supply that maximizes BigChem's profits, harms farmer's profits and harms our health.

        4 2 Reply
      7. The bigger, blacker box.
        Reply Icon

        Re: Gene escape

        >>What is the difference between "releasing" artificially modified genes into the environment, and releasing what you presumably would call "naturally" modified genes as has been done for thousands of years by selective breeding?

        #1 Natural genetic drift is slow

        #2 Natural borders such as seas, mountains, deserts provide degrees of isolation and therefore protection

        #3 Most "naturally" modified genes are passed through vertical gene transfer in multicellular life (VRT)

        #4 Most "artificially" modified genes are created through horizontal gene transfer in multicellular life (HRT)

        Selective breeding is a VRT technique, but is far too slow to use practically in the emerging food markets, so these genes are spiced directly using HRT, this means that any harmful characteristics don't usually have time to be fully expressed or even identified, even in selective breeding of dogs, the selective breeding of one trait may drag in undesirable traits (such as hip dysplasia).

        There are also, of course natural parallels, sickle cell anaemia is "selected in" because it offers a degree of malaria resistance, and this is in natural VRT.

        HRT is a really good technique, lets say you have five species of corn, each has a useful trait expressed by having a specific gene, now, you could cross breed these five until one offspring eventually has all five traits, but that takes time and many generations (and of course they may not be cross fertile or drag unwanted issues in) - much better to pick up the five genes and splice them in, more accurate and less prone to error, and of course you are merely speeding up the process.

        What is in the unknown, or at least there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns are where genes from otherwise incompatible species are spliced, these HRT hybrids are very rare in nature in comparison to VRT and have only been observed regularly in bacteria, single cell and to some extent viruses (there's potential for a virus to "inject" the genes).

        If you have no concerns with GM because you think it's the same as selective breeding then you're wrong, plain and simple - it's far more complex than you think, if you have no concerns with GM because you think there's sufficient controls to protect the environment and that commercial success will come second to profit and time to market then you're a little naive.

        2 1 Reply
    2. Tony Haines
      Reply Icon

      Re: Gene escape

      Well, that's certainly an argument, but it's based on the assumption that everything we already do is acceptable (or perhaps 'responsible'). And further, it disregards any potential benefits.

      In reality there's potential harm in everything we do. Some risks (like the escape of genes into wild varieties) can be researched - and either prove minimal (as in this case) or can be mitigated.

      2 3 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gene escape

      While I agree with your sediment, that ship has sailed...."traditional" methods of producing new hybrids such as exposure to radiation and mutigenic chemicals are used (and released for use in farms) all the time.

      Since those methods produce an unknown number of mutations (think shotgun) while direct gene manipulation only flips certain genes (think rifle shot), I am inclined to believe that the GMO method is LESS likely to produce problems "in the wild" so to speak. However, I understand that less likely does not mean a 0% chance.

      14 2 Reply
      1. Stoneshop
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        Re: Gene escape

        While I agree with your sediment,

        You didn't get that sinking feeling that you used the wrong word?

        12 0 Reply
        1. Uffish
          Reply Icon

          Re: Sediment escape

          Probably that dangerous and insufficiently tested technology called auto-correct - it lets strange and unnatural word combinations out into the world. Should be banned.

          5 0 Reply

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