Majority of EU Nations Seek Opt-Out From Growing GM Crops 330
schwit1 writes: Nineteen EU member states have requested opt-outs for all or part of their territory from cultivation of a Monsanto genetically-modified crop, which is authorized to be grown in the European Union, the European Commission said on Sunday. Under a law signed in March, individual countries can seek exclusion from any approval request for genetically modified cultivation across the 28-nation EU. The law was introduced to end years of stalemate as genetically modified crops divide opinion in Europe. The requests are for opt-outs from the approval of Monsanto's GM maize MON 810, the only crop commercially cultivated in the European Union, or for pending applications, of which there are eight so far, the Commission said.
This is not about science. It's about dependency. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to do with the way in which profits are derived from GM. The difficulties of GM are that the producer is able to develop a dependancy on the product. This dependency should be illegal. It's why pimps get their girls (and boys) hooked on crack or heroin. It's why big tobacco is evil.
What compounds the issue is that the US patent system is known to be desparately broken. Intellectual property and copyright law are bracketed into the same brokenness. What that means is that not only do consumers of GM products become dependant on the product, but the producer is able to sustain an indefinite monopoly of it.
This isn't about science. Never was. It's about becoming Monsanto's bitch and not being able to do anything about it.
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Re:This is not about science. It's about dependenc (Score:5, Insightful)
So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? These things cost billions of dollars in very hard R&D to develop and bring to market. Without a patent then anyone will grow some of your seeds and then sell them next year to compete with your seeds and they had to do none of the work.
If you want to replace this system you must come up with an alternative.
No patents on living organisms would also screw over the biotech industry. What if I make a new tumor supressor gene from scratch that is better than any human gene and would 100% prevent cancer. As soon as I treated the first person someone would just have their DNA read and find the sequence and sell it without doing any of the R&D.
I understand not liking patents on living things but if you want technology developed our current economic system required a profit motive and without that motive the technology won't be created. This is not like computer programming where a few people on no budget can do amazing work and change things. This stuff is insanely expensive and hard to do. Reaction ingredients alone would bankrupt most people.
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"So out of curiosity how do you think we should develop GMO crops without patents? "
The same way the american indians did when they invented CORN
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Then if it's so important, design the seeds to not do that. Montsanto is famous for "terminator genes" that do just that. Except well, they don't work. Turns out plants generally evolve out
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Also, all your work is based on thousands of people before you, are you going to let them share in the profits of your discovery?
Finally, if you want to make a profit, find another field to do it in. Become an investment banker, football player or the next Justin Bieber. I don't care, but getting a PhD in science is not supposed to be a guarantee of vast wealth in the future.
If everyone ha
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As opposed to the current system in which farmers buy non-GM hybrids from seed companies (upon which they're entirely dependent), pesticides from chemical companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), fuel from oil companies (upon whom they're entirely dependent), etc. Clearly you've never interacted with a real farmer, and are entirely ignorant of how your food is produced. Farmers buy GM seeds because it makes economic sense. No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time. When GM see
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I have farmers in my family. I've, -er-, interacted with farmers from Nebraska, Ukraine, Nepal, India, UK, Germany, Holland and France.
Many of the farmers have used hybrids, sure. Many of them have decided against using hybrids for exact the same reason that they don't want to choose GM seeds. Some have heirloom crops that they are very proud of. Not all.
Some of the farmers I've talked with hate the other dependancies that you mention - pesticides are a pain, and farming legislation is increasingly tough
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"No one forces them to, and they can switch back at any time."
No you cant. Once you grow a GMO crop your fields are contaminated with the crap for years. and if your neighbors are growing it, you are FUCKED. as the cross pollination will taint your entire crop and then yuo get fined for growing a monsanto crop without a licensing fee because the genetic markers are there.
Why dont you actually TALK to a farmer, I have 3 in my family and I know the reality of this. You grow what your neighbors are growing
No, it's about Legislated Famine (Score:2)
Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.
When all non-GM seeds end up with genes from Monsanto's GM crops, Monsanto will own the legal right to the food chain.
You can't pay, you starve.
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Once you plant GM crops and their genes spill over to non-GM crops, Monsanto will lay claim to the non-GM seeds and sue the farmer to death.
Can you cite an example of this happening? I'm genuinely curious. I know of only one case where Monsanto has sued a farmer for cross-polination. It was shown in court that the farmer actually was trying to deliberately and surreptitiously acquire GM seeds through a roundabout way.
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The problem includes GM by methodologies such as Monsanto employes, obviously it is at least possible to alter DNA of something to make it harmful to humans, but the pro-Monsanto shills here would deny that possibility of such a problem should even be subject to testing. The are the ignorant anti-science shills, calling for blind faith in a mega-corporation that buys laws and seeks to take control of the food supply. How vile and evil, without a concern for human well being.
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Heh... Look! I found the guy that is doing the "that is the way of their kind" posts and other absurd junk posts. You can deny it if you want but your writing style matches it too well for it to be a coincidence as does your... Um... Manner of expressing yourself.
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What "dependency"? You can switch from GMO to non-GMO any time you like. Of course, you have to live with the lower yields if you do.
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Now pray tell me how european agriculture would collapse without american whatever? I think you are rather full of yourself, but you are welcome to prove me wrong.
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For an answer to some of your retorts, see my response to AC above.
Let's look at this another way. The EU market is different from the USA. I'm sure we can agree on that.
For whatever reasons, possibly because it's the 'old world', EU consumers are innately conservative when it comes to the basics. We can probably agree on that.
Monsanto has a very bad name in the EU. Blame the PR department, or ignorant (but communications savvy) activists, but it's true. We can probably agree on that.
Fortunately for the
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The geek understands nothing about agricuture. (Score:2)
The problem isn't to do with GM, it's to with the way profits are derived from GM.
The modern farmer is first and last a business man.
He specializes. He raises grains, fruits or vegetables for sale in the retail or wholesale markers he understands or he evolves into a seed company or a nursery. Never both, because the labor and capital requirements are so very different and so very demanding.
When he buys seed from Monsanto, he is looking at the return on his investment, as any business man must. He is looking at how the product stands up against the competition. If it is sweet corn, he
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Let's just concentrate on Monsanto for a moment..
Agent Orange: In the manufacture of 2,4,5-T, Monsanto accidentally overheating of the reaction mixture which caused it condense into the toxic self-condensation product TCDD. It was this dioxin, found present in Agent Orange, that caused untold suffering for which the defoliant is known for. Monsanto had overcooked the mix. QA did not find out about it until the stuff was already delivered to the DoD.
Profitable? Yep. Ethical? Definitely not.
DDT. Produced and
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That's what's broken. If you w
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Anti-GMO does not equal anti-science. (Score:5, Insightful)
We'll see all the usual "you're anti-science!" strawman arguments flung around here, I'm sure. A lot of us (my self included) happen to think the science is sound.
My beef is I don't like how Monsanto behaves, and I don't want to (knowingly) spend my money purchasing a product they might profit from.
And GMO is really a euphemism for Monsanto. They're the *only* meaningful player in this industry right now.
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They are not the only meaningful player in the industry: For instance, take DuPont's agro side, branded as Pioneer. They sell quite a bit of GMO corn in the US every year. The only major row crop when they are not a big player is soybeans, and that's just because their research in that area worked badly enough, they end up having to license from Monsanto.
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They are not the only meaningful player in the industry: For instance, take DuPont's agro side, branded as Pioneer.
Well, DuPont is seriously fucking evil, and always has been. Besides their long and shitty environmental record, they also fought against hemp because hemp plastic threatened their petro plastic, and they are one of the companies behind ButaMax. ButaMax got a patent on effective commercial production of Butanol (a 1:1 replacement for gasoline made by bacteria from any organic matter) even though the process was developed at public universities and with public funds, and is furthermore an obvious development
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I worked at GE Oil & Gas, and I can assure you that GE is every bit as evil as Monsanto, DuPont and any of the other crooked corporate giants.
No doubt that's true, but they're still trying to sell us something that we need to make the world a better place, and DuPont (along with BP, more of the world's most evil fucks) is trying to stop them.
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LOL.
You're using BASF to represent some kind of moral high ground against Monsanto (the progenitor of DDT and Agent Orange)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben
Get a hint -- BASF is one of the four spin-off companies of IG Farben, the company that produced Zykon-B for the Nazi regime that was used to gas 6,000,000 German Jews.
You Fail. Try again.
So, I'm guessing you always take the stairs instead of elevators, right? Because the Panzer IV tank, which was the 2nd most manufactured German Armored vehicle of WWII was manufactured by Krupp. And Krupp is now part of ThyssenKrupp, who make a lot of elevators/elevator parts. And you must really hate air travel, since Boeing B-17s were involved in the firebombing of Dresden and one of the original founders of Airbus was Fokker, who in WWII made parts for the Junkers Ju-52 which was used as one of Hitler
Meowwwww! (Score:3)
Why does EU need GM? (Score:2)
While GM applied properly could lead to crops that can be grown in otherwise difficult places to grow anything, allowing local production of food in places that need it.
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GM also reduces the amount of labor, water, and pollution needed to produce food and makes food cheaper.
Making food cheaper is a big deal when people spend 15-20% of their income on food, as they do in much of Europe.
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Food won't be any cheaper because EU basically sets the minimum price for agricultural products by introducing strict quotas to keep european farmers afloat and thanks to the generally pretty mild EU climate plants are seldom artificially watered - there is usually more than enough rainfall. Reducing labour would also be counterproductive - like GP has mentioned, EU even pays some farmers for not producing.
Seriously, GMO makes absolutely no sense here and it is not welcome by the general population either.
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That's what makes it insidious. The U.S. and EU subsidize food production to insure there's sufficient excess margin to prevent starvation if there's a crop failure. Part of this involves paying farmers not to grow anything, so that their growing capacity remains in reserve should some disaster befall farmland currently in use (the Dust Bowl of the 1930s literally blew away the topsoil on a lot of farm
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As it is we pay farmers to waste land. No need for GM.
The US has ended direct agricultural subsidies. Now subsidies take the form of crop insurance subsidies, and of course indirectly on corn through ethanol blending requirements on gasoline. There also is the imported sugar quota.
GMO crops like GTS 40-3-2 (Roundup-ready soy beans) are used to help farmers not only use less land, but also less water, less fuel and fewer pesticides/herbicides.
Organic fungicides such as copper and sulfur, are used at a rate
Crops vs. Crop (Score:4, Informative)
The headline says "crops". The articles specifies one crop (MON 810). Adjust your level of outrage/rejoicing accordingly.
Because they have brains.... (Score:2)
It is not the nutbag "It's poison" argument the wierdows make that is driving their decision. Allowing GMO allows Monsanto to OWN your country's crops. With the United States poised to defend corporate patents with guns and missile strikes, nobody sane would allow patent encumbered life in their country.
It's already a moot point (Score:2)
Re:Anti-science is a PR plague (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about science. It's also about the stupid IP stuff that comes with it.
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You are wrong, Monsanto does use methods of questionable safety, such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic. Any normal person seeing the mutant plants would be horrified. You are the anti-science one, you claim Monsanto's methodologies and products are harmless without a shred of proof. You shill in ignorance
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mutating plants with radiation
That's not what GMO is.
That's what organic is.
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No, radiation is optional in organic. Organic just means you grow it in cow shit and don't pasteurize it, which is why organic farming is responsible for hundreds of death and thousands of illnesses every year.
http://www.geneticliteracyproj... [geneticlit...roject.org]
But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.
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But remember kids, GMO is bad for you, even though nobody has ever gotten sick or died from it.
Since there are no labeling requirements regarding GM products in the US, how would someone even know?
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So, ugly plants are unsafe? Interesting theory you have there. Any, you know, actual evidence that this is so?
Because otherwise, it sounds like you're, what's that phrase, "shilling in ignorance" as well....
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I only suggest plants horribly mutated from normal *might* be unsafe or have DNA sequences that are not safe, and do not accept safety on blind faith in profit and power driven mega-corporate agendas
Re:Anti-science is a PR plague (Score:4, Funny)
such as mutating plants with radiation and using the deformed plants DNA for a desired characteristic.
You're absolutely right! We should ban all sources of radiation that might affect the DNA of an organism in a way that could result in the appearance of a specific characteristic.
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well know that organisms can normally deal with background radiation levels, back to biology class for you
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you spew in ignorance, scientific testing would make a valid argument for or against GMO
already there are studies pointing to problems with Monsanto's corn
Re:Anti-science is a PR plague (Score:5, Interesting)
It has less to do with the Science of GMO and potential issue that my come with the new combo of genes. It has more to do with the Patent on a core food and even more to do with pesticides.
GMOs are designed to resist the negative effects from pesticides so more pesticides can be applied. That is great that more bugs are dying and more plants are living. But you can't tell me that spraying our food with not just a little bit of poison but a TON of poison is not absorbed by the food. Then we eat the food that now has absorbed the poison. That must be real healthy.
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They're banning it for the same reason that requiring labeling for cell phone radiation levels is now banned: It's a pointless indicator designed to create consumer FUD because of somebody's silly religious belief.
Seriously, GMO food is safe people. So far the best argument against GMO food is "We haven't found any actual scientific evidence that there's anything wrong with it, but you never know, therefore it should be labeled and/or banned." File this under other phobias like Electromagnetic Hypersensitiv
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Possibly, but if I want to wear a tinfoil hat, I don't want someone to sell me a shiny plastic one because it is nonsense to wear tinfoil
Re:How do they define GM? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you keep it a secret, it makes people much more nervous about it as if you tell. If there is no problem with it, why not be honest about it? If people realize that they are eating GMO food all the day, and they are still healthy, wouldn't that be much better for proving that GMO food is ok? Everyone thus can see it.
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My opinion of GMO food has nothing to do with Monsanto. When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
In fact, that's another reason why the anti-GMO movement is so full of bullshit that it's falling out of their ears: They constantly create false dilemmas. "You support GMO? You must support monsanto then!" or "You support GMO? You must eat frankenfood!" It's all a load of crap.
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When I speak about GMO, I speak only about the science and nothing else.
The science is pretty simple. GMO is a tool, nothing else. Like most tools it can be used for good, eg making a tomato that has more vitamins and flavour, or for making a tomato that ships better with no flavour or nutrition.
It's impossible to generalize that a tool is always going to be used in the best manner or the worst manner. Each use has to be evaluated separately. Throw in the motivations of the for profit agribusinesses such as Monsato and the odds of some uses of GMO not being for the benefit of t
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I'm of the mind that YOU would NOT have supported the basic food labelling we have now for ingredients....
You're wrong; of course I support that. The purpose is to help anybody who has allergens or other dietary concerns to avoid foods that might bother them specifically. For example, as somebody with CKD caused by IgA Nephropathy, I look at the ingredients list for items containing phosphorous, and if they're high in the list, then I avoid that food.
Phosphorous is safe (and indeed, healthy) for 99.9% of the population, just not me.
That's what food labels are for. They aren't intended to scare people just to sa
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I'll tell you what: If glyphosate shows up in any material quantity (one or even a hundred parts per million isn't significant at all) then we can put it on the food labels.
glyphosates are now being shown to definitely be harmful
It's only been shown harmful to people coming into direct contact with huge quantities of it. Though I think coming into direct contact with cow shit used for organic farming is probably more hazardous to your health, yet people like you don't go around espousing the dangers of organic food.
Furthermore, glyphosate isn't the only applicat
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What alternatives? The only one I'm aware of is irradiating plants to trigger mutations to speed up the selective selection process. I'm not sure what makes you think that is safer than small (usually less than 200 nucleotides) deliberate DNA modification based on the science of proteomics.
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DDT was widely used because it is highly effective at stopping the spread of infectious diseases by killing the vector.
This was before anybody took a critical look at it, and it had already been in use for nearly a century before anybody had. The people saying it was still safe were the ones following the long term momentum, much as the anti-GMO crowd is saying that millennia old organic farming is safe (and in reality it's not safe [geneticlit...roject.org] compared to modern synthetic farming methods.)
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Sorry, but if banning GMO foods is the only way to rein-in Monsanto, I'll accept that price.
That's like saying that if banning computers is the only way to reign in Microsoft, you'll accept that price. It's an asshole ideology.
And banning GMO labeling is just authoritarian bullshit. Now requiring GMO labeling might be unreasonable.
Umm...you completely misunderstand. You're welcome to stick a GMO label on food if you want; the ban is against laws that require labeling (i.e. governments telling other governments what to do.) The laws that require labeling are authoritarian.
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In fact one more thing to add: If you're truly concerned about food safety and ethics, then you should be lobbying against organic food, which has on numerous occasions caused death by food poisoning, which stems from the fact that it requires using cow shit and limiting pasteurization.
http://www.geneticliteracyproj... [geneticlit...roject.org]
Meanwhile, guess how many got sick or died from GMO food? Zero. Not a one.
Another thing: Organic food requires a LOT more farmland for the same yield, and it's worth pointing out that making w
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Err....you don't wash your food before you cook or eat it?
Geez, I'll bet those same people get a bit sick every time they cook chicken, or cross contaminate between raw meats and foods that aren't cooked.
A bit of a straw m
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Do tell me, dear sir, how you intend to wash the lettuce served in a Chipotle burrito?
http://www.startribune.com/twi... [startribune.com]
Keep in mind that this comes after Chipotle just switched from their previous supplier that provided GMO food to one that is all organic. Smart choice, wasn't it?
Anyways let's hear it, tell me the process you use to remove the lettuce from the burrito to then wash it.
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Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
Bullshit. I am a food scientist for Agriculture Canada and earlier worked at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
There are no properly executed studies showing what you claim.
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
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Every single non-industry-funded study on GMOs has returned absolutely horrifying results about what their consumption does to, specifically, the digestive system and the immune system.
And guess what? All of them have been debunked. Furthermore, they're mostly done by people like this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In other words, people who have an ideology they want to push, so they use borderline fraudulent tactics and gross scientific misconduct to try to push their "studies".
Re:How do they define GM? (Score:5, Informative)
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Prof Trewavas said the GM plants would be removed before the main crop was harvested so there was no danger of them being eaten.
He said: 'These "watchers" are planted at the same time as the crop in the same field but in a different area and regularly monitored for signs of dehydration. He added that because potatoes are tubers they do not cross fertilise using flower pollination and therefore would not infect other plants.
So you're problem is that you don't trust them to remove the potatoes before the harvest? OK, the solution there is to tighten regulations, not to outlaw this rather ingenious indicator crop. A solution in my mind is to demand that they inject a gene that makes the "indicator" potatoes grow with a highly unnatural and noticeable color and\or an undesirable smell so that they are easy to spot if they happen to make it to the grocery stores.
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This is exactly what I hate about the anti-GMO movement: They cite examples like this even though no food like the example above actually makes it on your plate. That's just done for research purposes to better understand genetics.
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Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
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Wrong, breeding for desired characteristic is an entirely different matter than what Monsanto is doing.
So, how do you feel about selective breeding processes that include drenching the organisms in radiation or mutagenic chemicals in order to dramatically increase the mutation rate? Nearly everything in your grocery store was bred via this method, which has been in use for at least a century, because it works really well. By massively increasing the mutation rate you can get your desired characteristics orders of magnitude faster than relying on natural mutations and cross-breeding.
If you're not okay with
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Also, they are not "entirely different". The same technol
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Cross pollination happens all the time and results in failure the majority of the time. Things like today's corn (pre-GMO), potato, cabbage, rice, wheat, etc would have never naturally occurred. It took humans hundreds of years of cross breeding, selective breeding, and accidents coupled with constant environment adjustments & control to produce today's crops. The veggies you see at the super market are monstrosities to their natural cousins.
Re:How do they define GM? (Score:4, Informative)
His point doesn't address what the OP said.
He is making a line you can't cross in the taxological tree because reasons. Why can we manipulate the genes in species but not Kingdom? Oh, I know... God did it, right? That was the whole point of OP when he said: "It's a very hazy line there... is it just stuff made by Monsanto or *all* GM stuff, like... say just about *all* corn that's grown on the planet?" There are concerns with Monsanto, (see below in thread) that seem legitimate. But to label "ALL GM is bad" is proclaiming ignorance. Just like the GP misunderstanding what a species is.
"DNA that's totally foreign." What is foreign? When do you define DNA as foreign? How far up the taxological tree do you have go when it becomes foreign? how far back in evolutionary history do you have to go? How do you define that line in taxonomy? As if our DNA does not have the remnants of endogenous retroviruses [wikipedia.org], or the 60% of DNA we share with a banana plant [genome.gov].
The misinformed nature of his post is modded (as of now) +4 informative. It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
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Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.
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It's a mad world we live in. My wife and I avoid anything that is labeled non-GMO. We didn't realize how bad it was until we saw pink Himalayan rock salt was labeled as non-GMO.
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Who would have thought it would be the Europeans who are being anti-science? Yet they scoff at the US citizens (also retarded) who decry global warming. Personally, I like the idea of GMO. And yes, yes I will (and I presume I do) eat some.
So anybody who seeks to minimise his/her intake of Monsanto's GM crops in "anti-scientific"? And furthermore I suppose it could not possibly be the case that their opposition to Monsanto and the rest of that ilk has just as much to do with DNA patents, i.e. corporations turning staple crops into "intellectual property" and then using it as a tool with which to abuse the public? Personally it is the latter that worries me more than the former.
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If you don't like gene patents, get involved in politics and lobby to have laws passed that strongly curtail or eliminate gene patents (I'd be right there with you, BTW). But blaming a technology because you don't like the ways in which one company is using it, is a little like railing against incompetent hammers because the contractor you hired t
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We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.
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We've been eating genetically modified food since before the dark ages. Hell, broccoli is pretty much entirely man made. Maize that we eat today has never existed in the wild. Fear for fear's sake is anti-science.
And we have been making weapons since the stone age but the difference between breeding cattle by traditional means and what geneticists can do today, never mind what they will be able to do over the next century, is about the same as the difference between a hand-axe and and a cruise missile. How many times haven't we heard scientist say that some new technology or the other is perfectly safe (anybody remember DTT) only to see them fall on their face and admit that they (surprise surprise) overlooked somet
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Do you mean DDT? Instead of using your memory you might want to look into that. The science used to ban it was based on fraudulent data and the WHO has since allowed its use again because it turns out to not be all that bad when used properly. What they do mind is that it shouldn't be used as a treatment for crops but they've since realized that the whole egg shell thing was crap and the health issues were also (mostly) crap. It does, indeed, turn out that using it to soak down children daily is in fact not
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This idea that anybody who has reservations on going to town with GMO technology is a stupid luddite, because GMO is a technology that cannot possibly cause any unforeseen harm, is pretty idiotic in it self. I'm all for science but deregulating GMO and allowing greedy corporations to do anything they want without any oversight because GMO is a supposedly such a safe technology is not something I'm prepared to do.
No-one is claiming that having concerns about GMO is stupid, but in order to have strong reservations about the technology today you do have to be largely ignorant (as in unaware, not stupid) of the vast body of knowledge that currently exists as to the safety of the GMO products currently on the market. The fact that most of this information can be found with a simple search of pubmed or the USDA's website [usda.gov].
I can't speak for all nations, but no one is attempting to deregulate GMO in the US. Not mandating
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Cherry-picking or bad science. [researchgate.net] or you are just a conspiracy nutter.
I go with all of the above.
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It just shows you that the anti-GMO camp is mostly uninformed.
I'm trying to think of a scenario in which you wouldn't be claiming something stupid like that, regardless.
Nope, not coming up with one.
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What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.
The fact of the matter is there is NO science about how these GMOs interact in nature when left to their own devices, free to cross-pollinate other organisms. That kind of wilfull blindness is engaged in by companies whose goals are not science, but which are solely the pursuit of profit ( via omonopolistic wnership of genetic material).
As for your reductio ad absurdum argument about the non-dangers
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. If you want to talk about specific ecological effects, or copyright, or monopoly on agriculture then I am all ears. But to say "this potato plant with a specific jellyfish DNA sequence is bad" is just as dumb as saying a tangelo is not GMO. It is an arbitrary line that he created to suit his political compass.
What happens when a GMO is released into the wild is irreversible genetic pollution of non-modified organisms.
Your reading comprehension seems poor. Emphasis added.
Lets talk about what is on the table. On the one hand you have the ecological factor of pesticide producing plants and the pests that grow resistant to them. On the other hand you have limited pesticides to give to various populations. In one decision people are fed and in future generations of pests they might become more resistant to modern pesticides, but people do not starve to death. On the other hand, crop yields are halved because no good access t
Re:And you call the Americans anti-science (Score:5, Insightful)
I call myself anti-monsanto. Them monopolizing agriculture is the most evil and reckless act i've ever seen. And that includes the oil companies killing all living in the oceans.
Monsanto play with all our lives. I'm not fearing of a sentient corn, i'm fearing of famine due to their corn one day becomes scarce because they are unable or unwilling to sell seeds.
Re:And you call the Americans anti-science (Score:5, Interesting)
I am more concerned one day they screw up and their transgenic crops do pollinate / seed in the wild. They displace natural varieties without anyone noticing until its to late. Finally the genes to make them sterile or only grow in the presence of certain chemicals etc do get flipped back on and we have massive crop losses in a staple food product like maize.
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Monsantos GMO-crops has already cross-pollinated ordinary crops years ago, the result was a farmer being sued and had to battle Monsanto in court for years.
You can read more here: https://thegranddisillusion.wo... [wordpress.com]
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At least one person saw what you did there....
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If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.
What's the issue?
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If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.
What's the issue?
Monsanto's business model: You buy seed from company X or make your own seed. Monsanto sends private detectives out to take samples from your crop. If they find signs of patented DNA sequences which will happen because of cross polinization, Monsanto threatens to sue you into oblivion unless you switch to Monsanto. (Legally you're guilty of "DNA piracy" unless you can prove your innocance...It's your word against Monsanto's.) Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseedin
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Pork is culturally insensitive. (Score:2)
Re:And you call the Americans anti-science (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things: there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.
And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.
So, boo fucking hoo ... countries tell Monsanto to piss off. That's Monsanto's problem. Nobody is under any obligation to allow Monsanto to sell their product, as much as the assholes who run that corporation think otherwise.
So if "the market" is sending a big fuck you to Monsanto ... too damned bad for Monsanto. They may have hoodwinked Americans into believing their crap, but that doesn't mean that countries shouldn't be able to say "we don't want your shit".
Because when all of agriculture is beholden to Monsanto, we'll all be pretty much fucked.
This isn't "anti science", this is anti Monsanto, and people simply not buying the notion that GMO is safe until proven otherwise. Sorry, but how about we put the burden of proof on Monsanto, instead of just taking them at their word?
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there's been mounting evidence Monsanto has been outright lying about the evidence they have on the toxicity of their crap, which means trusting them is idiotic. The evidence we have that their crap is safe is them saying so ... which means it's self-serving stuff which as like as not hides any information they had to the contrary.
[Citation Needed]
And, hey, if the 'market' speaks and says it doesn't want this shit, Monsanto doesn't have the "right" to sell product to countries which don't want it. Monsanto has the right to piss off an go away.
Are you insinuating that the market is always rational, and it is impossible for people with an agenda to manipulate the market by spreading FUD?
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How is questioning safety Monsanto's product anti-science? You are an ignorant shill
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I'm not sure, but they sure didn't object to evolution by natural selection being the only theory of the origin of the species to be taught in schools.
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You are still overgeneralizing.
-GMOs are *NOT* bad.
This is a broad generalization. It's akin to saying "Chemical sweeteners are *NOT* bad" because you tested sucrose and aspartame and saccharine, while not testing ethylene glycol. Were a company truly evil, for example, they could probably create a plant that would be deliberately dangerous. Or, there could be a side effect that's not well caught in testing, such as a change to potatoes that make them taste like magic but also occasionally contain high levels of solanine.
Ar
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FYI it's sugar beet. As of 2014 in the USA, over 50% of the entire production of soybean, beet, cotton, corn and canola (aka rapeseed) are GM crops.
Lots of that is used in derived ingredients - beet and corn are big sources of sugar and hfcs (high fructose corn syrup - the killer sweetner found in almost all consumer foods in the USA). Canola is used for cooking oil (french fries, etc). Soy is used for all sorts.