Genetically Modified Organisms

[Penumbra]

I heard that GMO are quite accepted in the US, unlike here in Germany. We have great fears about what it can do to us and the environment and our farmers often burn down fields where GMO are planted, if you are a farmer and decide to plant it on yoir field you will never be accepted by your neighbours. What is your opinion on GMO?

I think it should have to be labeled.

Our foods are already genetically modified. We've been genetically modifying our food for thousands of years, ever since the Agricultural Revolution. In other words, we've been eating GMOs for all that time in the first place.

My opinion is that this whole scare about "GMO" being some kind of new problem seems to be simple neophobia fed by misrepresentation in the media. The media (news outlets, magazine articles, etc.) is, quite simply, one of the single worst places to get scientific information.

'Sides, I understand that US farmers have been basically screwed over for about a century, now, with money being wasted on pesticides, and the false notion that fields need to be "virgin".

Gradual selective breeding is rather different than Monstanto-style engineering and business tactics.

 

[Riverwolf]

Gradual selective breeding is rather different than Monstanto-style engineering and business tactics.

I admit virtually no knowledge of this company or its tactics, other than that it exists, is related to GMO, and that ... it's bad, somehow. Fair enough. I trust such judgment by and large.

But I understand that GMO refers primarily to some type of gene therapy performed on plants or their seeds in a laboratory setting as a way to enhance desired traits more rapidly and with more control than artificial selective breeding programs.

In concept, that'd be a great way to get gluten out of our wheat (which I understand is part of a mutation in wheat, barley, and rye that's about a hundred years, anyway), allowing celiacs to eat wheat-based products again. That's just one benefit.

If a concept is good but the primary company pushing for it is evil, then the solution isn't to demonize the concept, but the company.

...also, yes, GMOs should be labelled and explained. Sure, I don't believe there's much inherent difference, but consumers do and that's what matters most. After all, organic is labelled.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I heard that GMO are quite accepted in the US, unlike here in Germany. We have great fears about what it can do to us and the environment and our farmers often burn down fields where GMO are planted, if you are a farmer and decide to plant it on yoir field you will never be accepted by your neighbours. What is your opinion on GMO?

I think the negative response to GMOs is generally based on fearmongering and not science.

At the very minimum, food packages that contain GMO ingredients should be labelled as such. Let the consumer decide if it is acceptable or not.

I think some of the organic compounds they spray on organic produce are much higher priority for labelling. Your organic produce may have toxic level of copper on it, but the producer doesn't need to mention it.

A small organic dairy went under assault from big companies because they put "No bovine growth hormones" on their packages. It was true and everyone knew it.

A cow with no bovine growth hormones would almost certainly be a dead cow. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten into trouble if they had said "no hormones *added*".

Maybe it can change our own DNA or produce unknown toxic elements.

... or maybe it'll sneak out of the refrigerator while you're asleep and steal your car keys.

By the way, we are also a big market for organically grown food, so we are sceptic even about conventional farming.

... while being credulous about organic farming.

 

[columbus]

Maybe they wouldn't have gotten into trouble if they had said "no hormones *added*".

I left out that word no doubt. I don't much bother with the issue.
But my point was, and remains, the USA food distribution system is not a free market. It is government owned and run.
By government I mean "Wall Street" and their lackeys in Washington DC.
It is not only not required to accurately label food products, it is not even permitted. The arm of the government known as "corporate legal teams" won't allow unprofitable labelling, even if they must argue against constitutional law pertaining to free speech. And their congressional arm won't bite the hand that feeds them.
So Germans have a good deal more freedom in this regard.
Tom

 

[Wirey]

This is no more an extension of selective breeding than deep water drilling is an extension of campfires.
Tom

Nonsense. It's more focused selective breeding. We have tinkered with that crap throughout history, and will continue to do so. Corn no longer appears in the wild, but after 9,000 years of work we have literally dozens of varieties with different applications. And yet, there's still room for improvement. 85% of the corn planted in the US last year was GMO.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I heard that GMO are quite accepted in the US, unlike here in Germany. We have great fears about what it can do to us and the environment and our farmers often burn down fields where GMO are planted, if you are a farmer and decide to plant it on yoir field you will never be accepted by your neighbours. What is your opinion on GMO?

Do you know how a plant is genetically modified? What is the process in which we modify a plant genetically?
Most people that are against GMO don't actually know.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

There is a difference between selective breeding and playing god by turning lifeforms in something completly new.

Actually there really isn't.

 

[Selinagirl]

Do you know how a plant is genetically modified? What is the process in which we modify a plant genetically?
Most people that are against GMO don't actually know.

I have to confess that I don't. Maybe with retro-virus.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I have to confess that I don't. Maybe with retro-virus.

What? Are you serious? I think you are joking but a part of me is afraid you aren't.

To let you know all they are doing is selective breeding. They take a huge variety of plants and do DNA tests on them to see EXACTLY what their genes have. Do they have hidden genes they don't want passed down (recessive genes that may show up later) and what about genes they can't see physically until the plant is matured. Then they can find the plants that have the DNA that they want, such as possibly insect resistant,
Then they breed them rapidly in the lab under ideal conditions until they create the "super plant" that is eventually tested with large scale cultivation in fields.

It is the same plant. There is no microbes or injections that occur. There is no secret sciency science to science up the nature. Science is nothing but the study OF nature. It is the exact same process we have been doing for thousands of years. The only difference is now we can do it better and faster. But the process itself is exactly the same.

Now there are times where people can splice or silence genes that they want or do not want but those are not the normal way that GMO's are created. Those are usually created for study or experiments rather than for mass produced food. But even if they were its no different than splicing different branches onto different tree's. Which we have also done for thousands of years.

 

[dust1n]

In general, I have problems with DNA patents, especially in plant life. I tend to have a problem with the ambiguity of research of various changes and their general effects on humans. As far as "genetically modifying" something, really couldn't care less. Anything to alleviate the coating of all plant life with petroleum pesticides.

 

[Mister Emu]

Monsanto and others of their ilk are wrong headed in their business practices, like suing farmers because of cross-pollination. Not because of GMO.

To let you know all they are doing is selective breeding

I have to ask you where you got that information. I don't fear GMO, and think it is a great thing if properly handled, but that isn't the process I've heard of.

Some sources...

Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Monsanto and others of their ilk are wrong headed in their business practices, like suing farmers because of cross-pollination. Not because of GMO.


I have to ask you where you got that information. I don't fear GMO, and think it is a great thing if properly handled, but that isn't the process I've heard of.

Some sources...

Plant and Soil Sciences eLibrary

If you go back and read I do mention that they do gene splicing and silencing on rare occasions. But the vast majority of genetic modification is specialized and advanced breeding.

 

[averageJOE]

Just put it on the labels. Let people know whats in the food, and let them decide if they want to feed it to themselves and their families. At the end of the day, this is all what people who are against GMO's are asking for.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Just put it on the labels. Let people know whats in the food, and let them decide if they want to feed it to themselves and their families. At the end of the day, this is all what people who are against GMO's are asking for.

... IOW, fuel the fear-mongering.

I saw a cartoon recently (that I can't find now, unfortunately) that went like this:

Now: "why wouldn't they label GMO food? They must have something to hide!"
Later: "It MUST be dangerous if they have to label it!"

Opposition to GMOs has nothing to do with actual food safety. It's just a customer preference, and it can be dealt with the way that other preferences are dealt with: through voluntary, non-governmental standards.

Just like, say, kosher or halal food, producers that want to be known as "GMO free" can get rewiewed by a private certification body that then grants them the right (for a fee) to put their "GMO free" symbol on their product. That would take care of customers' concerns.

The only reason to go to government labelling would be if GMOs had a safety issues associated with them so that their presence or absence was a public health issue... but it's not.

So let the market meet the need. If there's enough demand there, then the niche will be filled. It just that you won't have people who are fine with GMOs helping to foot the bill.

 

[Revoltingest]

... IOW, fuel the fear-mongering.

I saw a cartoon recently (that I can't find now, unfortunately) that went like this:

Now: "why wouldn't they label GMO food? They must have something to hide!"
Later: "It MUST be dangerous if they have to label it!"

Opposition to GMOs has nothing to do with actual food safety. It's just a customer preference, and it can be dealt with the way that other preferences are dealt with: through voluntary, non-governmental standards.

Just like, say, kosher or halal food, producers that want to be known as "GMO free" can get rewiewed by a private certification body that then grants them the right (for a fee) to put their "GMO free" symbol on their product. That would take care of customers' concerns.

The only reason to go to government labelling would be if GMOs had a safety issues associated with them so that their presence or absence was a public health issue... but it's not.

So let the market meet the need. If there's enough demand there, then the niche will be filled. It just that you won't have people who are fine with GMOs helping to foot the bill.

I largely agree, but there is one safety issue which immediately comes to mind.....unexpected allergic reactions.
But GMO foods have their advantages, & can reduce dangers associated with non-GMO foods.
On the whole, GMOs look worth it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I largely agree, but there is one safety issue which immediately comes to mind.....unexpected allergic reactions.

Has this been an issue with GMO foods? I haven't heard of people being allergic to a GMO variety of a particular crop but not a non-GMO variety.

Even if it is a legitimate concern, I'd say that allowing food producers to use vague ingredient names like "natural flavour" is higher up the priority list than GMO labelling.

 

[Revoltingest]

Has this been an issue with GMO foods? I haven't heard of people being allergic to a GMO variety of a particular crop but not a non-GMO variety.

Even if it is a legitimate concern, I'd say that allowing food producers to use vague ingredient names like "natural flavour" is higher up the priority list than GMO labelling.

I don't recall an incident.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I don't recall an incident.

GMO doesn't usually cause allergies unless you were already allergic to the plant. What one should probably be far more concerned about is the pesticides used on the plants rather than what genetic modifications have been made. I think that there is some strange misconception (not you personally but in general) with people that are anti-GMO they think of a picture of people in hazmatt suits spraying chemicals onto the plants as if these chemicals are going to see into their DNA and "gmo them".