toldailytopic: You are what you eat. How do you feel about genetically modified organ

[Alate_One]

I
It could be. If you were intimately aware of all the factors that went into the design.

So is golden rice a good idea or a bad idea, in your estimation?

[Stripe]

So is golden rice a good idea or a bad idea, in your estimation?

I've no idea.

But, typically, you've ignored the substance of the opposing idea in favour of promoting your own.

[Alate_One]

I've no idea.

But, typically, you've ignored the substance of the opposing idea in favour of promoting your own.

You never promoted any "opposing idea". I just gave you an opportunity to clarify and your response was "no idea", so apparently you don't actually have anything to say (big surprise).

My point is, whatever you believe about creation/evolution history has shown people have been able to be creative with the creation to solve specific problems. I don't see how you can claim those changes are universally bad when they've prevented a lot of people from starving. GM crops and animals are simply a more precise way of doing the same thing.

[Stripe]

You never promoted any "opposing idea".

Liar.

I just gave you an opportunity to clarify and your response was "no idea", so apparently you don't actually have anything to say (big surprise).

Liar.

My point is, whatever you believe about creation/evolution history has shown people have been able to be creative with the creation to solve specific problems.

Yep.

I don't see how you can claim those changes are universally bad when they've prevented a lot of people from starving.

That's because you've not spent any time acknowledging let alone understanding the point made.

GM crops and animals are simply a more precise way of doing the same thing.

And only by ignoring the costs that must come are you able to declare there to be a net gain.

[eameece]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for May 17th, 2013 05:00 AM

toldailytopic: You are what you eat. How do you feel about genetically modified organisms (GMO) and genetically engineered (GE) seeds and crops?

GMOs are dangerous. The enable the use of more pesticides, which are as harmful to us as they are to bugs. They cause holes in peoples stomachs. GMOs are also more liable to genetic mutations, and could alter the organisms we depend on for millennia.

It apparently is making digestion a problem for more and more people. Since I have those problems, I am paying attention to this issue.

http://www.responsibletechnology.org...-to-Avoid-GMOs

[eameece]

Genetically produced seeds and chemical stimulants for animals brought to you by Monsanto, proud maker of Agent Orange and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)

Yes, and DDT too. We can really trust these guys.

[Ktoyou]

Once tomatoes grew new each year, now you have to buy new plants. I gave kept some old seeds, they still grow tomatoes every year, in bunches. I like them and glad I kept some old seeds.

[The Barbarian]

If you don't like modern hybrids, do a search on "heirloom plants."

Lots of old varieties still available.

[Alate_One]

GMOs are dangerous. The enable the use of more pesticides, which are as harmful to us as they are to bugs.

Wrong. They can actually reduce pesticide use and allow less harmful pesticides to be substituted.

They cause holes in peoples stomachs. GMOs are also more liable to genetic mutations, and could alter the organisms we depend on for millennia.

This is utter nonsense.
The US population has been eating GM corn and soy for more than two decades now and no adverse effects have been confirmed. GM crops are the most extensively tested crop plants ever bred. GM crops utilize biology rather than synthetic chemicals to resist pests, weeds and in some cases increase nutrition. The "additives" of GM crops are proteins, which are non-toxic, and in some cases, these same proteins approved for use as pesticides in organic agriculture (you didn't know organic agriculture is allowed to use certain pesticides did you?).

I'll take a novel, well tested protein over pesticide residue any day.

[Alate_One]

Liar.

Liar.

Yep.

In other words you're a waste of time, no surprise again.

And only by ignoring the costs that must come are you able to declare there to be a net gain.

There are always tradeoffs in biology. That doesn't mean wild plants and animals are perfect and all modification is "bad". It's odd you're posting on a forum and yet won't deign to offer an actual opinion on the issue at hand.

[doloresistere]

Wrong. They can actually reduce pesticide use and allow less harmful pesticides to be substituted.



This is utter nonsense.
The US population has been eating GM corn and soy for more than two decades now and no adverse effects have been confirmed. GM crops are the most extensively tested crop plants ever bred. GM crops utilize biology rather than synthetic chemicals to resist pests, weeds and in some cases increase nutrition. The "additives" of GM crops are proteins, which are non-toxic, and in some cases, these same proteins approved for use as pesticides in organic agriculture (you didn't know organic agriculture is allowed to use certain pesticides did you?).

I'll take a novel, well tested protein over pesticide residue any day.

It is nice to see that not all left wingers are as goofy as eemeece. Some people can care about the environment and yet be sensible at the same time.

[Doormat]

Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

Highlights

► A Roundup-tolerant maize and Roundup provoked chronic hormone and sex dependent pathologies. ► Female mortality was 2–3 times increased mostly due to large mammary tumors and disabled pituitary. ► Males had liver congestions, necrosis, severe kidney nephropathies and large palpable tumors. ► This may be due to an endocrine disruption linked to Roundup and a new metabolism due to the transgene. ► GMOs and formulated pesticides must be evaluated by long term studies to measure toxic effects.

Answers to critics: Why there is a long term toxicity due to a Roundup-
tolerant genetically modified maize and to a Roundup herbicide

Our recent work (Séralini et al., 2012) remains to date the most detailed study involving the life-long consumption of an agricultural genetically modified organism (GMO). This is true especially for NK603 maize for which only a 90-day test for commercial release was previously conducted using the same rat strain (Hammond et al., 2004). It is also the first long term detailed research on mammals exposed to a highly diluted pesticide in its total formulation with adjuvants. This may explain why 75% of our first criticisms arising within a week, among publishing authors, come from plant biologists, some developing patents on GMOs, even if it was a toxicological paper on mammals, and from Monsanto Company who owns both the NK603 GM maize and Roundup herbicide (R). Our study has limits like any one, and here we carefully answer to all criticisms from agencies, consultants and scientists, that were sent to the Editor or to ourselves. At this level, a full debate is biased if the toxicity tests on mammals of NK603 and R obtained by Monsanto Company remain confidential and thus unavailable in an electronic format for the whole scientific community to conduct independent scrutiny of the raw data. In our article, the conclusions of long-term NK603 and Roundup toxicities came from the statistically highly discriminant findings at the biochemical level in treated groups in comparison to controls, because these findings do correspond in an blinded analysis to the pathologies observed in organs, that were in turn linked to the deaths by anatomopathologists. GM NK603 and R cannot be regarded as safe to date.

[Doormat]

I'll take a novel, well tested protein over pesticide residue any day.

"...a full debate is biased if the toxicity tests on mammals of NK603 and R obtained by Monsanto Company remain confidential and thus unavailable in an electronic format for the whole scientific community to conduct independent scrutiny of the raw data.

[Doormat]

GM corn set to stop man spreading his seed

Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. Waiving fields of maize may one day save the world from overpopulation.

The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm.

By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives.

'We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies,' said Epicyte president Mitch Hein.

'We have also created corn plants that make antibodies against the herpes virus, so we should be able to make a plant-based jelly that not only prevents pregnancy but also blocks the spread of sexual disease.'

Contraceptive corn is based on research on the rare condition, immune infertility, in which a woman makes antibodies that attack sperm.

'Essentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm,' said Hein. 'They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada.'

Normally, biologists use bacteria to grow human proteins. However, Epicyte decided to use corn because plants have cellular structures that are much more like those of humans, making them easier to manipulate.

The company, which says it will not grow the maize near other crops, says it plans to launch clinical trials of the corn in a few months.

What could man do with the capability? Perhaps the history of project Coast can tell us.

Daan Goosen, the managing director of Roodeplaat Research Laboratories between 1983 and 1986, told Tom Mangold of the BBC that Project Coast supported a project to develop a contraceptive that would have been applied clandestinely to blacks. Goosen reported that the project had developed a vaccine for males and females and that the researchers were still searching for a means by which it could be delivered to make blacks sterile without making them aware. Testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) suggested that Project Coast researchers were also looking into putting birth control substances in water supplies.

[Doormat]

...The "additives" of GM crops are proteins, which are non-toxic...

Former Monsanto Employee Exposes Fraud

Azevedo graduated with a biochemistry degree from California Polytechnic State University and started working for the chemical industry doing research on Bt (or Bacillus thuringiensis) pesticides. Around 1996, he became a local market manager for Monsanto, serving as a facilitator for GE crops for the western states. He explained to Food Nation Radio how he had assumed that California cotton that was genetically engineered for herbicide resistance could be marketed as conventional California cotton (to get the California premium) since the only difference between the two, he believed, was the gene Monsanto wanted in the crop. However, one of Monsanto's Ph.D. researchers informed Azevedo that "there's actually other proteins that are being produced, not just the one we want, as a byproduct of genetic engineering process." This concerned Azevedo, who had also been studying protein diseases (including prion diseases such as mad cow disease) and knew proteins could be toxic. When he told his colleague they needed to destroy the seeds from the GE crop so that they aren't fed to cattle, the other researcher said that Monsanto isn't going to stop doing what it's been doing everywhere else.