[Sca-cooks] FW: genetically engineereed foods OT- OT- WAY OT

[Jeff.Gedney at Dictaphone.com]

> However, the term 'genetically modified' in this case doesn't refer to
> normal crossbreeding conditions, but gene surgery.

> While the use of 'genetically modified' gives science fans something to
> make fun of, there is a disinction that can usefully be made in terms of
> the technique being used as opposed to previous plant and animal
> breeding/development methods.

Yes, I know... But really w3e have to think about what scientists are doing
with the crops...

Usually they aren't going to add in genes encoded for odd things that make
a food inedible or dangerous.
There is no return on investment for such things...

Most of the time they take genese form one food such as  a soybean, and add
it to another food, such as wheat, in order to, say, make the wheat
"nitrogen fixing" or to take a gene form an eggplant, and add it to a
tomato to prevent it from spoiling as quick.
We are as yet unable to create gene sequences that do not already occur
somewhere in nature.

Making a tomato plant that produces bacon is the stuff of science fiction,
not agribusiness.

But Cross-Polization is _still_ by the same definition (of artificially
incorporating foriegn genes into a plant population) an ages old and and
long established form of genetic manipulation, abeit a gross and fairly
"family specific" method.

> > What, exactly, is the cause for concern? excepting, of course,
nebulous
> > antiscientific concern over "playing God" and "FrankenFood"
>
> I believe that the people who are concerned basically are concerned over
> the possibility that such foods may turn out to have serious issues in
the
> long term.
>
> Prior to the use of gene surgery in the laboratory, hybridization and
> crossbreeding were limited in the number of massive mutations they could
> force... for instance, generally when crossbreeding you have to use
things
> that are cross-fertile-- where with genetic surgery you can combine
> tomatoes with pigs under certain circumstances! So, some people are
> cautious about the possible other long term effects of these products on
> humans.

Of course, but really would such a thing be commercially viable?
Considering the enormous expense of researching, creating, patenting and
then actually producing a commercially significant quantity of the product,
the possibility of monster hybrids is vanishingly small.

> While there is a reasonable chance that most dangerous side effects will
> be caught in testing in the first few years, there are certainly cases
> where some chemical or botanical has had long term cumulative effects on
> people that were not discovered for years-- and there are many alleged
> effects based on correlation studies between, say, cancer and eating
> certain foods (burnt toast!) that people are currently concerned about.

... And this is different from new naturally produced foods in what way?

Face it, Jadwiga, if you have new cross poliated crossbreed of an apple and
a damask rose or crababpple, which easily produceable combinants, there
remains every possibility that the fruit of the union may have set of
previously unexpressed alelles for any number of harmful toxic or
cumulatively toxic compounds. That botannical possibility exists with every
new variety of food, regardless of it's genesis.

New forms of old foods that may possibly have harmful botannical or
chemical byproducts are NOT restricted to the products of gene splicing.

> That is something that people have to decide for themselves. No one can
> decide it for them. It is like the people who go on the Atkins diet or
> refuse to eat mushrooms or meat or whatever-- that is their personal
> choice.

Perhaps.
But I maintain that the much of the hype over GM foods is a product of an
unscientifically sophisticated and inherently sensationalist media.

I recall a noteable episode of media hyperventing hyperbole shortly after
Sept 11...
The concept opf the "Dirty Bomb" came up and the media (Fox news)
immediately conjured up images of entire cities laid to waste, nagasaki
style. The talking heads could not get past the concept of "Nuclear
material" without thinking of "Nuclear fission bomb".
and I recall vividly Yale started up it's Heavy Hydron Collider...
There were people there protesting who actually believed that this was a
fission pile, because it was a "Nuclear accelerator", and could have a
"China syndrome" style event.
Now I'll grant you, that collider could have been a problem, but only from
the brownouts it had the possibility of causing.

Brandu