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

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> > 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.

What they are doing is extreme mutation. As you probably know, certain
mutations can have unrelated effects, even in 'normal' mutagenic
processes. That is what some people are concerned about.

> 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.

Now, stop and think about that-- we already do horrible things to tomatoes
that make them unlike tomatoes for shipping. Do you really want a more
untomato-like tomato.

> We are as yet unable to create gene sequences that do not already occur
> somewhere in nature.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, if you are using a technical term. We
are definitely creating 'sequences' (i.e. gene pieces from an eggplant
spliced into the tomato gene) where the combination has not yet occured in
nature.

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

Certainly. But making bacon that is tomato-flavored? There are certainly
people out there working on projects of that type, and they are likely to
have better but possibly more unexpected results than the period experts
who claimed you could affect the flavor of a fruit by soaking the seeds in
the distilled ater of another plant.

> 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.

As I said below, it's pretty clear that the term 'genetic modification'
for direct modification of the genome was chose specifically to allow the
making of this claim. What we are talking about here is specifically
'direct manipulation of the genome' and saying that direct modification is
'exactly the same' as modification by crossbreeding doesn't make it so,
any more than saying that a dish made with period ingredients is exactly
the same as one made from a period recipe makes it so.

> 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.

I don't know what you mean by 'monster hybrids'. Hybrids that have
unintended consequences, or hybrids involving massive species jumps? We
know that Monsanto and other companies have marketed products that had
unintended consequences.

Actually, there are many pharmaceutical products that genetic engineers
are now trying to breed from plants that were formerly produced in animals
because of the threat

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

There are bigger differences and more possibility of major changes. These
are mutations, not just recombinations. Hybridized plants are generally
created by normal breeding-- chromoscome recombination. 'Sports', i.e.
mutations, are created by massive changes in the genes-- but we are
looking at even more massive changes.

>
> > 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.

And the New Scientist journal would agree with you that there is much
hype on both sides.

But they also point out that the hype that there are no special dangers is
also hype.



-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"I'm sorry, the antichrist you have dialed is no longer in service.
Please check your list of enemies and dial again."