UK Tries To Bury Devastating GM Crop Report

IOL ^ | 12-30-2002

[goldstategop]

Bunk. GM crops show great promise in actually reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides and also offer the prospect of growing more food on less land. A win-win for the environment right? But to the enviro wackos like Friends Of The Earth, environmentally friendly technology is more menacing than the old slash and burn agriculture ever was. It sticks in their craw and they can't admit they're wrong for then the next wave of the "Green Revolution" would become unstoppable. Fortunately, GM foods will appear on the food shelfs over their misguided Luddite opposition, improving the quality of life for millions.

[blam]

Monday, 30 December, 2002, 13:13 GMT, BBC

GM report 'was not buried'

The UK Government has denied trying to bury a report into genetically modified crop cross-contamination. The study, released on Christmas Eve, found evidence of GM crops contaminating plants in neighbouring fields.

It is another case of cock-up rather than conspiracy

Anti-GM campaigners have seized on the report, claiming it proves there is no commercial future for bio-engineered foods in the UK.

Environment minister Michael Meacher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he had not known the report - a summary of which was published on the website of the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) - would be released on Christmas Eve.

"We weren't trying to bury it," he said. "I entirely agree that the Christmas Eve timing was unfortunate...

"I can assure you there is no wish to conceal. It is another case of cock-up rather than conspiracy."

'Not new'

The research found that the weed wild turnip was affected by gene flow when planted next to GM oilseed rape, prompting fears that it could become resistant to herbicides.

Current isolation requirements for GM crops could be reviewed following the publication of the results.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth has warned the report highlights the potential threat of "super weeds" in the British countryside.

Mr Meacher denied the study, which goes back to 1994 and was finished in 2000, revealed any new information.

"The fact is this information has been known since the early 1990s," he said.

"These findings are not new; they simply confirm what was already known."

Mr Meacher said cross-contamination could not be eliminated but could only be minimised and kept below an acceptable level.

Further research on cross-contamination will be revealed by the Farm Scale Evaluations, commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and carried out by independent researchers.

The final results of the studies will be published in early 2004.

The government has also undertaken a major review of GM foods in an effort to understand the cost involved in producing them and public reaction to them, as well as scientific research into the possible risks involved.

[blam]

Please correct the spelling in the title from devistate to devastate. Thanks

[freeper12]

Do you have any proof that this is all lies or are you just putting blind faith in some new technology using facts put forth by the people who have a finacial interest in the sucess of GM plants?

Blind faith in new technologies is just as bad as being a luddite...I for one hope a lot more independent research is done before these GM plants are unleashed on an unsuspecting public only to find out 20-30-40 years down the road that a huge health/environmental catastrophe was created and we cannot get the genie back into the bottle.

Any research paid for by the people whom would beenefit from the results should be suspect...as should any research done by environmental wackos. Beleiving either one over the other is just as bad.

[SubMareener]

Here in Virginia, we have Kudzuz, Thistle, and Gypsy Moths! All were imported for good reasons, at the time! ;-) Some, the Thistle, imported so long ago that people think it is a native weed.

[Sungirl]

raising the prospect of super weeds

Could be a good B Movie...'Killer Weeds'.

Less Pesticides is the way to go.....but is this stuff going to be digestible?

[A. Pole]

Bunk. GM crops show great promise in actually reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides and also offer the prospect of growing more food on less land. A win-win for the environment right?

Science and technology are like free market - they are infallible gods. We can blindly trust them.

[A. Pole]

Any research paid for by the people whom would beenefit from the results should be suspect.

No, no. Love of money is the purest of motives. Free market is the source of all good. Get on your knees and worship it!

[goldstategop]

Check out http://www.agbioworld.com to obtain a factual and balanced look at the benefits and risks of biotechnology. In particular, the following comments of Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug are illustrative of the promise of biotechology and the exaggerated alarums of the critics who have yet to demonstrated in the alternative that its possible to produce more food without it:

Responding to questions on why he was advocating for an open adventure into genetically engineering at a time when most countries are preaching zero risk in respect to bio-safety, Borlaug dismissed the zero-risk idea, saying it was a non issue where only plant genes are concerned, and not chemicals. He said zero-risk is something that does not exist and not tenable in a biological world where things kept on changing.

Asked who is going to be concerned with the bio-safety once a floodgate has been opened for genetic engineering, he described people who have been championing a GMO-free world as "utopian thinkers" who do not understand the complexities of food production. "Dosage makes the poison. But vitamins, which are vital, are taken in smaller quantities. If we could get a gene from rice - because rice does not suffer from rust - and then use it to protect other crops that suffer from rust like wheat, that would be a big revolution, and that will not be dangerous to human health in any way," he added.

Borlaug's point is that even beneficial nutrients like vitamins can be dangerous if you take them in too large an amount. And its also true there is no such thing as zero risk in nature or for that matter in the course of human affairs. But its hard to see how modifying food plants in small ways would harm any one. What would be wrong for instance as he argued in taking a gene from a rice plant that protects it from rust and adding it to a plant that is prone to it like wheat? Think of how much more bread could be added to the tables of the world from such a small step alone. To date none of the critics have shown a single instance where biotechnology in agriculture has made a human being ill or killed even one. Genetically modified foods offer the great promise of wiping out malnutrition and hunger that still afflicts millions and it would be a crime not to take advantage of all that it offers to make life safer and healthier for every one.

[ActionNewsBill]

Bunk. GM crops show great promise in actually reducing the need for fertilizers and pesticides and also offer the prospect of growing more food on less land. A win-win for the environment right?

WRONG!

What leading scientists and public figures have said about the dangers of genetically modified foods

[Fzob]

Already been done

[aruanan]

"These findings are not new; they simply confirm what was already known."

Yes, I'd read about this years ago either in Science or Nature. There's always lots of stuff that becomes available before the final reports do.

[ActionNewsBill]

What would be wrong for instance as he argued in taking a gene from a rice plant that protects it from rust and adding it to a plant that is prone to it like wheat?

What would be wrong in taking a cockroach gene, or a spider gene. This stuff is EVIL!

Not to mention the fact that the big food and seed companies (monsanto, ADM) are eliminating any competition from heirloom seed companies.

Ever heard of "terminator seeds"?

[goldstategop]

I'd trust the source if these weren't the same folks so wrong about anti-missle defense. The fact remains that in all the years since biotechnology took off, not one person has fall ill or died from eating a GM food. Sure there are risks but there are also benefits and when we have a planet on which people go with empty bellies to bed every night we have a duty to make sure they have adequate and nutritious diets. Right now in the 21st century we have the means for the first time in human history to deal with the age old scourge of hunger with science. Domestication itself is a product of human action and biotechnology is exactly in this vein albeit on a more sophisticated level. We're improving both the quantity and the quality of the world's foodstuffs and not one of the critics can give a sound reason why that ought not to be done.

[bert]

Drivel, absolute drivel written by a scienceless english major who failed and had to take up journalism.

[goldstategop]

Really? And now different is that from breeding plants or domesticated animals? The difference is we're improving plants on the cellular level by endowing certain crops with properties that make more nutritious, hardy, and pest-resistant. One can't say that isn't a positive use of biotechnology. What about modifying crops so they can be planted in areas low on available water or in salty soil? Think of crops with immunity to human diseases built-in. No more painful vaccine injections. The possibilities inherent in biotechnology are boundless and this truly the final frontier of modern science.

[Iowa Granny]

1) Will someone who understands the Queen's English please explain what 'cock up' means. I am 57 years old, raised 3 sons, and I'm old enough to know the truth.

2) 60% of the Cheese consumed in the U.S. today is produced from transgenic substance.

3) Any report that uses Friends of the Earth as a reliable source of background information is suspect to me.

[goldstategop]

We've all eaten it and neither you nor I or any one else has reported an ill effects. Granted some transgenic crops may have side effects no one knows about but the burden of proof is on the critics to show the risks of the life-saving promise of biotechnology in our lives would outweigh the benefits.

[Miss Marple]

My only concern is that non-modified plants' genetic code be preserved in some way, so that the originals aren't lost forever.