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UK Tries To Bury Devastating GM Crop Report
IOL ^ | 12-30-2002

Posted on 12/31/2002 4:26:11 AM PST by blam

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To: ActionNewsBill
This stuff is EVIL!.............Ever heard of "terminator seeds"?

Oh for ...^%$@#%$%

Ever heard of George Washington Carver?

"Organic"----------->implies presence of the carbon atom----------->rotting dinosaurs
--------->crude oil--------->petrochemicals..............

RAID!!!


21 posted on 12/31/2002 5:36:26 AM PST by ROCKLOBSTER
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To: Miss Marple
Back up copies can be made and stored in the vaults of a lab. That way we won't lose the originals if we ever need them. Although I can't imagine why we would really miss them if modified crops really give people immunity to disease, add missing nutrients to their diet without need for additives, and just plain taste good.
22 posted on 12/31/2002 5:37:47 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
There's no proof organic foods are safer and more nutritious than the mainstream version. Basically its more about perception and clever marketing than what's actually in the food itself.
23 posted on 12/31/2002 5:39:22 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop
"The report also says that the GM crop interbred with a weed, wild turnip, giving it resistance to herbicides and raising the prospect of super weeds."


Any idea how different species can interbreed? I can't plant corn next to limas and grow succotash. I am apparently missing something here.

24 posted on 12/31/2002 5:40:05 AM PST by Adder
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To: goldstategop
This probably isn't the appropriate time to mention the development of Golden Rice. Rice that has been modified to contain healthy doses of Vitamin A.

A lack of Vitamin A is known to cause blindness in Children. This new Golden Rice is very promising for those in 3rd World countries, where rice is the staple of the diet.

Everything we do in this world has a certain amount of risk to it. There is nothing that doesn't carry some risk with it.

One of the most deadly objects ever invented continues to kill,, yet none of us is willing to consider discontinuing it's use. (the wheel)
25 posted on 12/31/2002 5:43:44 AM PST by Iowa Granny
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To: freeper12
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.

Man has been genetically modifying plants and animals since he started farming, historically it has been called domestication.

Domestication can be defined as the human modification of a plant/animal – one that is identifiably different from its wild ancestors and its extant wild relatives. In short, domestication involves genetic change through conscious or unconscious human selection.

We're about 12,000 years into it. Are you sure you want to go back and doom over 90% of the human population to starvation?

26 posted on 12/31/2002 5:48:15 AM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
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To: Iowa Granny
Exactly. The real question is do the risks outweight the benefits? Every legitimate technology can be abused I grant but that's no reason to deny the benefits it offers in the vast majority of cases. The same is true here in the emerging field of biotechnology.
27 posted on 12/31/2002 5:52:10 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop; Miss Marple
As a gardener, I am interested in the preservation of Heirloom Seeds, too.

We must acknowledge the ability of all plants to cross polinate, regardless of whether the pollen is transgenic or not. This is a naturally occuring situation, like it or not.

I suspect many seeds that are sold as Heirloom are not truely pure.
28 posted on 12/31/2002 5:53:09 AM PST by Iowa Granny
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To: PeaceBeWithYou
Excellent. Its technology that made have our lives more productive, healthier, safer, and easier. 90% of us would not want to trade the tremendous benefits from it to go back to a bucolic state of nature that never existed in the first place. We're coming closer to the mythical Garden Of Eden than we have ever been before in human history.
29 posted on 12/31/2002 5:54:50 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: Iowa Granny
Yup. Breeders select the best features to make a plant or animal useful to man. The thing about the ruckus over GM foods is that we're been manipulating genes for tens of thousands of years without even realizing it. What disturbs people now is not that we're doing it but with this power to modify across spiecies at a whim comes with it the risk we're playing God. By all means it alright to ask questions as we should and make sure science is not perverted to narrow and unethical ends. We have to make sure the advances and discoveries of our best and brightest don't increase human suffering but help to alleviate and relieve it.
30 posted on 12/31/2002 5:59:25 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop
Yep, the article is deliberately alarmist instead of just news. I'll bet IOL is some goofy "Earth First" envirowacko group.
31 posted on 12/31/2002 6:09:36 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants
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To: Iowa Granny; blam
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.

Yes Granny, I'd also like to know what this phrase means. Since I believe it was blam who introduced the expression(post #3), perhaps he could provide us mature FReepers with some enlightenment.

32 posted on 12/31/2002 6:12:13 AM PST by ThirstyMan
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To: ThirstyMan
Waiting with baited breath,,,,, (Oh, never mind)
33 posted on 12/31/2002 6:19:59 AM PST by Iowa Granny
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To: blam
That's what happens when they hire Greenies to conduct scientific experiments.
34 posted on 12/31/2002 6:29:57 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: blam

35 posted on 12/31/2002 6:36:22 AM PST by jimkress
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To: ThirstyMan
a "cock-up" is English slang for a messed up situation, a mistake, a job gone wrong, a broken play......okay?
36 posted on 12/31/2002 6:54:24 AM PST by docneaves
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To: goldstategop
There's no proof organic foods are safer and more nutritious than the mainstream version. Basically its more about perception and clever marketing than what's actually in the food itself.

I'm not too sure about that, organics use more pesticides(natural ones) and the crop yields are considerably less than non-organics.

Michael Fumento clarified the organic vs. non-organic debate after John Stossel caught some heat for a minor goof on his expose "The Food You Eat; Organic Foods May Not Be as Healthy as Consumers Think."

Here is an excerpt from that article- Give Him A Break: Stossel Sent To Scaffold For His Taboo Targets

While many people think organic means "no pesticide," nothing could be more wrong. Bugs, fungi, and weeds don't contract with organic farmers to leave their crops alone.

So these farmers rely on "natural" pesticides, such as one made using a bug-killing bacterium called Bt. When Bt is inserted genetically into the plant, the organic farmers scream: "Frankenfood"! But as a spray, it's their most popular insecticide.

Other organic pesticides include such goodies as acid-treated trace minerals(including zinc, boron, copper, manganese), sulfites, sodium nitrate, chlorine washes, sulfur, pyrethrum, pryania, sabadilla, colloidal phosphate, and a 500-year-old rat poison called rotenone.

Do these ever leave residues? How could they not?

"An organic grower, on average, sprays 100 times more natural pesticide per acre than a conventional grower who uses a synthetic pesticide," according to Leonard P. Gianessi of National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy in Washington, D.C.

And no less respected an authority than nutrition expert Jane Brody notes that in "a number of studies in different parts of the country, some so-called organically grown fruits and vegetables had higher pesticide residues than the same foods purchased in a nearby supermarket."

Not to mention that organics cost considerably more, so you can afford less of them, will go bad sooner, and may be infested with bugs or bacteria that the non-organic methods solved decades ago.
37 posted on 12/31/2002 6:57:16 AM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
George Washington Carver. Invented the peanut at Iowa State, didn't he ?
38 posted on 12/31/2002 7:15:13 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: PeaceBeWithYou
>>Other organic pesticides include such goodies as acid-treated trace minerals(including zinc, boron, copper, manganese), sulfites, sodium nitrate, chlorine washes, sulfur, pyrethrum, pryania, sabadilla, colloidal phosphate, and a 500-year-old rat poison called rotenone.

If someone is spraying that stuff on their vegetables, then they, by defintion, are not growing Organic vegetables.

Its bordering on ludicrous to suggest that truly organic foods have more harmful pesticides than non-organic...sounds like a press release that Archers Daniel Midland would put out, with no basis in fact, and then repeated enough times so that people will beleive it.

39 posted on 12/31/2002 7:30:44 AM PST by freeper12
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To: Fzob
I remember that movie.
40 posted on 12/31/2002 7:40:33 AM PST by Mikey
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