UK Tries To Bury Devastating GM Crop Report

IOL ^ | 12-30-2002

[blam]

UK tries to bury devastating GM crops report

December 30 2002 at 06:41AM

London - Alarming results from official trials of genetically modified (GM) crops are severely jeopardising plans for growing them commercially.

The findings, in a new government report, show for the first time in Britain that genes from GM crops are being passed on a large scale to conventional crops and weeds.

The finding is so devastating to the government's case for GM crops that ministers sought to bury it by publishing the first information on it on the department of the environment, food and rural affairs website on Christmas Eve - the one day in the year on which no newspapers are being prepared.

The full report, which contains more devastating detail, was withheld from the website.

The GM crop interbred with a weed... raising the prospect of super weeds The report is the result of monitoring GM crops in Britain from 1994 to 2000.

The trials were designed to look at the effects of different uses of pesticides on GM and non-GM plants.

The studies, by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, found that genes from GM rape - a seed grown for oil - contaminated conventional crops. The rape seed had been engineered to be resistant to herbicides.

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.

Pete Riley, of Friends of the Earth, said the results showed that if GM crops became widespread, almost all similar crops would become contaminated, threatening organic agriculture. - The Independent

[ROCKLOBSTER]

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!!!

[goldstategop]

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.

[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.

[Adder]

"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.

[Iowa Granny]

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)

[PeaceBeWithYou]

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?

[goldstategop]

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.

[Iowa Granny]

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.

[goldstategop]

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.

[goldstategop]

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.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yep, the article is deliberately alarmist instead of just news. I'll bet IOL is some goofy "Earth First" envirowacko group.

[ThirstyMan]

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.

[Iowa Granny]

Waiting with baited breath,,,,, (Oh, never mind)

[Brilliant]

That's what happens when they hire Greenies to conduct scientific experiments.

[jimkress]

[docneaves]

a "cock-up" is English slang for a messed up situation, a mistake, a job gone wrong, a broken play......okay?

[PeaceBeWithYou]

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.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

George Washington Carver. Invented the peanut at Iowa State, didn't he ?

[freeper12]

>>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.

[Mikey]

I remember that movie.