samboct
Posts: 1817
Joined: 1/17/2007
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HI Firm
I used to have your viewpoint on genetic modifications done in the lab these days- that it's nothing more than speeding up the previous methods of biology from selective breeding. However, a biologist pointed out that we can mix in genes from organisms that couldn't mix before. Viruses can insert themselves into organisms, but we're creating chimeras. Imagine a dog/mouse chimera-even if you used dog semen into a mouse, you wouldn't get anything. But now we can do such chimeras at the genetic level, so there is a question of safety, we haven't got millions of years of evolution blocking something that might be a no/no.
Overall though, it's not a threat that I worry about too much- but there is a different problem that's a concern. We're going increasingly to monocultures for our food supply, and monocultures have a problem that when an invading species figures out how to take them out, well, there's going to be nothing left to occupy their niche. Let's face it, these monoculture crops are one big inviting food source for a variety of organisms such as fungus, viruses, bacteria etc. In the bad old days, if one strain of wheat got wiped out by a blight, well, you planted something else. But Monsanto is trying to make sure that there really is nothing else- that everything out there is owned by them. I find this monoculture reliance problematic- especially with global climate change altering the environment. Seems to me that if you've got a half dozen strains of wheat, if the temperature does something funky- well, you've got a lot better chance of at least one of them surviving rather than a single strain.
I don't have a problem with labeling GMO stuff in theory, but in practice, I think the horse has already left the barn. However, I think that consumers do have a right to know what they're purchasing, especially if they want to vote with their dollars and buy something else. It's a democracy- people get to make their own choices- its not for us, even if we have a snazzy education, to say that we know what's good for you. People can waste their money buying vitamins too as well as a wide variety of plant extracts of dubious safety and utility.
PS_ I watched a few minutes of that "documentary" against Monsanto. Lots of errors- PCBs were never the jewel of their business, they were a diversified mfg. And most people thought that those oils were benign- some folks used to use them as a lotion. A lot of the compounds they make sound scary especially if you mispronounce aspartame, but they're really not. Most compounds aren't toxic. I'm not sure that Monsanto is much worse than a company such as GE, but I haven't looked that closely.
I do remember getting aggravated with this company back when I was in grad school when one of their folks gave a talk on their chemistry, and how they were being careful about what was going into the environment. Since I did a lot of NMR spectroscopy and was looking for a job, I asked about the fate of some of the breakdown products. They hadn't bothered to characterize them or do any tox studies. I offered.... But if I held a grudge against every company that didn't offer me a job, well, it'd be a short list of companies I could buy from.
Sam
< Message edited by samboct -- 9/7/2011 10:07:11 AM >
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RE: Monsanto launching bio engineered sweet corn - 
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