Protesters Swarm Calif. Biotech Meeting

[cstaylor]

Protesters Swarm Calif. Biotech Meeting

The conference convenes at a time when the debate over genetically modified foods has reached a fever pitch. The United States is demanding that the World Trade Organization force the European Union to end its ban on genetically modified food. In the process, opposition to biotechnology is galvanizing outside the United States, and the protesters say inside the country as well.

Any thoughts? I've posted before that I'm against Frankenfood... let's have a poll!

[GargoyleTS]

Kewl. I vote yes, but then again, I am still waiting for my personal Jetpack, flying car and summer Moon Cottage.

[cstaylor]

Sorry. My mistake.

[GomiGirl]

Doesn't worry me but see that it could be a problem for people with allergies. Time will tell...

[Iambobo]

Geneticly modified foods have never botherd me. It's true that there are alot of unknowns about GM produce, but why some people fight it so hard is beyond me. Maybe they know something about GM foods that I don't?

[Caustic Saint]

Kewl. I vote yes, but then again, I am still waiting for my personal Jetpack, flying car and summer Moon Cottage.

Avery Brooks wants his flying car, too. sound
It's from an IBM commercial, but I couldn't find the video.

Or if you have to have one now.

From Moller

[GargoyleTS]

At least he made his *look* fast. I hate the turbo-fan in the center design! But the name...Volantor! Sounds like the an evil Anime Robot.

[ramchop]

I'm not bothered by it.

However,
- I think NZ should be totally GE free for purely financial reasons. Have you seen the prices on some of those organic foods?

- Plus I do a lot of work for the "Natural Health" market, so a suspiscion of chemically/biological nasties by the general public helps ensure my continued emploment.

[cstaylor]

Mendel let nature do the hard work of genetic recombination. There's a big difference between fostering cross-pollination and rewriting genetic code.

Question: when did unregistered posters get write access again?

[Taro Toporific]

I'm not bothered by it...

GM, cloning, stem cells, brain implants ...BRING IT ON!

Public disclosure: Vivisection and "cell raising" paid for years of my college education. Now I'm for ANY advances in GM humanity or inhumanity.

[Caustic Saint]

GM, cloning, stem cells, brain implants ...BRING IT ON!

Bring it on, indeed! I want my Nikon-Zeiss replacement eyes now, dammit!

[Big Booger]

You are already eating it.. taco bell.. corn tortillas, all Frankentaco for me please

[GargoyleTS]

1) Caustic, I am SO with you! Zeiss eyes and Data Sockets.

2) Amoral Pressures? Since when is wanting to feed people amoral? Or wanting to insure hardy crops that are disease resistant, quality consistent and pesticide free? Of course, you also probly think handing out leaflets with messages against logging are a good idea too....

[Caustic Saint]

1) Caustic, I am SO with you! Zeiss eyes and Data Sockets.

Data sockets? No man, gotta go wireless now. 802.11.g is plenty fast enough for most stuff.

2) Amoral Pressures?

Yeah, what's wrong with amoral pressures? There was this one time my girlfriend.....OH, you meant something else. Whoops! Disregard that.

[ramchop]

2) Amoral Pressures? Since when is wanting to feed people amoral? Or wanting to insure hardy crops that are disease resistant, quality consistent and pesticide free? Of course, you also probly think handing out leaflets with messages against logging are a good idea too....

Pesticide free? Maybe, how about the herbicides/fungicides? Many of these crops are designed to be resistent to herbicides/fungicides. Then the happy farmers can more readily spray their crops without hurting them. Unwanted side-effect, the crops have more chemicals on them.

I have no problems with the science... however the safety testing, implementation and regulation does need to be tightly controlled.

If a genetically modified cow can cure a debilitating disease with its milk then I'm quite happy for such a cow to be made.

[cstaylor]

Scientists produced the same stream of adulation for nuclear power when it was first introduced. I'm still waiting for my home fusion reactor, but in the meantime little dictators threaten the world with cobbled-together nuclear weapons produced through the waste byproducts of cheap nuclear power plants.

And nuclear power plants don't reproduce ad-infinitum or mutate beyond the creator's wishes... GE products do.

[ramchop]

Scientists produced the same stream of adulation for nuclear power when it was first introduced. I'm still waiting for my home fusion reactor, but in the meantime little dictators threaten the world with cobbled-together nuclear weapons produced through the waste byproducts of cheap nuclear power plants.

I'm not a fan of nuclear power, but I readily pay to use it. And I am wondering if there'd still be any oil left in Iraq to fight over if nuclear power hadn't been invented.

And nuclear power plants don't reproduce ad-infinitum or mutate beyond the creator's wishes... GE products do.

First point, agreed. Which is why the need for stringent testing and controls.

Second point, mutation... ummm, how is a mutant GM cow or mutant GM corn a threat to civilisation?

[DJEB]

ummm, how is a mutant GM cow or mutant GM corn a threat to civilisation?

That, I think, is what worries Chris and myself. No one knows. This whole issue throws the precautionary principle on its head. [Incidentally, not all GM food has been found to be safe, eg. snowdrop potatoes.] We don't want to be forced to be part of Monsanto's or Aventis's grand experiment.

As far as the claims by those companies claims that they are going to feed the world, it's hard to see how that will happen when they are destroying farmers around the world by making agriculture many times more expensive. And if that weren't enough, if you are a farmer, you can and will be sued for not using GM crops. See Percy Schmeiser's story for more details.

[GomiGirl]

People with food allergies are at risk.. that would be my only concern.

Why am I not concerned? DNA is made up of building blocks and all of these are identical and common to all living things.. it is the sequence of these in the strands of DNA that make things different and causes different proteins to be produced. So if you break down a fish it is made up of the same building blocks as a tomato.

Splicing fish DNA and inserting it into the DNA of a tomato is really just making something that is "possible" in nature - just unlikely.

There is no way that you can make a robot into a person despite the movies as this in a non-living thing to start with.

So the science of frankenfood doesn't worry me - but the politics sure do..

[Big Booger]

As long as I don't grow a third eye or 4th leg, I think it ok

[cstaylor]

So the science of frankenfood doesn't worry me - but the politics sure do..

Unfortunately these two have a congenital link. Why go to all the trouble, as a corporation, to "feed the world" without some unspoken profit motive?

And GG, I think you are supporting my point of view as well, since the code for constructing cellular components, processing sugars, macromanagement of system homeostatis, etc., are all coded in DNA (as far as we know right now). I don't think society is ready to hand the biology equivalent of compiler tools to some yahoo working at BigCorporateFarm(tm) and say, "have at it! Produce BiggerBetterCornv2.0 and release it to the world!"

[blackcat]

I tend to be sceptical as CS here.

Firstly do we really NEED GM modified foods?
Many will say the population growth and problems in agriculture in Africa (for example) are good reason, but how much food goes wasted in Large cities in the world? Could some better management and effort feed those in need without GM.

Second has there been a genuine independent long term study to show we can supply foods to survive and comfortably without the need for GM.

It is clear there COULD be side effects, unforseen problems(we dont know everything)and how then do we stop such a widespread change?

Most interestingly there seems to be a push of this food onto somewhat isolated "in need" groups of people (Africans?) by those developing and selling it. It would seem they would be a very conveinient test goup.

also energy intake has been out of control in "western countries" causing great increases in heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

It seems we should think a bit more about lifestyle changes and administration of food stuffs etc. than producing more with the help of science.... to this degree anyway.

It may be safe...but a far more important question...Is it necessary

[DJEB]

Chris, spot on. Corps want to push it to force farmers to pay the licencing fee for the "intellectual property" - see the Percy Schmeiser link I posted to get more on that.

Blackcat, pester me and I'll look for some research on hunger, but your suspicions are correct. Part of the work Amartya Sen won a Nobel prize for was showing that famine is not a result of a lack of food but rather a distribution problem. Famines have struck while countries have continued to export cash crops.

To be skeptical as to how suing poor farmers because GM pollen has blown into their fields and contaminated their natural crop thereby violating intellectual property rights (Percy Schmeiser, among others) is going to do anything but aggravate poverty and hunger is sensible, in my opinion.

And I'm still not convinced as to the safety of GM. The ability to make poison in hemlock is naturally "coded" in that plants DNA, but I wouldn't recommend making tea out of it.

Also, I'm on Blackcat's side here. Do we really need it when it will do nothing but aggravate hunger and poverty under a for-profit system; and when we have had perfectly wonderful food without GM for tems of thousands of years? I can understand Monsanto's interest ($$$$$), but otherwise, it's not really needed.

As for Blackcat's prescriptions for a scaled back (less opulent for the first world) lifestyle, I have no complaints - I try to do that already.

[GargoyleTS]

I will agree that part of the famine/hunger problem is distribution (thanks to Capitolistic enterprise).

But will normal crops grow on Mars?

Part of the GM movement is concerned with getting off this rock called Earth. (happiness is the earth in your rear veiwscreen). Research requires money. Gov'ts will only give so much before requiring results. So they have to so how make more money fom what they find in their studies. Thus GM foods stuffs. But some companies have post sight of the "why" and are solely in it for a profit. Bad on them for motive, but competition does breed results, so can't say its totally bad. I think controls do need to be in place, and some are. But progress can't wait for 20 year studies, and we can check alot more in labs in less than 3 years than they could only 20 years ago.

I just hope I can walk on Mars sometime before I die. (Unless we magane to get Cloning and Braintaping perfected, then I won't have to die!)

[DJEB]

Part of the GM movement is concerned with getting off this rock called Earth. (happiness is the earth in your rear veiwscreen). Research requires money. Gov'ts will only give so much before requiring results.

I'd say that governments give money until the thing works, then they give it away at firesale prices. The gov't part is pretty much over. If I remember correctly, the terminaotr seed technology (a combination profit making / life threatening technology) was created by the USDA then sold off for cheap.

...progress can't wait for 20 year studies, and we can check alot more in labs in less than 3 years than they could only 20 years ago.

Yup, they do test, but we never would have known that snowdrop potatoes cause cancer in mice if one of the researchers doing the testing hadn't spilled the beans to the media. The profit motive you mention would have kept us from knowing that without the whistleblower.

[blackcat]

GARGOYLE
"But progress can't wait for 20 year studies, and we can check alot more in labs in less than 3 years than they could only 20 years ago. "

thats fair enough you make a good point but I disagree a bit here.

Progress is only TRUE progress if it benefits us(not just some) and wont harm us, true we must be adventerous in many ways but lets remember that diseases once thought to be "under control" such as malaria, dengi fever etc. are killers again thanks to feeding antibiotics to livestock and obssesive over-presciribing the same drugs for many years by doctors encouraged by Pharmacutical Cos.

I`m sure we thought that was progess until the problems we face.

I think that progress should not be defined by money alone, and it seems to me accountants are running the world...and shouldnt be.

No offence to that profession...just not their role as leaders and shakers.

DJEB
Thanks for the info, and do you know what Japans stance is on GM??
Thanks

[DJEB]

DJEB
Thanks for the info, and do you know what Japans stance is on GM??
Thanks

We do have the labeling laws; but it's been a few years since they came into force, so I don't quite remember everything that is covered. The technology, however, is extremely unpopular with the population. Having had some contact with food buyers for Japanese corporations, I know that they were frantic to find farmers growing non-GM soy around the time the laws were enacted.

The U.S.'s recent case brought to the WTO against the EU might have some bearing for Japan. If they make a ruling that it is an unfair trade practice to label GM products (that's not a part of the case, to my knowledge), then it would just be a technicality to force Japan to abandon its labelling laws.