FDA Closer To Approving Biotech Salmon 204
An anonymous reader writes with a story about the possibility of genetically engineered salmon showing up on your table. "A controversial genetically engineered salmon has moved a step closer to the consumer's dining table after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday the fish didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it. AquAdvantage salmon eggs would produce fish with the potential to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon. If it gets a final go-ahead, it would be the first food from a transgenic animal - one whose genome has been altered - to be approved by the FDA."
"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Insightful)
"... didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it" --- what kind of standard is that?
Then the article states "In a draft environmental assessment, the FDA affirmed earlier findings that the biotech salmon was not likely to be harmful. It said it would take comments from the public on its report for 60 days before making a final decision on approval."
So first poke a bit here and there, find no problems. Then ask the public if they have an idea what could go wrong !!??
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Insightful)
The very concept is just wrongful. It's already a species that doesn't do well farmed. You end up with an inferior product. Taking that a step further and introducing genetic meddling just seems silly.
Compound one bit of stupidity with another...
What happens when the patented fish contaminates the wild stock? Will fishermen be subject to the Monsanto effect? Will fishermen need a patent license to fish? Will fish farmers be stuck not able to breed their own fish?
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First of all, Luddism isn't relevant. Luddites sabotaged industrial equipment out of a pretty clear and direct sense of economic self-interest*, not a sense of skepticism toward technology per se—in other words, anti-globalization protectionism is far more akin to Luddism than skepticism about technological development.
Second of all, everyone should be proud to be labeled "Luddite" in the colloquial sense you're using it. It's a badge of critical thinking. New technological developments are not by def
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So every time someone points out why an idea is bad, it's FUD?
The article states the FDA can't find anything harmful about the fish. We can very easily think of something harmful. Monsanto-like licensing restrictions and lawsuits when the GM fish eventually enters the general population will be very harmful.
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Furthermore, despite all of the hand-wringing by
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Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Funny)
The neighboring farmer didn't sign a license agreement with Monsanto.
Perhaps Monsanto should go after the farmer who didn't control their "Monsanto Pollen and Seed" properly (that, of course, will never happen because they are Monsanto's customer!) if the license requires that the licensee exercises such control over the product.
It seems to me that the farmer whose crop got cross pollinated has no obligation to return or avoid use of that which someone distributed onto their property voluntarily -- much as if I leave a flyer on your front door, it's yours to do with as you like. This is not a case of "lost" property -- the distribution is expected, predictable, well known, and the actual item being distributed has no direct economic value.
It seems to me that the "cross pollinated" farmer has more of a cause of action against Monsanto (for knowingly distributing a manipulated organism that interferes with the farmer's ability to grow premium valued organic, non-GMO crops).
I'd be tempted to make an offer to Monsanto if I was a neighboring farmer whose crops had gotten cross pollinated: 'Monsanto, get every last bit of your pollution off my property. Access to do so will be granted at the rate of $x/acre per day until you return the land in an "as found" condition with the exception of getting your crap off it'
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:4, Informative)
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I think it is the responsibility of someone who wants to protect their interests in something not to distribute that something onto other people's land. If I knowingly store cases of fresh fruit on your land, I would expect that you should be able to use it for almost any purpose you desire.
Given that the downwind farmer seemed to think there was extra value i
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Too bad that doesn't happen. This comes up every time genetic engineering is mentioned, but that isn't what happened. Monsanto doesn't sue farmers for being cross pollinated (and even when it is undesirable, it is cross pollination, not contamination, quit trying to use loaded words, no one calls pollen from outcrossing heirloom varieties pollution when it screws up someone else open pollinated line). They have however sued for knowingly selecting for and propagating material. Every single case, the Sch
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However, the reality is that "GMO Free" foods are preferred by some and may therefore command a higher price.
If someone knowingly and intentionally introduces something new into the environment which would prevent nearby "GMO Free" farmers from being able to grow "GMO free" food and tha
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If someone knowingly and intentionally introduces something new into the environment which would prevent nearby "GMO Free" farmers from being able to grow "GMO free" food and that has a negative economic impact on these farmers, the person introducing the item should be liable for damages and stop doing it.
That's a good point, and one with a lot of hard issues to consider. I think it gets confusing fast though. Say I'm growing Red Kuri squash. My neighbor grows Galeux d'Eysines. We cross pollinate. Both of those open pollinated would get a premium, but now the next generation is hybridized. Who has to pay up? What if a sweet and field corn mess each other up? Or two fields of parthenocarpic citrus varieties cross pollinate and result in seeded fruit? Those guys get by just fine through communicating
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Consider what Microsoft do to their customers (audits and similar crap), then consider that on the scale of evil Microsoft are merely annoying and no threat to anyone's health while Monsanto have a much worse reputation.
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The very concept is just wrongful. It's already a species that doesn't do well farmed. You end up with an inferior product.
What do you mean by "inferior"? Even assuming that the resulting salmon will be less tasty than the unfarmed, wild salmon, if the modified salmon is considerably cheaper, then people may still find that it's a better value. If the product is truly inferior and not worth the price, it will fail on the market and the problem will be solved that way.
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Insightful)
Caught salmon is expensive, and fish stocks are already in a state of near-crisis. If the choice is between inferior salmon or no salmon at all, make do.
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:4, Insightful)
Tried it. That's why fish stocks are in near-crisis.
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As long as GMO are explicitly marked as such, the market will handle it fine. If it turns out to be harmful, people will not buy it. I still wish there were more excessive tests done with the effects of GMO food on humans (in fact, I think the clinical trials of GMO should be at least as strict as for pharmaceutical products), but realistically spreading in a natural habitat is a bigger threat so I'm glad that's the one that got priority, because that's the one the free market couldn't handle.
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Even assuming that the biotech livestock is not harmful (or, in the language of this "research", "is not likely to be harmful" - and there's a fucking standard: "not likely to be harmful" based upon the fact that we're trying to promote this business and not upon the fact that we have determined that it's safe to eat), even if it's not harmful, creating proprietary animals is a fucking horrible idea.
Let's assume that there are no health risks (which I'm not prepared to ass
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Reminds me of a story by the way. A girl I met claimed that she met Jimmy Page and Robert Plant in a bar in Cambridge, MA ("Shay's) and, doubting that she even knew who they were, I told her I didn't believe her. I said, "how did you know it was them?" and she related the following conversation:
Girl: OMG! Jimmy Page and Robert Plant?? What are you guys doing here?
Robert Plant: Would yo
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what fucking good can come from patented (or copyrighted?) organisms?
This. [acnursery.com] That is Snowsweet, my all time favorite apple. I would choose it over any other variety. Notice the royalty fee and patent? It is a patented organism. It was produced by the same people who developed Honey Crisp, which was also patented (was, the patent has expired). It was produced after Honey Crisp, using the royalties form the Honey Crisp patent. I doubt my favorite apple would exist without patents. What good does patented food do? It generates income for the people who make food better,
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So, you're saying that the only way to get good apples is by letting corporations own their genetic code?
So I guess there has never been a good apple before.
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when is the correct term (Score:3)
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Farmed salmon have already contaminated wild stock in the Northeast. the battle is lost. I and every fisherman I know have caught their last Atlantic Salmon in America, and soon Canada will also end sport fishing, I fear.
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Interesting)
However, several questions come to my mind:
1.What if someone, sometime, accidentally releases the diploid GMO fish? These fish grow faster than the normal salmon and therefore might have introduce a selective advantage to the introduced genes, even if the original GMO fish are reportedly less fecund.
2. Is the triploid production method 100% effective or might you have 0.1% diploids in there, capable of reproduction?
3. Male triploid salmon do have gonads and are are potentially (even if at a very low rate) slightly fertile. How long until a male escapes? I know that the males appear obviously different than the females (I used to fish for salmon in Canada as a youth) nevertheless, I cite Murphy's Law
A bit of reading for the interested:
A simple, clear presentation:
http://www.salmotrip.stir.ac.uk/downloads/SSPOpresentation.pdf [stir.ac.uk]
More hardcore molecular biology:
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v104/n2/full/hdy2009108a.html [nature.com]
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:4, Funny)
The patented fish is infertile.
I seem to remember that GMO soy beans and corn supposed to be infertile too.
Hopefully, nobody used any frog DNA ....
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Famous last words...
Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:5, Informative)
As a side note, I like mentioning corn. Do you really think our corn is 'natural'? Have you seen corn from a thousand years ago? I have, it looks like wheat. What we call corn now is a fast growing freakishly huge form that was created by the form of genetic manipulation techniques known as hybridization and selective breeding.
If you're afraid of eating something just because it's genetics have been changed, you had better stop eating commercial food because pretty much everything we grow and raise has been genetically modified. It's just those were done by slower and less accurate means in the past. It was a method that has even more unintended alterations than genetic engineering and also has to be repeated many many times in an attempt to target the specific change desired while attempting to weed out some of the unintended ones that were introduced at the same time. If you don't believe me, that's fine, go look up breeding and hybridization, you'll find haphazard and unregulated it actually is.
Now if you have a problem with something specific, like a pesticide being produced by the crop, then you might have something worth looking into. Of course, does it express in the part we eat? How do the quantities compare to 'normal' food we buy? (They get pesticide too, and in larger quantities. How much is still there after you take the food home and have washed it?) Of course, if you are just afraid because something is a 'frankenfood', your fears are baseless and I have to wonder if you enjoyed dying in your zombie apocalypse a few days ago?
Sorry about my post being a bit disorganized and rushed, I have to hurry up and get some last minute stuff done that just came up. Have fun, and don't have a staring contest with your food, even if the food started it.
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There's a difference between "doesn't appear likely to" and "appears likely not to". There is a whole spectrum of grades of certainty / uncertainty. The one chosen here looks pretty low.
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Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat" (Score:4, Informative)
Two examples from the paper:
A new potato cultivar had to be withdrawn from the market because of its acute toxicity to humans-a consequence of higher levels of two natural toxins, solanine and chaconine.
Also cassava root, a major food crop in Africa and South America, is quite resistant to pests and disease; however,it contains cyanide at such high levels that only a laborious process of washing, grinding, fermenting, and heating can make it edible.
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A new potato cultivar had to be withdrawn from the market because of its acute toxicity to humans-a consequence of higher levels of two natural toxins, solanine and chaconine.
My favorite. The killer potato.
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I like mentioning domestic cows, chickens, and pigs: All of these have been selectively bred in order to produce more of whatever they're producing, and none of them have a whole lot
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Most of the things you eat have their DNA fiddled with, in many ways that occur in nature. Heck, chances are you have different DNA in different parts of you, because mitosis doesn't get a perfect result all the time. We also do hybridization across species using natural means: Just look at the fruit industry.
So, the issue then becomes if the cross-species genetic manipulations are done by sticking a branch of a tree into another, or by letting maize seeds spend time in contact with a slightly manipulated a
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The difference is thousand years of testing and a few days of testing.
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That worked great for people with Celiacs. Or people who drink sassafras. [wikipedia.org] Or the Lenape potato. There is a difference between rigorous testing and long term anecdotes. Unless you have reason to believe there is a danger, you're just setting up an unreachable moving goalpost.
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I don't have a problem with GM, it's the corporate licensing restriction and the threat that poses to our food supply and our freedom to manage it ourselves, a la Monsanto lawsuits against farmers whose crops were contaminated with their licensed GM.
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My biggest complaint is companies dictating to farmers what to grow, how to grow it, and producing plants that cannot grow on their own, you must buy our special seeds and special "germination spray" each year....
None of this is forced onto farmers. Farmers always have the ability to switch away from GM seed and are never required to start their farming business with GM seed. Farmers choose to buy seed from companies that dictate how they use it, because that seed produces a product that makes them more money, either by being more valuable, or costing less for them to grow. Generally, consumers prefer the GM produce, either because they feel it's "better", or because it's cheaper.
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And given how we're now finding out the honey bee collapse syndrome is a direct result of the Monsanto creations... how can we be cert
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With absolutely no idea what the long-term health effects are going to be from human consumption of a modified genetic animal,
Appeal to ignorance. We have no reason to suspect long term harm, and you can claim unknown unknowns about anything. Can you prove that eating triploid seedless watermelons won't kill us all in a few decades? I can't. But I have no reason to suspect that is the case, so my inability to prove a negative won't stop me from eating them.
And given how we're now finding out the honey bee collapse syndrome is a direct result of the Monsanto creations
You do realize that CCD is happening even in areas with GE crops, yes? Last I heard the most likely culprit was neonicotinoids and overly stressed hives, possibly with t
Did you notice the legalese? (Score:3, Insightful)
Emphasis mine...
Not appearing likely doesn't mean "will not!" And these people are playing with tax payers' tax dollars.
My hope is that they'll label the Biotech products as such at the point of sale, so that the consumer can choose. But the fellas on the other side and their supporters will oppose any such motion. After all they are about making money, Not serving interests of consumers.
Re:Did you notice the legalese? (Score:5, Informative)
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You do know that many foods that humans have eaten for centuries have been discovered to pose a threat in recent years?
Excuse me for asking, but besides Mercury oxide (which was used as a poor man's sweetener until the early Middle Ages when its toxicity became obvious) and the Fool's Webcap (which kills weeks or months after being ingested, and was thus only identified as toxic in the industrial era), can you name any examples? (It's a genuine question, I'm actually curious to know others, since you mention many.)
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Sugar of lead.
Great example? Peanuts (Score:2)
They are one of the most common food allergies, over 1% of the population is allergic in some form. Some people, it just causes watery eyes and other basic allergy symptoms. In severe cases, it causes anaphylactic shock. For some, the allergy is so strong that inhaling airborne particles of peanuts can cause anaphylactic shock. Given that peanuts date back at least 7600 years (that is the earliest evidence we have of them)...
Nothing is perfectly safe, that is just life. That doesn't mean we just say "fuck i
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I have no objection to labeling foods that have been genetically engineered by modern techniques, but exactly how are you going to define that? I take it you do not eat corn? That is a "Biotech" food by certain definitions of the term "Biotech" (including some of the definitions used by those opposing "Biotech" foods).
Really, your argument is lying. There is a meaningful and substantial difference between breeding for characteristics and direct manipulation of genes. If people want to twist words then new words can be created so that your purposeful ambiguity is entirely eliminated.
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If you do not understand the problem with words that "everybody knows what they means", just look at the discussion over "assault weapons". An "assault rifle"
Re:Did you notice the legalese? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the labeling, the USDA guidelines for food labeling are designed to keep people honest about the differences in what are essentially commodities. If the USDA believed that there was a significant difference between GM crops and Conventional crops, then they would approve of a labeling initiative. However, one of the requirements for regulatory approval, is demonstrating that the GM crop is substantially similar to the conventional. Therefore, there is no need for a label, unless the label also makes it clear that the implied difference is insignificant. For example, Milk in the US frequently has a label indicating that no rBST was used in its production, but at the bottom of the label is a footnote indicating that their is no difference between milk produced with or without rBST. It is about battling FUD.
I'm currently involved in some FDA filings, and the hurdles for getting a new use approved for something already on the market and GRAS are prodigious, I can only imagine the hurdles that they've forced these GM salmon to jump through to show that the salmon do not appear likely to pose a threat.
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No problem with the product (Score:5, Informative)
This should not be a big deal for the FDA. It's clearly a safe food product, although I would be a little put off by a "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY MODIFIED FISH" label that I think should be mandated.
The FDA isn't really even competent to judge whether the animals are safe to introduce into the environment. It's not their area of expertise. All they can tell us is if it's safe for people to eat them. It's the EPA that should be concerned about people making frankenfish. And since if they get loose they'd be in international waters, it's a subject for the whole world to decide, or at least every country that fishes in waters where these modified salmon can survive and reproduce.
What happens if they get released and hybridize with wild salmon? Will hybrid fish be off limits to fishermen? Will the fast-growth genes be weeded out in the wild, or will they spread across the whole wild population? (The former is more likely. If it were advantageous to the species to grow faster, they probably would grow faster.) Is this company going to come after salmon fishers the way Monsanto comes after farmers?
Re:No problem with the product (Score:4, Informative)
It hasn't been a quick decision. The FDA has been considering their application since 1995.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989304575503891676987232.html [wsj.com]
The critics have raised every conceivable objection to GM food, and none of them has held up. I've talked with scientists on both sides of the issue, including the Natural Resources Defense Council. The critics have made their case. Good for them. That's their job. Every point has been answered. If they can come up with something new, I'd like to hear it. But they haven't.
I'm no fan of greedy businessmen, but I do believe in scientific progress. They have to overcome the burden of proof to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that it's safe, and they've done so.
People who are several generations away from American (or any) agriculture don't realize that breeding and improvement of animals and plants has been going on for ten thousand years. They've done the same kind of thing with conventional breeding.
To answer your question, they can't reproduce with wild salmon because they're triploid; they have an extra set of chromosomes.
Even if they did -- maybe 1 out of a billion -- you'd have nothing more than the normal genetic variations in fish. Growth hormones are evolved to turn on and off in different cycles according to the environment in all kinds of animals. There are already animals with extra growth genes from conventional breeding, like Belgian bulls. It doesn't do any harm.
Hybrid seed corn, developed by Henry A. Wallace, revolutionized American agriculture.
It's a small improvement, and not that important by itself, but the problem with the anti-GM movement is that it's anti-science. They're in there with the anti-vaccine people. It comes down to, they don't trust corporations. I don't trust corporations either, but get your arguments right.
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Triploid? My God, they're mutants!
What happens if they run into some radioactive water from Fukashima? Has anyone checked on this? Anyone?
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I think your concerns should be addressed to Saturday Night Live.
Ya that's what people don't seem to understand (Score:2)
Is that there really is an extensive, long term, review of this kind of thing. Maybe the first YOU hear about it is when it is nearing final approval. That is your issue, that just means you haven't paid attention. Now that's fine, I'm not saying everyone should track everything submitted to the FDA, but if you care about this enough to get all worked up then you should look in to it.
These things are a long process. They really do spend a lot of time looking in to it. Now does that mean everything is perfec
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although I would be a little put off by a "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY MODIFIED FISH" label that I think should be mandated.
I disagree with that. Thing is, there is a lot of information you could add about food. tell me your last meal, and I'll tell you something about those plants you probably don't know. If I want to, I can make it sound scary. Did you know your citrus was produced by radiation? Or that many of your grapes were sprayed with plant hormones? Or that your tomatoes may have had non-tomato genes (despite being non-GE, by the way)? Or that your apples were spontaneous somatic mutations? Or that many of your
stop complaining (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop complaining and take a moment to marvel at all science has wrought.
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"Anything with altered genes must be bad for your" is not an irrational fear of some new device or technology, it is a reasonable default position when considering a potentially irreversible change to the ecosystem and gene pool. Genetic engineering is not equivalent to selective breeding, because it can instantaneously produce radical changes that would normally take centuries to achieve. In many cases, the science is empirical, like a hacker making risky changes to a large code base because he "understand
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A hundred years ago it was said miracles of science would feed the world with an unbelievable array of giant, hearty and delicious foods. We're almost there. And we'll get there a lot faster without you kneejerk "anything with altered genes must be bad for you" reactionary luddites.
They could have made these bio-engineered fish grow bigger than their natural size, but they were more or less forced to genetically cap the growth at "market size" so that escaped fish would not outcompete natural stocks.
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miracles of science would feed the world with an unbelievable array of giant, hearty and delicious foods. We're almost there.
I was just talking about this with my daughter at the grocery store. We picked up some Polaner [washingtonpost.com] instead of the Smuckers because of their GMO positions.
The first GMO's were things like rice that grew Vitamin A so rural Asian children wouldn't go blind. That was good.
The logical next steps were to make all sorts of food that was healthy, tasty, vigorous, and efficient (able to grow in
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You are blaming governments for the greed of corporations?
Corporations are creations of governments. They don't exist naturally (without a government charter). Monsanto is a just bunch of guys yelling into the wind without the Patent system, the Courts, and the guys with guns from the government who enforce that system.
With the government's backing, they're threatening the species's food supply.
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The first GMO's were things like rice that grew Vitamin A so rural Asian children wouldn't go blind. That was good.
Actually, that one isn't even on the market yet. The first GE crop was actually virus resistant tobacco, in China. the second was the Flavr Savr tomato, in the US. Do you think that Golden Rice is a good idea? Then keep in mind that, by and large, the same people opposing the other GE crops you mention are opposing Golden Rice.
But instead, we got crops that are resistant to pesticides that are applied by the tanker load
I agree that it sounds bad, but not when you consider things holistically. Those herbicide tolerant crops have increased the usage of some herbicides, but they've decreased the u
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Stop complaining and take a moment to marvel at all science has wrought.
The problem is that science came with a wicked little brother called intellectual property. And now we get patented food.
Re:We can already feed the world just fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Your ideas are wildly intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Just label it (Score:3)
If it's clear to me what king of food it it, it's fine with me.
If you want your future kids to have super human powers or gills, take the chance. Eat it!
There are numerous examples where commercial interest was greater than common sense. If anyone wants to gamble, PLEASE go ahead, but leave me out of it.
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FWIW, quite a bit of the fish sold in the US is mislabled already. Nobody seems to be doing much about it.
This report [oceana.org] details how grim the situation is with non GM fish. There is probably no hope for labeling fish in general.
* 58 percent of the 81 retail outlets sampled sold mislabeled fish (three in five).
* Small markets had significantly higher fraud (40 percent) than national chain grocery stores (12 percent).
* 100 percent of the 16 sushi bars tested sold mislabeled fish.
* Tilefish, on the FDA’s
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People have made a lot of baseless claims about the safety of GE food. I've heard them accuse it of causing cancer, diabetes, and infertility. But turning you into Aquaman...now that's pretty bad.
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Can't you buy organic-labeled food? Can't sellers of non-GMO food just label their food non-GMO? Why is that inadequate?
Pfizer shows interest. (Score:2)
And in other news: If it can super size a fish, it might as well super size a snake, a Pfizer spokes man says.
It won't be approved (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's political opposition too, namely from Alaska [washingtonexaminer.com] where they don't want their fishing industry challenged by the new guy. Huzzah for crony capitalism.
Sea lice from farmed salmon kill wild salmon (Score:3)
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These things don't get bigger than wild King Salmon. They just get big, fast. So no Giant Vacuum Salmon. No epic battles between mutant Sea Lice and Sperm Whales. They'll probably end up tasting like cat food so I wouldn't get all bent out of shape with the concept.
FrankenFish! (Score:5, Funny)
do NOT cook in an electric oven. you have been warned.
Polyploid vegetables (Score:2)
As a kid reading about how they used colchicine, a toxic compound that interferes with cell division--to create polyploid varieties of fruits and vegetables that are much larger than those with the natural chromosome complement. And I realized that surely does qualify as "genetic engineering" of a sort.
That's just a stray synaptic firing. Please don't read any subtext into that. I'm not saying today's GM is the same thing. I'm not saying frankensalmon are safe. I'm not even saying polyploid vegetables are s
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We've been doing 'genetic engineering' ever since we domesticated whatever mankind first domesticated. Except for cats, it's been a pretty successful run.
deja vu... (Score:2)
I think I saw that movie. Or was it grasshoppers? I don't remember now.
Which would you rather run on your network? (Score:2)
Which program would you rather run on your network? One with code that got corrupted at random, or one that had a change made by software developers?
I think we worry too much about the folly of man. We interact with nature all the time. We've created new organisms by breeding, moved them out of their natural habitat into other areas without any thought of consequences, and things are mostly fine. There are a lot of rabbits in Australia, and a lot of pythons in Florida, sure, but we have done an awful lot of
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Regular Salmon does just fine for me, thank you!
I hope you only buy wild-caught salmon, then, because farm-raised salmon is already unnaturally bred & raised for specific commercial goals.
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I see the tinfoil hat lobby is here. Where does this cancer threat come from? Is it because the media equates anything with "DNA" to cancer? If you are that concerned about the effects of GM foods on your health or the health of your kids then STOP BEING SCARED OF IT and DO SOME RESEARCH. Yelling "its going to kill us all" isn't going to help any one, sit down and do some serious google work. Read everything you find on GM foods and not just the alarmist knee jerk reactions of the uninformed. Just because i
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I don't want to eat GM food because I don't want to. I have no rational basis for my opinion or mindset, but it is my opinion nonetheless.
No amount of research on my part is going to change my opinion on this matter, nor will any amount of argument. I will cheerfully vote with my dollars in order to avoid such food wherever possible.
Indeed, if GM salmon becomes genuinely impossible to distinguish from normal salmon at the consumer level, then I suppose salmon will drop completely off of my menu.
At this po
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You can chose to eat or not eat anything you want but trying to prevent others from doing exactly the same thing is a little fucky don't you think? I support research and development into GM because it has the potential to lower costs and increase the nutritional value of foods. If it is developed and approved by the FDA then you can choose to not eat it as you will but if near sighted kneejerkers block it from development and approval then I lose the ability to choose a cheaper source of nutrition.
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Speaking as someone who is about as pro-GE as you're going to find (well, in the same sense that I'm pro-vaccine or pro-Pythagorean theorem anyway), I don't care one bit, as long as you put it like that. I'm not about to get on a Jew's case for following Kosher or complain about a Muslim who keeps Halal. I hope you're knowledgeable enough about crop genetics to know just how puzzling that stance is, but as long as you're not going around and saying things that aren't true, trying to stop agricultural prog
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What if people eating this GM Fish suddenly start getting weird cancers and tumors in their bowels or elsewhere 10 years down the line?
There's no plausible mechanism for that. The food basically gets digested in the stomach. They've done animal studies and nothing happened.
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Yes, it is possible for proteins to bind to DNA and pass through the digestive system. That's why I said "basically."
It's an interesting hypothesis that DNA from GM food could survive through the digestive tract and somehow cause harm. In science, when you get a hypothesis, you test it. That hypothesis has been tested in animal studies which couldn't confirm any effect. Some guy claimed to have found damage to rats, it was published in a major journal, other people tried to repeat his results, and they coul
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Hail King Salmon!
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Cool story, bro.
Take your meds.
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One other thing, the moon controls the wave motion of oceans, so if there isa great tsunami, it will not be a natural disaster. Remember the moon is hallow and is controlled by a "higher intelligence" that controls the solar systemsfunctions movements and transformations.
I bet you can't wait for the new season of Ancient Aliens, can you?
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That's exactly what they do.