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I'm afraid I'm never going to understand the European opposition to genetically modified foods. If you were consistent, maybe... but according to Europe, it's okay to clone and mutate humans, heck, even to fuse their DNA with other animals: make a man-worm, a man-rat, a man -slug whatever you care to. Any abomination under the sun, so long as human DNA is involved at some level. AAH!!!:idea2: I know how Archer Daniel Midland can start selling GM corn in Europe: splice human DNA into it...
All us Europeans aren't the same. The Mindless Masses tend to get fixated on an idea, and then nothing will shift them from it. "Frankenstein Foods" hit a chord and from that moment on it was doomed.
~:smoking:
I can't vouch for the Great Unwashed, but one thing that puts me off the stuff is the suspiciously techno-positivist attitude of the pro-GM crowd. Thus far the track record of excessive technological optimism has been rather poor, even if you don't count the crazy Soviet and Chinese projects ("hey, letshs change th' direkshun thishs river flowsh sho we c'n grow mo' cotton!" "Good *hic* idea com-rade! Cheersh fo' th't!" :medievalcheers: ).
Well what took them so long to breed glowing in the dark pigs? I mean the market is huge for gloewing in the dark hotdogs :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
Well, we aren't planning on eating that human-thingy... :sweatdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Two different markets and thus two different approches in the media.
My own oppinion on GMO in general is that we've already opened the can of worms, so tread carefully, the sky is the limit, but the colour the sky isn't decided yet.
food prodution in the world is adequate, the problem is wealth distribution. making genetics companys richer and giving them a monopoly on agriculture will only make things worse. What we need is effective distribution and more respect for quality foods that provide the variety of nutrients and vitamins that we need. The US farmers don't care about this all they care about is crop yields.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Yeah right DC. Come back when the crack wears off.
Completely meaningless tabloid-esque nonsense.
OK then.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Black Ship
What justification is there for GM foods other than the share price of certain agro-chemical giants?
Can you tell me the 3 main GM crops?
Are these crops in short supply?
Do these crops attract a subsidy for US farmers?
So while manipulating plants is ok, splicing human genes into other organisms is not?
I hope Don Corleone and Crazed Rabit never develop a form of diabetes. Afterall, it would go against their conscience to take insulin shots. Insulin that is made by modified e.coli bacteria, wich contain human genes so that they're able to produce compatible insulin.
There's more than one source of Isulin. The other two common ones are porcine and bovine. So the lil' bacteria are safe...
~:smoking:
That's true, but insulin from animals is not identical to human insulin and could trigger alergic reactions. It's safer to take human insulin.
The main argument pro GM-food that I always hear is:
"It hasn't shown any negative side effects yet"
I'd argue that's natural because the time span is simply too short.
None of this stuff has entered the natural food chain to a degree that its effects are observable.
But my main argument against the seeding of GM crops is simply that they can't keep it contained. Seeing that GM-free food is to become a strong brand in the future (when GM food enters the market in a large scale) it's irresponsible to contaminate the "clean" crop with GM spurs. Unless there's a method to keep those spurs out of the atmosphere I'm against it.
Well, the original post seems a bit lathered over too little. As Rory noted, this decisionn cannot reverse free market decisions by comsumers. As long as those consumers are made appropriately aware of the nature of the products on their list of choices, it should be up to them.
ADM and others have won the right to have their product marketed in an area where the clear majority of potential consumers think their product hideous. Seems about as useful as my securing/paying for the rights to start up an American Football franchise in Lyons.
If any nation seeks to continue a ban on such products -- usually as a reflection of the political majority of their country -- nothing is preventing them from doing so. The WTO would simply support a similar level of "vengeance" protectionism by the other party, IF THE OTHER NATION DID SO. There are numerous reasons why the other nation (USA in this case) might not want to do that anyway.
As to Genmod foods and their level of safety, it is important to remember many things can't be fully tested until tested in practice. Yes, you should test as fully as practicable before loosing it upon consumers, but progress without risk in any form is not possible.
Both Penecillin and Thalidimide went "on the market" before their 30-years down the road impacts could be known. We vaccinated against Diptheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Polio, Smallpox, etc. without conducting studies to estimate the health problems they might or might not create for people down the road. DDT drastically reduced the occurrence of malaria.
Test away, yes -- its a good thing. I am not saying that we should all just play craps with our futures. Assuming you can eliminate risk while seeking progress, however, is likely to be self defeating.
BTW, Pappy, I will be sending you the bill for my therapy sessions. I have a rather disturbing set of images involving a brown scorpion and a bright yellow sunflower in my head that I will have to get rid of. :dizzy2:
There were researches in GM vegetables that in the end caused bad reactions to the test animals. Luckily the research halted once that was discovered. So it's definitely not all free of negative side effects.Quote:
"It hasn't shown any negative side effects yet"
GM food is the great answer to a problem no-one has.
"Oh what we really need" say the scientists in Monsanto "is a way to produce more milk, corn and soya. Because we already have massive surplusses of these products and er.. the US government gives big subsidies for growing more..er..."
"I agree" says Industrial farmer "Also with GM crops I can blast the shi*t out of the land with pesticides and absolutely everything on the land except my crop is toast! This means I can er.. use less pesticides.. er.. somehow".
"Excellent news guys" chips in the Monsanto sales exec. "I'm glad you are coming round to the revolution that is GM food. Most importantly of all you'll be pleased to know, is that you must come back to us, and only us, for seeds each year (as well as the pesticide) as we have fixed the crop so it doesn't produce viable seed. This way the troublesome development of varieties of food and crops can be quickly done away with".
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Idaho
Like we did with potatoes. I'm so happy that we only have a dozenQuote:
Originally Posted by Idaho
varieties left. To think that the Inka had several hundreds is
mind-boggling and dangerous to any modern food company to boot.
I mean, how would you control the market without a patent secured monopoly?
:wall:
GM foodstuffs are unecessary and the long term effects are not clear enough. Any comparison between planting fields of GM crops and gene-splicing in a lab are flawed. The latter is controlled, the former is not. I have no great confidence in the honesty or ethics of corporations.
I'm not pro-GM food. I'm not anti-GM food. I don't know enough on the subject to have a qualified opinion and I'm the first to admit that.
I find it incredibly ironic that in Europe, you look back at us and call us religious neanderthals for limiting cloning and mutating human DNA. You call us the Taleban for limiting cloned & mutated stem cells. Yet, at at the end of the day, making the slightest change to one gene of wheat to make that wheat more productive or more insect repellant sends you into a girly hissy fit.
I'm waiting for the overview as to why it's okay to screw with human genes but it's so terrible to screw with corn's or wheat's.
Well, the human gene things aren't meant to be eaten for one. Neither are they going to be covering acres of fields cross-pollinating or whatever with God knows how many things they shouldn't.
And that's not yet even starting on the dodgy monopoly issues.
Aha! Now we have an answer I can understand! Thank you for your honesty, Watchman. At the end of the day, this is all about the fact that America leads on GM enhanced food, and this is a way around WTO regulations on open trade doors on food, one more way to ban American imports.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
:inquisitive:
...
...is it just me or are you jumping to conclusions more than a little ?
That aside, I don't think Europeans need any particular reason to dislike GM food. They're under no obligation to, anyway. Matter of taste, when you come down to the "baseline public opinion" level.
Sorry Watchman, I may have leaped a little early. But I really do think (and have thought) that the big opposition in Europe to GM food is it's a way to ban imports without coming and saying you're banning imports to protect local farmers. You personally of course may not have that as unlterior motive, but I guarantee the thought has occurred to the EU leadership.
Given the massive subsidies EU agriculture draws, and the resulting gross surplus of materiél (much of which has top be either destroyed or dumped at severely lowered going rates into the Third World, neither a terribly good solution), I don't think that's really an issue. AFAIK the EU leadership on the whole would actually rather like to be able to cut down on the sky-high subvention level, but domestic political realities sort of get in the way.
More importantly, it's that it is difficult to perceive any particular need for GM food. Human genetics research has a lot of positive medical applications; genemanipulating foodstuffs mostly smacks of sheer profiteering which is tried to hide under the very small and 95% of the time false fig leaf of supposed benefits like famine reduction (which is in any case a question of redistribution, not gross production tonnage which is already quite sufficient). Sort of like the altogehter too widespread practice of cramming every conceivable industrial additive and replacement chemical into foodstuffs to increase the profit margin, save without the unpretentiously honest greed.
We do? :inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
I think Don may be playing the fool.~:joker:
GM food is the future. Everything will be modified to an extent soon enough. I don't really think it's that useful at the moment - the technology and vision isn't there. But one day.
Could anyone pro-GM food give a decent reason of why we would have to buy something we don't need, that will make us dependent of some greedy 'we-don't-care-about-anything-but-profit' US industries and, the last but not the least, that may potentially have weird effects onto our health ?
Mind you, they're not all big nasty US agri-corps. It's not like we had any particular shortage of unscrupulous businesses here either, it's mainly a structural thing they're mostly outside the food-production industry.
Actually I disagree. I think it marks the high water mark for industrialisation of food. I think (pray/hope) that there will be a move away from allowing control of the existence, production, preparation and sale of food by a limited number of corporations.Quote:
Originally Posted by BDC
They have a vision of us all eating plastic sealed microwave ready-meals produced from GM veg and factory farmed meat bought from one of the 4 major food retailers.
There is a growth of the purchase of biological produced foods as people want know where their food comes from and that the industrializing of food production is not always a good thing. So if anything it appears that people do not see GM food as the future.
Many people in the UK tend to actually worry about where their food comes from. They do worry if it was produced using child labour, or similar low paid / unpaid workers that often sleep on the job. This is why Organic and fair trade food has become more popular but has a very long way to go yet. The majority still don't seem to care what they eat or where it comes from. GM food flopped in the Uk because of the Frankenstein food scaremongering, not for any other 'ethical' reasons. BSE was similar, many people stopped eating beef, then when it all died down, they started eating it again. They themselves were not sure if the risk was gone or even lesssened, it just disappeared from the media so "beef must be ok again".
There are many other food production ethics issues such as chicken batteries, growth hormones, antibiotics and hygiene. GM is just one of many. The basic conclusion though, from those in the catering industry, is that "real food", that which is grown/reared correctly, such as organic, is better. Better for you and tastes better. I'm sure most chefs would agree.
The main issue is education. Educate people to actually think about and care about what they eat and such products will begin to lose ground against 'real' food. As things are we will probably be seeing the same builders in cheap cafes tucking into sausage sandwiches (salt, fat, chicken, soya, fish, pork: (eyeball, testacle, penis, nose, ear, vagina etc etc))...