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Fri, Jul 10th 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are more common than many people think. Diabetics nowadays who rely on insulin shots aren't getting their medicine from pigs/cows or other mammals -- and haven't been for decades. Modern sources of insulin come from vats of genetically engineered bacteria. So what about GMOs and GMO-produced products in our food supply? Most Americans have definitely eaten some GMO food, but is there any end to GMO experimentation in the wild now?

In France, a lamb that was genetically modified with jellyfish DNA got into the retail food chain -- and some people have probably eaten it without knowing. This wasn't an accident, apparently. A disgruntled worker (and possibly some co-workers) purposely sold a lab animal to a slaughterhouse. It's probably not going to kill anyone, but this is how the dinosaurs get out of Jurassic ~~Park~~ World, IRL. [url]
In 2013, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) found genetically engineered wheat in Oregon -- where it shouldn't have been. Since then, there has been some concern that more GMO wheat is growing in the wild without anyone knowing.... [url]
You can thank GMOs for making billions of pounds of cheese sold today (ie. most of the cheese you see in US stores). Fermentation-Produced Chymosin (FPC) is used instead of a calf stomach extract -- and it just wouldn't be possible to make as much cheese as we do without FPC (unless the veal industry suddenly exploded). [url]

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Filed Under: bacteria, biotech, cheese, dna, food, fpc, gmo, insulin, jurassic park, usda, veal, wheat

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Rekrul, 10 Jul 2015 @ 5:55pm

I read a news item a while back that some government agency had approved the planting of GMO pine trees in the wild without even doing any kind of impact study on what they would do to the environment. If I remember correctly, the trees were designed to have harder wood, which it said would have effects on the animal and insect species who depend on pine trees for their survival.
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Michael Ho (profile), 10 Jul 2015 @ 6:40pm

Re:
http://www.capitalpress.com/Timber/20150128/usda-cannot-restrict-gmo-pine

"A pine tree genetically engineered for greater wood density can be grown without restrictions after the USDA decided it lacks authority to regulate the variety."

ah. that's.. interesting.
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JoeCool (profile), 10 Jul 2015 @ 8:22pm

Re: Re:
According to the article, it's extra density comes from a different variety of pine, so there's little chance this will cause any major problems to animals and insects... certainly no more than just growing the different variety itself rather than the blend. It's not like the GMO pine will be like iron or stone or something stupid like that, it's just a slightly more dense pine.
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GEMont, 12 Jul 2015 @ 11:33am

Re: Re: Re:
"...just growing the different variety itself rather than the blend."

If that's the case, then what is the genetic modification for, since it would not take a genetic fusion adaptation to grow a pine tree that was merely a crossbreed between two natural pine trees - a "blend".

That can be done the old fashioned way, as they do with Nectarines - Peach/Pears.

Normally, genetic plant modification is done specifically to allow the plant to survive the use of "Roundup" - Monsanto's defoliant de-weeding product - by fusing a bacteria gene to the plant gene, making the plant part animal and thus immune to Roundup's total plant kill.

This does not appear to be the case for application with a pine tree crop, as far as I can tell, and leaves the question - what modification necessitated genetic fusion, if the extra hardness can be had through the far less expensive and fully successful crossbreeding of tree types?

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