DailyDirt: GMO, GMO, Wherefore Art Thou, GMO?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Genetically modifying animals and plants is a growing concern -- with some people totally against the idea. And there are now a variety of biotech tools that make defining GMOs a bit less clear-cut for the general public. Taking a gene from a sea animal and putting into a pig sounds extremely unnatural, but does simply removing a gene sound as bad? Or what if farmers used traditional breeding techniques to get to a particular genetic end goal that was discovered by less "natural" genetic experimentation?- If scientists merely remove genes, not add any new genes, does that qualify as a genetically modified organism? Using CRISPR/Cas9 techniques, a researcher created a button mushroom that doesn't brown after it's cut -- by removing some genetic material to turn off an enzyme -- and the USDA says that's not a GMO mushroom. (However, this decision may change.) [url]
- There are at least a couple engineered genetic "kill switches" for genetically modified microbes. Have researchers not seen/read Jurassic Park? Or Blade Runner? [url]
- Off-patent generic GMO soy beans are starting to enter the market since it's been about 20 years since Monsanto developed them. Out of about 84 million acres of soybeans planted in the US, only a couple thousand or so acres will be seeded with generic Roundup Ready knockoffs. Monsanto has a Roundup Ready 2 variant that's still under patent protection (as well as another version still pending approval), so don't worry about not being able to buy the authentic stuff. [url]
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Filed Under: biotech, crispr, genetically modified organism, gmo, jurassic park, kill switch, roundup ready
Companies: monsanto
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Good GMO versus bad
Humans. Genetic testing to avoid Tay-Sachs. Good.
Even the simple example will confuse many people. No need for abortion. The genetic testing could be used to deter people with the recessive gene from marrying each other in the first place. Still GMO and eugenics, though you might prefer a different flavor, eh?
Actually, a lot of the confusion involves misunderstanding what the genes represent. They are NOT a blueprint for a unique organism or even a set of genetically identical organisms. They are more like a set of recipes for a rather large set of possible organisms... Your results will differ depending on many factors, but especially the nutrients.
(I sympathize since I only came to understand this difference a few years ago. Probably thanks to Richard Dawkins?)
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Re: Good GMO versus bad
Genetic testing is a completely different animal. You do not want to alter the DNA or reintroduce it to other organisms. Genetic testing is very good science of observing, but not altering. That is how basic science works! Altering is engineering!
DNA is a large set of recipes for possible building blocks for organisms. DNA and the genes stay almost the same from generation to generation. It is just a question of what genes get read and turned into building blocks!
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Re: Re: Good GMO versus bad
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Re: umbrella corporation
just that line is giving me the heebies. puleeze. your bottom line is what you seem to be concerned about.
unless this is snark...
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Re: Re: umbrella corporation
I thought that would be obvious due to the name used for the post.
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“GMO” Makes About As Much Sense As “Chemicals”
Did you know that cattle have picked up a piece of snake DNA in their genes?
Or that grafting—a common technique practised by gardeners, farmers and horticulturists for millennia—can cause exchange of genes across the graft?
So complaining about gene-splicing purely as as matter of principle makes about as much sense as denying that everything we eat is made up of “chemicals” anyway.
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Re: “GMO” Makes About As Much Sense As “Chemicals”
There is no need for everything we eat to be chemical, these were introduced to save corporations money via longer shelf life and better marketing through created colors, etc..
We fatten cattle up with corn, which they were never designed to digest because grass fed cattle cost too much (even though corn is a grass, it is not the kind of grass that cattle eat, naturally).
The damn corporations do all kinds of crap for their benefit and work hard to hide it from us. Tomatoes are a vegetable rather than a fruit, not because they have an internal seed, but so that they could fill out a school lunch nutrition chart in their favor. The definition of organic is being legally gerrymandered to that what you think might be organic really isn't. The definition of natural is being manipulated so that things that aren't quite natural get slipped in. The country of origin is now going to be hidden because other countries have different rules about labeling and we will know eve less about what we consume. Not all ingredients are listed, though we think they are supposed to be, because the rules have been quietly discombobulated so that they don't have to list everything anymore and only a few who follow things closely are aware.
If mankind were not so arrogant, stupid or greedy I might feel differently about all this, but they are and I won't.
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"Arrogant, stupid or greedy"
GMOs are one of the technologies that is going to prolong this inevitability.
...since space colonization isn't working out.
Do you have kids? Are you sterile?
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Re: "Arrogant, stupid or greedy"
In the meantime, let us accept whatever those greedy bastards tell us because they are 'GOOD' corporate citizens and would 'NEVER' do anything to hurt us...but God help them if they miss a payment to shareholders.
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Re: Re: "Arrogant, stupid or greedy"
Unless we develop a new frontier (e.g. the settling space or the oceans) we're headed towards inevitable disaster. Not unless we figure out a way to change culture to curb our population growth.
As for the corporations, of course they're abusing their power to maximize short-term profits (at the expense of long-term profits). And that's a failure of our company-based capitalist system.
I don't have a solution for that either. But I'm pretty sure that outlawing GMOs isn't really going to do much.
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Re: Re: Re: "Arrogant, stupid or greedy"
There are pesticides in our drinking water. There are pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. Corporations are forcing countries to move their natural seeds into corporate control so that farmers must pay to plant new crops, crops that may or may not be harmful to the consumers. Then the farmers lose their farms because they cannot afford the seed anymore, and all of this needs to stop.
Feeding an overpopulated world is another issue. One that need addressing (both from the how to feed side and the how to reduce population growth and total population without another war or some kind of genocide), but GMO's aren't going to feed more people. They are going to make those corporations more money with better looking but not better tasting or healthier foods..
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Corporate malfeasance
GMOs are momentarily an asset exclusively for the few companies making them, but the technology will eventually become public, and we'll be able to do what we want with those vegetables, including feeding more people.
Norman Borlaug used the technology of his time to facilitate the feeding of a billion people. The current epidemics of protectionism and IP maximalism isn't going to last forever, and we'll be able to craft foods with whatever features we want.
GMOs aren't going to feed more people today, but that's not the fault of GMOs, but the officers of the corporations that create them.
Regarding how we test GMOs, I suspect that we'd have to overhaul the FDA in the first place, since it, like all other agencies is vulnerable to regulatory capture.
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The devil is in the details
Adding a gene to corn to make it juicier or tastier is probably harmless.
Adding a gene so that the corn produces its own pesticides is now common (it's known as "Bt-corn"). Here's a description of it:
https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef130
Maybe it is harmless to humans, but I am very skeptical. The BT endotoxin does very nasty things to an insect - I would not automatically assume that it is harmless to humans just because Monsanto says so.
Adding a gene to make corn "Roundup-ready" means you will be getting a lot more of the herbicide Roundup in your diet. Although the corn itself maybe harmless to eat, I very much doubt that the Roundup it contains is benign. Perhaps those lobbyists who work at Monsanto can demonstrate how safe it is by drinking a glass of Roundup in front of the TV cameras, and then get back to us a week later if they're still alive.
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Re: The devil is in the details
You cannot, however, drink Roundup and be fine, and no one from Monsanto is claiming that you can. However, the working ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is far less toxic to humans than pretty much every other herbicide on the market, and since it's so effective farmers can use less of it then other nastier herbicides and get the same effect. Most of it washes off through rain or irrigation, so by the time your average Roundup ready soybean gets to its final destination, there is little if any Roundup present, and certainly not in high enough concentrations to hurt you.
All that being said, Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, and other agricultural companies do absolutely get up to some unbelievably shady shit, but that's mostly on the intellectual property/business side.
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Re: Re: The devil is in the details
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Re: Re: The devil is in the details
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Re: Re: The devil is in the details
...and ends up where?
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Re: Re: Re: The devil is in the details
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According to a 1917 study by Palemon Dorsett, Archibald Dixon Shamel and Wilson Popenoe of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a single mutation in a Selecta orange tree planted on the grounds of a monastery near Bahia, Brazil, probably yielded the first navel orange between 1810 and 1820.
...
Because the mutation left the fruit seedless and, therefore, sterile, the only method to cultivate navel oranges was to graft cuttings onto other varieties of citrus trees.
...
Today, navel oranges continue to be propagated through cutting and grafting. This does not allow for the usual selective breeding methodologies, and so all navel oranges can be considered fruits from that single, nearly two-hundred-year-old tree: they have exactly the same genetic make-up as the original tree and are, therefore, clones.
Wow. Genetic mutation, grafting, clones. Horrors! How could we ever allow such a thing to be sold in stores?!
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Re: Genetic mutation, grafting, clones
To top it all off, bananas are radioactive, because of their potassium content. Is a radioactive chemical like potassium good for you?
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For example if a compound was synthesized but that compound can be found in nature somewhere then food packages can still advertise that the product is 'all natural' even though one of the ingredients was made in a lab. The government does little to protect us from false advertising because they essentially legalize it.
Perhaps what we should do is create a generic document that narrowly defines things so that when some food package or bag says it's this or that they can refer to the document. Kinda like how we have generic licenses such as the GNU-GPL or CC where terms are very specifically defined.
A food package can advertise the document name and organization behind it followed by the class
(as a hypothetical)
All natural society - General labeling
1: All natural means that nothing to be ingested in this package has been synthesized. This even includes ingredients that are naturally found in nature but were synthesized. No naturally occurring synthetics. (have a lawyer review this for even more clarity if necessary).
2: Organic means no insecticides were used. This includes but is not limited to (the list of synthetic exceptions that the govt normally allows on organic labeling).
3:) Non genetically modified means ... (have lawyer review).
A package can say something like this is ALS (all natural society) organic. Now consumers can evaluate package labeling based on (elaborately defined) common definitions put forth by a third party organization and not based on the very misleading definitions put forth by our broken government. Any label that deviates from the strict definition is false advertising and should be subject to fraud (hah, good luck getting the government to do anything ...)
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Re:
And the current legal definition of "organic" allows the use of pesticides and insecticides - they just can't be synthetic (which ironically allows for (and in many cases, requires) the use of insecticides that are far more dangerous to the environment and humans than synthetic insecticides.)
The main problem is that the average grocery shopper doesn't understand what these labels mean. Most people, for instance, would like food that contains DNA to be labeled as such, even though this would obviously be pointless because any food containing any meat or plant products contains DNA.
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Re: Re:
Though now that I think about it, at heart, it all probably started with the hippie movement in the 60s.
The 50s were after all, in relation to technology, pretty forward facing; full of fairs on how life would be "In the year 2000".
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And organic can include synthetics
"However, under US federal organic standards, if pests and weeds are not controllable through management practices, nor via organic pesticides and herbicides, "a substance included on the National List of synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production may be applied to prevent, suppress, or control pests, weeds, or diseases."[25] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food
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Re: Re:
Yeah, I guess so. I'd be more concerned if it contained none.
Most food items contain DNA. For example - produce, meat and dairy all contain DNA. The processed food items possibly contain much less.
I am guessing that you meant GMO rather than DNA.
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Re:
How about just saying "we didn't use pesticides"? It is easy to understand, and a lot more accurate.
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Re: Re:
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What does "Organic" mean today?
If organic doesn't preclude chemical pesticides, what does it mean?
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Re: What does "Organic" mean today?
Synthetic substances allowed for use in organic crop production.
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USDA - Bless Their Hearts
There we see why the expression "to good for government work" came into being.
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Re: USDA - Bless Their Hearts
Umm, just a quibble, but I've always heard "good enough for government work".
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"Good enough for government work"
Contrast Gerry-built which was stuff that (allegedly) did fall apart. Though I don't hear many stories of Germans getting betrayed by their gear on the field.
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Re: Re: USDA - Bless Their Hearts
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Is a plant GMO if you remove genes?
I dunno Sherlock, does removing something from something else result in a modified thing? /s
Yes the question probably refers to the legal meaning of GMO. But it's all bullshit in the end.
At this point, unless you're at least a chemistry major all's left is hope that what we eat won't kill us.
Normally I'd say Monsanto would (at least) NOT be so stupid as to food poison its revenue base but right now I don't know about that anymore.
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Why Is This GMO Question Difficult to Answer?
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Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
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Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
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Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
Don't kid yourself - techniques like grafting and cross-pollination are making GMOs.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
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Comparing grafting and cross polination to gene splicing
GMOs aren't abominable monstrosities that are bad for you per se. Some might be, but the same is true for all the other vegetation we grow (e.g. cyanide in apple seeds).
And GMOs have proved to be a useful tool to provide enough fuel to feed our non-stop population growth, since we seem unable to stop breeding until there's a massive food crisis and famine.
Considering the corruption we've already seen in the FDA (Pink Slime? YES! _Plan B Contraceptives? NOT WITHOUT PUBLIC PRESSURE!) there are already things in our food and drugs that are way worse for us than the risk that general use of GMOs add. So this really is just a matter of Ludditism and fear of playing god...
... which we did long ago when we made the tangerine. From Tangiers.
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Re: Comparing grafting and cross polination to gene splicing
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
While you're at it, a citation of why this is a bad thing is also needed. We process a lot of food unnaturally and use pretty freaky chemicals in what we eat, and that's all okay?
Something tells me you just want to be afraid of artificial stuff
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Human-lab-manipulated GMO is bad, period.
And, regarding your link to "Naturalistic fallacy", this is a straw man and false equivalency. Like it or not, you are a being created on Earth by Nature, and we are not genetically engineered to be able to process genetically engineered foods, we are tied to Nature's creations in the form of the foods we eat, and our body processes are tailored to digest foods designed by Nature. Anonymous Coward mentioned the fact that GMO corn pollen can not be eaten by Monarch butterflies, because it is foreign to what they can process. It kills them. And witness the myriad health problems in this country caused by eating processed foods--this is not conjecture. http://www.cancer.org/healthy/eathealthygetactive/acsguidelinesonnutritionphysicalactivityforcancerp revention/acs-guidelines-on-nutrition-and-physical-activity-for-cancer-prevention-food-additives
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"straw man and false equivalency"
As for GMO corn pollen not being edible by monarch butterflies, the cause is not that it's a GMO but that the Gs were Md so as to make the corn pollen toxic to Monarchs. We could just as easily create a GMO in which the corn pollen is preferred by Monarchs.
We've been yammering the ill health effects of our food additives, and in some cases there may actually be merit to the issue, but few of them are universal. MSG causes health problems in some people, but not as many as purported during its panic. Saccharin, known to cause cancer in laboratory rats is actually less toxic for the sweetness attained than Aspartame (because it's super-duper sweet), and more people have problems with processing sugar in the excess quantities that we eat it. Are GMOs dangerous? Any given one is probably safe, but we'll occasionally have some that aren't. As is the case with additives and industrial pollutants. Compared to your automobile exhaust, however, it's all safe as houses.
I'm pretty sure that it's not a straw man that you seem to be generalizing huge swaths of foods in given categories, e.g. natural vs. GMO. It's very possible you've never eaten a natural vegetable in your life.
As for processing, Acorns have been the stable of civilizations, and yet are quite toxic without processing (e.g. leeching out the tannin by boiling).
I've mentioned before that most of our food preparation today comes from trying to make food last longer or taste better than in its raw form.
These are mere tools by which we can sustain our population of 7.2 billion people, half of which have to face food shortages continuously (largely due to freight difficulties than supply, but additives, processing and even GMOs are part of the solution.)
So check your privilege, dude.
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Re: "straw man and false equivalency"
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The FDA does not test gmo crops. Nor gmo animals. Claims by Monsanto that the crops are safe for human consumption are not based on any longitudinal studies or other independent studies. The FDA has failed the American people on this issue.
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Problem is - nature is crafty and the effectiveness of such an approach will fade, eventually becoming useless - sort of like what is happening with the anti-bacterial soap.
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"Have researchers not seen/read Jurassic Park? Or Blade Runner?"
There will always be researchers operating outside laws to stop unethical science, which may or may not operate outside the jurisdiction of those laws.
And when we decide that a certain technology should not be used in certain ways, there will always be people above the law with the means and motive to do it anyway.
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Re: "Have researchers not seen/read Jurassic Park? Or Blade Runner?"
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Re: Re: "Have researchers not seen/read Jurassic Park? Or Blade Runner?"
It's a name that's appeared on TechDirt way too many times.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7iATJVCso
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/saving-the-monarch -butterflies-migration/
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/12/2013/monitoring-the-monarchs.html
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When Juliet says "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?", she is not asking Romeo where he is; she is asking "Why is it that Romeo (the man I love) is Romeo (the scion of the one family with which mine has insurmountable enmity)?".
The modern usage, such as in the headline of this article, is simply incorrect, and it always bothers me to see it - particularly in places, such as here, where I have enough respect for the writers to think that they really should know better.
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Re:
The headline is not asking, "Where are you, GMO?"
I did know better when I wrote the headline....
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Re: Re:
I had read the headline as being another example of "just quoting Romeo and Juliet because it sounds good, without worrying about the meaning", which in hindsight my previous comment did not really address, but which in most of its occurrences does seem to be the result of people assuming the "where are you" meaning. In fact, when I look at it, the headline doesn't make much sense with that meaning either, so it is indeed at least as plausible that you knew and were intending the other meaning as that you were aiming for the wrong one.
Sorry to have imputed error where it apparently did not exist.
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