Feo: Monsanto, very upset with New Scientist.
Posted by Feo Amante on Apr 15, 2004 at 16:37
(216.31.142.59)
Re: Monsanto, very upset with New Scientist. (Uncle Al)
Caveat 1.
This is New Scientist doing the report, so I'm wary from the get-go.
Caveat 2.
On the other hand, this is Monsanto who has a long and speckled past of putting profit first and safety nowhere on the horizon.
Disclosure 1.
I'm all for GM foods but the rosy promise was more nutritious food, not just a food which was going to sell more herbicide or pesticide.
And now:
It seemed obvious from the start that using far more poison than normal in a community / environment would greaten the risk of an already risky product. Round-Up is safe when used according to instructions. But even Monsanto has said that their Round-Up GM crops were designed so that they wouldn't be harmed by their own poison. What is that telling the farmer? "Keep using the same amount of poison - which doesn't seem to be working - but use our pricey GM seeds which are (wink, wink) resistant to greater amounts of Round-Up!"
It seemeed to be a disaster waiting to happen. Various insects are known to build up resistance. It's one of the reasons why Round-Up doesn't work like it used to.
Spraying edibles with greater amounts of poison, which are already difficult enough to wash free of contaminates, seemed fool hardy.
Like-wise the idea that, just because Monsanto was creating GM foods in the first place, that granted them some kind of sainthood - as if they could be trusted merely on the belief that high tech equaled high standards.
Right now, I don't know enough of the situation to discredit Monsanto or New Scientist. But these have been my concerns.
Last note: Something Uncle Al said,
>The natural world is a blizzard of unrestrained genetic exchange through plasmids.<
Please offer some reading material explaining how swine and human genetic material would already be in the natural genetic exchange of plant life - like Monsanto did with their Round-Up GM crops -
Everything I've read so far suggests that the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom have been evolutionarily incompatable for some time now in regards to exchanging reproductive DNA.
Feo2: Monsanto, very upset with New Scientist. Feo Amante 16/4 12:24
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