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Ronald Bailey explains the crucial difference between the face on the Uncle Ben box and the face of death.
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|9.8.06 @ 5:32AM|#
It's at the point where extreme environmentalism is a virus of the mind.
|9.8.06 @ 9:05AM|#
Alas, the far left and the far right share something in common: they both hate science and all of its many benefits, whether it be GM crops or stem cell research. Perhaps Greenpeace and the Heritage foundation could sit down together, grab a beer, and reminisce about the Luddites.
|9.8.06 @ 9:08AM|#
Oh, I forgot, that beer better be organic and blessed by Jesus, less we spoil the idyllic pre-industrial ambience.
thoreau|9.8.06 @ 10:29AM|#
Ron, I pretty much agree with everything in this article. I've been a harsh critic before, so it's only fair that I say that this was a good article.
|9.8.06 @ 10:36AM|#
The "true believer" anti-GM foods activists are among the most irrational specimens of humanity. For most ostensibly anti-GM types however, especially government regulators, the tendency for most people, especially those who are scientifically illiterate, to be suspicious of any new biotech is a convenient rationale for protectionism. Generally speaking, pretending to have worries over the safety of a given GM food is just another tool in the game to get the most possible advantage for your nation's food growers at the expense of foreign growers.
|9.8.06 @ 11:03AM|#
I'd like to hear a rebuttal (if any) of the arguments suggesting that the Cry9C protein in the modified crops makes them a surprising and dangerous allergen.
This isn't (deliberately) troll bait. I'm hearing this argument from my "green" friends and I am unable to find much useful information about it.
I don't expect every GM product to be perfect peaches and cream, so I want to know if this is a real problem or a bogus one.
|9.8.06 @ 11:04AM|#
Ron wrote: "The EU will eventually have to choose between stopping all imports and growing all its own food or adopting a more reasonable science-based regulatory system."
Given the combined political clout of the EU farm lobby, their anti-science lobby, and their
'greens', I think there is no doubt the EU will choose the former.
Which, of course, will give more clout to the agri-protectionists in the US and Canada.
*sigh*
|9.8.06 @ 11:44AM|#
Your green friends are probably repeating third hand something they heard about the "Starlink" corn non-issue. The cry9C gene was inserted into corn intended for animal feed, for the purpose of confering insect resistance. Somehow, it was introduced into the human food supply accidently. So the FDA/CDC launched an investigation to see if human health was affected. They found a few people who had eaten the Starlink corn that were able to describe something that sounded like they might have had an allegic reaction at some point, though not necessarily to the Starlink corn. So, the CDC banked serum samples from these people and the FDA ran ELISA tests to see if said people's serum contained antibodies to Cry9C (don't know how conversant you are in immunology, but the sort version is this: no Ab to protein X = no allergic reaction to protein X). They found no evidence that any of the people who had eaten Starlink corn had serum Ab consistent with allergic reaction to Cry9C.
Essentially, your green friends couldn't have gotten it more wrong. What the CDC found was that even people who have multiple allergies and are highly sensitive to many different triggers did not have a reaction to corn that contained Cry9C.
From the CDC:
On October 25, 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in investigating adverse event reports (AERs) of human illnesses that were potentially associated with consumption of genetically modified corn products. Prior to these reports, a protein named Cry9c had been inserted into genetically modified StarLink� corn; it subsequently and inadvertently was introduced into the human food supply. CDC conducted an epidemiological investigation that included (1) reviewing the AERs, (2) administering questionnaires to all people who experienced adverse health effects and manifested signs and symptoms consistent with allergic reaction, (3) obtaining relevant medical records, and (4) collecting serum samples for temporary banking. The investigation concluded that 28 people had experienced apparent allergic reactions. These people had also reported eating corn products that may have contained Cry9c protein. With the endorsement of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency�s Scientific Advisory Panel which convened on November 28, 2000, CDC recommended that the banked serum samples be evaluated to see if they contained evidence of an allergic response to the Cry9c protein.
An FDA laboratory developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method to detect antibodies to the Cry9c protein. CDC sent coded serum samples to FDA for analysis, including serum samples from the affected people and historically banked serum samples collected before Cry9c entered the food supply. CDC also sent serum samples from people identified as being highly sensitive to a variety of allergens. The ELISA method found that none of the CDC-submitted samples reacted in a manner consistent with an allergic response to the Cry9c protein.
These findings do not provide any evidence that the reactions that the affected people experienced were associated with hypersensitivity to the Cry9c protein. (emphasis mine)
More information here:
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehhe/Cry9cReport/default.htm
|9.8.06 @ 12:12PM|#
Ron:
I appreciate that you may not raise rice alongside your killer hierloom tomatoes , but since this is being pitched as an epidemic story ,you might have offfered a word on the difference between rice you can plant and Uncle Ben's-
The un-brown husked , hulled , muilled and polished stuff is about as likely to spead across Japan's ricebasket provinces like kudzu as crackerjack is to germinate into Frankencorn.