Originally posted by athon:
The issue is more complicated than this, folks. And while none of you are incorrect, I do feel that the whole 'selective breeding = genetic modification' argument is flawed and brings our side down.
The anti-GM argument is centred on the fact that never before has nature seen the exchange of specific genes across such large distances of phylogenic branching. We can swap genes between fish and tomatos, for example. This raises ethical concerns as well as increased possible unforeseen interactions between the organism and its surrounding ecosystem.
I beg to differ. However this is certainly how the layman might see things, and it is imperative that take time to educate people on this.
It is important to emphasise that there is no such thing as "foreign DNA". As Eos pointed out DNA is identical across phylogenies, thus "foreign DNA" can reasonably dismissed as an oxymoron. I fail to see what ethical concerns there might be. It's not natural? Neither is agriculture. We're playing God? We always have. How do you think that both the Chihuaha and Great Dane trace their ancestry to the wolf?
The second point is that many of the arguments against GM plants can also be levelled against conventionally bred plants. What scientific basis is there for presuming that conventional plants wouldn't and don't interact in an unforeseen fashion with their ecosystems?
Secondly, it can be done without the benefit of time. In selective breeding, unwanted side-effect traits can observed more easily in an organism. It's like having enforced multiple trials. Creating a GM crop, and noticing after three generations that there are unwanted side-effect traits (once a multitude of seeds have been sold across the globe), makes the whle process that bit harder to control.
I fail to see how unwanted side effects would be more easily observed in conventional crops. If anything the opposite is true, since GM crops are more stringently regulated than conventional ones.
This review speculates that much of the food we currently eat would be withdrawn from the shelves, if assessed using the regulations governing GM. Farmers have bred crops for similar traits that GM introduces i.e. pest resistance, increased yield etc. The potential for introducing undesireable side effects into plants is greater with conventional breeding, because the potential for novel recombination events is correspondingly greater, and the potential for these to reach the consumer undetected are also greater, because conventional crops simply aren't regulated to the degree GM crops are. How many people are aware of the lenape potato, withdrawn after it was found to contain unaccceptably high leves of solanine, or the strain of celery that induced rashes in agricultural workers? Imagine if these strains had been produced by GM? I reckon we'd never hear the last of them in that case.
Another concern centres on the ability to insert herbicide resistant traits, enabling larger quantities of pesticides to be used on the crops. Insecticide traits might be of advantage (b.thierugiensis toxins for instance), but to date not many have been as successful as hoped.
AFAIK very encouraging results have been observed in India and China with cotton.
Lastly, it is common to insert an antibiotics resistance gene into the plasmids used to transfer traits during the process. These stay with the plant, and are of concern should these resistance traits be picked up by random bacteria
This has been adressed in a very recent thread. In short it's a non-issue. The potential for transfer of antibiotic resistance genes from GM crops to bacteria is very slight, and in a world were overprescription of antibiotics is a major concern not something to lose sleep over.
But we cannot afford to jump in blind, either. This is a fabulous field which does have potential. But like any new science, we must explore all of the problems before we embrace it. And this is still in its infancy as far as I'm concerned
But we're not jumping in blind. The problem is that many anti-GMers want to halt the process, full stop. Why else would they be burning research centres? To be honest, I can't recall any anti-GM organisation distancing themselves from this kind of behaviour (although I stand to be corrected on that score).
Originally posted by Benguin:
They (quite correctly) observe the likes of Monsanto are businesses motivated by profit and not altruistic organisations. Benefits in helping the world's poor avoid starvation and/or malnutrition would be merely a by-product of any developments they release.
So what? Is there something intrinsically immoral about a company making a profit and helping the world's poor in the process? Nor is eliminating malnutrition the only potential application of GM. The most encouraging results have been seen in cotton, a cash crop. Shocking as it may seem third world farmers are in it for the money as well.
The problems of starvation in the third world have nothing to do yields, there is no global shortage of food ... it is distribution that is the problem. Malnutrition might be helped (inserting genes so, say, rice delivers more nutrients) but, again, that isn't what GM is being used for at this stage, so using it as an argument in support is speculative.
But who exactly has used that argument? IIRC no less a personage than the CEO of Monsanto has repudiated the idea that GM technology by itself will eliminate world hunger. Methinks you may pepetuating strawmen erected by the anti-GM lobby.
