This is often a topic at the "Sustaining Our Environment" forum.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sustaining Our Environment @ Nature.Net

Olanga, Check out the new Mother Earth News. There's a good article on genetically engineered products.

Egyptianonion

Genetic gardening can cause stress levels too soar through the roof. Info on genetic gardening can be very stressfull to read aswell as adding to your stress managemnt techniques work.

Genetic gardening is a new afflication of the human race, marcus. The only known cure is avoidance, as in abstinence. Abstaining also means not reading about genetic gardening. For me, the stress comes from not ever reading anything about genetic gardening. And I am a professional gardener who ought to know about such a thing.

For you, no read, no gardening, no stress. Peace

-suggest that you read GENOME, by Matt Ridley. Published by
Harper Collins. This is an overview of human genetics,
copyright 1999. So it's recent. Written for the general
reader. Maybe you can interest your neighbors in learning
more about genetics.

Genetic Engineering, is a process that occurs in a lab where someone takes genes from one organism and inserts them into the dna of another organism. Creating combinations that would never occur in nature, (e.g., spider genes into goat dna, or human genes into rice dna). No one really knows if there are any health concerns about genetically modified organisms. The FDA has not done extensive testing of these organisms before releasing them to be mass produced and sent into the food suppy. They leave that testing up to the company that makes those organisms, (kind of like the fox guarding the hen house). The majority of genetically engineered organisms on earth,(something like 96%) are produced by a company called Monsanto. Other Monsanto products include roundup, saccharin, agent orange, dioxin, polystyrene, and synthetic fibers. In March 2005, Monsanto bought Seminis Inc, making it also the largest conventional seed company in the world. They are owned by a large pharmacutical company called Pharmacia. I beleive in 2002 Pharmacia merged with pharmacutical giant Pfizer.
This is a good site for more in depth information about Monsanto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

Mothers for Natural Law

Here is a link that might be useful: Safe - Food dot Org

>Genetic Engineering, is a process that occurs in a lab where
>someone takes genes from one organism and inserts them into
>the dna of another organism. Creating combinations that would
>never occur in nature, (e.g., spider genes into goat dna, or human >genes into rice dna).

Keep in mind that centuries of selective breeding have also created combinations that would never occur in nature. This alone is not sufficient reason to be wary of transgenic organisms.

>No one really knows if there are any health concerns about
>genetically modified organisms. The FDA has not done extensive
>testing of these organisms before releasing them to be mass
>produced and sent into the food suppy.

Similarly, the FDA has not done extensive testing on the vast majority of the foods we eat. Should they do that for every new release of hybrid corn? Every new fruit variety? Breeders love to get new varieties that are pest resistant. Organic gardeners love those varieties as well, because it makes it easier to avoid the use of pesticides. Do you know how plants fight pests? Most of the time by synthesizing poisonous chemicals in their leaves, stems and roots. They make their own pesticides. Are you confident that those poisons carry zero long term risk for humans?

While I accept the possibility that trasngenic soy could present some danger that non-tansgenic does not, this is true of any new food. Transgenic soy will have one or two new genes introduced, which makes some people nervous. But are those same people nervous about eating a new fruit that they have never eaten before? Such a fruit has myriad gene products the consumer has never eaten before. Should the consumer be worried? Has the USDA done long term studies on the safety of eating paw paw fruit every fall? Of course not. "But paw paw is natural" one might say.

There are plenty of plant products that are poisonous. Rhubarb leaves and deadly nightshade for example. On the other hand, there are plenty of plant products that appear quite healthful to eat.
It is naive to think that all plant products are one or the other; there is no doubt a continuum, from deadly to healthful, and in between the extremes are plants that are neutral, plants that may give you the trots or a bellyache, plants that increase your long term risk of liver cancer by 1%, plants that decrease that risk by 1%.

I'd like to hear an argument for why round-up ready soy should go through more testing than that strange new fruit from Asia in the produce section. Or more than peanuts for that matter. How many people are allergic to peanuts?

>They leave that testing up to the company that makes those
>organisms, (kind of like the fox guarding the hen house).

That's true, but remember that Monsanto also gets blasted if they don't do any testing.

Olanga, do you have specific worries? I find it interesting that you are worried about genetically engineered foods, but apparently don't have a source of information to back up your worries. Why are you worried?

Any new technology comes with its own set of problems, but let's keep some perspective on what the problems are compared to alternatives.

Alex

Here's a page with loads of interesting links. It's got a 'farmers on GM crops' section that might be helpful to you...

http://www.safefoodnews.co.za/resources.htm

hope it helps.

Hi. The film I've linked you to, below, is THE BEST introduction I've ever seen on the threat represented by genetic engineering to food supply -- and the very real threat the independence of farmers and farming communities, etc. It is filled with good, well-illustrated information that is engaging, easy to follow, eye-appealing, and very educational. The quality of the film is very important to getting its message across.

Numerous farmers are interviewed. Also *independent* scientists, critical of GE. Also, independent farmers who are taking another path - free of GE seeds. I can't recommend this film too highly.

Victim farmers are being manipulated and even blackmailed, in my opinion.

If you can invest in a DVD copy of this film, I really recommend that you do!!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Future of Food documentary

The following article might give some reasons to worry Alex. There's a graphic that didn't come out properly on this post, but is worth the click on the site to see it.

Genetically modified soy affects posterity: Results of Russian scientists studies

On October 10, during the symposium over genetic modification, organized by the National Association for Genetic Security (NAGS), Doctor of Biology Irina Ermakova made public the results of the research led by her at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). This is the first research that determined clear dependence between eating genetically modified soy and the posterity of living creatures.

During the experiment, doctor Ermakova added GM soy flour to the food of female rats two weeks before conception, during conception and nursing. In the control group were the rat females that were not added anything to their food. The experiment was formed by 3 groups of 3 female rats in each: the first one was control group, the second one was the group with GM-soy addition, and the third one with traditional soy addition. The scientists counted the number of female species to give birth and the number of born and died rats.

After the result of the first stage, the second part took place. Now the rats were divided into two groups  one with GM-soy addition in their food, and other without the GM-soy. In three weeks the scientists received following results:

Additions Female that gave birth Born rats Dead rats (in three weeks) Percent of dead rats Rats still alive
Additions Female that gave birth Born rats Dead rats (in three weeks) Percent of dead rats Rats still alive
Control group 4 (of 6) 44 3 6,8% 41
With GM-soy 4 (of 6) 45 25 55,6% 20
With normal soy 3 (of 3) 33 3 9% 30

Thus, according to these results, the abnormally high level of posterity death has been detected at the posterity of the female species with GM-soy added to their food. And 36% percent of born rats weighed less than 20 grams that is an evidence of their extremely weak condition.

"The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results we obtained very disturbing," said Irina Ermakova to NAGS press office. According to NAGS Vice-president Aleksey Kulikov, the data received by Dr.Ermakova confirm the necessity of full scale tests of GM-products influence over living creatures.

Thus, according to these results, the abnormally high level of posterity death has been detected at the posterity of the female species with GM-soy added to their food. And 36% percent of born rats weighed less than 20 grams that is an evidence of their extremely weak condition.

"The morphology and biochemical structures of rats are very similar to those of humans, and this makes the results we obtained very disturbing," said Irina Ermakova to NAGS press office. According to NAGS Vice-president Aleksey Kulikov, the data received by Dr.Ermakova confirm the necessity of full scale tests of GM-products influence over living creatures.
http://www.regnum.ru/english/526651.html

>The following article might give some reasons to worry Alex.

The article is troubling, but mostly because it shows how easy it is to suck people in to believing anything they read.

A web search for "National Association for Genetic Security" pulls up only press releases about undocumented "studies" about the dangers of genetically modified food. The surest way for a scientist to ruin their credibility is to try to avoid the peer review process, and communicate their findings through the press.

The "study" offered here is impossible to evaluate without more details. Obviously the translation is not perfect, but in any case, there is not nearly enough information to understand how the study was done. Was the non-GM soy the same variety as the GM soy? How much of the feed was soy? What was the transgene? Were the same amounts given? Are we simply to trust that they did the study properly? The credibility of the article increases dramatically if they include at least a link to a description of the methods, and any scientist will know that.

Why is the study not published? Journals would be fighting over the rights to publish these kinds of results, if they were legitimate. In 1999, Nature published an article: "Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae." In that study, monarch caterpillars were given food dusted with transgenic pollen that had been engineered to express an insecticidal protein. The larvae got sick. The control group, which did not have to eat the transgenic pollen, did not get sick. Here is a case where insects were forced to eat pollen engineered to be toxic to insects, they got sick, and the study was published in one of the most prestigious journals around. If you can publish in Nature by showing that insects get sick when you force them to eat insecticide, you can darn well publish reasults like those claimed in the press release you pointed me to, if they were real.

There is a link at the page you directed me to:
http://www.regnum.ru/english/526651.html

This is another page describing the study. At the bottom, they show a picture of two rats, one much smaller than the other. The caption reads: "On the photo: the results of the experiment. Same age rats from the control group (on the left) and the "GM-soy" group."

There are two enormous probles with presenting data like this.

1) They are only showing rats from two of the three groups. They do not show a rat from the "normal soy" group. Hmmm, I wonder why?

2) They are only showing two rats total.

These are either extremely careless researchers, or they are being intentionally misleading.

Alex

>Victim farmers are being manipulated and even blackmailed, in
>my opinion.

In my opinion, the economic, political, and social issues surrounding GM foods is a much bigger concern than any perceived health risks posed by the consumption of GM foods.

Alex

I don't see why you're so upset with the article on dead rats, Alex. It's just a simple study. I don't see the authors demanding that we all quit eating GM foods. They simply found something about GMOs and health and are commenting on it.
My hope is that it may inspire others to begin examining GMOs and their health effects. There are so few published studies on the effects of GMOs on health that this may inspire more tests.

Having read your post above Alex, I, for one, don't want to eat pesticides in my food. The Bt corn plant produces pesticides in each cell. There are no studies that I know of that say eating Bt is not harmful. I'd rather not risk the unknown, since I do know that a pesticide's function is to kill (which is what it does to the corn borer) and I'd just as soon not have any extra killing going on inside of me. Maybe Bt is safe to eat, maybe it's not, but I'd like to know for sure.

Olanga, I've provided a link to a site that may be useful to you - if you've not already had it passed on to you.

Another site that is useful is one I've posted before. 50 Harmful Effects of Genetically Modified Foods: http://www.cqs.com/50harm.htm

I hope this is useful to you.

Jusr ran across another article, Olanga.

I have seen the movie the future of food. This is a great movie. Since you can patent any plant you create with genetic technology you will own the seeds and any plant that is grown from the seed. If you save the seed and grow it without paying for the privileges you will be infringing on a copyright the same as bootlegging music or movies. Not only can you go to jail but you can be taken to the cleaners by monsanto the company that is trying to gain complete control of the worlds food supply. Already they control 60% and since only a few varieties of any given vegetable is grown commercially it will be an easy task for this giant corporation to own every bit of food that makes its way to the super market. Me personally I do not trust my food supply or seed supply in the hands of a corporation. They have only one agenda and that is money, power, control.
Also they have no idea how these plants change our dna. These plants could cause an unknown amount of sickness and neurological damage to humans. It is our duty to not only grow our own food from organic heirloom seeds but to also boycott this company and take away their power by taking their money. This company owns most of the worlds seed companies including the american seed company. The 10 cent seeds you find at walmart and everywhere else. They also own round up. This is the same company that got into some trouble for selling a lubricant called pcb. This company knew that it was killing people and was highly toxic and they kept it a secret. the environmental damage alone from this is still unknown today. They also own and manufacture aspartame which is also known to cause cancer and also liver damage. Aspartame turns into a compound similar to wood alcohol in the liver causing damage similar to hepatitis.
So the question I ask myself. Do I want this corporation to own all of the food that can be grown and do I want to feed this frankenfood to my children. We must act now before we do not have a choice.
A good documentary to watch is the world according to monsanto. Hope this gives a little insight.

I am aware of the Monsanto's greed, and that they will sue you for using their seed without paying for it.

BUT... one thing I've not heard is what happens if you try to sue Monsanto for contaminating your non-Monsanto crop.

The GM plant producers swore on a stack of Bibles that their plants wouldn't contaminate anything more than 1/8 mile away. That was an outright lie. England, which prohibits all GM seed, has found relatives of our commercial rape (that's where canola oil comes from) in their country, and it has been crossed with genetically modified pollen, which apparently is in the atmosphere and is capable of cross-pollinating all over the world.

Sue

they have gov' backing to sue some happless gardener/farmer, but when the shoe is on the other foot you go it alone, would say they would bankrupt you with litigation and false scientific doctrine.

they have no idea about what health problems genetic or otherwise this may cause us humans as there are no parameters as there has never been any human trialling.

they and their pundents might well they say "but no one has ever died or whatever" they aren't looking for it are they? you can't without parameters of some sort.

len

Hello Friends
I would like to know where do you get your NO genetically-engineered seeds; please send me a list of companies that don't sell these kind of seeds.
Seems to me looking in the internet most of the big seed companies are own by Monsanto! What a pity.
Thank you very much in advance

Look for seed sources that offer organic and heirloom varieties of seeds, as they are not GM.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Bountiful Gardens are two of them.

Sue

Trees4life, Thank you, for your level head & clear sight.
I ask many sites/threads about GMO's & get all this bad news.
It is like no one knows anything good about GMO's.
That tells me they are closed minded, so I can not believe them. Even if they are telling the truth, because it is not the WHOLE truth or there would have stated what you did.
I feel I can trust you, because you are open minded.
I like the way you first defined GMO's.
"no one really knows" is scary & fair!
"The FDA has not done" & "testing up to the company" tells the story with out the rage,fear & poison that some person like to put out to anyone who does totally agree with them.
Thank you again for being fair & open minded.
NOTE: to all.
These statements about rage, are things I have faced for asking honest questions, all over the web & is not a condemnation of this thread/ site or subject.
After all, you have the right to believe & post what you think. As well as anyone.