5 ms·

Agreed. To address some other comments: 1) You can't patent seeds unless you have modified them genetically. Occurrences of nature are not patentable. No GMO,

by daveguy 10y ago

Agreed. To address some other comments: 1) You can't patent seeds unless you have modified them genetically. Occurrences of nature are not patentable. No GMO, no associated business practice. 2) Some of the modifications (I'm looking at you Monsanto roundup ready) allow plants to be tolerant of increased quantities of herbicide. This is obviously not something you want to encourage on a global industrial scale. Like you said, we have the food, we don't have the distribution. 3) That said, there is absolutely no inherent danger of genetic modification. We do it all the time, it's well controlled for effectively getting a specific modification. Calling GMO "frankenfoods" or implying there is some inherent health risk to GMO food (outside specific problematic modifications) is just bullshit.

smackay 10y ago
I agree with your points but the genetic modification is not just about tinkering with the existing set of genes that the plant has but adding new ones from sources that would never happen naturally, https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/glowingpotato.php https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/glowing.... This is where the "frankenfood" moniker comes from. Apologies for the partisan/political link objective data is not so easy to come by.
- eivarv 10y ago
  Why does it matter what would or wouldn't happen "naturally", though?
  - tomp 10y ago
    The point is, we know pretty well (based on millions of years of "natural" mutation and evolution) what can and cannot happen in "nature". If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! Compare this with nuclear weapons - humans have in a few decated managed to engineer something way more dangerous than millions of years of "natural" permutations/combinations of atoms.
    - daveguy 10y ago
      > If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! This is 100% False. There is essentially no risk of accidentally transferring a bacterial protein to a plant. The molecular machinery involved in transfection is complex and fragile. The transfer process is gated and specific. Even if there was a transfer of the wrong gene the result would be a dead organism, not a super-organism. Eukaryotes do not tolerate random prokaryotic genes in their genome in place of a functioning gene. The introduced gene has to be specifically designed/selected to be compatible with the target organism. Whoever is telling you this is doing the exact fear mongering these Nobel laureates are advising against. It is so much the opposite of easy to do what you describe that it is essentially impossible.
      - tomp 10y ago
        Thanks for making a reasoned argument.
      - deskamess 10y ago
        While not a bacteria to plant situation could you comment on the example by dekhn below [1] (Link or search for Brazil Nuts in this page). He references a paper with an NIH link. The gist of it was protein from one plant transplanted into another and causing allergies. Is this kind of situation not a concern? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159
        daveguy 10y ago
        Yes, thank you for pointing that out (upvoted it and yours). GMOs should certainly be regulated for safety and transparency, which is part of the job of the FDA in the United States. Dekhn's statement in the comment about the allergenicity was this: A gene from Brazil Nuts that coded for a protein high in methionine was cloned into soy plants; soy from the resulting plant caused allergic reactions in subjects. An important missing part of that ...in subjects with an allergy to brazil nuts. In otherwords they found some allergic reaction to the brazil nut protein in people allergic to brazil nuts. It did not create an unknown or novel allergen (although allergenicity should be a standard test for GMO food products). For 8/9 subjects it was not the primary allergen (and for one it was the allergen that causes a dangerous reaction). Regardless an allergen is present and it is good that it was identified. The paper concludes with this: "It is prudent to assess the allergenicity of proteins in transgenic foods if those proteins have been derived from sources that are commonly allergenic. The use of currently available animal models alone to predict allergenicity in humans does not produce accurate results. Techniques such as radioallergosorbent tests, SDS-PAGE with immunoblotting, and skin-prick testing can identify IgE-binding proteins that are probable allergens in transgenic foods derived from sources known to be allergenic. This strategy will not be useful in assessing the allergenicity of transgenic foods in which the allergenicity of the source of donor genetic material is unknown. Most current applications in the field of plant biotechnology fall into the latter category." There is no doubt (in my mind) that GMO needs to be regulated and reported. If there is any protein from an allergic source that source needs to be listed on the food product specifically as "contains material from X" -- in this case X = brazil nuts. The fact that the source donor material could be unknown (proprietary secret) is completely unacceptable. The FDA should have full regulatory control over GMO and they should be treated with a scrutiny closer to drugs rather than food. There should be absolutely no "proprietary secrets" regarding the source material or process used to make the modifications. There should be complete transparency and rigorous testing for allergic potential. Maybe increased regulatory control is all that GMO doomsayers are after, but I think the hyperbole hurts their argument when there are sound scientific arguments for increased transparency and regulation. tl;dr: This is a legitimate concern that should be included in a regulatory framework that supports safety and transparency.
  - drakonandor 10y ago
    It can and has. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...
- daveguy 10y ago
  I don't think that everything has to occur naturally for it to be good. There are plenty of deadly natural things. Arsenic is natural, hemlock is natural. We have been influencing the genetics of plants and livestock for millennia through selective breeding. If you have a good gene that can be transferred to a food crop and there are no patent restrictions I think we should do that. Roundup ready is definitely a bad one. A "good" modification would require: No patents No suing farmers that grow your seed without a license/purchase No boosted tolerance to plant poison No convenient requirement that "improvements" rely on additional product that the company sells (eg roundup) Edit: formatting
- njloof 10y ago
  Worth asking: is there any scientific reason why data fitting a particular model would appear to only be available from partisan sources?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  RE link, the only thing one should say about a glowing potato is: "fucking awesome". People won't buy such things for a long time anyway, and that it doesn't occur in nature doesn't matter. Hell, give it a million year and it might start occuring in nature by itself, because why not? Nature does what nature does, it already mixed up a lot of stuff in a weird way (except we don't call them "weird", just "natural"). Few other things that "never happen naturally" - clothes on human beings. Bricks. Steel. Airplanes. Colorful paint on canvas. Should we discourage them all, because they're not "natural"?
- drabiega 10y ago
  In addition to other points listed here, keep in mind that horizontal genetic transfer happens in nature through viral vectors, so pretty much anything we can do genetic modification wise is also possible in nature.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  bs http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...
saalweachter 10y ago
Re #2, it's tolerance to an extremely awesome herbicide. Glyphosate is extremely toxic to plants and extremely non-toxic to everything else. Doesn't kill mammals or insects, doesn't migrate to the water table (it binds to soil and then breaks down when unbinding), doesn't cause cancer. There's a reason farmers love it, especially the ones who remember all the toxic, carcinogenic chemicals they used in the 50's and 60's.

by daveguy 10y ago

smackay 10y ago

I agree with your points but the genetic modification is not just about tinkering with the existing set of genes that the plant has but adding new ones from sources that would never happen naturally, https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/glowingpotato.php https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/glowing.... This is where the "frankenfood" moniker comes from. Apologies for the partisan/political link objective data is not so easy to come by.

eivarv 10y ago
Why does it matter what would or wouldn't happen "naturally", though?
- tomp 10y ago
  The point is, we know pretty well (based on millions of years of "natural" mutation and evolution) what can and cannot happen in "nature". If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! Compare this with nuclear weapons - humans have in a few decated managed to engineer something way more dangerous than millions of years of "natural" permutations/combinations of atoms.
  - daveguy 10y ago
    > If you introduce mutation based on human engineering, you could easily (even inadvertedly) develop something very dangerous, e.g. move a gene from a bacterium to a plant, but now all of a sudden this plant becomes as resistant/dangerous as the bacterium was, on a much larger scale! This is 100% False. There is essentially no risk of accidentally transferring a bacterial protein to a plant. The molecular machinery involved in transfection is complex and fragile. The transfer process is gated and specific. Even if there was a transfer of the wrong gene the result would be a dead organism, not a super-organism. Eukaryotes do not tolerate random prokaryotic genes in their genome in place of a functioning gene. The introduced gene has to be specifically designed/selected to be compatible with the target organism. Whoever is telling you this is doing the exact fear mongering these Nobel laureates are advising against. It is so much the opposite of easy to do what you describe that it is essentially impossible.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Thanks for making a reasoned argument.
    - deskamess 10y ago
      While not a bacteria to plant situation could you comment on the example by dekhn below [1] (Link or search for Brazil Nuts in this page). He references a paper with an NIH link. The gist of it was protein from one plant transplanted into another and causing allergies. Is this kind of situation not a concern? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12016159
      - daveguy 10y ago
        Yes, thank you for pointing that out (upvoted it and yours). GMOs should certainly be regulated for safety and transparency, which is part of the job of the FDA in the United States. Dekhn's statement in the comment about the allergenicity was this: A gene from Brazil Nuts that coded for a protein high in methionine was cloned into soy plants; soy from the resulting plant caused allergic reactions in subjects. An important missing part of that ...in subjects with an allergy to brazil nuts. In otherwords they found some allergic reaction to the brazil nut protein in people allergic to brazil nuts. It did not create an unknown or novel allergen (although allergenicity should be a standard test for GMO food products). For 8/9 subjects it was not the primary allergen (and for one it was the allergen that causes a dangerous reaction). Regardless an allergen is present and it is good that it was identified. The paper concludes with this: "It is prudent to assess the allergenicity of proteins in transgenic foods if those proteins have been derived from sources that are commonly allergenic. The use of currently available animal models alone to predict allergenicity in humans does not produce accurate results. Techniques such as radioallergosorbent tests, SDS-PAGE with immunoblotting, and skin-prick testing can identify IgE-binding proteins that are probable allergens in transgenic foods derived from sources known to be allergenic. This strategy will not be useful in assessing the allergenicity of transgenic foods in which the allergenicity of the source of donor genetic material is unknown. Most current applications in the field of plant biotechnology fall into the latter category." There is no doubt (in my mind) that GMO needs to be regulated and reported. If there is any protein from an allergic source that source needs to be listed on the food product specifically as "contains material from X" -- in this case X = brazil nuts. The fact that the source donor material could be unknown (proprietary secret) is completely unacceptable. The FDA should have full regulatory control over GMO and they should be treated with a scrutiny closer to drugs rather than food. There should be absolutely no "proprietary secrets" regarding the source material or process used to make the modifications. There should be complete transparency and rigorous testing for allergic potential. Maybe increased regulatory control is all that GMO doomsayers are after, but I think the hyperbole hurts their argument when there are sound scientific arguments for increased transparency and regulation. tl;dr: This is a legitimate concern that should be included in a regulatory framework that supports safety and transparency.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  It can and has. http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...
daveguy 10y ago
I don't think that everything has to occur naturally for it to be good. There are plenty of deadly natural things. Arsenic is natural, hemlock is natural. We have been influencing the genetics of plants and livestock for millennia through selective breeding. If you have a good gene that can be transferred to a food crop and there are no patent restrictions I think we should do that. Roundup ready is definitely a bad one. A "good" modification would require: No patents No suing farmers that grow your seed without a license/purchase No boosted tolerance to plant poison No convenient requirement that "improvements" rely on additional product that the company sells (eg roundup) Edit: formatting
njloof 10y ago
Worth asking: is there any scientific reason why data fitting a particular model would appear to only be available from partisan sources?
TeMPOraL 10y ago
RE link, the only thing one should say about a glowing potato is: "fucking awesome". People won't buy such things for a long time anyway, and that it doesn't occur in nature doesn't matter. Hell, give it a million year and it might start occuring in nature by itself, because why not? Nature does what nature does, it already mixed up a lot of stuff in a weird way (except we don't call them "weird", just "natural"). Few other things that "never happen naturally" - clothes on human beings. Bricks. Steel. Airplanes. Colorful paint on canvas. Should we discourage them all, because they're not "natural"?
drabiega 10y ago
In addition to other points listed here, keep in mind that horizontal genetic transfer happens in nature through viral vectors, so pretty much anything we can do genetic modification wise is also possible in nature.
drakonandor 10y ago
bs http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/404198552/natural-gmo-sweet-potato-genetically-modified-8-000-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/05/05/40419855...

saalweachter 10y ago

Re #2, it's tolerance to an extremely awesome herbicide. Glyphosate is extremely toxic to plants and extremely non-toxic to everything else. Doesn't kill mammals or insects, doesn't migrate to the water table (it binds to soil and then breaks down when unbinding), doesn't cause cancer. There's a reason farmers love it, especially the ones who remember all the toxic, carcinogenic chemicals they used in the 50's and 60's.