how does the info presented here hold? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOMqwPxUx54&feature=user)

true or false?

The main worry is that GMOs would escape and interbreed with wild-type congenics, or that they might cause ecological damage through out-competition.

Of course, the specific concerns vary by organism, modification, geographic locale and the extremity of the presented phenotype.

The average GM crop might reduce yield ("feel the world" is a load, frankly), but from the perspective of the company it could still be economic from the peripheral costs (reduced pest damage etc).

Now it's true that collateral genetic damage might occur, but I don't think that translates into a widespread threat.

It's true that most GMO crops do turn out to be failures - but then again, so do most things, including mutations. :)

I used to be on-side about GMOs, but now I'm ambivalent. The "threat to human health" argument can be canned, though: you're not going to have an allergic reaction to anything.

Just found this paper:

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Modified-Soya-Rats10oct05.htm

Now, I don't know what to think of RAS, but if she's honest then that's a damning indictment. She's definitely on one side of the issue, too, though, as you can see from the articles in her References. So what to do?

Hmmm here's another one with more links:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey12.htm

Interesting. Looks bad for GMOs.

The link (OP) offers a range of issues why the health implications of GMO's are neglected - from the threat of legal suits, willful neglect by the fda, legal loopholes (such as patenting), silencing the academic community (by withdrawing funds or positions) as well as straight out thick headedness to facts that slap one in the face

Hmmm here's another one with more links:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey12.htm

Interesting. Looks bad for GMOs.
Jeffrey Smith is the person interviewed in the OP

A thousand genes in the human genome copyrighted!

Well, I don't care: I'm going to go on using my copies anyway.

Interesting link, light. Thanks for the info. I was generally ok with GMOs, but I never liked that pesticide-production thing. Going to think this one over.

The "threat to human health" argument can be canned, though: you're not going to have an allergic reaction to anything. There have already been a couple of serious near misses in the allergy field - one involved nut protein genes inserted into a cereal ! You can kill people like that, directly and immediately.

The scary thing is that so far the worst blunders, like that one, were caught only by accident or casual intervention by outsiders.

The central problem is that the people inserting these genes don't know what they're doing. They can't - the field is too new, the systems too complex. The whole field is proceeding by trial and error - and in biological systems, "error" is often self-amplifying and ineradicable.

Some of it is obvious foolishness - like inserting herbicide resistance or pesticide production into open field crops. For an analogy, imagine someone inserting antibiotic production genes into every human, sick or well, in a large population. How long before antibiotic resistance evolves in all the major bacterial disease organisms, think you? Five years? And then what ? All that is accomplished in the long run is the trashing of the effectiveness of the antibiotic.

And the fact that this is being done right now, on a large scale, indicates that the people promoting the stuff cannot be trusted to be sensible.

You're kidding. They inserted nut protein genes into a cereal???? Are they INSANE??????

You know, I thought the herbicide thing was already way too much - "would you like some RoundUp with your Wheaties, Timmy?" - but this is way, way, way past the monkey marker. You have a link for that nut thing? Unbelievable.

Well, I'll hand it to light - I was GMO-friendly (and still somewhat am, so far as let's say growth hormone genes go, maybe) but not now. If that's right, then that's proof that the entire bloody thing needs to be put on standby and some supposedly bright people slapped upside the head.

On the other hand, it makes me feel less dumb as a scientist, so kudos to the muttonheads.

Geoff

You have a link for that nut thing? Unbelievable. The announcement of the test results. The back story is missing: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/334/11/688

My memory slipped - it was soybeans, not a cereal. The intent was to improve the nutritional quality of the soybeans by inserting an amino acid they lack, especially for animal feed.

Missing from this neutral account, and I couldn't find it but recall it from accounts and interviews at the time, was the casual approach. Reading links now I see that everyone describes the checking for allergen as routine and thorough, and the beans as carefully handled and specifically to be excluded from human food all along, and the transfer of an allergen as an accident unrelated to the main goal. At the time, interviews and accounts from people close to the incident disputed that, and someone claimed to have had to make trouble and exert personal initiative from outside to get the beans tested, after discovering what was happening by some kind of coincidental eavesdropping - that the people making and getting ready to market the beans had not taken the threat seriously.