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  • From: "sals3" <sals3 AT cox.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <marketfarming AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Fw: Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape' the chickens come home to roost
  • Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:34:08 -0700

it only a matter of time; it is not nice to fool mother nature. when it hits the fan the place with the most will fill it the most.
----- Original Message ----- From: "sals3" <sals3 AT cox.net>
To: "Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group" <SANET-MG AT LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU>; "sals3" <sals3 AT COX.NET>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape' the chickens come home to roost


To conclude
The discovery by the Bristol University researchers barely scratches the surface of the hidden hazards of GMOs from horizontal gene transfer. It is high time for a global ban to be imposed on further environmental releases of GMOs, and all those responsible for releasing them should be brought to book.

what doES the USDA think of this???? is this another fake.

you want the truth

you want the truth







YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH !!!





----- Original Message ----- From: "sals3" <sals3 AT COX.NET>
To: <SANET-MG AT LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 7:37 AM
Subject: Fw: Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape'


----- Original Message ----- From: <press-release AT i-sis.org.uk>
To: <sals3 AT cox.net>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 6:16 AM
Subject: Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape'


The intended recipient for this message is sals3 AT cox.net
The Institute of Science in Society
Science Society Sustainability
http://www.i-sis.org.uk

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/new_route_for_GM_gene_escape.php

If you would like to be removed from our mailing list
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========================================================
ISIS Report 02/03/11

Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape'
#########################################

Genetically modified genes can jump species via wounds, yes horizontal gene
transfer happens, and at high frequencies; it is the greatest, most
underestimated hazard from GMOs released into the environment. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Please circulate widely and forward to your elected representatives

Gene "escape" a misnomer for horizontal gene transfer

Scientists at Bristol University in the UK announced the discovery of [1] "a
previously unknown route" whereby "GM genes may escape into the natural
environment." "Escape" is a misnomer. There is no need for the GM (genetically
modified) genes to "escape", when genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have
been released in great abundance and with gay abandon into the environment over
the past 17 years. At issue is how fast and how widely the GM genes can spread,
and what dire consequences could arise.

The "escape" referred to is horizontal gene transfer - the spread of GM genes by
infection and multiplication (literally like a virus) regardless of species
barriers; hence the rate of spread is much more rapid, and the extent virtually
unlimited. New combinations of genetic material are created at unprecedented
speed; affecting species the most that reproduce the fastest, i.e., bacteria and
viruses that cause diseases. Horizontal gene transfer and recombination is
indeed a main route for generating new strains of bacteria and viruses that
cause diseases. Genetic modification and release of GMOs into the environment is
nothing if not greatly facilitated horizontal gene transfer and recombination.
It has created highways for gene trafficking in place of narrow by-ways and
occasional footpaths that previously existed.

Some of us have long considered horizontal gene transfer to be the most serious
hidden and underestimated hazard of genetic engineering, and have alerted
regulators accordingly, time and again, since GMOs were first released (see for
example [3, 4] (Gene Technology and Gene Ecology of Infectious Diseases, ISIS
scientific publication; Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare, ISIS
publication). The recent "emergency" warning sent by a senior US Department of
Agriculture scientist to US Secretary of Agriculture on a suspected pathogen
"new to science" associated with GM crops may prove to be a case in point [5]
(Emergency! Pathogen New to Science Found in Roundup Ready GM Crops? SiS 50).

Plant wounds hotspots for gene trafficking

The researchers at Bristol University showed that plant wounds, that could be
created by insect bites, abrasion and other mechanical damage, are hotspots for
gene trafficking due to the wound hormones produced by the plant. Under such
circumstances, the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which causes crown
gall disease in plants, could enlarge its host range to infect fungi, and insert
foreign genes into the fungi's genome [2]. This has large implications on the
safety of GMOs already widely released into the environment.

A. tumefaciens is probably unique among natural plant pathogens in carrying out
trans-Kingdom horizontal gene transfer during an infection, and it is this
ability that has been widely exploited for creating GM crops, grown on an
estimated 134 million hectares worldwide in 2009, and "jumped' another 10
percent in 2010, according to industry-funded International Service for the
Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) [6].

Research commissioned by the UK Department of the Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA) in the 1990s had already revealed that it is very difficult, if
not impossible to get rid of the Agrobacterium vector used in creating the
transgenic plant [7], and the bacterium is likely to remain dormant even after
the transgenic plants are transplanted into the soil. Hence, it is expected to
facilitate horizontal gene transfer, in the first instance, to wild-type
Agrobacterium in the soil, and further afield.

Disease-causing strains of A. tumefaciens have an extrachromosomal Ti (tumour-
inducing) plasmid that enables the horizontal transfer of a segment of the Ti
plasmid, the T-DNA, into the plant cell genome when the bacterium's virulence
(disease causing) system is activated by hormones produced by the wounded plant.
This feature is exploited in creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), by
disarming the bacterium, and incorporating the virulence genes in a 'binary'
vector that has to be used in conjunction with the disarmed Agrobacterium
strain.

In the 1990s, it was shown that the range of organisms transformed by
Agrobacterium could be extended if the wound hormone acetosyringone was used to
induce the virulence system.

The researchers at Bristol University reasoned that as A. tumefaciens is a soil-
dwelling pathogen that often infects plants through wounds, it is conceivable
that the bacterium could encounter numerous species of microorganisms, including
pathogenic fungi that the same method to gain entry into the plant. The wound
sites are likely to be exuding wound hormones such as acetosyringone, so the
bacteria are primed for T-DNA transfer.

Experiments confirmed their suspicion in full

Read the rest of this report here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/new_route_for_GM_gene_escape.php
========================================================
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  • [Market-farming] Fw: Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape' the chickens come home to roost, sals3, 09/20/2011

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