North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Art Petrzelka <art@complum.com>]

I bought the story about curing all of mankind's ailments, too.

But the more I learn about genetic engineering, the less I like it.
I say this as someone who has spent part of my career in agriculture,
and part of my career in FDA validation. I have helped set standards for
internal validation efforts, and have been involved in cosmetic and
pharmaceutical validation.

The current crop of GMOs appear to have taken a shortcut across the
normal FDA validation process. They were unique enough that they got a
patent, but apparently not unique enough that food safety testing was
done. I don't see how it could be both. I attended a lecture at Iowa
State University by Dr. Arpad Puszta, from Great Britain, in December.
Dr. Puszta is the man whose research was destroyed and whose reputation
was slandered when his study on the nutritional effects of GM potatoes
showed necrosis in rodents.

It looks like we've been sold a bill of goods with genetic engineering. 
I would be glad to share some references for what I've found off-list if
anyone is interested.

My main concern is that we not pollute our genetic resources. This isn't
a concern with Frankenfood, it's a concern about the lack of knowledge
that we have on the effects of gene insertion, gene removal, and general
DNA helix tampering with respect to helix sequence and angles. The
effects of genetic engineering are largely unknown, and what we do know
is very incriminating.

On Mon, 2004-02-09 at 21:57, Rodney Eveland wrote:
> The people who genetically modify plants to get a desired result have
> already developed a PPV resistant plum. Interestingly enough, if you
> use google and search on a lot of common serious plant diseases and
> add the word biotechnology to your search you will find that they are
> trying to solve many of the major diseases by using genetc
> modification. I don't know where this will take us, but I'm hoping for
-- 
Art Petrzelka
Amana, Iowa, USA
USDA Hardiness Zone 5a