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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Transgenic technology (was: Grapple)

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  • From: Bob Randall <YearRoundGardening@comcast.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Transgenic technology (was: Grapple)
  • Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 19:04:51 -0500

There are obvious possible benefits in exploring transgenics. Anyone who likes good fruit can imagine improvements. The problem is releasing these creations into an environment.

Just look at the history of chemistry. The computer I type this at is at least partially a chemistry creation. Much else is that I use. So I like chemistry. But consider:

radium dials were put on wristwatches before the consequences were understood; and nitrogen fertilizer was spread all over the nation before its effects on coastal waters were really grasped

napalm and mustard gas have been used to kill people
all sorts of additives have been used to get people to eat unhealthy food

The point is that testing the safety of something in humans is extremely expensive and there are very few willing test subjects. A good scientific test might look at 10,000 subjects over 60 years subjected to different doses in different combinations. Such science is too costly so they don't do it. People make mistakes (wristwatches), use technology to hurt people deliberately (evil), or cut corners because they have a lot of money invested and can't be bothered (or afford) waiting long enough or studying enough complications (greed).

So what happens is that chemistry has been tested over the last century plus by trying it out on people and ecosystems, and waiting to see if anyone complains or has big problems.

Transgenics is almost certainly going to have similar problems from ignorance, greed, or malice on people using it. So the question is, what could go wrong (ignorance), how might someone use it maliciously (terrorism), and what sort of regulations are necessary to control investment protective safety lapses?

I am guessing that transgenics could produce prions (and delayed Mad Cow like symptoms); that a high school student in a lab in Somalia might create a bad bug; that an agri-business might release something that destroyed the ability of soil microbes to decompose plant matter.

Once these are out in the environment, they are hard to put back.

Impossible? I hope so.

Bob Randall
On Apr 6, 2009, at 11:10 PM, abb7@Lehigh.EDU wrote:

From: Kevin Moore <aleguy33@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <590577.91256.qm@web46008.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I couldn't disagree more! Selective breeding is essentially making
use of a >natural process to our benefit. (Usually.) Transgenics has
two major flaws: It >is moving genes from animals, fungi and viruses
into plant material which could >never have gotten those genes in a
natural manner.

Many transgenic plants are made using the bacterium Agrobacterium
tumefaciens, which makes its living inserting its DNA into the genomes
of various plants. Nonetheless, it is used to make transgenics that
would not have existed without the intervention of the researcher. I
understand that many people are concerned about introducing genes from
one organism into another...personally, I am not. It is a judgenment
call, and on that point, I am content to disagree.

It also puts those genes in >a separate package that is not
integrated into the >plants' chromosomes and is >subject to migrate
into cells in the intestinal >tract of anything that eats >those
plants.

This is a misunderstanding of transgenics. The introduced genes are
in fact integrated directly into a chromosome, usually in the nucleus,
but sometimes in the chloroplast. They replicate and segregate right
along with the rest of the DNA. This is the only way introduced
genetic material can be maintained in the plant. Anything not
integrated into a chromosome is lost. AFAIK, the introduced genes are
no more likely to migrate into cells in the intestinal tract than any
other gene we eat. If you can point me to evidence that indicates
otherwise, I'd be very interested, especially in the mechanism.
Documentation of horizontal gene transfer from ingested food would be
a huge story in the field of genetics and evolution, but I've heard
nothing of it.

I would say transgenics is a disaster waiting to happen, except
several rather >major disasters have already happened. There are
very sound scientific reasons >as well as cultural ones for such
plants to have been banned in Europe.

"Major disaster" is hyperbole IMHO...how many people have died from
eating transgenic food compared to the number of deaths from
contaminated spinach and peanuts and other instances of food
poisoning? I agree that transgenic technology has its own set of
problems, just like any other technology. Unfortunately, the loudest
protests often do their own cause a disservice when they are based on
misinformation.

Alex

From: abb7@Lehigh.EDU
Sent: Apr 5, 2009 8:51 PM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 09:55:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kevin Moore <aleguy33@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Grapple
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <469850.16321.qm@web46015.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

It sounds really horrible! I wonder who's brainchild that was. I
remember tasting >one of the first GM tomatoes that was touted as
the future because it had this >really long shelf life. It tasted
like gasoline! I still don't understand what is >so wrong with our
natural produce that "they" keep wanting to mess with it.

Does grafting and countless generations of selective breeding not
count as "messing with it"? Most of the fruit trees we grow are not
really "natural"... Transgenic technology is just another tool to
introduce new characteristics to the plants.

Alex


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