To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Are GM crops killing honeybees?
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:48:52 -0500
My thanks to Bill for mentioning the problem of the pro and anti GM
emotions. In my case, I happen to have read the story of they guy who was
really big in the GM world, and developed the potatoes with the snowdrop
lectin in them. They safety tested them by feeding rats or mice on 3
different diets: ordinary potatoes, ordinary potatoes with the lectin
extracted from snowdrops, and the new GM potatoes that made their own
snowdrop lectin. The first two groups did fine, as expected. The third
group had such terrible health problems, including if I remember correctly,
malformations, that he decided that in artificial adding genes from one
species to another, that one and one do not necessarily add up to two. He
called for more careful testing and some foot dragging till we know more.
He was ridiculed and blackballed by the rest of the GM development and
promotion world and has lost a lot of income and prestige for sticking to
his guns. Who then would you choose to believe on this subject? Donna
P.S. While we are on the subject of people who are ruined for saying bad
things about big business, how much do you use your microwave? There is
another big scandal over some studies done in Switzerland that were
suppressed.
Re: [NAFEX] Are GM Crops Killing Honeybees?
, (continued)