Gene Altered Fish -WSJ

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"By GAUTAM NAIK

The U.S. has moved closer to approving a laboratory-tweaked salmon that grows twice as fast as conventional farmed fish and would become the first genetically modified animal to appear on American dinner plates.

An FDA advisory committee discussed Monday whether the fish was safe to eat and whether it posed any threat to the environment. The meeting ended without any decision about the fish. But in some ways, the FDA has already drawn its conclusions: In the run-up to the meeting, the FDA posted an analysis online that concluded the genetically altered version was as safe to eat as traditional Atlantic salmon, and posed little risk to the environment.

The AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon contains a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon, which accelerates its development in the first year. It also contains a fragment of DNA from the eel-like ocean pout species, which helps to switch on the Chinook gene. The altered fish stops growing when it reaches normal size.

In its analysis, the FDA said the modified fish was chemically and biologically no different from a conventional Atlantic salmon. It offers a commercial advantage because it can reach market weight in 1.5 years to two years, about half the time required for a regular Atlantic salmon.

"There's an opportunity here to re-establish a domestic salmon industry with land-based aquaculture," said Ronald Stotish, president and chief executive officer of the fish's developer, AquaBounty Technologies Inc. of Waltham, Mass., who attended the FDA meeting. Out of some 1.5 million tons of Atlantic salmon produced globally each year, the U.S. consumes about 450,000 tons, almost all of it imported, according to Mr. Stotish.

But Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that is campaigning against the salmon, said some of the safety studies were based on sample sizes that were too small. Several of the key studies were based on sample sizes of about 30 fish, while others had slightly more.

"A minimum of 100 fish should have been required," said Mr. Hanson, who spoke at the meeting. "The data isn't enough—the FDA should ask for more."

Mr. Stotish of AquaBounty defended the test data as sufficient. But during Monday's meeting, several panelists expressed concerns about the data, though they said there was no reason to believe the salmon wasn't safe.

The fish story is part of a larger global trend. Driven by a growing population, higher food prices and the lack of clear-cut evidence that genetically modified food is harmful to human health, there has been a growing global acceptance of products once derided as "Frankenfoods." That's especially true in developing countries.

Genetically altering food can offer several benefits, scientists say. A crop can be engineered to provide larger yields, to be more tolerant of pesticides, or to better resist drought or pests. Sometimes, they may be cheaper to produce. Many countries are racing to take advantage of genetically modified (or GM) food.

In a significant but little-noticed move last December, China declared that certain strains of GM rice and corn were safe to produce and consume.

That step endorsed the use of biotechnology for the planet's most important food crop, rice, which feeds half of humanity, and the biggest animal-feed crop, corn. While further field trials are needed, industry experts expect Chinese GM rice and corn to be produced in two to three years.

South Africa grows GM corn. Brazil and Pakistan grow GM soybeans and corn. India has been growing GM cotton for several years. A recent push to commercialize India's first GM food crop—a pest-resistant eggplant—was recently put on hold on safety grounds.

In 2009, global acreage used to grow GM crops rose 6.8% to 330 million acres from 309 million acres in 2008, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, a GM industry group. Almost half of the global acreage was planted in developing countries.

Farmers world-wide pay roughly $9 billion annually for GM seed, according to seed-industry estimates. There are several developers of genetically modified crops, of which Monsanto Co. of St. Louis is the largest.

Europe has long been extremely cautious about planting GM crops. But in late July, the European Commission approved the import of six GM corn varieties for use in food and animal feed, though not for cultivation in Europe itself. In the same month, the commission also proposed new rules allowing each of its member states to choose whether or not to grow an approved GM crop within its borders. So far, the only EU-approved GM crop is a high-starch potato engineered for industrial use.

On the animal front, scientists at the University of Guelph in Canada have created a genetically modified pig that can better digest and process phosphorus, reducing production costs. The animals are cheaper to feed because they don't need phosphorus supplements—a chemical vital to a pig's diet but expensive for farmers to buy. The pig's developers also claim that because animals release 30% to 70% less phosphorus in their waste, they're good for the environment. Swine waste is a significant source of pollution.

Enviropig, which some critics have already dubbed "Frankenswine," is still under review by two Canadian regulatory agencies, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. A few months ago, another agency, Environment Canada, approved production of the animals as long as they are strictly contained. The FDA and Canadian authorities are still reviewing data about the pig to see if it's safe to eat.

FDA Panel Supportive, but More Research Needed

In the U.S., GM crops were introduced in 1996, and are a regular part of the food supply, including corn, soybeans and sugar. "If you eat any of those products, you have an 85% or greater possibility that you are eating a GM food," said Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University.

AquaBounty created its first genetically altered salmon in 1989, and submitted its initial set of data to the FDA in 1995. So far, it has accumulated data from 10 generations of the animals. The company has far-flung operations—it is based in the U.S., its stock trades in London and it has fisheries in Canada and Panama.

Fish grown from the engineered eggs are all female and sterile. To prevent an accidental escape into the sea, AquaBounty wants the FDA to approve the fish only for inland fisheries.

In its scientific assessment, the FDA said that the genetically altered salmon posed "no additional allergenic risk than control Atlantic salmon."

Still, worries abound. Some 20 environmental and consumer groups have submitted joint comments to the FDA panel identifying what they believed were flaws in how AquaBounty sterilizes and isolates the modified fish, and the high volume of antibiotics that may be required to produce them in factory farms.

AquaBounty's Mr. Stotish said, "That's preposterous and totally designed to frighten people. The data doesn't support their accusation at all."

On Tuesday, the FDA will hold a hearing on how the fish and products made from it should be labeled for consumers. It's not clear when the FDA will make a final decision about the fish.

If approved, the fish likely won't show up in the nation's food supply for two or three years."

I'm sure some here will say that I'm out there, but I'm totally against this one because I am afraid at some point the GM salmon will spawn with the Non-GM salmon and then the majority of Salmon will be owned by AquaBounty (AB). If this would happen, then AB will control the population of salmon. They wont stop there; they will continue to take control of all fish species. Lots of money to be made here. Just look at Monsanto, and the things they do to the farmers.

I'm not worried about whether the fish is good for humans or not.

[PurpleFloyd]

IMO it is never good to fool with mother nature. She has a way of biting you in the behind for it at some point.

Soylent green is people

[tonkapat]

The world record rainbow from canada and the new world record brown from lake michigan are both altered fish. I'd bet when there on the end of your line you wouldn't be complaining to much.

[goblueM]

so here's my question - how can you rule that the fish are not biologically different, when they in fact have different genes in them and grow TWICE as fast?

i also agree with the original poster, i'm more worried about what throwing genes and patents around and mixing them with living things, we're going to have some big issues down the road. Even if there aren't biological ones

[McGurk]

[CJH]

I am not for this. Its a gray area whether these are safe or "good" for the species/environment. I just think there needs to be more testing done. Not really worried about one company owning all of the salmon. If anything, it could alleviate the harvest pressure that is on the natural fish. Not to mention the benefits it could have on the overpopulation/food question.

That being said, how many plants do we grow and eat that have been cross bred/altered? Pretty sure farmers aren't growing the same strain of corn they were 100 years ago. I know I don't have three eyes or have turned yellow.

[Antero]

I heard recently that there are 7 great fisheries in the worlds oceans, 6 of them are basically done and the 7th is on life support.

I suggest reading this book, it shows just how quickly a species can be fished out with todays methods, it is quite the adventure story too,

Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish, by G Bruce Knecht

[Nick Kuhn]

I'm all for it. Genetics is one of those things that on a high level is very complex, but on a low level is pretty simple. We know what all 64 combinations call for. It's as simple as placing a start sequence, then the proper protein assembly sequence, and a stop sequence. It's easier to just borrow this sequence from another working gene. Only about 1.5% of all DNA is genetically relevant (ie does something other than hold chromosomes together structurally). If you botch it and insert the sequence in an improper place, you end up with nonsense code that makes up the other 98.5% of DNA, and the fish would develop perfectly normal.

The 3rd eye type worry really isn't related to this. That type of mutation occurs when contaminates physically alter the structure of DNA (they are not caused by changes in coding, unless someone specifically set out to make a 3 eyed fish). This causes problems with replication, and often the DNA attempts to replicate repeatedly (cancer). If such a thing occurs early enough in development you could see extra appendages or organs.

[McGurk]

Thanks, Nick; you took all of the fun out of the pic.

BTW, I hardly call genetic manipulation and modification at any level "simple."

[Nick Kuhn]

Simple might not be the word for it. What I should say is the outcome will be known by those performing such tasks. They aren't simply throwing genes in there and saying what kind of monster will we spawn this time.

[bobbymalone]

BTW, I hardly call genetic manipulation and modification at any level "simple."

It's all relative. I can manipulate and modify DNA pretty easy, but IMHO rebuilding a transmission is hardly "simple"

I think it's doubtful that they just randomly incorporated genes and gene regulation bits into the fish chromosomes, they probably aimed it at a specific place in the junk bits that Mr. Kuhn talks about to prevent messing up important genes.

with proper control measures to prevent spread of the genetically modified salmon there isn't much worry of it ruining or mixing with natural populations. if you want to keep eating salmon you will have to get used to farmed and modified fish. natural populations can't handle the commercial appetite.

[SkunkedAgain]

We've been genetically modifying all kinds of things forever, like wolfs into dogs and regular plants into super-sized tomatoes and insect-resistant apples. Nature has always played with the DNA formula, at least if you want to follow the evolution theory. There are many DNA combinations but one seems to prevail and eventually the species moves in the direction of: 1. the fish that can blend into its surroundings, or 2. the tree who's seeds are poisonous, etc...

Granted we are going to foul things up some times but I don't see a huge problem with this. Heck, they are even talking about genetically engineering us so that we aren't susceptible to certain diseases and conditions.

I say bring it on.

[bobbymalone]

There are many DNA combinations but one seems to prevail and eventually the species moves in the direction of: 1. the fish that can blend into its surroundings, or 2. the tree who's seeds are poisonous, etc...

When you are talking about evolution, there is only one direction that life moves towards, more adapted to the environment to increase reproductive success. if that means poisonous seeds to keep animals from eating them or tasty fruit with seeds that have to pass through an animal to germinate then that's the way it will go. or blending in if it helps to escape predation or brightly colored if it brings attention from the ladies.

conventional breeding like what produced the many breeds of dogs only goes so far and takes a long long time. if you want to speed it up or take traits from another organism you have to do it with genetic modification.

[McGurk]

(sarcasm on)

You mean to tell me, that there in not a huge basement somewhere, full of dimly lit fishtanks, manned by a couple of guys in goggles and black gauntlet gloves employing a "shotgun" genetic manipulation approach and the "trail and error" method? Every failure is an important step in the right direction, at least until one failure gets loose and kills everyone in the research facility.

(sarcasm off)

I like that scenario in my head better. It seems more exciting. I'm glad there are guys like Nick and Bobby that bring actual knowledge to these discussions, and not just my juvenile antics. Seriously. Thanks, guys, for helping to educate us. I'm glad that there are guys here that tend to think of genetics and the like as simple! I'll try to help with that tranny, if you need it!

You all know it's not too far off: "Killer Salmon 2: Sockeye's Revenge" on SyFy.

[bobbymalone]

employing a "shotgun" genetic manipulation approach and the "trail and error" method?

(sarcasm off)

whether you did this inadvertantly or not I don't know, but there is a method of modifying genes using a "gene gun" that literally fires microscopic gold pellets coated with DNA into the organism you are wishing to change. It's powered by a .22 blank. and it is pretty much shotgun genetic manipulation with trial and error to see if it the DNA incorporated in a "good" spot. it's mostly used with plants and more advanced methods that aim the modified DNA into a specific place in the chromosome are generally used to alter the DNA of animals.

[McGurk]

inadvertantly.

[hockeybc69]

How much stuff do we eat every day thats been genetically modified in some fashion already?

Apples have been genetically changed to make new "breeds".

Think about all of the meat that you put in your mouth. Those cattle, hogs, chickens have all been eating things such as Roundup Ready corn and soybeans(genetically altered). Although the meat hasnt been genetically altered, what they are eating and digesting has been altered.

In the long run, we get some part of it in our systems.

I would imagine the list is awfully long for everything that we eat thats been altered in some way.

[bobbymalone]

By MALCOLM RITTER, SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON — We have always played with our food — even before we knew about genes or how to change them.

For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding — pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.

Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If U.S. regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.

Story: Super salmon or 'Frankenfish'? FDA to decide

Scientists have already determined that it is safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.

Banana vaccines, 'Enviropigs' and Frankencows

Whatever the decision on salmon, it is only the start of things to come. In labs and on experimental farms are:

* Vaccines and other pharmaceuticals grown in bananas and other plants.

* Trademarked "Enviropigs" whose manure does not pollute as much.

* Cows that do not produce methane in their flatulence.

And in the far-off future, there may be foods built from scratch — the scratch being DNA.

Sometimes when science tinkers with food, it works. Decades ago, Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" of scientifically precise hybrids led to bigger crop yields that have dramatically reduced hunger.

Sometimes it flops. Anyone remember the Flavr Savr tomato? Probably not. It did not taste good. "There was no flavor there to save," one expert quipped. But you might remember 10 years ago when genetically modified corn meant for animal feed wound up in taco shells?

To the biotech world, precise tinkering with the genes in plants and animals is a proven way to reduce disease, protect from insects and increase the food supply to curb world hunger.

To skeptics, genetic changes put the natural world and the food supply at risk. Modified organisms can escape into the wild or mingle with native species, potentially changing them, with unknown effects.

Story: Does 'super' salmon pass the sniff test?

Over the last 15 years, genetically engineered plants have been grown on more than 2 billion acres (810 million hectares) in more than 20 countries. Consumers eat genetically engineered plant products in large quantities in the U.S., often in unlabeled products such as oils and processed foods.

The same crops are viewed more suspiciously in Europe and other countries, including India. China, meanwhile, is working to develop genetically modified rice that would be less prone to insect damage.

The end of natural food?

In fact, some experts say the natural food of our forebears is for the most part long gone. That is mostly due to breeding and other now-commonplace practices.

Old-fashioned breeding has led to turkeys that "can't have sex anymore because we've been breeding them for big chests," says Martina Newell McGloughlin, director of the University of California's Biotechnology Research and Education Program.

"All of the animals, plants and microbes we use in our food system, our agricultural system, are genetically modified in one way or another," says Bruce Chassy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "That, or they're wild."

The modifications are mostly from selective breeding and hybridization, the traditional ways of changing plants and animals. But these methods used for thousands of years are compared by genetic engineers to using a sledgehammer. They say their techniques are like using a scalpel.

"Genetic engineering is more precise and predictable," yet it is tightly regulated," McGloughlin says. "Yet there is no regulation at all on the traditional breeding system."

She finds fears over genetically engineered food and the regulations that accompany them hard to stomach.

More than four-fifths of the soybean, corn and cotton acreage in the United States last year used genetically engineered crops, according to a 2010 National Academies of Sciences study.

David Ervin of Portland State University in Oregon, who chaired the committee that wrote the report, said it found no large-scale environmental risks associated with the current genetically engineered corn, cotton and soybeans in the United States. As for future crops, "you just have to be very cautious," depending on the nature of the plants, he says.

The report, which did not consider health impacts of eating genetically engineered crops, did recommend large-scale studies of ecological effects of such crops, Ervin said.

Marion Nestle, a New York University professor and expert on food studies and public health, says that in processed food, "if it's got beet sugar, soybean or sugar, it's got an 85 to 95 percent chance of being genetically modified."

Nestle fears unintended consequences in the food supply and environment. She previously served on Food and Drug Administration advisory boards, and she opposes the genetically engineered salmon. In the 1990s, she voted against allowing genetically engineered plants.

Animals are a bigger problem in trying to prevent mixing with nongenetically modified populations, she says. "Millions (of farmed fish) escape, not one or two, but millions."

L. LaReesa Wolfenbarger, a professor of biology at the University of Nebraska who was on the National Academies study team, finds a distinct difference between old-fashioned breeding and genetic modification. What is happening recently is that we are mixing genes of plants and animals that in normal evolution or nature don't mix, she says.

Or as Margaret Mellon, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, puts it: You can't breed a cow with a starfish.

Such DNA-mixing is not necessarily bad, but it is something to be careful with, Wolfenbarger and Mellon say.

"These are things that we can look at as long as we also have the ability to kind of brainstorm and figure out what the unintended consequences are," Wolfenbarger says. She contends that so far, at least with plants, science has had a good handle on preventing problems.

Not so, says NYU's Nestle.

Back in the 1990s, she recalled, opponents of genetically engineered crops were "laughed out of the room ... and they turned out to be right." Just as critics warned, the pollen of genetically modified crops is drifting into natural areas. Weeds and insects have become resistant to the anti-pest modifications, she said.

But scientists who work on genetic modifications insist time has proven them correct.

James Murray, a professor of animal sciences at the University of California at Davis, says the fears surrounding genetically engineered foods sound similar to concerns about microwave ovens, which some people initially thought would give off dangerous radiation or blow up pacemakers.

Murray is working on genetically modified goats as a way to produce milk that can fight devastating diarrhea in poor nations.

With the world population predicted to surpass 9 billion before 2050, genetically engineered food is the only hope to avoid starvation, he says.

That many people cannot be fed "using agriculture as it is right now," Murray says. "What is the cost to humanity if we do not use this technology?"

[tunrevir]

I am wary of any genetic manipulation for the good of all. I worry that these fish can decimate wild stocks of salmon, not by inbreeding but by out competing native fish. The argument that there is a very low risk of them getting into the wild is moot. Look at the silver carp, bighead carp.....very little chance of getting into the wild but here we are. As a viable food source I think it is great but it only takes one disaster for the water to start running downhill. Yep, I have to admit, I'd love to tie into a triploid rainbow of mammoth proportions and get into the record books but at the risk of losing the wild population of salmon I will pass.

Tunrevir~

[hockeybc69]

These salmon are sterile. So if they got into the wild, they would die off regardless.

[PurpleFloyd]

[quote name='Associated Press

By MALCOLM RITTER' date=' SETH BORENSTEIN

WASHINGTON — We have always played with our food — even before we knew about genes or how to change them.

For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding — pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.

Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If U.S. regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.

Story: Super salmon or 'Frankenfish'? FDA to decide

Scientists have already determined that it is safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.

Banana vaccines, 'Enviropigs' and Frankencows

Whatever the decision on salmon, it is only the start of things to come. In labs and on experimental farms are:

* Vaccines and other pharmaceuticals grown in bananas and other plants.

* Trademarked "Enviropigs" whose manure does not pollute as much.

* Cows that do not produce methane in their flatulence.

And in the far-off future, there may be foods built from scratch — the scratch being DNA.

Sometimes when science tinkers with food, it works. Decades ago, Norman Borlaug's "Green Revolution" of scientifically precise hybrids led to bigger crop yields that have dramatically reduced hunger.

Sometimes it flops. Anyone remember the Flavr Savr tomato? Probably not. It did not taste good. "There was no flavor there to save," one expert quipped. But you might remember 10 years ago when genetically modified corn meant for animal feed wound up in taco shells?

To the biotech world, precise tinkering with the genes in plants and animals is a proven way to reduce disease, protect from insects and increase the food supply to curb world hunger.

To skeptics, genetic changes put the natural world and the food supply at risk. Modified organisms can escape into the wild or mingle with native species, potentially changing them, with unknown effects.

Story: Does 'super' salmon pass the sniff test?

Over the last 15 years, genetically engineered plants have been grown on more than 2 billion acres (810 million hectares) in more than 20 countries. Consumers eat genetically engineered plant products in large quantities in the U.S., often in unlabeled products such as oils and processed foods.

The same crops are viewed more suspiciously in Europe and other countries, including India. China, meanwhile, is working to develop genetically modified rice that would be less prone to insect damage.

The end of natural food?

In fact, some experts say the natural food of our forebears is for the most part long gone. That is mostly due to breeding and other now-commonplace practices.

Old-fashioned breeding has led to turkeys that "can't have sex anymore because we've been breeding them for big chests," says Martina Newell McGloughlin, director of the University of California's Biotechnology Research and Education Program.

"All of the animals, plants and microbes we use in our food system, our agricultural system, are genetically modified in one way or another," says Bruce Chassy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "That, or they're wild."

The modifications are mostly from selective breeding and hybridization, the traditional ways of changing plants and animals. But these methods used for thousands of years are compared by genetic engineers to using a sledgehammer. They say their techniques are like using a scalpel.

"Genetic engineering is more precise and predictable," yet it is tightly regulated," McGloughlin says. "Yet there is no regulation at all on the traditional breeding system."

She finds fears over genetically engineered food and the regulations that accompany them hard to stomach.

More than four-fifths of the soybean, corn and cotton acreage in the United States last year used genetically engineered crops, according to a 2010 National Academies of Sciences study.

David Ervin of Portland State University in Oregon, who chaired the committee that wrote the report, said it found no large-scale environmental risks associated with the current genetically engineered corn, cotton and soybeans in the United States. As for future crops, "you just have to be very cautious," depending on the nature of the plants, he says.

The report, which did not consider health impacts of eating genetically engineered crops, did recommend large-scale studies of ecological effects of such crops, Ervin said.

Marion Nestle, a New York University professor and expert on food studies and public health, says that in processed food, "if it's got beet sugar, soybean or sugar, it's got an 85 to 95 percent chance of being genetically modified."

Nestle fears unintended consequences in the food supply and environment. She previously served on Food and Drug Administration advisory boards, and she opposes the genetically engineered salmon. In the 1990s, she voted against allowing genetically engineered plants.

Animals are a bigger problem in trying to prevent mixing with nongenetically modified populations, she says. "Millions (of farmed fish) escape, not one or two, but millions."

L. LaReesa Wolfenbarger, a professor of biology at the University of Nebraska who was on the National Academies study team, finds a distinct difference between old-fashioned breeding and genetic modification. What is happening recently is that we are mixing genes of plants and animals that in normal evolution or nature don't mix, she says.

Or as Margaret Mellon, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, puts it: You can't breed a cow with a starfish.

Such DNA-mixing is not necessarily bad, but it is something to be careful with, Wolfenbarger and Mellon say.

"These are things that we can look at as long as we also have the ability to kind of brainstorm and figure out what the unintended consequences are," Wolfenbarger says. She contends that so far, at least with plants, science has had a good handle on preventing problems.

Not so, says NYU's Nestle.

Back in the 1990s, she recalled, opponents of genetically engineered crops were "laughed out of the room ... and they turned out to be right." Just as critics warned, the pollen of genetically modified crops is drifting into natural areas. Weeds and insects have become resistant to the anti-pest modifications, she said.

But scientists who work on genetic modifications insist time has proven them correct.

James Murray, a professor of animal sciences at the University of California at Davis, says the fears surrounding genetically engineered foods sound similar to concerns about microwave ovens, which some people initially thought would give off dangerous radiation or blow up pacemakers.

Murray is working on genetically modified goats as a way to produce milk that can fight devastating diarrhea in poor nations.

With the world population predicted to surpass 9 billion before 2050, genetically engineered food is the only hope to avoid starvation, he says.

That many people cannot be fed "using agriculture as it is right now," Murray says. "What is the cost to humanity if we do not use this technology?"

[/quote [/quote']

To me there is a difference between taking two animals of the same species and breeding them to enhance certain traits that are already in their gene pool and the act of introducing foreign genes into a species in order to alter it into something totally different from what it could ever be in nature. And I am not in favor of the GMO crops.

We do adapt traits in animals to better suit us and yes, in many ways that is not a good thing but that is a far leap from the Island of Dr Moreau train of thought.

[Nick Kuhn]

Quote:

To me there is a difference between taking two animals of the same species and breeding them to enhance certain traits that are already in their gene pool and the act of introducing foreign genes into a species in order to alter it into something totally different from what it could ever be in nature. And I am not in favor of the GMO crops.

Except that it could definitely be that in nature, and we could also breed for that, but it would take thousands of generations.

[bobbymalone]

Except that it could definitely be that in nature, and we could also breed for that, but it would take thousands of generations.

uhhh... you can't breed foreign genes into reproductively isolated species.

bt corn has a bacterial gene in it. Very very very unlikely that is ever gonna find its way in there and be compatible with the corn's genetic machinery without a molecular biologist doing a little tweaking. The exception being something like crown gall disease that is caused by bacterial DNA integrating into the plant chromosomes.

Not saying I'm against it, especially since I love me some sweet corn.

I bet that most people that are against GMO crops unknowingly enjoy the GMO HFCS in sodey pop, the corn meal in corn flakes, and eat products cooked in GMO soybean oil.

[PurpleFloyd]

I was a Biology major in college but I never learned how to breed for a trait that is nonexistent in a species. Can you please fill me in on that part?

As with anything, when you try to mess with mother nature it ends in her biting you in the behind.

(NaturalNews) Five studies published in the October 2009 issue of The European Journal of Agronomy reveal the negative impacts of using Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, a formula developed specifically for the company's line of genetically modified (GM) "Roundup Ready" crops. The papers, which were not released in the United States, offer a solid indictment against GM crops and the plight of using the Roundup herbicide.

Robert Kremer, a microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, co-authored one of the five papers and offered insight into their premise during an interview with The Organic & Non-GMO Report, a monthly newsletter that offers recourse in addressing the challenges of fighting GM foods.

Kremer and his colleagues began studying the effects of Roundup on soil back in 1997. They found that the herbicide was causing an increase in parasitic colonization at the roots of Roundup Ready soybeans and corn. They also observed an increase in fungal growth that leads to sudden death syndrome (SDS) in the plants.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is systemically changing the soil composition in the fields where it is used, leeching from plant roots into the ground. It is also disrupting the normal microorganism balance on plants and in soil, spurring the growth of harmful bacterial colonies that are destroying the beneficial ones.

According to Kremer, the most apparent disruption by glyphosate is observed in rhizobia, a type of bacterium that fixes nitrogen in the soil. Glyphosate's toxicity inhibits rhizobia from enriching soil with nitrogen, preventing plants from receiving this necessary element.

Despite claims to the contrary, Roundup can deeply penetrate soil and threaten groundwater supplies with contamination. Depending on a particular soil's composition, glyphosate can leech rather quickly into soil and potentially run off into nearby streams and rivers.

The Roundup system has also caused a significant increase in aggressive "super" weeds that are resistant to glyphosate. These weeds have been popping up in fields all over the country where GM Roundup Ready crops are grown, growing increasingly more virulent every year. Genetic engineers continue to develop stronger herbicides to combat them but the weeds keep getting stronger and more resistant.

Genetic modification of food crops is not only unsustainable but it threatens to unhinge the entire agricultural system. Roundup and other herbicides are altering and destroying soil nutrients, beneficial microbes, and other delicate components necessary to grow food.

While many farmers are interested in moving away from using GM crops in favor of more organic methods, it is often difficult for many of them to make the conversion.

[tonkapat]

And to think we are leaching the soil and polluting the water for corn that we end up burning in our gas tanks. For being so developed and intelligent americans sure are stupid.