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What's the deal with GMOs? Follow

#1 Sep 19 2013 at 9:06 AM Rating: Good
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I've got a couple of friends who are constantly screaming and ranting about "Monsanto" this and "Genetically modified foods" that. Now, when I ask them what the problem is, they'll say something like "Oh, I don't know. Cancer and stuff." They cite articles on the internet that are linked to "news" websites that also post things like "Vaccines cause autism" and "the government is out to get you" among other incredibly dubious Dale Gribblesque content.

On the other hand, there seems to be a fairly large world-wide movement against Monsanto, and GMO foods are banned in many places that aren't 'Merica. Yet, from the look of things, the only way to eat around here without consuming GMOs is to grow food in your own back yard. At the same time, every plastic, aerosol, cleaning agent or surface I can possibly touch allegedly causes cancer as well. So why aren't I just a big walking tumor?
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#2 Sep 19 2013 at 9:16 AM Rating: Excellent
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You aren't going to get cancer. Well, I mean you probably will, but not from your GM food at least.

The more real concerns revolve around things like spreading antibiotic resistance(in a similar manner to how hospitals can have problems with "superbugs"), unintended consequences with cross-breeding with local crops, the dangers of having a world full of crops with essentially the same genetic makeup, unproven effectiveness of the gene alteration, and just a general fear of the unknowns that may be associated with them.

There's no harm in a bit of caution around a newly modified organism; at the same time the particulars aren't really that different from the current monoculture wheat field drowning in high levels of fertilizer and pesticides you see all over the world.
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#3 Sep 19 2013 at 9:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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I don't have strong opinions about GMO's from a biological "It'll give ya cancer!" standpoint but a more legitimate concern (in my mind) is agricultural patents in general and specifically how Monsanto exploits those.

As for GMO's, we've been genetically modifying foods since the dawn of time. It just took a lot longer and required a lot more work and luck. But essentially nothing you buy in the produce section or from the farmer's market bears more than a passing resemblance to its 'native' form.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 10:18am by Jophiel
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#4 Sep 19 2013 at 9:19 AM Rating: Good
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I'm not so much concerned with cancer as I am with ten foot tall ears of carnivore corn.
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#5 Sep 19 2013 at 10:13 AM Rating: Excellent
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I've not heard that GMO's are singularly implicated in causing cancer.

The issues I've heard springing up around GMO's are...
- Food crop diversity - once the seed is out there, there is no containing it. If the bulk of the seed supply should become genetically modified and then that modification proves to be responsible for a genetic mutation in peeps of some detrimental sort, we're screwed.
- Second has been the labeling debacle. The GMO producers not only dont' want to disclose that their foods are genetically modified, they don't want to allow non-gmo food producers to label their products as such (as it implies GMO = bad).
-Then as Joph mentioned there are the patent issues. Also the evidence is now pretty solid that the seeds are contaminating other non-gmo crops (nuisance claim).
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#6 Sep 19 2013 at 10:15 AM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
I'm not so much concerned with cancer as I am with ten foot tall ears of carnivore corn.
I wonder how a cob of corn might prepare a person for dinner.
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#7 Sep 19 2013 at 10:47 AM Rating: Good
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Elinda wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
I'm not so much concerned with cancer as I am with ten foot tall ears of carnivore corn.
I wonder how a cob of corn might prepare a person for dinner.
Fresh and bloody.
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#8 Sep 19 2013 at 10:48 AM Rating: Good
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
Elinda wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
I'm not so much concerned with cancer as I am with ten foot tall ears of carnivore corn.
I wonder how a cob of corn might prepare a person for dinner.
Fresh and bloody.
Rotisserie.
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#9 Sep 19 2013 at 10:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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Creamed.
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#10 Sep 19 2013 at 10:52 AM Rating: Good
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On the cobb, with skewers in their ears.
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#11 Sep 19 2013 at 11:39 AM Rating: Excellent
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On the other hand, there seems to be a fairly large world-wide movement against Monsanto

It's not because GMOs are dangerous, it's because Monsanto will kill 2 billion people if it makes them an extra nickel. Sort of guilt by association. Monsanto is undeniably "evil". They would certainly let people die from their products if it made a larger profit. Turns out it wouldn't. Lucky for us. GMO labeling is idiotic. No one has the right to demand warning labels for things that aren't shown to require any warnings. People are confused enough as it is.
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#12 Sep 19 2013 at 12:32 PM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
On the other hand, there seems to be a fairly large world-wide movement against Monsanto

It's not because GMOs are dangerous, it's because Monsanto will kill 2 billion people if it makes them an extra nickel. Sort of guilt by association. Monsanto is undeniably "evil". They would certainly let people die from their products if it made a larger profit. Turns out it wouldn't. Lucky for us. GMO labeling is idiotic. No one has the right to demand warning labels for things that aren't shown to require any warnings. People are confused enough as it is.

Our local dairy, Oakhurst, was sued by Monsanto for labeling their milk with "Our farmer's pledge: no artificial hormones". Monsanto claimed this disparaged milk that had artificial hormones. I was a bit miffed this was settled out of court with Oakhurst agreeing to reword their label. Seems that if Oakhurst makes it a business practice to find and only use farmers that don't use BGH, they should be able to put that on their label.

The increased uniformity of the seed stock is probably the biggest risk with widespread use of GMO's. If round up corn seed failed many farms would go down with it.
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#13 Sep 19 2013 at 12:33 PM Rating: Good
I've joked that I have to turn in my liberal card since I'm not on board with all the GMO rage.

Plant genetics is pretty weird on its own. Corn in particular is strange, with duplicated chromosomes and all sorts of bizarre things going on. There's nothing humans can do to corn that corn wouldn't eventually get around to trying itself.

Personally, I don't like sweet corn all that much and I prefer mine in the form of grits or hominy.
#14 Sep 19 2013 at 12:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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I know this might be shocking Cat, but you don't need to be raging left wing on everything.
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#15 Sep 19 2013 at 12:45 PM Rating: Decent
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The increased uniformity of the seed stock is probably the biggest risk with widespread use of GMO's. If round up corn seed failed many farms would go down with it.

This would be true if other seed stock was eliminated, but, what would happen at the moment is farms would collect insurance, be fine, we'd be slightly more for corn for a while and they'd replant. There really aren't any catastrophe situations for first world farms. Third world farms might be ******* but who cares what happens to those wogs?
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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#16 Sep 19 2013 at 12:50 PM Rating: Good
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Catwho wrote:

Personally, I don't like sweet corn all that much ...
Might as well not like ice cream or chocolate either.

..or bacon!
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#17 Sep 19 2013 at 12:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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Elinda wrote:
The increased uniformity of the seed stock is probably the biggest risk with widespread use of GMO's. If round up corn seed failed many farms would go down with it.

This statement and Smash's reminded me of the national seed bank in case of some catastrophic failure. Which I then learned is now a whole genetic repository so we can not only grow some new corn but new cows and sheep and river trout as well. It also has one of the shittiest websites I've seen in a while. Government sequester must have hit right before they completed the move off Angelfire.

You can all sleep easy tonight knowing that our government is in possession of 11 units of koi ***** in case some cataclysmic event happens and we need to restock America's treasured Chinese food restaurant fish tanks.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 1:56pm by Jophiel
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#18 Sep 19 2013 at 12:55 PM Rating: Good
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It's like a dna library. I wonder if they save bits of famous people.
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#19 Sep 19 2013 at 1:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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This should be the defense of those dog humper people.

"Your honor, my clients were merely walking in the footsteps of this God graced nation, its leaders and the desires of its esteemed forefathers when they took it upon themselves, as patriots, to collect and store genetic samples of their canine -- man's oldest and best friend -- in case al'Qaeda or some other terrorists organization should threaten the beloved companion of every young American boy.

In this unfortunate climate of frozen government spending, the jury should not hold it against my clients that their genetic repository was this woman's ******. I rest my case."
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#20 Sep 19 2013 at 1:11 PM Rating: Good
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Uglysasquatch wrote:
I know this might be shocking Cat, but you don't need to be raging left wing on everything.
But if you're not you might lose your hippie membership card!
#21 Sep 19 2013 at 1:14 PM Rating: Good
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It doesn't hurt to offset the raging right winger with one or two raging left wingers.
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#22 Sep 19 2013 at 1:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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Catwho wrote:
Plant genetics is pretty weird on its own. Corn in particular is strange, with duplicated chromosomes and all sorts of bizarre things going on. There's nothing humans can do to corn that corn wouldn't eventually get around to trying itself.
Just a QFT. Plants are weird.


Never trust any organism that only needs a light frost to create new mutant versions of itself, never go into a cornfield alone at dawn! Smiley: um

Smiley: tinfoilhat

[:shotgun:]
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#23 Sep 19 2013 at 1:33 PM Rating: Default
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Elinda wrote:
- Food crop diversity - once the seed is out there, there is no containing it. If the bulk of the seed supply should become genetically modified and then that modification proves to be responsible for a genetic mutation in peeps of some detrimental sort, we're screwed.


I understand this from an "all your eggs in one basket" point of view, but I'm not sure what you're talking about with "genetic mutation of peeps". Are you worried that by eating the food people will somehow become "infected" with the genetic modifications of the wheat/whatever? Genetics doesn't work that way. Your genes don't change based on the genes of what you eat. Otherwise, people would have turned into cows a long time ago.

If you meant something else, please explain.

Quote:
- Second has been the labeling debacle. The GMO producers not only dont' want to disclose that their foods are genetically modified, they don't want to allow non-gmo food producers to label their products as such (as it implies GMO = bad).


Because honestly it's an absurd label. As a couple people have pointed out, all food is "genetically modified". Companies resist labeling precisely because the sole purpose of requiring labels is to make people think there's something wrong with the food. There's nothing wrong with the food. If people have issues with the policies of the company(s) developing the strains of wheat/whatever that is being grown, that's a whole different issue.


Quote:
-Then as Joph mentioned there are the patent issues. Also the evidence is now pretty solid that the seeds are contaminating other non-gmo crops (nuisance claim).


Which is it though? We're upset because a company has patented their work modifying crops to grow better and be more productive and they can charge farmers an arm and a leg for it? Or we're upset because their better and more productive crops spread to other fields and grow "free" elsewhere? I mean, if I'm a farmer and the guy next door paid for the super duper wheat, and it spread to my farm where I can just grow it without paying for it, isn't that a bonus?
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#24 Sep 19 2013 at 1:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Which is it though? We're upset because a company has patented their work modifying crops to grow better and be more productive and they can charge farmers an arm and a leg for it? Or we're upset because their better and more productive crops spread to other fields and grow "free" elsewhere? I mean, if I'm a farmer and the guy next door paid for the super duper wheat, and it spread to my farm where I can just grow it without paying for it, isn't that a bonus?
How do these laws work anyway? Do you need the company's permission to grow the product? I mean as a drug or something they'd have exclusive rights to sell it. What's stealing the wheat and making your own and what's natural spread? Can you even prove it either way?


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#25 Sep 19 2013 at 1:52 PM Rating: Default
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someproteinguy wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Which is it though? We're upset because a company has patented their work modifying crops to grow better and be more productive and they can charge farmers an arm and a leg for it? Or we're upset because their better and more productive crops spread to other fields and grow "free" elsewhere? I mean, if I'm a farmer and the guy next door paid for the super duper wheat, and it spread to my farm where I can just grow it without paying for it, isn't that a bonus?
How do these laws work anyway? Do you need the company's permission to grow the product? I mean as a drug or something they'd have exclusive rights to sell it. What's stealing the wheat and making your own and what's natural spread? Can you even prove it either way?


Honestly? No clue. I just found it odd to simultaneously complain about patents for a product and the risk of the product spreading unintentionally. It's such a scattershot set of fears going on with regard to this.

I'm also unsure how this is different from crops normally. Farmers have always somehow managed to deal with the fact that sometimes the potatoes from the field next door start growing where you're trying to grow corn. When I read some of the sites raging about genetically modified food, it usually sounds like they've taken one too many horror films seriously. It's like "OMG! If that strain of wheat gets out in the wild, it'll be the T-virus! We'll all be zombies in a few weeks". Um... No. It'll grow wild just like any other crop can grow wild. This is genetics, not magic.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 12:53pm by gbaji
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#26 Sep 19 2013 at 1:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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Yes, you need Monsanto's permission. When you grow a crop of GMO wheat or corn or soy, you may sell the crop or eat the crop. What you explicitly may not do is keep any of the crop to replant. You must buy new seeds from Monsanto next year.

Mixed crops and "free" strays are most definitely an issue. Many GMO crops are designed around various resistances to pest, herbicides and pesticides. Knowing exactly what you're growing is very important when determining how to treat your crops. If you've never lived in farm country you may have never seen this but fields have very obvious markers saying exactly what strain of seed and its source is being used in each field.

Edit: Propagation laws apply to any patented plants, not just GMO ones. You're not allowed to propagate patented rose or petunia varieties either, for example. You have to have permission and pay licensing to the originating nursery.

Edited, Sep 19th 2013 3:03pm by Jophiel
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