GM potatoes

[richard p]

what the academic scientist does in his research is not neccessarily the same as will be done in the commercial world. the public conception is that a few large companies have used gm technology to produce sterile crops that are tolerant of ever increasing doses of the company's weedkillers, fungicides and insect killers. it is now down to the responsible developers of gm technology to try to revise public opinion with clear clarification of its benefits and a reasoned assessment of its potential risks

[Alison]

GM is not "doing faster what men have been doing for millenia", as was said in Any Questions last week. I don't know what the position is on the GM potatoes, but I remember reading years ago how they made a soya bean herbicide-resistant. My memory is sketchy, but I seem to recall it was something on the following lines:
They took a gene from a petunia to 'turn off' the soya's genetic reaction to the herbicide.
They put in a gene from, I think, a brassica, that was herbicide-resistant.
Then they used a gene from another plant to'turn it back on again'.
Whatever men have done over millenia, it has not involved this mixing of completely different species. This is why I have big problems with it. If, e.g, brassica genes are put into a soya plant, I would think it perfectly possible that through cross-pollination with our native wild-plants (lots of which are brassicas) we could have our native stocks' genetics interfered with. There is also a possibility that a disorder which is very minor in one species could transfer across and prove very damaging in another species.
I would have far less problem if they confined themselves to using genes from the same species. If the GM potatoes have used a gene from an ancient variety of potato to confer blight-resistance, then I would probably have no objection. If they have used genes from a completely different species, I do object.
Alison.

[Cider Boys]

Hello Alison

I am perfectly willing to accept that you know more about GM foods than I do, but I do question why you object. As Allan says it has just become fashion to object to modern science. Scientists are like everyone else and I am sure if there were these great dangers they would also express their concerns.

Barney

[peter]

I don't see that GM is any different from the manipulation of plant genes that mankind has been exploiting sice the start of agriculture, it's just a device to get us there faster and all crops released have the same stringents safeguards imposed in them.
Allan

OK Allan, get hybridising, I believe one of the GM potato varieties contains a gene sequence spliced in from the common or garden Snowdrop.

When you manage it by traditional means I'll buy you a damm big drink.

Oh and in case you did not know, that variety is the one that caused large percentage of the lab rats to develop cancers.

Barney, it is the un-anticipated effects that worry me. Thalidomide was "safe" according to scientists. I do not want to be someone else's lab rat.

[Johnboy]

Hi Barney,
I warned you that you would not get a meaningful debate about GM. We have Alison with her 'sketchy memory' and a 'Brassica I think' comments then going into one because because it would upset the other Brassicas when she is not sure if it was a Brassica or not. That really goes to prove that her knowledge of Genetics is about zilch. If you have to listen to Any Questions to obtain your information I would suggest that as there was no Geneticist on the panel it is again taking the word of a nobody. The only reason that you accepted the words spoken on Any Questions is because they fall into your own train of thinking and that doesn't make it true.
We have Richard coming out with blaming scientists of introducing Varoa here and Killer Bees into America and GM producers producing sterile plants. They do have a Terminator Gene but about three years ago they publicly announced that it would never be used.
Now we have got Peter dragging up Thalidamide. For your information Peter from the amount of women that took Thalidamide to the amount of defective births was very small thankfully. The legislation put in place at that very sad time seems to have worked because there has never been a further incident of the like.
For your information the Genetic Engineering on the original Golden Rice was done by normal hybridizing so your challenge to Allan to get hybridizing falls somewhat flat.
The only reason why the British Public cannot make up their minds about GM is because there are so many people who, as I have said before, treat their theories as fact and make out that they know all about GM and in truth they know bugger all.
You see now Barney that a rational debate is simply not possible.
JB.

[Allan]

JB, I thoroghly agree, this debate is going to get nowhere. The fact that a gene came for a particular place is no rational argument. It is only part of the original. If I ate some meat from a tiger I would not necessarily become a tiger. The anti-GM-ers will always piece these things together to confuse the issue. I don't study the subject in any depth but what I did find out in one particular instance was that the extra gene was attached on the outside anyway and was not part of the nucleus. Also what impressed me in that case was the vastly extensive trials that were performed to ensure that the end result was the right one.
Incidentally, it's no good bribing me with promise of a 'drink', I am TT

[Piglet]

I know very little about Gm so wont get embroiled in the arguments for or against.

On a personal note I dont have an issue if a potato is modified with the genes of another potato but I do object if it is modified with something that is totally different. For example if you modified a man with pig genes to give him a strong heart then he is no longer human but a man made abomination of nature and thats how I would feel about other "crops".

Soon they will be feeding us soylent green!!!

[Johnboy]

Hi Piglet,
Lets reverse the process you so dislike and you cross a Pig using Man genes and the resulting heart is then interchangable with the Human heart. You have a heart that is in trouble and your days are numbered without a new heart I just wonder how you would feel then!!
I understand that Diabetics are doing exceedingly well on GM Insulin and have been doing so for a considerable time. Are they freaks? Of course not!!
JB.

[Cider Boys]

What amazes me in these debates is that no-one is more of a stick-in-the-mud than me but I am moderately excited by new developments in technology. As for a rationale debate both John Boy’s and Allan’s contributions give me faith that not everyone takes a knee-jerk reaction against the GM science.

You are so right John Boy regarding listening to Any Questions and only hearing want you want to hear when it falls into ones own train of thinking. It is not unknown for my wife and I to differ on some points of fact and when listening with her to a debate on the subject, I smugly smile to myself thinking ”ah that will tell her” but at the end she hears the same debate as supporting her views! (That’s what you get for giving women the vote).

Barney

[Mr Potato Head]

I would be wary of assuming that because a scientist is a rational person, just like us (ho-ho), that they'll automatically alert the wider public to any concerns they may have.

Most research scientists are mediated from the public by an awful lot of money / PR / higher management / investors / sense of their own 'reputation'. Even if they are deeply moral individuals.

This of course, stands true for both sides of the debate. As is so often the case, the 'truth' doesn't get out because it doesn't suit political (small p) objectives.

Taken at face value - GM does promise an awful lot of benefits, including blight & drought resistance etc. However, I would perhaps argue that these minor genetic improvements are not going to be the be-all and end-all in solving global hunger. Political will is considerably more important... perhaps GM food is deflecting us from that debate?

Possibly the most serious implication of any GM crop is that it's copyrightable!

[richard p]

hi jb re heart transplants ,it is now documented that in some cases recipients of organ transplants also take on some of the personal habits and preferences of the donor, which would make me a bit dubious of accepting a replacement organ grown in a pig, maybe if i needed one my view would change, but it is my decision as and when.

what is becoming clear to me is that some contributors to this forum are aware of the possibility that nobody (not even experts) knows it all about any particular subject and there are others who appear to beleive that mankind now knows all there is to know about absolutly everything.

[Piglet]

Jb, Like I said, I have no issue with GM and things like injecting gm insulin is no different to eating gm rice, something I am not too bothered about as it doesnt become "part of you". It is not the same however as genetically modifying somebodys genes.

Changing the genes of one species with another however does bother me as that "in my humble opinion" is just a step too far, and no I wouldnt want porcine, bovine or any other animals gene as part of me thank you very much.

We have enough problems with genetic faults as humans without adding into the mix people who are part Gloucester old spot breeding with people who are part mackerel. Gingers with curly tails and fins spring to mind.

Getting back to my original point, I think that the genetical modification of crops has to be accepted with open minds as it could potentially solve many issues but that the genetic modification of sentient species is perhaps more worrysome.

It is my opinion Jb so please respect it as that, I dont disagree with your main crux of the discussion.

[Cider Boys]

Mr Potato Head is quite correct that GM improvements to some crops are not the be-all and end-all to feeding the world.

However if you are going to wait for Political solutions I respectfully suggest that you have not been on this planet as long as me and you are also in for a very long wait indeed. It wasn’t politicians that eliminated polio, smallpox and TB from this country it was the hard work and dedication of Biomedical Science. Incidentally I do not know of any Biomedical Scientists that thinks it is a good idea now to let in immigrants carrying TB and other diseases without first screening them but our politicians think it is just fine.

As for Richards second paragraph I for one do not think mankind knows it all but I do not believe that educated scientists should be prevented from acquiring further knowledge just because some fear the outcomes. I also support Piglet's open mind to the possible benefits of GM crops

Barney

[Allan]

We are in danger of repeating the same mistake on GM as on all topics, that is pre-judging by the attached label.
Much of the argument about growing vegetables is not whether the technique and results themselves are good or bad but whether Organics and non-organics are themselves good are bad. Now the same erronous argument is occurring about GM.
I say that GM in itself as a concept is neither good nor bad, but rather the price to be paid and the end result have to be weighed up seperately and in individual cases, not in a lump and for all possible circumstances.
There is the tale of the mother that heard that carrot juice was good for babies and fed hers on carrot juice alone for some time with predictable result.
A similar tale with Milk of Magnesia being used instead of cows' or human milk.
Allan

[peter]

JB, I was politely challanging Allan to resolve the inconsistency in the line he was proposing, that GM was merely accelerating traditional techniques. So I take issue with your comment as I felt my comments were meaningful and contributing to the debate.

I have no issue with "traditional" means of modifying a species for human benefit, but was just trying to point out the fallacy in his argument as it related to the latest non-traditional development I had read in the press.

Strictly speaking I have no issue with the modern technique itself, what I have issues with is it's application as currently practised.

My last comment was meant to illustrate that what a scientist calls safe often sadly proves later to not be. Therein lie my doubts.

The traditional hybridising methods are merely accelerating a natural process by controlling breeding and enforcing selection in the direction desired, between naturally compatible plants or animals.

Laboratory GM techniques splicing genes from incompatible species together invoke natural laws of probability and chance that in your RAF days you would have referred to as SODS LAW.

So that gene sequence gives an inedible flowering plant resistance to a fungal infection say, so we splice it into a spud. What other effect may it have on the spud in combination with the spud's genes? What effect will the previously un-eaten chemical that gives the resistance have on the human digestive tract and the rest or the human organism?

If the research and tests were being done between the best varieties of potato and its edible sub-species I would be more in favour. This impatient rush to cherry-pick genes from various species worries me.

Quite rightly you, and others, point out that GM holds out a hope of feeding the world, sadly the people paying the researchers are not agencies like OXFAM or UNESCO but agri-businesses. So instead of a variety of sorghum perfectly adapted to conditions in Ethiopia but with twice the yield of "natural" varieties we get rice that will not produce viable seed so the third world farmer has to keep coming back to the agri-business for fresh seed, which has been adapted to live with higher levels of pesticides or herbicides produced by guess who?

To address the lets get governments to do it argument I would suggest any proponent read the autobiography of Nevil Shute, designer of the Airspeed Oxford and author. Shute was a designer on the R100, a commercial airship, in competition with the R101, where, to paraphrase Shute, every suggestion had to be made material in the finished airship, to the extent that it was overweight, badly made and over complex. Shute was sadly unsurprised when it crashed on its maiden flight.

Perhaps if Mr William Gates directed his charitable foundation to fund independant and alturistic GM research we would see something truely useful emerge from the laboratory.

Call me a cynic, I am one for sure, but it is not the basic technique at fault, but the business direction and short term aims driving the current research and trials that worry me.