> The USDA says that GMOs may give some real alternatives to > the current heavy use of synthetic pesticides and this may well be > so. My main problem with the use of GMOs is that there are > apparently some problems in testing them for safety and I > understand that there have been some unexpected results from > their use. The food chain is no place for surprises. > > A second problem is that it is apparently very difficult to really > keep specific GMOs separate from their "non-GMO" counter-parts > once the GMOs have been introduced. > > I met a man at one of our local Universities who claims to have > hybridized a rat using some genetic material from a man and it was > spooky! > > Bill
Just another example of how technology is outpacing legal/moral standards.
Just because science CAN do something, SHOULD it? Should the profitability
of a company that has patented a "useful" GMO be put above the common good
of society if there is ANY chance of the GMO turning out to be harmful?
Same basic argument about cloning humans. Good? Bad? Right? Wrong?
Geez, I sure don't know these answers, and I doubt any intelligent person
claims to.
Perhaps if we're all lucky, GMO "tampering with Mother Nature" becomes
long-term good. Feeling lucky? (Actually, Burbank did some of this, but
hardly on the same scale.)
The Times also just had an excellent even-handed article about the
suspected long-term effects of pesticides on brains. Made what I feel are
important points that some 70,000 chemicals in use have only been tested
for immediate mortality, cancer, and some birth defects. Nothing tested on
human hormone disruption, or for IQ effects. The article made the
observation that we are normally exposed to pesticides and herbicides in
combination with each other, which is never tested at all.
I enjoyed the industry spokesman's defense, "The human system has so many
protective mechanisms, and our bodies are bombarded with all kinds of
things." Sure set my mind at ease.
I don't know if genetically-altered beans or corn, or if all the current
pesticides, alone and in combination, are safe or not safe. For me, and I
suspect for many others around the world, that feeling of uncertainty is
the problem.