rd_macgregor
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- May 14, 2008
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A couple of folks have mentioned GMO wheat and tomatoes, and the terminator trait. Delta and Pine Land and the USDA were issued a joint patent for a Genetic Use Restriction Techology (GURT) method which was dubbed "terminator" by opponents. The trait has never appeared in a product.
Similarly, there has never been an approved GM wheat and, to the best of my knowledge, GM tomatoes are no longer being grown commercially anywhere.
The adoption of gene-spliced crops around the world has been a revolution...much more dramatic than any prior technological change in agriculture. Individual farmers have made the decision to switch to GM varieties because of the agronomic advantages they provide. Something like 90% of farmers using GM varieties are in the third world (eg, China, India, Philippines).
Farmswithjunk is right to point out that after over 20 years of widespread consumption and billions of servings consumed, nobody has ever verified an adverse health effect from eating GM foods. Research in recent years has pointed out that other breeding techniques, particularly mutation breeding, introduce greater genetic variation in plant varieties than does genetic engineering, yet those techniques are considered "conventional breeding" so get no special attention.
Nowadays, it is nearly impossible to get a GM safety study published...UNLESS it shows some negative effect! Journals just don't want to publish yet another study yielding the (now) expected result. This is why researchers are no longer eager to undertake GM-food safety research.
In my understanding, the FDA does very little research of its own (on foods, drugs or anything else); mostly, it is a question of them requiring proponents of a product to undertake specific studies. Despite a preponderance of scientific studies showing no risks from GM foods up for approval, and despite a government policy of using a science-based approach to approvals, the bureaucracies in FDA, USDA and EPA all take every opportunity to demand proponents jump through extraordinary hoops. In theory, genetic engineering could develop useful plant varieties in a fraction of the time (and cost) of most other conventional techniques, however, excessive government oversight has actually made the process MORE costly because of the regulatory burden.
Worse, this regulatory burden is what helps guarantee the monopoly position of Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and the rest; they are the only ones who can afford to do all the studies required to carry a new variety through to market release.
Finally, remember that patents expire in 20 years. Monsanto's glyphosate (RoundUp) patent expired a couple of years ago, and key GM patents are already starting to become "public property", so the big biotech companies have to keep trying to come up with new, improved...and patentable... traits to keep their customers coming back to them. Notwithstanding movie plots and conspiracy theorists, it is not a viable business strategy for these companies to produce products that kill their custormers or their customers' customers.
BOB
Similarly, there has never been an approved GM wheat and, to the best of my knowledge, GM tomatoes are no longer being grown commercially anywhere.
The adoption of gene-spliced crops around the world has been a revolution...much more dramatic than any prior technological change in agriculture. Individual farmers have made the decision to switch to GM varieties because of the agronomic advantages they provide. Something like 90% of farmers using GM varieties are in the third world (eg, China, India, Philippines).
Farmswithjunk is right to point out that after over 20 years of widespread consumption and billions of servings consumed, nobody has ever verified an adverse health effect from eating GM foods. Research in recent years has pointed out that other breeding techniques, particularly mutation breeding, introduce greater genetic variation in plant varieties than does genetic engineering, yet those techniques are considered "conventional breeding" so get no special attention.
Nowadays, it is nearly impossible to get a GM safety study published...UNLESS it shows some negative effect! Journals just don't want to publish yet another study yielding the (now) expected result. This is why researchers are no longer eager to undertake GM-food safety research.
In my understanding, the FDA does very little research of its own (on foods, drugs or anything else); mostly, it is a question of them requiring proponents of a product to undertake specific studies. Despite a preponderance of scientific studies showing no risks from GM foods up for approval, and despite a government policy of using a science-based approach to approvals, the bureaucracies in FDA, USDA and EPA all take every opportunity to demand proponents jump through extraordinary hoops. In theory, genetic engineering could develop useful plant varieties in a fraction of the time (and cost) of most other conventional techniques, however, excessive government oversight has actually made the process MORE costly because of the regulatory burden.
Worse, this regulatory burden is what helps guarantee the monopoly position of Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and the rest; they are the only ones who can afford to do all the studies required to carry a new variety through to market release.
Finally, remember that patents expire in 20 years. Monsanto's glyphosate (RoundUp) patent expired a couple of years ago, and key GM patents are already starting to become "public property", so the big biotech companies have to keep trying to come up with new, improved...and patentable... traits to keep their customers coming back to them. Notwithstanding movie plots and conspiracy theorists, it is not a viable business strategy for these companies to produce products that kill their custormers or their customers' customers.
BOB
