RECLAIM THE COMMONS: Shutdown BIO 2004: Tuesday, June 8th

What do you have against GM foods?

They are no labeled as genetically altered and I cannot make my own choice as to whether I want to eat corn as the gods made it or if I want to eat corn that has an alien gene forced on it.

also. most corporations that produce food use GMOs. they put organic farmers out of business and often compel organic farmers to raise their prices--so that they can pay their rent and take care of their families.

another reason....foods that are genetically modified or have genetically modified ingrediants are often not labeled as so. sometimes these foods will have certain products/ingrediants/vitamins that people are unaware they contain--it can cause sickeness.

industrialized agriculture ruins land--after using that land once it can not be re-used to grow crops. they also cut down forests/rainforests.

I keep hearing this being related to the G8 convention. Is this just a coincidence, or are there connections between GMOs and G8s! (I feel like I should be writing this with Kindergarten magnets on a refrigerator!)

Ruth says "I want to eat corn as the gods made it":

The whole god question aside, all of the corn (and every other crop) that exists today has been genetically engineered for centuries upon centuries, only with the primitive methods of cross-breeding. I doubt you would enjoy your tacos if the tortillas were made from wild corn, which was low-yield and shriveled. Genetic engineering is just a new means to accomplish the same things that have been happening since the moment our ancestors began cultivating food. It should be refined and tested (which won't happen with the profit-driven biotech industry), not abolished.

yes, corn has been genetically engineered for centuries, through cross breeding.

but not too much of this involved breeding corn, and say, fish.

you morons eat up the lines the biotech industy feeds you. you conflate cross breeding of two vegetable species with taking a totally random gene out of one species and inserting it into the genome of another totally unrelated species. theres a difference.

if you cant understand this, think of artificial insemination. you probably dont have a problem with it, right? not too controversial.

now think about artificial insemination, except someone removes a bit of your DNA from your sperm sample, and replaces it with a bit of DNA from a pig. controversial? duh!

http://www.nationalpost.com/tech/story.html?f=/stories/20010822/659629.html

August 22, 2001


Man-beast hybrid beyond talking stage
Human DNA in cow egg


Scott Foster
The Edmonton Journal
Melding man and beast may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it's
not.

Amid all the advances in genetic manipulation, the idea of combining the DNA
of animals and humans has gone beyond the talking stage -- it's been
attempted.

Indeed, many scientists and academics are wondering how far it might go and
what the ethical implications would be. If a human were crossed with a
chimpanzee, for example, would it still be human? And if not, then what
would it be?

The first publicized case of animal-human hybrids took place in 1996 when
Jose Cibelli, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts, took DNA from
his white blood cells by swabbing the inside of his cheek. He then inserted
the DNA sample into a hollowed-out cow egg.

Cibelli's experiment came to an end after a week of growing the cell mass,
he told scientists earlier this month at a panel meeting of the National
Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

This raised the question of what might have emerged had the cell mass
continued to develop.

"As far as we know, it would still look like a human being, but some of the
characteristics of individual cells might be slightly different," said James
Cross, a molecular biologist at the University of Calgary who attended the
meeting.

If such an embryo could develop, he said, the result would resemble a human
being but carry bovine mitochondria, the energy-producing component of every
cell. This is because the cow's egg shell, or cytoplasm, contains genetic
materials known as mitochondrial DNA.

"This suggests that we can create new human-animal species," said Jeremy
Rifkin, biotechnology critic and president of the Washington-based
Foundation on Economic Trends.

Rifkin called the experiment "the most extraordinary single development in
the history of biotechnology."

Such experiments have become public only when the makers of hybrids, who
fund their operations through investor capital, apply to patent their
inventions.

In partnership with Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology, Cibelli
came out from under a shroud of secrecy in 1998 when the firm applied to
patent the alleged invention.

Last October, Greenpeace Germany dug up a patent claim for a similar
human-animal hybrid, only this time it involved a pig. U.S.-based
Biotransplant and Australia-based Stem Cell Sciences grew a pig-human embryo
to 32 cells before ending its life.

"If the embryo had lived, it would be 95% human," said Michael Khoo, a
genetic engineering campaigner for Greenpeace's Toronto branch. "The
possibilities are not only frightening, but it's unknown just how many other
similar patent applications are out there."

Meanwhile, critics and futurists are having a field day speculating on the
future of biotechnology.

"Chimpanzees share between 95% and 98% of our genes, so the prospect of
creating a human-chimpanzee hybrid are highly probable," Rifkin said. "The
question becomes: What percentage of human genes will it take before human
rights kick in? Would a hybrid have to look and talk like a human before it
can get human rights?"

While the concept of making and owning such a creation for 20 years under
patent law is controversial to say the least, the science behind combining
animal eggs and human DNA could be useful, said Cross. "In the case of
Dolly, it took 277 eggs to get the sheep. In normal IVF programs, the number
of eggs you get usually ranges between five and 10. So, to solve a potential
shortage, some scientists have considered using an egg from a different
species to house human DNA."

While such an attempt to improve the egg supply may be scientifically
possible, people are not ready for such a brave new world which involves
crossing the species barrier, said Diane Cox, who chairs the medical
genetics department at the University of Alberta. "Right now, technology is
way ahead of ethics. The Canadian population is worried enough about
relatively trivial things, let alone such a bizarre concept."

"you conflate cross breeding of two vegetable species with taking a totally random gene out of one species and inserting it into the genome of another totally unrelated species. theres a difference."

First of all, it's cross-breeding, not transgenic techniques, that take "totally random gene[s] out of one species" and put them in another, since when you are selecting for a given trait, you have no ability to compel only that trait to be transmitted to the offspring. Second of all, there are no "totally unrelated species." All species develop based on sequences of nucleic acids that code for proteins. Some sequences, through processes of evolution, happen occur in some organisms, and others occur in other organisms. Humans have to this point only employed primitive, inaccurate techniques (breeding) to retain good sequences and negate bad ones. So, again, don't oppose the technology, oppose the rotten system of private production that condemns its use to harmful irrationality.