Hi all,
The U.S. rice industry wants the federal government to reject a plan to grow genetically modified rice in Kansas, saying that the country's growers would suffer "financial devastation" if modified crops contaminate the commercial supply. USDA officials are considering a request by California-based Ventria Bioscience to grow rice engineered to contain human proteins on hundreds of acres of farmland in Kansas.
Evidently, they intend to turn the proteins into medicines that can be used to to combat diarrhea, dehydration and other illnesses, in order to aid children in developing countries. You can read the full story, in the Charlotte Observer, if you want more information:
http://www.charlotte.com/463/story/69567.html
Tex
P S If the government goes ahead with this project, will the presence of human proteins in the rice, mean that anyone who eats that rice would be a cannibal? LOL.
U. S. Rice Industry Threatened By Request To Grow GMO Rice
Moderators: Rosie, Jean, CAMary, moremuscle, JFR, Dee, xet, Peggy, Matthew, Gabes-Apg, grannyh, Gloria, Mars, starfire, Polly, Joefnh
U. S. Rice Industry Threatened By Request To Grow GMO Rice
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Hi Tex,
This is indeed worrisome. If the rice is to be grown to benefit 3rd world countries, why wouldn't it just be grown there too? It could help to support the economy by providing jobs to many who have few other ways to earn a living.
Also, the jury is still out on the safety of GMO foods. This is from an article on the Vital Choice website last week:
Genetically modified (GM) corn damages rat livers and kidneys
French researchers at the University of Caen conducted a 90-day study in which they fed rats a strain of GM corn called MON863. This GM crop is modified to produce Cry3Bb1: a synthetic version of a Bt protein that kills the corn rootworm pest.
MON863 has been used in animal feeds in Europe since 2005 is approved for human consumption in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Taiwan, and, as of 2006, in the European Union.
The results indicated that feeding rats MON863 corn produced liver and kidney damage, as well as differences in weight gain between the sexes.
Of course, we don't know if these results would translate to humans, but it is cause for alarm, IMHO. Wayne, you probably know a lot more about this.
I had to laugh at your cannabalism comment. But it is scary. I wonder what kind of human proteins? Wouldn't those with AI diseases be at risk for developing antibodies to and getting sick from some of those proteins?
Whew - someone needs to slow down this cloning/GMO train.
How about that article last week showing that women who ate beef during pregnancy had sons who had depressed sperm counts as adults? A woman who ate beef every day throughout pregnancy could have a son with a 25% reduced sperm count. This is thought to be due to the anabolic steroids and other additives that are routinely fed to cattle. This is VERY scary to think that something like this could impact the future of humankind.
Thanks for sharing. I'm even more determined to eat organic and range-fed foods from mom and pop farms.
Love,
Polly
This is indeed worrisome. If the rice is to be grown to benefit 3rd world countries, why wouldn't it just be grown there too? It could help to support the economy by providing jobs to many who have few other ways to earn a living.
Also, the jury is still out on the safety of GMO foods. This is from an article on the Vital Choice website last week:
Genetically modified (GM) corn damages rat livers and kidneys
French researchers at the University of Caen conducted a 90-day study in which they fed rats a strain of GM corn called MON863. This GM crop is modified to produce Cry3Bb1: a synthetic version of a Bt protein that kills the corn rootworm pest.
MON863 has been used in animal feeds in Europe since 2005 is approved for human consumption in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, Taiwan, and, as of 2006, in the European Union.
The results indicated that feeding rats MON863 corn produced liver and kidney damage, as well as differences in weight gain between the sexes.
Of course, we don't know if these results would translate to humans, but it is cause for alarm, IMHO. Wayne, you probably know a lot more about this.
I had to laugh at your cannabalism comment. But it is scary. I wonder what kind of human proteins? Wouldn't those with AI diseases be at risk for developing antibodies to and getting sick from some of those proteins?
Whew - someone needs to slow down this cloning/GMO train.
How about that article last week showing that women who ate beef during pregnancy had sons who had depressed sperm counts as adults? A woman who ate beef every day throughout pregnancy could have a son with a 25% reduced sperm count. This is thought to be due to the anabolic steroids and other additives that are routinely fed to cattle. This is VERY scary to think that something like this could impact the future of humankind.
Thanks for sharing. I'm even more determined to eat organic and range-fed foods from mom and pop farms.
Love,
Polly
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
Polly,
Thank you for the additional information. I have to admit that I wasn't even aware that a form of bacillus thuringenesis, (Bt), gene splicing was being used to combat the corn rootworm. I'm sure that will prove to be a very popular item, because corn rootworms are a major problem in continuous corn, (corn planted to the same land, year after year), due to the fact that they can cause huge production losses, if not controlled, and they are difficult, and expensive, to control. Typically, they require the use of powerful, organo-phosphate systemic poisons, injected into the soil, which most farmers hate to use, but they haven't had much choice, (until now). IOW, the appeal to production agriculture is huge, so if this technology has a serious flaw, in terms of risk to human health, we will soon be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Bt bacteria have been used for roughly 70 years, to control the European corn borer, and earworms, (that eat the developing grain on an ear of corn). Since these worms are in the same family as the cotton bollworm, and common garden variety cutworms, (cabbage loopers, etc), the Bt immunity affects a lot of worms. I'm not familiar enough with it to know what else it might affect. In 70 years of use, to my knowledge, there has been no documented adverse effect of the BT bacteria, on human health. Of course Bt bacteria, and Bt genes, are not exactly the same thing, though they do kill the worms by means of the same protein. The protein used to kill the rootworms, however, is not the same one that has been used for so many years to kill the borers and cutworms, etc.
Here's how it works:
http://scq.ubc.ca/?p=262
I share your concerns about the implications of possible risks, for those of us with compromised immune systems. As usual, those of us in that situation don't have enough lobbying power to do much more than possibly raise an eyebrow or two, in the governing bodies who decide such issues. I'm sure our needs and concerns will be "overlooked" in the final decisions.
Regarding the article on beef, I'm guessing that the official position on something such as sperm attrition would probably go something like, "75% of millions is still plenty". Historically, one of the biggest problems with government, (perhaps the biggest), is that they tend to think in terms of their own tenure, and are rarely concerned about the generations to come. As Charles Darwin would surely point out, if he were still alive, when genes are altered, the ultimate effect is not obvious, until many generations have passed. The current GMO mentality appears to me to be a case of "flying blind, and hoping for the best".
Love,
Wayne
Thank you for the additional information. I have to admit that I wasn't even aware that a form of bacillus thuringenesis, (Bt), gene splicing was being used to combat the corn rootworm. I'm sure that will prove to be a very popular item, because corn rootworms are a major problem in continuous corn, (corn planted to the same land, year after year), due to the fact that they can cause huge production losses, if not controlled, and they are difficult, and expensive, to control. Typically, they require the use of powerful, organo-phosphate systemic poisons, injected into the soil, which most farmers hate to use, but they haven't had much choice, (until now). IOW, the appeal to production agriculture is huge, so if this technology has a serious flaw, in terms of risk to human health, we will soon be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Bt bacteria have been used for roughly 70 years, to control the European corn borer, and earworms, (that eat the developing grain on an ear of corn). Since these worms are in the same family as the cotton bollworm, and common garden variety cutworms, (cabbage loopers, etc), the Bt immunity affects a lot of worms. I'm not familiar enough with it to know what else it might affect. In 70 years of use, to my knowledge, there has been no documented adverse effect of the BT bacteria, on human health. Of course Bt bacteria, and Bt genes, are not exactly the same thing, though they do kill the worms by means of the same protein. The protein used to kill the rootworms, however, is not the same one that has been used for so many years to kill the borers and cutworms, etc.
Here's how it works:
Note that the description of how these proteins affect the epithelium of the worm gut, does indeed raise some questions about how other organisms with compromised immune systems, (such as us, for example) might possibly be adversely affected, under certain conditions. Also, I might point out here FWIW, that the adult stage of corn rootworms is a small beetle, while the adult stages of most borers and earworms, cutworms, etc, are moths and butterflies. Therefore, the 70 years of experience that I mentioned, is with the Cry protein, (used for borers and cutworms). To my knowledge, we have no prior history regarding the synthesizing of the Cyt proteins, (which affect the corn rootworm), so this is probably unexplored territory. That quote comes from this site, by the way:Bt has two classes of toxins; cytolysins (Cyt) and crystal delta-endotoxins (Cry)[3]. While Cyt proteins are toxic towards the insect orders Coleoptera (beetles) and Diptera (flies), Cry proteins selectively target Lepidopterans (moths and butterflies). As a toxic mechanism, Cry proteins bind to specific receptors on the membranes of mid-gut (epithelial) cells resulting in rupture of those cells[4]. If a Cry protein cannot find a specific receptor on the epithelial cell to which it can bind, then the Cry protein is not toxic. Bt strains will have different complements of Cyt and Cry proteins, thus defining their host ranges[5]. The genes encoding many Cry proteins have been identified providing biotechnologists with the genetic building blocks to create GM crops that express a particular Cry protein in corn that is toxic to a particular pest such as ECB yet potential safe for human consumption.
http://scq.ubc.ca/?p=262
I share your concerns about the implications of possible risks, for those of us with compromised immune systems. As usual, those of us in that situation don't have enough lobbying power to do much more than possibly raise an eyebrow or two, in the governing bodies who decide such issues. I'm sure our needs and concerns will be "overlooked" in the final decisions.
Regarding the article on beef, I'm guessing that the official position on something such as sperm attrition would probably go something like, "75% of millions is still plenty". Historically, one of the biggest problems with government, (perhaps the biggest), is that they tend to think in terms of their own tenure, and are rarely concerned about the generations to come. As Charles Darwin would surely point out, if he were still alive, when genes are altered, the ultimate effect is not obvious, until many generations have passed. The current GMO mentality appears to me to be a case of "flying blind, and hoping for the best".
Love,
Wayne
Hi Polly,
Well, yes and no. I don't plant any GMO corn myself, (the seed is extremely expensive, by the way), but I have some land that is rented out to another farmer, who plants corn that's modified to tolerate salt of glyphosate, a Monsanto chemical commonly known as "Roundup". Monsanto's patent on this chemical expired several years ago, so now it is also sold under various other brand names, by other companies.
As you are probably aware, Roundup will kill anything that is green and actively growing, (except for plants that have been genetically modified with a gene that that makes them immune. It's a very, very popular GMO product, in the U. S, because it makes weed control in corn, (once a very difficult and expensive project), economical, and efficient.
Love,
Tex
Well, yes and no. I don't plant any GMO corn myself, (the seed is extremely expensive, by the way), but I have some land that is rented out to another farmer, who plants corn that's modified to tolerate salt of glyphosate, a Monsanto chemical commonly known as "Roundup". Monsanto's patent on this chemical expired several years ago, so now it is also sold under various other brand names, by other companies.
As you are probably aware, Roundup will kill anything that is green and actively growing, (except for plants that have been genetically modified with a gene that that makes them immune. It's a very, very popular GMO product, in the U. S, because it makes weed control in corn, (once a very difficult and expensive project), economical, and efficient.
Love,
Tex