GM cheese from cow clones

[Dinner]

If we can use GM to stop heriditary desease from being passed on to children then why shouldn't we? We'd be preventing alot of suffering and death.

[DinoDoc]

Europe seems to be such a Luddite continent.

[Az]

there is no logic in planting the same plant around the world anyway, GM or not. non-GM crops are actually more vurnlrable to attack, since the different pathogens are already "familiar" with them.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If we can use GM to stop heriditary desease from being passed on to children then why shouldn't we? We'd be preventing alot of suffering and death.

Sure but that is parents deciding about their children and taking a risk as with any operation, here it is some government or corporation deciding about my food.

[Az]

you still haven't responded.

"mistakes are bound to happen": so we should ban all R&D?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Azazel
there is no logic in planting the same plant around the world anyway, GM or not. non-GM crops are actually more vurnlrable to attack, since the different pathogens are already "familiar" with them.

Well a modified species can be dominant and when they "mulitply/breed" (whatever is the word for that in english ) their genetic code can take over the original species, and at first you might think it is not a problem as well it is a better species anyway, but what if that proves to be false down the road, there is no way back. Perhaps reintroducing a dominant species without the harmful effect. But now you are on the road of debugging with the xxx years naturally created species effectively dead. However nature is not a computer program. Do we want another Microsoft debugging our wheat and issuing security patches "for those who are in risk of stomach cancer use this version developed 2019"

[Dinner]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
. What if one of a hundred goes wrong and it destroys the world rice crops? Or a virus develops like the "foot and mouth" that has longer incubation time and by the time it is realised 50% of the world stock is infected? Did anyone add "profit is the main goal" way of thinking into the equation?

Please explain to me how this could happen in any reasonable (hell I'd even like to hear unreasonable) situation imaginable? To take an abstract example let's say humans want to us biotech to insure their children have blue and not brown eyes. How can having blue instead of brown eyes cause world wide disaster? What new virus will be created?

There won't be one because we haven't modified any viruses in the process. Killer bees are an example of old fashioned cross breeding going wrong. With GM you can be much more sure of getting the desired results sooner then with traditional techniques so you would get fewer undesireable intermediates such as the killer bees.

[Az]

Well a modified species can be dominant and when they "mulitply/breed" (whatever is the word for that in english )

what do you mean by multiply/breed? rice that grows everywhere? mutant cows that hide in the woods and prey on innocent passers?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Azazel
you still haven't responded.

"mistakes are bound to happen": so we should ban all R&D?

Sorry didn't catch this one -

No, you cannot do that, but I feel that this should be banned in the private - "chasing for profit" sector. Still thinking that this will ever happen (prior to a major disater) in unreasonable.

So what is the alternative? No alternative I think, this will continue developing you can only make a personal decision to try and not use the products if you don't feel it is safe, hopefully the labels will stay there. We will see what happens after the first major mistake and we might all live long enough to see it happen.

[Az]

This can be applied to any R&D sector, or any sector that has some risks involved with it. so do you want to have no private R&D? no private Nuke plants?

I am left-wing socialist, and I would like it to be govt.-owned. But I would like all industry to be govt.-owned. You're just being inconsistent.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Please explain to me how this could happen in any reasonable (hell I'd even like to hear unreasonable) situation imaginable? To take an abstract example let's say humans want to us biotech to insure their children have blue and not brown eyes. How can having blue instead of brown eyes cause world wide disaster? What new virus will be created?

There won't be one because we haven't modified any viruses in the process. Killer bees are an example of old fashioned cross breeding going wrong. With GM you can be much more sure of getting the desired results sooner then with traditional techniques so you would get fewer undesireable intermediates such as the killer bees.

Unreasonable situation is the development of a rice crop that has all the same charachteristics and produces 20% more for example. The sort should be dominant, and introduced world wide. That is reasonable I belive and will happen, and there might be a hidden effect that start developing after XY generations in that sort as is bread in the wild. RThe hidden effect can be a new disease that will wipe them all on which the former "normal rice" was resistant, for example thus wiping off % of population. Are you saying that the genetic scientists can predict everything 100% when they are making shortcuts? Add the pressure to deliver a profit on top of it and you multiply the risk for sure.

what do you mean by multiply/breed? rice that grows everywhere? mutant cows that hide in the woods and prey on innocent passers?

well is it called when two plants have "sex" as I cannot remember at the moment. Well the dominant GM "modified" breed with the "normal" one - and the dominant genes stay in the new plants. Therefore the "normal" sort dissapears slowly but surely, and the only way to stop the dominant one is to destroy it completley by hand which is impossible as is has spread too much to do it. So eventually the "normal" or natural plant will cease to exist, with only the GM one continuing on its place. So what if a GM one has a flaw?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Azazel
This can be applied to any R&D sector, or any sector that has some risks involved with it. so do you want to have no private R&D? no private Nuke plants?

I am left-wing socialist, and I would like it to be govt.-owned. But I would like all industry to be govt.-owned. You're just being inconsistent.

Well I'd disagree, I believe that private nuke plants are not a good idea either, as that is inviting a disaster to happen sooner as the "bottom line" has to be met.

However I feel that GM modification is an order of magnitude more dangerous on the same level with nuclear plants, or perhapos even more as even nuclear plant has "regional effect" only in the case of a failure, not to mention most of the other R&D, like new drugs and such, or normal mechanical businesses, car, semiconductor industry that has no real direct threat to environment only indirect (pollution etc...) .

[Az]

Unreasonable situation is the development of a rice crop that has all the same charachteristics and produces 20% more for example. The sort should be dominant, and introduced world wide. That is reasonable I belive and will happen, and there might be a hidden effect that start developing after XY generations in that sort as is bread in the wild. RThe hidden effect can be a new disease that will wipe them all on which the former "normal rice" was resistant, for example thus wiping off % of population. Are you saying that the genetic scientists can predict everything 100% when they are making shortcuts? Add the pressure to deliver a profit on top of it and you multiply the risk for sure.

a hidden effect?!

in any case, again, how does that differ from an old crop? a virus has the same chance adapting to an existing crop, as adapting to a GM crop. and there would be different GM crops as well, since there are different climates etc.

just look at what happens now to the non-GM banana. It's in danger of extiction. I know! let's not use non-GM crops, because they'll go the way of the banana!

well is it called when two plants have "sex" as I cannot remember at the moment. Well the dominant GM "modified" breed with the "normal" one - and the dominant genes stay in the new plants. Therefore the "normal" sort dissapears slowly but surely, and the only way to stop the dominant one is to destroy it completley by hand which is impossible as is has spread too much to do it. So eventually the "normal" or natural plant will cease to exist, with only the GM one continuing on its place. So what if a GM one has a flaw?

what do you mean by 'normal'? the wild version of plants? or the agricultural non-GM version?

is the first: the same thing exist with general crops. You're not going to ban all crops right? it would be kinda hard to sustain 6.5 bil on hunting and gathering, esp. since there is hardly anything left to hunt.

if you mean the non-GM version, all that would mean is that the crop would be replaced. I've already answered why there is no inherent danger in crops just because they're GM.

[Az]

However I feel that GM modification is an order of magnitude more dangerous on the same level with nuclear plants, or perhapos even more as even nuclear plant has "regional effect" only in the case of a failure, not to mention most of the other R&D, like new drugs and such, or normal mechanical businesses, car, semiconductor industry that has no real direct threat to environment only indirect (pollution etc...) .

we know that NOW. but what would happen if people at the time took your approach, and went on talking about them fearing things they don't know much about?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Well all that I am thinking is that with introduction of the new genes you introduce new "charachteristics" of a plant or an animal. We might find it desireable. However a gene is not just a simple peace of code like the computer code.

Where I am getting at, even though that in the lab tests a certain feature might not show up, when you release the "sort" or "species" into the world it might not behave exactly like in the lab conditions because of all the different environment variables that you have out there, and that might not even show up straight away. When the "bad feature" can be easily contained.

Do they get the desired effects after making genetic modifications straight? No. Do they need to do a lot of testing and proofing that the plant/animal will behave in a way they want? Yes. Now can they test -all- the possible outcomes?

Are you sure they can?