Greenpeace has lost its moral compass

Why should not certain characteristics of a fish gene that have a certain switch or do certain useful things not be transferred to tomato plants to do the same useful things without preventing the tomatoes from being tomatoes?

Natural (i.e. without the hand of man who is also, actually, "natural" if you think about it) does not always = best. Nature, including evolution, has made some pretty awful fudge ups. Why shouldn't we try and improve things?

How can I say we probably all agree that monopolising seed production is a bad thing, at least in the long term? How can I say that? Well, quite easily. If I'm wrong about that, whoever disagrees can say so, I suppose. And then I can agree with them if what they say makes sense.

Too many nots in fist sentence.

and no r in first.

Sigh.

A surprisingly large proportion of our own genes are bacteria ones. even stranger than fish, which are nearer to us than bacteria on the Master Plan.

The drugs that are currently keeping my husband alive are mind bogglingly expensive. I have no idea if the drug company can justify the cost, but I 'm damn glad they've developed them.
I do know that the research my daughter is involved in cost a vast amount and I imagine a lot of the money comes from the big companies. But who else is going to pay for it?

So I am a vegetarian and I eat organic food, but I am not allowed that choice because GM might be useful to some people. Is that what you are saying, Bags?
You cannot possibly justify putting fish genes into tomatoes. GM scientists also put brazil nut genes into soya, but withdrew it because people with nut allergies could have been affected. Who thought of doing that?
People who do not want GM should not eat foods that are less than 10000 years old is a ludicrous argument. The carrot was purple when introduced to this country by the Romans.
How many people do you know who have an intolerance to wheat? Spelt was the Roman equivalent, yet people can often tolerate that when they cannot tolerate modern wheat. And yes, I do know people like that. So altering crops is not always a good thing.
I always thought the first law of medicine was first do no harm. However, GM manufacturers cannot know that yet because no long term studies have been done.
I notice that the flu vaccine that is being given to kids is by nasal spray using pork gelatine. There have been questions about religious groups but not about vegetarians who have avoided all meat products for years.
I have four grandchildren who have never knowingly eaten animal flesh, but two of them might have to have this vaccine.

Genetic modification involves lateral transfer of genes as opposed to vertical transfer of genes. To suggest that this is similar to what occurred during the agrarian revolution shows a complete lack of understanding of the difference. A little learning us a dangerous thing

GE plants and animals are created using horizontal gene transfer (also called horizontal inheritance), as contrasted with vertical gene transfer, which is the mechanism in natural reproduction. Vertical gene transfer, or vertical inheritance, is the transmission of genes from the parent generation to offspring via sexual or asexual reproduction, i.e., breeding a male and female from one species.

By contrast, horizontal gene transfer involves injecting a gene from one species into a completely different species, which yields unexpected and often unpredictable results. Proponents of GM crops assume they can apply the principles of vertical inheritance to horizontal inheritance, this assumption is flawed in just about every possible way and is lazy science.

Genes don’t function in a vacuum — they act in the context of the entire genome. Whole sets of genes are turned on and off in order to arrive at a particular organism, and the entire orchestration is an activated genome. It’s a dangerous mistake to assume a gene’s traits are expressed properly, regardless of where they’re inserted. The safety of genetically modified food is based only on a hypothesis, and this hypothesis is already being proven wrong.

Please direct me to where the hypothesis about the safety of GM foods is being proven wrong, aka. In short, citations, please, so we can read the proofs ourselves.

jen, you say four of your grandchildren have never knowingly eaten animal flesh. That doesn't sound to me like a child's choice but like one imposed on them by the adults caring for them.

Thatbags do all meat eating children make the choice themselves, or is it a decision imposed on them by meat eating parents? Let's not go down that road. Don't all parents impose their choices on their children? And then, when the children are old enough to decide for themselves, they do.

Google it for yourself Bags the exercise will help open your mind to less 'monochrome thinking'. If you still haven't managed in a few days get back to me and I'll post a link or two.

nightowl, I think if you offer your children lots of different kinds of foods right across the 'spectrum' of omnivorousness, that counts as giving them a choice. I think if you limit what you offer them to only a small part of that spectrum, excluding, for instance, all foods from animal sources, you are making choices for them. That is my opinion.

aka, thanks for the answer. That's the one I expected, funnily enough. Worth a try though. Since you spoke with such confidence I thought you might have some links at your fingertips.

Thatbags my opinion is that by feeding your children meat you are making the choice for them. Just because meat eating is more socially acceptable than vegetarianism in our society that doesn't mean it's a neutral position. It's still one based on an individual's own ethical choices. It's like saying you should send your children to every different church so they can make up their own minds about religion.

I don't 'feed ' my children meat. I make it available. There's a difference.

Just as there's a difference between bringing a child up in a certain church sect (e.g. mormonism) and educating them about some of the different kinds of religious beliefs that are held in different sects and different religions in different parts of the world.

In a similar way, educating kids about foods that human beings across the world eat and about the nutritional values of those foods is completely different from "feeding" them meat.

Minibags does not eat most meats. Her father and I do. Minibags does not eat most kinds of fish. Her father and I do. Minibags does not eat most kinds of vegetables or fruit. Her father and I do. The choice of whether she eats certain foods is up to her, not us, and this has been made perfectly clear to her. She is responsible for her food choices.

We just make available all kinds of foods that all kinds of people eat. We are only limited by what is available for us to buy and what we can afford.

In short, we are not limited, and neither is our child, by beliefs about food. Our only belief about food is that if something is edible to humans (and usually, possibly always, that means that some humans somewhere eat it) then it is food.

jen the notion of "organic food" is not a precise or scientific concept is it?
The original idea was food production that does not deliberately use either insecticides or chemical fertilisers was it not? The idea that it should be "uncontaminated by GM genes" is a late arrival at the definitions ball.
There is a big step from saying that you prefer to eat minimally contaminated food to saying that people in other countries should be denied things like golden rice that could save their children's lives.
Many vaccines involve the use of animals e.g. normal flu vaccine involves fertile eggs ie chicken embryos. Until this technique of growing virus in eggs was developed nobody could grow it at all because virus only replicates in living cells.
It would be a very ardent vegetarian who would deny the protection of vaccines to children because of vegetarian (or religious) principles IMO
Likewise all drug and vaccine development involves the use (and subsequent disposal no doubt) of thousands of mice. Would you deny a child a life saving drug because mice have been sacrificed in the development?

aka a version of horizontal transfer of genes occurs in nature e.g. in cross pollination and the development of new hybridised species.
It also occurs in selective breeding of animals - as in "we need to buy a xx breed male to improve the meat production of our herd" . This is of course much quicker than just doing selective breeding - the gene exists already so lets import it into this population.
Horizontal transfer also occurs in an exact way in gut bacteria - it has been shown that genes for antibiotic resistance can easily be transferred from resistant bacteria to others that have not been exposed to the antibiotic. No parenthood necessary, just a swapping of genes. They do it all the time apparently.

Thatbags, so are my children responsible for their food choices. They are all different. I don't feed them either but I sure as hell did when they were toddlers.

Jess your statement that people who prefer to eat organic food thereby deny people the opportunity to eat golden rice 'which could save their children's lives' is a gross misrepresentation of what Jendurham actually said. Lets all take off our patronising mindsets and accept the fact that many people in the philippines, farmers and scientists, share the concerns about GM food and deserve a voice. It's not up to us in the pampered west to determine how they should solve the problem of vitamin A deficiency. It's something they have been trying to address for many years, with some degree of success, long before the advent of golden rice.

When your children started to feed themselves, nightowl, was the choice of eating meat open to them at home? If not, then you didn't give them that choice.

Even very young children, babies just starting on solid foods, can choose. They show an interest in something their parents are eating and you let them try a bit – chewing/mashing it a bit first if it's something difficult for them. Once again, if the choice of foods is limited by, say, the vegetariansim or veganism or religion of the parents, then the child's choice is limited too.

So, depending on the age of the GCs in question (those mentioned by jend, if I remember correctly), if food from an animal source has never knowingly been eaten by those children (except, presumably mother's milk?), it is quite likely, it seems to me, that they didn't actually have all the possible choices when they were very small. I think most kids will try most foods at least once even if they then decide they don't like them, if the foods are available to try in the first place.

I agree with jessm that denying a child a vaccination it needs just because it has an animal product base and because the child's carers are anti animal food is verging on bonkers. Yes, I know that's not what jess said, just my interpretation of what she said.

Laws have been passed so that the children of parents with extreme beliefs about, for instance, blood transfusions, can be treated and operated on where it is deemed medically necessary. Vaccines don't go quite into the same category as surgery, but it seems to me they do belong in the same spectrum of strange resistance.

My views have nothing to do with thinking vegetariansim "acceptable" or not. I really don't give a damn what other adults choose not to eat. But arguing that children who are never offered food from animal sources have the same choice as children who have been offered such foods is simply not logical.

If the population of this planet was not as excessive as it is, the need for such aberrations in the food chain would not be necessary. Although stopping the scientists from playing god would still be difficult. Abnormal collections of humanity in certain areas cause problems as well, (when I say well, I don't mean THE well, the one that people seem to have to walk miles to,to get water) Why don't they move closer? People congregate in certain areas for many reasons,jobs schools hospitals, housing and other such facilities, or to escape persecution being just a few of the reasons for the problems that ensue. Longevity, much being the result of medical intervention, higher birth rates, again intervention and test tube science, are just a few of the reasons we are experiencing problems. We are confident that science will be our saviour, the same science that caused the problems in the first place, to much mobility, to much interference, to many do-gooders.
Green peace, think they have the right to do what they regard as good on our behalf, much like the animal right campaigners, another set of terrorists, or is the word activists, or is there a difference? Whilst we do have a problem feeding the multitudes,we need a solution, and GM seems to fit the bill, as we have little alternative until we have a plague or a major war to cull to a more manageable level the enormous population that is needing support.Everything we do is interconnected with all our other concerns, a knock on effect, nothing in isolation. We tend to focus on the things we do ,without considering its effect on other things, or sometimes even realising that it can effect anything else.

Deserving said: "Green peace, think they have the right to do what they regard as good on our behalf".

1. Not on my behalf they don't. They speak or act for themselves and I will do the same.

2. Yes, they do have a right to do what they think is good, but if they break laws in so doing then it's unreasonable of them not to expect the weight of those laws to fall on them. Whether the laws are good laws is a separate issue. If you choose to break the law you must expect consequences, often unpleasant ones.

Sorry, but GM does not fit the bill of feeding the multitudes. Vegetarianism would if it was given a chance.
Bags, my eldest granddaughter is 20. She could eat meat if she chose to. She doesn't. Her sister is 13 and has a mind of her own.
However, your thinking means that nobody should be allowed to be vegetarian because meat should always be available in the house as a choice. What about my choice never to buy meat so no animal will be slaughtered on my account? No animal will be fed on grain which is suitable for human consumption in order for me to eat meat. I never need to cook meat again.
We never denied our sons the choice of eating meat.They could eat what they wanted when they were out of the house, including school meals. Strangely enough, they both gave that practice up when they were ill after going to McDonalds with friends.
As others have said, we all restrict our children's choices of food in the home. I would say that all my grandchildren have a better variety of foods available to them than many meat eaters of our acquaintance.
My grandson would never eat any food that was touching any other food for years. He now has platefuls of vegetables, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, cucumber, olives, celery, asparagus, carrots, broccoli and peppers, and he enjoys them. He eats fish. His sister will not even touch fish, but she eats cheese. He will only eat cheese on pizza, which counts as one food to him. He has discovered that he can eat pizza every day for school dinners, so we are trying to get him out of the habit, but he's the one with autism and likes his patterns.

Someone mentioned Malcolm Gladwell and the paddy field. Vegetarians have known about this for over thirty years. That's one of the reasons we became vegetarian, that it was not necessary to eat meat to get a balanced varied diet, and that a vegetarian diet is better for the environment than a western diet. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone if we stopped eating meat.

JessM, of course the idea of GM is a late arrival at the definitions ball of organic food. It's actually registered under the title of novel food. GM food did not exist when we first decided to eat organic food. GM is contamination of natural food, and I do not want to eat contaminated food on the whole. GM is contamination in an unnatural way.I do not have much choice when I go out for a meal, because I do not know any restaurants near me that use organic food.
I hope to be able to continue having that choice when I buy food to eat at home.

Nightowl gimme a break - if you want to tell me off for misrepresenting, then don't misrepresent me please.
It is the argument that GM could contaminate organic food production and therefore should not be allowed that I am questioning. Is it right to ban all trials of GM because it is possible that organic food could be "contaminated" not by insecticides or toxic chemicals but by another plant gene. That is what Greenpeace and the organic lobby want. Is this a moral position?
The reality is that poor farmers living in difficult climates with tropical pests do not have many choices they can make. It is very hard for them to produce adequate amounts of protein etc from their locally grown vegetarian diets.
Was very struck by a programme i watched on eating insect foods. Some boys were going out hunting tarantulas (in Cambodia I think). Although this was dangerous it was worth it as their diets were so deficient in protein. They were in their mid teens but looked about 8.

Food shortages may mean people will not have a choice whether they eat meat in the future.