Greenpeace has lost its moral compass

Thatbags, for years our GPs respected the fact that we did not wish to have gelatine capsules as we were vegetarian. It was even written on our medical notes. Probably some of the medication I take now have animal products in them, particularly magnesium stearate, from animal bones.
The MCA states it is lawful for a doctor to prescribe any medicinal product to a named patient. Theoretically, this means that providing an animal free alternative is available a GP can prescribe it.
However, when you are given 8 different tablets all at once, and do not care if you are dead or alive, you do not always think of these things. My chemist would be more amenable to such a request than the GP.
Most drug manufacturers, I assume buy in the cheapest filler or binder, and are not concerned about the origin.
I prefer to get my protein, which is what gelatine is, by eating beans, not animal waste products from the abattoir.

Jess horizontal transfer of genes does not occur naturally. Ever. Cross fertilisation is vertical transfer. Always.

Nor does horizontal transfer occur in selective breeding. Ever. Selective breeding is vertical transfer. Always.

Horizontal transfer only occurs between two different species through manipulation in the laboratory.

For instance, no way could a fish breed with a tomato

Bags so glad to live up to expectations . As a teacher in a previous existence I found it best to recommend that students do some research of their own rather than spoon feed them the 'answers'. As a more mature lady I'm sure you are more than capable of doing the research. But it's a case of 'where there's a will...' and I wonder if you are really interested in looking at this issue with a completely open mind? That by the way is a genuine question.

I very much doubt that enough food would be available if we were all veggies. I do wonder who the animal rights activists would choose to terrorise if this were the case, I have no doubt they would improvise rather than live a quiet decent life, probably try to protect the more delicate plants, from the insensitive mastication by those with dentures.
I don't know if you misunderstood? I, in no way consider Green Peace to be representative of me, or you. And what they consider as "right" may not be so ,and illegal or not, do not do it in my, or apparently your, name, (thatbags)
I heard only today that a new,I believe gas fired, power station is to be built in a place called Meaford, north Staffordshire it is acclaimed because it will provide enough juice for all the domestic properties in north Staffs. How densely populated is North Staffs? Would that mean perhaps a couple of power stations for Birmingham, one for Leeds, another for Preston, and so on.You see the problem, If we were covered with wind turbines and panels we would not even approach the capacity for todays needs much less the future. Wake up we need atomic power and quickly, we may be shut off this winter we have been warned already.
Who remembers when they first started to extract North Sea gas? We were told it would be so cheap that it would not be worth the cost of metering it.What happened to that?

PS except of course at unicelullar level eg bacterium

I have read about Meaford. It is hoping to build a combined cycle gas turbine to use gas and air to produce electricity. Any company which builds more energy efficient power stations is a good thing - except for nuclear fuel which is downright dangerous.
Meaford refuses to allow wind turbines, so there is obviously an issue there.
At least I looked up about Meaford, and did not let my prejudices make absurd remarks about it, like you did about vegetarians and animal rights activists.

Well, I did a search (screen shot in pictures forum to show you what I searched for). These are the first four that came up. Only four (there were more on the page) but I think they illustrate that, to quote your post "the safety of genetically modified food is based only on a hypothesis, and this hypothesis is already being proven wrong" not only is that hypothesis NOT being proven, but the solid scientific evidence against the safety of GMO crops is thin on the ground and possibly non-existent.

1 http://www.responsibletechnology.org/10-Reasons-to-Avoid-GMOs

Statements. No references to studies or experiments (actual proof).

2 http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/08/27/science-and-gmos-are-not-the-bad-guys-here/

Ref to site with "a large number of useful links"

3 http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths-and-truths

No refs. An advocacy rather than scientific site.

4 http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-gm-crops-are-bad-show-us-the-evidence-8641168.html

No refs. News article.

5 http://www.ibtimes.com/gmo-health-risks-what-scientific-evidence-says-1161099

Lots of refs to scientific work.

<waits to be told search term was wrong>

or biased

or some other bullshit

Oops, sorry, five

Look this one up, Hard hitting article by Anne Marie Waters It relates to your activists in staffordshire, a little village called Newchurch,Where your friendly animal rights terrorists dug up the body of Gladys Hammond, matriarch of a family who bred guinea pigs for research. The sent death threats to the workers, and those who provided provender by delivering it to the premises. I believe the coal man was frightened off as well. to make it easier for you the family name was Hall.
It was remarked upon, that travelling by train at speeds of 20 miles an hour or more was downright dangerous and would probably kill the travellers. Some requirements for those travelling by car, in America, certain states, were that a rocket was required to be fired to indicate your presence and approach such was perceived to be the danger of such a vehicle, this was to be repeated at regular intervals. The appearance of a horse drawn vehicle meant that the car had to be pulled over and disassembled until the horses had passed.
What isn't dangerous

Correction to my post about the links. Got my sentence in a muddle. What a surprise! That's never happened before .

aka said: " The safety of genetically modified food is based only on a hypothesis, and this hypothesis is already being proven wrong."

I meant to say in the post with my search links, that the hypothesis aka mentions does not seem, from my search, to be proven wrong at all. There was no substantive evidence to support aka's statement at all in my search. There did seem to be substantive evidence that what people say against gmos is mainly guff with nothing scientific to support it.

But I only did one search.

aka can now perhaps supply me with the links that make her so sure that the hypothesis that gmos are safe "is being proven wrong."

www.gmo-safety.eu/

I found the article on aubergines in India interesting, particularly the changes in animals that were fed GM aubergines.

first study

Calm down dear. It only took me a couple of minutes to access one study on toxic effects of one GM crop.

That's not the hypotheses I was discussing though, was it?

Ted talk by Thierry Vrain

This lasts 17 minutes but its worth taking time to watch.
Dr. Thierry Vrain, formerly Head of Biotechnology at Agriculture Canada's Summerland Research Station, was once a supporter of GMO.

jen That is bad news. Not about the safety or usefulness of GM crops, but about the way the work is being done. And about the need for courts to intervene.
As above, Monsanto and Roundup was a disastrous opening act in this story aka

www.spinwatch.org/
This also has an interesting article on how Monsanto rubbishes reports that gmos are unsafe.
Monsanto has people at the top of the FDA.

I have only just got home from work and caught up with this thread again, so my comments will be a bit late.

Thatbags asked me a direct question about whether my children, when younger, were given the opportunity to try meat at home. The answer to that is no, because there was no meat in the house. My point about choice was not about the variety of foods offered to choose from but that all children have their parents' lifestyle choices imposed upon them. I imposed my vegetarian choices on mine until they were old enough to make up their own minds, others will impose their meat eating choices on theirs. My parents certainly did.

Jess I apologise if I misrepresented what you said. I responded too hastily perhaps.

deserving what on earth have animal rights activists got to do with this? We have already strayed from the point of the OP into vegetarianism, but animal rights (activists) is a whole different thread.

click.mail.theguardian.com/?qs=3463d19732a7ceebf5a9a4be4b36aa7fc05fcbee80706ae0039b9b8958806cdf
Do you think this is acceptable?

Thanks for that link Jen. I think you'll find Phoenix has posted a link to the petition on a new thread.

I hope the links I provided into GM food has at least provided 'food for thought' on the topic of GM food.

Bags???

N,owl I refer you to about 18 posts earlier than yours, Like you I don't always check up on earlier postings,can cause confusion, but that's us isn't it.

Shouldn' t they welcome cold cells? Saving oil/saving the environment.

(I do have great respect for them really. Although I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs of drilling for oil in the arctic seas)

Have I lost my way? Is this the thread about Greenpeace?

Thanks for the link to the TED talk, aka. Good talk. Good presentation. I took some notes while listening:

Why is he calling glyphosate water at the beginning of the talk?

Why is he calling scientifically produced weed killer and insecticide "magic"? Scientists do not talk about magic!

"Substantial equivalence" – I thought he explained this well but I'll need to read more about it.

Quite glad Canada has lost its export of Canola oil to the EU. Dreadful stuff!

Yet another argument for not eating soy products.

Loss of anti-biotic power against bacteria is being blamed on genetic engineering without proof. It is NOT KNOWN whether the gene engineering used for crops is responsible.

All plants contain toxins. Lotsa people don't know that and I suspect he is 'playing' on that ignorance.

FDA report about GE causing nutritional probs, allergenicities (think that's the word he used). OK. But golden rice is an attempt to solve "nutritional
problems" that already exist, not possible ones in the future. If you have a malnourished child in front of you, do you not feed it because the food you have might cause it to be allergic to something eventually (or might not) or do you think that the immediate benefit of ending the child's suffering in the here and now is more improtant?

Scottish scientist who fed rats GM potatoes... is that all he fed them? or were they allowed other foods too? Ah... it seems "his research was lacking". Lacking what? Scientific rigour? Hmm.

My conclusion: interesting, some things to follow up, currently unconvincing or at least not convincing enough.