peacefulpete’s Recent Comments

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  soylent green is PEOPLE!

  Yeah, it would suck to have your child made immunocompetent, wouldn't it?

  http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1995pres/951019a.html

  October 19, 1995 Results from First Human Gene Therapy Clinical Trial

  Two years after receiving their last infusions of genetically altered cells to boost their weakened immune systems, the first patients ever to undergo gene therapy are still healthy and benefiting from the treatment.

  According to a historic research paper published today in Science, the two girls still have white blood cells bearing copies of the replacement ADA gene. Patient 1, whose health improved significantly following gene therapy, has maintained a normal white blood cell count as well as measurable levels of the ADA enzyme, which was almost nonexistent prior to the treatment. Both girls also have developed stronger immune systems, showing improved immune reactions in a battery of tests conducted over the course of the four-year study. On Author Claire Hope Cummings dishes the dirt on genetically modified food posted 1 year, 3 months ago 12 Responses

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  science is not rape

  I'm not biting:
  Cummings: "Genetically modifying a plant severs its relationship to its evolutionary course, and inserts into it, by force -- using a gene gun or bacteria -- some human idea of what the plant should do. The technology is limited both by its violent nature and our imagination."

  This rape/assault metaphor is an utterly irrelevant and inapproriate frame for a weak argument based upon fear of the unkown.  (BTW, naturally occurring viruses randomly insert utterly foreign DNA into billions of plants a day. This mechanism, uncontrolled by man, has been a major driver of plant evolution for eons.  Terrifying...)

  Cummings: "Most GMOs are plants that don't die when sprayed with a lethal herbicide, or ones that exude insecticide."

  Selective breeding can achieve this same end, affording resistance to insects, infection, drought, high winds etc.  "Severing" a plant's ecological course, indeed!  How exactly does one, without hindsight, know a plant's "evolutionary course" anyway?  Just asking...  

  It seems your real problem with modern agricultural methods, as is the case with most anti-GMO zealots, is illustrated in this buried lede:

  Cummings: "That's Monsanto's idea of how to use nature to make money. The point of GMOs is control over seeds for profit."

  It's ECONOMICS that many concern trolls like Ms. Cummings are really espousing.  Like the Luddites of old, the real issues here are socio-economic, but are buried in the viscerally evocative language of victimology and ignorance-driven fear.  Again, I'm not buying it.  

  Talk to me about sustainability and the resurrection of local farm-based communities, talk to me about the inherent ecological and socio-economic value of polyculture, then I'll have some respect for your position.  Keep up this fear-mongering, ignorance-based claptrap about "altering the nature of nature" and you'll have very few scientists like myself on your side in ANY argument.

  Here, Cummings offers little more than the same, tired neo-liberal "I shop at Whole Foods and made my dog a vegan so I love the Earth more than you" feel-good bullshit. "I hate/fear GMO, so I'm GREEEEN!"  This is bite-sized, microwave ready ecology for the TV generation.  Spare us...PLEASE!

  Real concern for the environment demands action on substantial, substantiated, and immediate assaults on our ecosystem. I know it's boring (especially compared to the Frankenfoods "debate") and seems mundane to talk about greenhouse emissions and fuel efficiency; clean water and fisheries protection, etc., etc.   Those issues, not the relatively insignificant ecological impact of Bt cotton and banana-based antiviral vaccines, demand our attention.

  Absent immediate, EFFECTIVE action on those fronts, arguments about GMO and other false eco-demons will be but passing asides in the campfire stories of the future; told by the remnants of humanity not yet tossed onto the trasheap of evolution.

  Think Globally, act Locally.

  Pete   On Author Claire Hope Cummings dishes the dirt on genetically modified food posted 1 year, 3 months ago 12 Responses