Thanks for the write up.  I'll definitely check out the book.

Not all scientists nor everyone with a background in scientific methodology leaps to unfounded and unverified conclusions.  

(and you know we are now tampering with mosquito dna to try to solve the problem of malaria) is genetically modified people.

If you want to educate yourself about this very important issue, some good places to begin are

<http://www.seedalliance.org/index.php?page=SeminisMonsanto>

and

<http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/monsanto.htm>

<http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/terminator.htm>

If you want seeds that do not originate from a Monsanto-owned company, be sure to ask in your seed order that no seeds coming from Seminis be included. It's disheartening to learn how many of our favorite seed companies now sell seeds (unmarked) that come from Monsanto-owned Seminis.

Thank you for the Claire Cummings interview, but your introductory comments that anyone rejecting GMO's do so "without really understanding the science or economics behind them" is totally off base. Then you make matters even worse by implying that everyone with science and technology backgrounds are all pro-GMO.

Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility has intensively studied the science, history and politics behind GMO's for the past five years. Our concerns about GMO's aren't instead of science, they're BASED ON science. Unfortunately, science revealing dangers of GMO's tends to get ignored or shoved under the rug.

As world-renowned geneticist Dr. David Suzuki asserted (one of hundreds, if not thousands, of scientists opposing GMO's), "Once we cross species barriers, we're in brand new territory. We have absolutely no idea what might happen."

Please keep the interviews coming, but do a little homework to head off the inaccurate, gross generalizations.

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  

Thank you so much Ms. Cummings for writing and so eloquently summing up the danger of GMOs. Jeffrey Smith is a hero of mine and now you are, too.

I have just started my first garden this year and have been amazed at how just will a little nurturing on my part how plants can simply thrive! You really don't have to do much but water them and harvest. These little seeds grow to a jungle (my garden now).

Humans don't realize how life even works, let alone tinkering with the basic beginnings of life.

I will definitely be reading your book and proudly display it next to "Seeds of Deception."

Cummings, despite being a lawyer, has inexplicably chosen to bypass intelligent discussion of the legal and economic challenges facing equitable distribution of all forms of technology. She barely touches the ethical and social issues involved when farmers either seek to or are forced to move from traditional farming methods to more complex and possibly inappropriate farming methods. She instead repeats the same sad quasi-science bleated by so many anti-technology sheep, because it is easier to blame genetic engineering for all agricultural and environmental problems than it is to actually learn about any of the thousands of issues involved. This type of writing isn't going to help anyone, least of all the poor farmers in developing countries that she and her elitist ilk only pretends to protect. Yawn.

The article seems to have raised all kinds of questions in my head, but the most intriguing part to me is how the author is being attacked by both sides of the argument. Sure is hard to please people.