When I go to organic food websites they don't mention one factual incident of any GM food having harmed anyone.  There seems to be a hysteria especially in Europe about this.  They seem to be a borderline radical group but I will with-hold judgement if someone can give me some real evidence.
123797
no it hasnt harmed anyone, the hysteria is about creulty to animals, and trying to affect nature. i certainly have never seen any evidence of it being harmful
39044
I agree with kurdiatcha - IGNORANCE is the major factor causing people to be afraid of GMO. Many people with no scientific training (at least the ones I talked to) do not quite understand what GM really is and confuse it with pesticide usage, food preservatives and any other sorts of chemical treatments. Driven by fear they "educate" themselves from popular pseudo-scientific websites, which scare them with allegedly GMO-associated treats, such as cancer or Alzheimer's disease. Eventually these people would rather purchase a non-modified product, which, however, had been treated with all sorts of pesticides because of its lack of superior resistance introduced  by GM. \nI believe that proper education would take care of these sometimes irrational fears, and that is the way to go.
382703
i think people don't like GM food because it FEELS not safe. scientifically speaking, it's a wonderful technology that solves lots of problems in farming and in giving better quality. GM food has been tested for years and till now there isn't any scientific evidence saying there's sth wrong with it. i guess it's just that people hate it because it involves "playing" with genes.\n\nactually i live in iraq and GM food is not an issue here but i got interested and read about the subject.
178090
The Anarchist's Cookbook is a joke, actually.  Most of the stuff in there is common knowledge, and a lot of it was totally made up (Smoking a banana peel?  Come on now).\n\nSo no.  It's not illegal in any sense of the word.  Nor is it really dangerous.\n\nHeck, you can buy it on AMAZON!!!
512697
They have no logic or rational thought on this subject.\n\nNot one reasonable response with actual hard evidence.  Why? Because there is none.  \n\nJust too stubborn to admit they're wrong.  Just like fearless leader I guess...\n\nBTW scorbore's links above are all bogus (except one) he posts them to every global warming question.  Here's the definitive link;\n\nhttp://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686\n\nEDIT; Hey Scorbore dates don't mean anything.  Do you even know the scientific standard of publication by peer review?  Only one of your links was a peer reviewed publication.  All 928 of mine were.  So, which do you believe your 1 or my 928 :)
47301
yup. off and on for 15 years... now a full vegan with only occasional lapses with some really good organic cheese (oooh, gouda). \n\nbecause of health (good fats, no build up of mercury or mad cow disease) \n\nenvironmental degradation (eating meat requires 4000 gallons of water a day, vegetarians only consume 300 gallons... plus the loss of our ocean's fish due to overfishing, plus factory farms ....)\n\nand now, because i'm living with and in love with a professional ethicist, i've been persuaded that the animal rights issue is important as well. (it just doesn't make any sense to do to animals the things we do. just too disgusting and unnecessary.)\n\nyou'll get a bunch of answers about how humans are supposedly "not designed" to be vegetarians, but really, we weren't designed to ride in cars either, were we? and we REALLY weren't designed to eat poisonous food, become overweight, and poison our earth in the process.\n\nand BTW, i've never needed any kind of vitamins, and my doc says i'm on the best diet there is (mainstream, reg. doc too). i hardly think a cow was "born to be eaten." like all living things, it was born to live. (and die of old age.)
487899
well....don't ever listen to ppl and scientists.one time they'll say something is good for health and next time they'll say that the same thing is bad.god has created  vegetables etc. for us to eat so just go ahead n enjoy god's creation hopefully nothing will happen to u.
25402
I am not a big fan of it but there is really nothing we can do about it. Everyone is out to get rich.\n\nRecombinant Bovine Growth Hormones are shot into conventional dairy cows, sometimes as often as every couple weeks, to increase milk supply.  This causes them to fill up more and more quickly.  Any mother who has ever nursed can empathize with the discomfort this must cause the dairy cows.  This discomfort can clearly lead to mastitis and puss from the mastitis getting into the milk.  Mastitis normally is treated with antibiotics.  These hormones can also cause reproductive problems including giving birth to deformed calves, digestive problems, and persistent sores on the cows.\nAfter filling the tanks for a few years, these cows will die early because the rBGH shortens their uncomfortable life by as much as thirteen years!  Then, many are turned into hamburger so we continue to ingest this hormone in another way.\n\nBanned in Europe and Canada, the U.S. has decided to continue this harmful and painful (to the cows) practice.  Known as BGH, rBGH, BST, and rBST, this a Genetically Engineered hormone that has been used since 1994.  There have been no long term studies of the effects of this in our bodies or in our children; like HFCS, we are walking experiments.  We do know that is is unsafe and uncomfortable for the dairy cows.  Dairy farmers who don't use this hormone are disadvantaged so this affects organic farming practices.  We also know that the milk has very high levels of a natural growth factor (IGF-1) which is quite similar to the natural growth factor in us humans.  It is an insulin-like growth factor and the IGF0-1 of rBGH treated cows is more bioactive than natural (and this is increased with pasteurization) so the effects on our biology is unclear but there is sound reason to believe that it does something to our bodies, especially to growing children.  When we drink milk contaminated with rBGH, it is absorbed into our bloodstream where it can effect other hormones.  Excess amounts have been suspected in cancers of the breast, colon, and prostrate. \n\nMilk from cows with rBGH is not the same as organic milk. Samuel Epstein includes these differences:\n\nchemically and nutritionally different \nrBGH milk increases risk of cancer \nrBGH makes cows sick \nrBGH is a GE hormone \npus and bacteria can be found in the milk from mastitis in the conventional cows \nantibiotics from treating the mastitis can be found in the conventional milk, many of which are illegal \nincreased concentration of thyroid hormone enzyme thyorixin-5-monodeiodinase (long chain) and decrease of short chain fatty acids in conventionally treated rBGH dairy \nconventional rBGH dairy products have less protein and more saturated fat \ndairy cows treated with rBGH have milk with high levels of IGF-1 \nOrganic dairy cows are not treated with BGH.  Organic dairy farmers get twice the money for their milk as the conventional dairy farmer.  The organic dairy cow must be fed grain or hay that has not been treated with herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizer or be pasture raised on land that is free of chemicals, fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.  The cows are not given hormones or antibiotics and must be treated humanely.\n\nImported European dairy, including the much beloved imported cheeses, do not contain rBGH.
81797
If what you are saying is true, then some of us are here to buy Plastics & Rubber maid products, & some of us will destroy & even better, Burn these products just so that someone else can lay -claim for wrongfull deaths & injuries. Some of us are even here to Sell & Clean up these products that so badly ruin our Planets Atmosphere. Some of us might even wonder what these products are really here for. Some of us will even go as far & say that these products are here to better man kind, & finally some of us don't even get it.
378265
You don't need to worry about your child not being able to handle non-organic food once he/she is born. When in the womb, the baby is "fed" through the umbilical cord. Of course it matters what the mother eats...but going organic is probably the best thing she could do! Non-organic foods wouldn't harm the baby at all (since they don't harm her), but eating only organic will not make the baby less tolerant to non-organic food. By eating organic foods, you are giving your baby the best predisposition to a healthy life. He/she is not introducted to any synthetic chemicals or anything like that...how could that not be the best way to start life? Once the baby is ready to eat solid food, its immune system will be able to handle non-organic food just like anybody elses. Your baby might actually be less allergic to certain foods because it gets the real product right from the start, instead of something chemically altered. I am convinced that sticking to organic food is a very smart choice for any mother. You were totally right with that train of thought.
254995
My father manufactured the active ingredient in agent orange,(C-5,6), at Hooker Chemical's Montague Michigan plant for the duration of the Vietnam War. The process was so volatile and so toxic that it had to be manufactured on a seven story wall-less superstructure in the middle of a 160 acre field. All of the production was then loaded on railway tankcars for shippment to Dow Chemical of Midland Mi.for addition of solvents and packaging for shipment to the military. At the close of the war, the superstructure was dismantled, and it, and all associated equipment, tools etc. were buried in a huge clay lined disposal pit on the site. The site remains a Toxic hot spot to this day and all of the surrounding neighborhood has water piped into them as the groundwater is highly contaminated. From '82-'93 my father ran a chlorine plant's maintainence department on the persian gulf, about 25 kliks from Kuwait City in Saudi. In 1997 he fell ill with the small cell cancer that has become consistent, though unrecognized by our government, as due to exposure to AO or its components. I know this as I was a service officer for the Am Legion Post here in my  town, and have seen the wreckage that this stuff left in its wake. I am an Non Combatant, US Navy, Vietnam Era vet, ( Commonly refferred to as a "rear echelon puke" ), who salutes and thanks you for your service. Hope you are well, and look forward to your Photo posts as you are quite knowledgeable on the subject. God Bless, Jed
36312
I hadn't heard about this.  If they indeed tried to hide the fact from the public, it's a horrid disservice to those with allergies.  My kids are allergic to everything and it's so hard.  People just don't understand the severity of it all until you live with it.  Too many "well-meaning" people have made my kids sick.  When they were little, I finally made them pins that read, "DO NOT FEED ME without talking to Mom!"  Sometimes even that didn't work! Ughhhh!
95243
There is not a lot of information out there on GE foods. Some of the testing has been stopped because the results were not what the GE companies wanted. You could start by looking at "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffery M Smith.(copywrite 2003) It does not talk about fruits specifically, but does discuss some potential effects of genetic engineering. There is also an extensive bibliography with some references from 2002.
503587
Have you ever wondered whether the advances in science and technology would provoke nature’s need for revenge? Have you ever thought of what might happen if we keep on the exploit what we have, our lands and our bodies? Because I have. I feel that what nature is preparing for us will come out of the blue, exactly when we least expect it. And the cause for this would lie in our actions. And why? Simply because we have no idea what we’re doing while polluting our planet, using chemicals in everything and we are even thinking about modifying our children’s looks and brains. We are pushing our luck with the advances in agriculture, genetics and medicine. \n\nFor a start, all humans are so used to using technology and taking antibiotics that I’m not even sure that we could survive without them. For example, children weren’t used to such strong pills ten years ago as they are now, since a very young age. The research that I’ve made into the media shows that genetically improved corn makes the danger of famine in many parts of the world a thing of the past, but do these people realize that such meals don’t provide enough vitamins and thus puts their health at risk? And do they know how a specific body would react to such things? My opinion is that people should consider their interference in agriculture if they don’t want to provoke nature to strike back. \n\nModifying plants is not the only business of nature with which people mess up. Knowing the way your child will look like when it grows up is to be no longer something extraordinary. But if it becomes a normal thing to take a picture of a star and say that your heir looks like him or her, imagine how simple the child’s life would be, there would be nothing interesting or surprising to happen to its looks. Not only that, imagine what life would be if we all looked like dolls in the Disney shop :). In addition, the smallest and simplest mistake could cause mutations or provoke long-lost inherited diseases in the family tree. It is the same thing with the organs that will be created in laboratories soon- the risk of health ‘problems’ is too high. My research shows that the average lifespan would soon be over eighty years of age. And what will happen if everyone lived up to a thousand years old? The world would be overpopulated and the people who would work wouldn’t be enough to feed those who wouldn’t. And that would be a disaster. \n\nHowever, medicine is well developed nowadays. A patient who had an organ transplanted is celebrating the tissue’s tenth year of normal function in his body, according to the media. Transplantations make people with an infected organ live normally, but that has its price. First of all, it is very risky to undertake such an operation, but the results might be tremendous. The second threat comes right after the end of the surgeon’s ‘masterpiece’- the danger of inheriting diseases from the owner of the organ. In addition, I don’t think it is ethically correct to allow people to literally sell parts of their bodies. At least not for such prices like $2000, which is how much a kidney costs in Turkey. What’s more, we all know what kinds of risks cosmetic surgery involves- for example, if you make your lips bigger, the substance might decide to change its position in a year and move to your cheek. \n\nTo sum up, scientists’ ability to make nature work for them has had clear benefits. Of course some people do question the ethics of certain experiments, and others demand to know just how far we are prepared to go with scientific changes. Nevertheless, the benefits to both individuals and the whole of society outweight these concerns, but can’t outweight what the future could bring to us as a revenge for playing with nature.
185984
Are you serious? My god I am learning a lot of interesting facts this moring. Are you really for real? I need proof.\n\nOkay...I just checked it out and you are right. In fact I was taken to a site in which a man was dining on a little baby in Taiwan. Eck! I am not sure if I will be eating much today.
151746
my question to you would be why havent the environmentalists that are screaming so much about how fossil fuels are ruining the earth not done something about this sooner..??\nhave you ever noticed that environmentalists want to tell others what is good for them but not live by the rules they want to make for themselves..case in point: most environmentalists live in large cities, but you never..ever..hear them saying anything about how there should be a limit on the amount of vehicles that should be registered in an area...  but you will sure hear them scream if someone wants to cut some tree down in a rural area or mine for some precious metal or drill for oil\nit seems like there is a double standard when it comes to what they want and what they will do
579911
GM- genetically modified\n\nthese plants have their genes altered and there are many possible mutations that can occur.  also, not much research has been done on the long term effects GM food has on our body.  Why do you think Zimbabwe and Angola rejected our maize offer? because they felt that they were the guniea pigs.  anyway, if you look at how a gene is inserted into a plant using the recombinant DNA method, it is actually very dangerous and unstable.  Scientists are making use of bacteria' plasmids to act as a truck to insert the gene.  Although viral causing genes are removed, what makes scientists so sure that they wouldn't remain, mutate and form a super bug?\n\nAlso, there are religious ethics violated, e.g. some people believe we shouldn't play God and Muslims, they cannot eat pork.  What if the pork gene was inserted into maize? and they eat the maize??? also, some people might be allergic to peanuts, if the peanut gene were to be inserted into a crop, and starts expressing itself, would the person die?