Fedoroff and Brown also do a great job explaining all the precautions that have been taken by the government and the biotech industry to ensure the pests they target with Bt seeds do not become resistant to the toxins generated by the plant. This concern is continually thrown up by the anti-biotech crowd with no scientific support.

The only book we’ll ever need – unless we want to be troubled by emprical observation. And what Frankenpriest would trifle with observations, when Dan Quayle has already reached the conclusion?

Facts are stupid things.

June 17, 2005
Insects develop resistance to engineered crops when single- and double-gene altered plants are in proximity, Cornell researchers say
By Krishna Ramanujan

ITHACA, N.Y. — Genetically modified crops containing two insecticidal proteins in a single plant efficiently kill insects. But when crops engineered with just one of those toxins grow nearby, insects more rapidly develop resistance to all the insect-killing plants, report Cornell University researchers.

Bt broccoli
Jian-Zhou Zhao

This picture

shows the damage done to broccoli plants with, from left, zero, one and two Bt genes, after being caged with diamondback moths resistant to one Bt protein. Copyright © Cornell University Click on the image for a high-resolution version (1400 x 963 pixels, 1056K)

A soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), whose genes are inserted into crop plants, such as maize and cotton, creates these toxins that are deadly to insects but harmless to humans.

Bt crops were first commercialized in 1996, and scientists, critics and others have been concerned that widespread use of Bt crops would create conditions for insects to evolve and develop resistance to the toxins.

Until now, it has not been shown if neighboring plants producing a single Bt toxic protein might play a role in insect resistance to transgenic crops expressing two insecticidal proteins.

“Our findings suggest that concurrent use of single- and dual-gene Bt plants can put the dual-gene plants at risk if single-gene plants are deployed in the same area simultaneously,” said Anthony Shelton, professor of entomology at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and an author of the study, which was posted online June 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and is in the June 14 print edition of the journal. “Single-gene plants really function as a steppingstone in resistance of two-gene plants if the single gene plants contain one of the same Bt proteins as in the two-gene plant.”

What’s it like to spend decades learning about and professing to practice empirical enquiry – the foundation of the testable hypotheses that lie at the core of scientific inquiry – and throw it all away to be part of the club?

On second thought – I don’t wanna know.

Though I need to diet, appetite suppressants are another failed – and lethal – technology.

Don’t want to go there, either. Contaminated crops are bad enough.

Bon appetit!

1) The Frankencrops they tout are toxic – and have already contaminated our food supply.

GMO corn, soy, and potatoes show toxic effects on living animals. The GMO soy (Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready soy) we grow and eat in the US is so toxic that more than half of baby rats fed with the stuff die in just three weeks.

Hey – it’s only 85% of the US soy crop, right?

2) In America, the Frankencontamination may be irreversible. GMO crops are perpetual pollution machines. GMO crops released out of the lab spread Frankengenes into the entire gene pool for that crop. The potential for eternal genetic pollution sets Frankencrops aside from all other uses of recombinant DNA technology.

Frankenpriests, our future food supply is too important to be gambled on an untested technology – even one you’ve fallen in love with.

The specific history of Monsanto’s lethally false assurances that their deadly products were “safe” illustratess the fallacy of trusting Frankenpriests or the industrial technologies they peddle. The fact that GMO crops already released in the US and already contaminating our food supply have now been shown to cause toxicity and death in mammals underscores this fact.

Currently, up to 45 percent of U.S. corn is genetically engineered as is 85 percent of soybeans. It has been estimated that 70-75 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients

All non-GM farmers in North America are finding it very hard or impossible to grow GM-free crops. Seeds have become almost completely contaminated with GM organisms (GMOs), good non-GM varieties have become hard to buy, and there is a high risk of crop contamination.’

If you Frankenpriests wish to conduct experiments on human beings, seek legal permission from the human subjects committee at a university. Don’t make us, our children, and our agriculture helpless subjects for your technology. Neither you nor the technology of which you are so enamored merit our trust.

With regard to Frankencrops in the US – the chief result has been massive increases in our exposure to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) – now known to be associated with increased risks of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Rates of NHL are rising in the US.

If you wish to poison yourselves, Frankenpriests, that’s your choice.

Don’t poison us – or our kids.

3) If you Frankenpriests were intellectually honest, we wouldn’t be reading here about medications such as HGH produced from recombinant DNA. Children and adults who receive insulin, HGH, or a whole range of live-saving medications don’t suddenly start producing HGH. They produce little or none of the insulin or HGH tmeselves. That’s why they need it – as you PhD’s know quite well.

If human beings did somehow become factories for producinng recombinant HGH, we’d see whole baseball teams bulking up, not just the HGH injectors.

The attempt to confuse lay people by falsely equating voluntarily administered recombinant medications with the genetic pollution from Frankencrops is beneath contempt.

The saddest thng about this FrankenFirm talking point is that every single PhD who uses it – or hears it and remains silent – demonstrates they are wholly devoid of ethics and intellectual integrity on this matter.

4) As OG above points out, the “high yield” crops resulting from the wheat genetic alteration the Frankenpriests attempt to conflate with recombinant DNA technologies have already been shown to be nutritionally inferior to the strains they replaced. Yields went up – nutritional values went down. Concurrently rates of apparent allergic reactions to the wheat prodcuts appear to have increased.

The experiment in non-recombinant plant breeding you Frankenpriests attempt to use to confuse laypeople about recombinant (Frankenfood) technology has already made the public involuntary subjects in an experiment to which they never consented.

What arrogance could lead you Frankpriests to attempt to force us to be subjects in yet another massive experiment with our food supply?

5) The basic cause of malnutriton is maldistribution. Frankencrops have not significantly increased food availablity – anywhere. Frankenfoods have done nothing to relieve malnutrtiton – but they have exposed Americans and others to far higher levels of glyphosate and other toxic chemicals in Roundup.

Monsanto has eaten better, and Americans have been exposed to more toxins. I am unable to imagine the moral depravity that would attempt to sell such an outcome with the cynical, empty promise that Frankenfoods will feed the poor. Of course, I’m not dependent on pleasing the Frankenpriesthood for the research grants required to stay in academia, so I probably look at this differently.

6) A whole variety of toxins are now known to directly affect human eggs and sperm. Adequate testing for human toxicity would require generations – some genentic damage (like that of DES) doesn’t show up in the first set of children, but only becomes apparent in their children.

No Frankenfood has been assessed for human toxicity over one generation, much less three. The assertion that Frankenfoods are safe for humans is an article of theology, not a tested hypothesis.

Of course, theology – the profession of opinions unsupported by facts and not testable by hypotheses – is what PR is all about.

Tobacco had their PhD’s and MD’s; Agent Orange had their PhD’s and MD’s; Monsanto’s deadly PCB’s had their PhD’s and MD’s – and all of them colluded to serve industry – by deceiving us.

Today’s Frankenpriesthood follows the same despicable tradition of using the trappings of science in the service of commerce – to close off empirical assessments of the technology they push on the rest of us.

Just as the nuclear priests pushed the technology they worshipped upon us. While telling us not to worry – we were just too ignorant to understand. And actaully, they were simply lying.

Just as the Frankencorps have been shown to be lying in concealing the results showing Frankencrops already on the market – and in our food supply – are toxic to mammals.

Given the immense personal and ethical liability today’s apologists – the Frankenpriests – assume for their collusion, I hope they are well paid. At least they’ll be able to buy whatever will let them sleep at night.

With their active, deliberate complicity in making the rest of us the involuntary subjects of the recombinant food experimentation they have chose to serve, the FrankenPhD’s who flack for these toxic creations will need the help.

And if they don’t need tools to sleep, they always use the money for more kneepads. Worshipping technology is hard on a body.

Just ask the nuclear priesthood.

7) Frankenpriests seem to forget the obvious fact that – across the world – human beings don’t want to eat this toxic crap. In Europe – where Frankeningredidents show up on the food label – people don’t buy it. Here in the US, the Frankencoprs have paid their political whores to prevent labelling – yet survey anfter survey shows the majortiy of American’s don’t wnat to eat this crap – and wnat the right to know what foods have it…precisely so they don’t have to eat them.

Why are the grant-dependent and/or salaried Frankenpriests so eager to collude with the megacorps that deny US the right to choose NOT to eat this shit? What career or advancement opportunites do they protect by misleading us about the stuff we don’t wnat to eat – and wouldn’t eat if we had a choice?

Bon appetit!

PS – the attempt to equate wheat crops created among closely related species via radiation with Frankencrops (like tomatoes with fish genes) very closely follows the arguments set forth in the book

Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist’s View of Genetically Modified Foods

. The Heartland Institute tells us it’s “the Only Book You’ll Need on Plant Biotech”.

Those of us outside the Frankenpriesthood who seek technology assessment – not technology worship – are wearily familiar with the attempt to misconstrue the recombinant Frankenfoods with the products of radiation-created wheat crop development.

Of course, the radiation-induced wheat strains ended up with genes from their evolutionary close cousins – not fish, fungus, or other non-plant genes.

For those outside the Frankenpriesthood, the good news is that the apologists for the Frankenindustries have basically run out of tricks except the ones we’ve seen here. And those tricks aren’t working in the Eu, and are increasigly likely to fail here.

Oh – and the Heartland Institute?

Well, our Frankenpriesthood would fit right in:

Although Heartland calls itself “a genuinely independent source of research and commentary,” its has been a frequent ally of the tobacco industry can be documented by searching the industry’s internal document archives.

Roy E. Marden, a member of Heartland’s board of directors, was until May 2003 the manager of industry affairs for the Philip Morris (PM) tobacco company, where his responsibilities included lobbying and “managing company responses to key public policy issues,” which he accomplishes by “directing corporate involvement with industry, business, trade, and public policy organizations and determining philanthropic support thereto.” In a May 1991 document prepared for PM, Marden listed Heartland’s “rapid response network” as a “potential spokesperson” among the “portfolio of organizations” that the company had cultivated to support its interests. [6]

In January 1993, PM executive Craig L. Fuller reported that Heartland was one of the “public policy organizations” being considered to sponsor a “conference on the impact of federal mandates/EPA regulations,” as part of PM’s strategic response to the EPA’s decision that secondhand smoke should be classified as a proven lung carcinogen. [7]

In an April 1993 report, Marden noted that he was “developing strategy and tactics” to defeat legislation in California aimed at restricting smoking in public places. He was “liasing with contacts in the public policy arena (think tanks, public interest legal foundations) and the media to generate editorial, op-eds, letters-to-the-editor and position papers.” With the Heartland Institute, he was working “re sponsorship of environmental seminars for interested journalists and legislators throughout the Midwest.” Simultaneously, he was talking with PM’s Washington office to decide how much money the company should give to public policy organizations in 1993. [8]

PPS: otchmoson, I respect your concerns about access to medications you have found effective. When working with a renal/pancreatic tranplant progam, I encountered many patients with diabetes who reported they had far better clinical results with purified insulin than with recombinant insulin. Some endocrinologists told me they thought these concerns were valid. (Others disagreed.)

Efforts to address your concern are not mutually exclusive with separate efforts to adress the toxic risks from our involuntary exposure to Frankentechnologies. The fact that I am devoting time and energy to the latter concern does not prevent (and shuold not prevent) endocrinologists who work directly with patients with diabetes from the advocacy you describe. I hope you find a physican (or physicians) who can be allies to you in that matter.

Smokey just because you do gene splicing does not mean you have the moral authority to tell me I’m wrong only that you disagree with me.

Well let me tell ya big fella I know a little about this issue and I can tell you that there is a lot to be concerned about.

Just so you know I do NOT agree with Dr. Kirk, I think he does a great disservice to this blog when he tries to talk about food. He only knows what he reads and he only reads extremist. I work off a different set of standards, “Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts”

Fact: Dan Quayle in his capacity as the head of a Technology Taskforce decided that GMO’s must be fast tracked, read not going through the rigorous federal testing protocols, so that the US would not be eclipsed in the world market.

Fact: GMO’s still do not have to meet the federal testing protocols

Fact: GMO’s have not make crop yield higher not did they reduce the overall crop loss to insects

Fact: GMO’s are out crossing to plants not the same family or genus. Bt is now found in plants that are the main source of food for butterfly’s. Bt is a physical killer, it forms crystals in the gut of the larvae and shreds their digestive system.

Fact: GMO’s have out crossed to weeds making then immune to Roundup. Farmers have to buy a very expensive herbicide to kill the Roundup weeds, that herbicide is sold by Monsanto

Fact: There has been no long term testing to see what if any effects GMO’s will have on humans or the environment.

Fact: Developing countries are moving rapidly to organic farming, India just announced a 150 mn Euro program to develop and support the growth of organics, much the same for the Philippines and Indonesia. These countries have finally figured out that if they use renewable resources they do not have to pay for imported chemicals and expensive seed.

Remember the green revolution? Well what happened is that developing countries got higher initial yields but the rice and grains had less protein than the old seed varieties they used to grow. They had to grow more food to meet the same protein demand and at higher cost to the governments.

GMO’s are being help out as the great savior of the world food supply. You and I both know that is a bogus claim.

It’s about profits and a corporate mandate to control the world’s food supply.

So you see there are many reasons to be wary of GMO’s. Is there a possibility that they can do good for human kind, YES but let’s test the products to make sure they will not pose a threat to the world’s food supply through unintended consequences.

I’m here all week please be sure to try the red veal, not from confinement boxes

I’m not playing a game. If I simply stated the name of the crop, it would get lost in Kirk’s deluge of dishonest namecalling.

“What is it that I feed my kids every day that is “the product of undirected radiation mutagenesis and indiscriminate mixing of genes from different genera”?”

Wheat. Now, how about if you answer my questions about the year and the affiliation of the botanist?

“So far you sound like that business about the chemical that we all consume and we all die anyhow and it’s got the sinister name of dihydrogen monoxide, which is water. Cute for 15 year olds who think they are ever so bright, but old news for grownups. Are you 15?”

Nope. You are sounding more like someone who needs to demonize others than of someone who is truly concerned about what her children eat. Will you be protesting at your local bakery now?

What is it that I feed my kids every day that is “the product of undirected radiation mutagenesis and indiscriminate mixing of genes from different genera”?

So far you sound like that business about the chemical that we all consume and we all die anyhow and it’s got the sinister name of dihydrogen monoxide, which is water. Cute for 15 year olds who think they are ever so bright, but old news for grownups. Are you 15?

Nor do Kirk or Organic George, but that doesn’t stop them from pretending that they do.

“With no background in science, I just have the responsibility for feeding children, whose bodies are still developing, the safest food I can provide.”

That’s reasonable. Whom should you trust? The one who calls scientists “white coat rapists,” or the one who says that things aren’t so simple?

“My inclination is to err on the side of caution, but that is mother-love, not science.”

If you believe that not eating mutant plants or interspecific hybrids is a proper expression of that caution, shouldn’t you be far more concerned about the crop that you feed your children virtually every day that is the product of undirected radiation mutagenesis and indiscriminate mixing of genes from different genera?

Hell, in one event, the two were even combined:

“A very elegant way to obtain [desired characteristic] in [crop X] was demonstrated in [year Y] by [famous botanist Z]. Z made use of a radiation-induced translocation following hybridization to transfer a resistance gene from a species of a related genus…”

Kirk pretends that this never happened because it shows that the world is not as black/white as he wishes it to be. At least Organic George is interested enough to want to know.

What about you? How about just taking a stab at guessing the year in which this allegedly dastardly deed was performed? Was botanist Z a corporate scientist, or an academic who made his modifications freely available?

I don’t. What is it?

should be

“Since 1985, children with growth deficiencies and their parents have seen their access to natural human growth hormone withdrawn from the market.”