There’s a reason I capped those words. It’s because you pointedly missed this differentiation in your first comment. It’s bad enough that scientists have been careless and imprudent with insertion of plant-to-plant materials, inducing peanut allergy responses for example by inserting nut genes into other non-nut plants without thinking through the consequences. Why should we simply roll over on more complex gene transfers?

Get specific for this audience, not snotty. You would do well to keep in mind this is a far more diverse and fairly well-educated readership at this site; you aren’t dealing with idiots.

By the way, you were off the mark with your comment, “a chemical is a chemical no matter how it is produced.” Quite a number of regular readers at this site — particularly those who’ve experience with estrogen-sensitive cancers — know that you’re painting with a very, very broad brush. Xenoestrogens, for example, are in no way as harmless to humans as phytoestrogens; estrogens are clearly not all the same.

But insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is not at all the same thing, and the Bt modifications are just that.

Can you tell me with a degree of specificity why plants and animals diverged and why they never converged again? When you can, you can call us “hippy-dippy”, and not before then.

Genes move from one kingdom to another by natural as well as artificial means. There are loads of viral genes in us, for example, and in some cases, the viruses picked up the genes from plants before they transferred them to us. Thing is, it doesn’t matter where a gene that specifies a protein comes from. It will specify the same protein where ever it lands. I guess the upper-case panic about the insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is analogous to the bit from Ghost Busters about dogs messing with cats. It reflects an ancient view of nature that was revived by the Romantics and lives on in alternative medicine but is simply irrelevant to understanding what’s going on in the real world.

Once again, I’m not saying that GM genes can’t cause trouble. If they to, however, it won’t be because they are engineered.

One irony here is that irrational fear of the technology has the practical effect of guaranteeing that only big agribusiness will have the clout to overcome the opposition of the environmentalists while smaller efforts by non-profits to introduce genetically altered products that would actually help people are likely to be squelched. So we get altered corn that farmers have to buy every season so that corporate profits will be increased but golden rice, which has been engineered to overcome third-world vitamin deficiencies, is effectively blocked.

It’s not premature, it’s wrong. The work that made the connection has been discredited. There was, among other things, a substantial conflict of interest.

Which brings me to George Bush. His parting shot is a big F**k You to all of us. Why should this be? He did far more to us than we did to him, yet he attacks clean air, contamination etc. and does his best to make his acts irreversible. That’s capitalism brought to its illogical conclusion.

So what to do? The liberal blogosphere gets its head handed to it because the powers that be are unpersuaded we represent anyone but ourselves. We’d like to prove otherwise. Here’s the assignment. I have no right answer or any answer at all. Let’s try for a movieless Saturday night. It means attracting people of all persuasions and convincing them to join in sending a meaningful message to Washington. The far right may take it to be an opportunity to go to the movies. It means trusting each other sight unseen to take an action we agree on. The more the very much merrier. Its way past time to begin thinking about doing something to change the way public business is done. Maybe there’s another way. Maybe we can adopt Face Book or My Space to the job. Maybe Google with its ability to count hits can do something. It’s something we should talk about.

But I also think it’s really premature for people to make the association between thimersol and autism because we haven’t seen either a sufficiency of solid studies, nor any casual (don’t mean causal here) correlation between changes in environmental exposures and autism.

There may be more than one cause, too, that exacerbates findings.

Look at this article: Study: Counties with more rainfall have higher autism rates — there appears to be no correlation with population density, I’ll point out, which generally goes hand in hand with some forms of pollution like acid rain.

Then look at the EPA’s maps of environmental mercury exposure.

And then look at the national maps of autism incidence.

What stands out is that there may be a couple of likely contributors to autism rates that are environmental, but they do not explain why the dramatic increase in autism rates since 1992.

States with higher pollution like Minnesota clearly have increased rates of autism, for example, but there’s no obvious drop off as thimersol is removed from products or as parents refuse vaccinations.

States have had consistent rates of vaccination using the same vaccine producers for years; shouldn’t there be a fairly uniform pattern of incidence that reflects the vaccines used if thimersol preservation was the issue?

What about thimersol in contact solution — was there any correlation with that product and autism rates? if contact solutions are now generally free of thimersol, shouldn’t there be a decrease as well in autism rather than the increase of autism approaching 20% a year right now, even though use of thimersol has been decreasing over that period?

The question we are not asking ourselves is what changed over the last 15-16 years?

Use of BPA is one of those things I can think of right off the top of my head; there were not many large-scale production facilities in the U.S. in 1988 (I was working on project related to installing one of the first big ones at that time).

Another one is ultrasound; in 1993 I remember it still being used only occasionally, and now it’s used frequently during pregnancies.

What other things changed in our culture during that time frame? What might also mirror the incidence maps? And since we’re possibly looking at multiple causes, are we so sure that we haven’t seen some sort of biological agent in play as well — like those implicated in MS or other neurological disorders as triggers?

I thought there was a lot of conflicting info on Thimerisol — scientific studies showing it had no impact whatsoever, including some long-term ones, while some parents are still claiming a link. Not sure there is a definitive yes on Thimerisol as a cause — at least not that I’ve heard. If you’ve got links on that, feel free to link them up, though.

Well, Google it. Mercury is a well known neurotoxin. Do some research.

And, as we all know the Bush Regime has been suppressing the scientific community’s findings for the last 8 years. the Republicans…..god KNOWS how long.

There is a lot of interesting information on how the European countries have banned mercury fillings sometimes completely, sometimes in pregnant women or kids under 12. There are some kick ass alternatives to mercury fillings these days because the controversy MADE the dental companies develop them. There’s no good reason to have this stuff put in your mouth ( or your vaccines) when it’s regarded, and stored as hazardous waste, once it’s out of your mouth.

I’ve been following this issue for years as I developed a genetic neuro muscular disorder about 20 years ago…but, as my neurologist said “something had to trigger it”

But insertion of a NON-PLANT gene into a PLANT is not at all the same thing, and the Bt modifications are just that.

Can you tell me with a degree of specificity why plants and animals diverged and why they never converged again? When you can, you can call us “hippy-dippy”, and not before then.