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Hooray! There will be no GM crops in Britain

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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    excellent news :)
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *waits for the announcement before hanging out the bunting*
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Why exactly is it that GM crops are so unpopular?
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    the fact that some bananas almost killed someone a few years back, because to make them riper they used a part of a nut gene, which then made certain people who were allergic to nuts sorta almost die when they ate the bananas
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Cross-contamination.

    And a lack of understanding of the effect it might have on normal species.

    Not to mention the fact that as things stand a few private corporations control most of the market and plants are engineered not to breed and to be resistant to one kind of herbicide only, so the farmers are forever enslaved to buy new seeds year after year after year, and to use the herbicides that particular company sells.

    The whole concept is bad news as it exists IMO. One day there might be a good and safe use for GM food, but I don't think we have reached that point by a long way.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Not against it in principle (more food needing less space at a cheaper price sounds fine to me).

    But at the moment there seems to be no scientific consensus on how safe it is or what the long term effects on both human health and the environment are.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Aladdin wrote:

    isn't that the company who produced agent orange for vietnam.........? and the company who have contaminated america's milk using bovine hormone growth in cows, who then develop mastitis?..........yeah they can stay the hell out of this country.....
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I didn't know about Agent Orange production but doesn't surprise me.

    Monsanto is well known for its dubious and extensive links with the Republican Party machine as well as intimidation and bullying tactics against enemies and competitors.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I understand the economic concerns about monoplisation etc but really most modern farming methods are harmful to some extent, it seems strange that GM is so focused on.

    If people were being objective then I do not think it would be so demonised but Is think there is still an inate fear of anything involving genetic tampering, whatever the weight of scientific evidence........
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Dunno... it's funny in a way how in more liberal Europe, where human genetic medical research is much more favoured, GM food has had such fierce opposition while in the US, much more against human genetic fiddling, they've been selling GM food for years and not many consumers seem to mind that they don't even know which foods are GM or not.

    I think the general consensus here is that tampering with food for profit (because sadly, most of it is done with profit in mind) is a dangerous business, especially because we do not fully understand the effects of cross contamination and once it's triggered it'd be difficult to reverse.

    Perhaps people would trust it more if no mega-buck corporations were to be the main (dare I say only) beneficiaries of the technology.
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    Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    We certainly don't want or need cheaper food in this country.

    But in the developing world, there is much more of an issue. Genetic modification is scary because of the technology used and genuine concerns over cross contamination and potential for human effects should not be ignored.

    If only the money being pumped into GM research was spent on education in developing countries, perhaps we wouldn't need to face that dilemma.
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