Genetically Modified Foods

[Cube]

The idea that genes can be patented is absolutely ridiculous. GM can be very helpful, but companies like Monsanto are deliberately making them unnaturally intrusive so if your own crops get taken over by them, you're facing a law suit. Decide you want to go with Monsanto any way, but decide to save some seed like what has been done for eons? Law suit.

 

Wait...that's accidentally a thing? That's like throwing a brick through someone's window than suing them for having the brick on their property.

[Debug Mode]

Wait...that's accidentally a thing? That's like throwing a brick through someone's window than suing them for having the brick on their property.

 

I can no longer find the original case, so unless I find it, consider that point illegitimate. But, this case, which I may be slightly reading wrong, the core issue is still concerning

 

Court:Federal Court of Canada Jurisdiction: Federal Appeals Division Before ISAAC J.A., Noel J.A, Sharlow J.A Questions Considered:Appeal and cross appeal of decision of Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser (2001), 202 F.T.R. 78. Original decision found Schmeiser liable for breach of GM herbicide tolerant canola patented by Monsanto. Monsanto awarded an injunction, an order for delivery up, an award of damages (only against Schmeiser Enterprises Ltd.) in the amount of $19,832, pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest, and costs. Schmeiser appealed the finding of infringement, the award of damages and the granting of the injunction. Monsanto cross-appealed on a number of grounds, but at the hearing relied only on the argument that the award of damages was too low. Grounds for appeal set out below.

 

1) Is the patent infringed if Mr. Schmeiser did not use Roundup in the 1998 crop? Schmeiser argued that if merely planting a crop of Roundup Ready Canola is infringement, then the patent claims have been too broadly construed because the patented invention, the Monsanto gene, has no function if it is present in a plant that has not actually survived an application of Roundup.

 

2) Does it matter how the Monsanto gene came to be in the 1998 Schmeiser crop? ie the trial judge did not consider the truth of the evidence as to how Schmeisers crop came to contain Monsantos roundup ready canola because in his view it did not matter to the question of law as to whether a patent right had been breached. Schmeiser argued that this was an `unjustified intrusion` on his property rights, in particular the ownership of his crops and his right to harvest whatever is growing on his land and to save the seed for cultivation in subsequent years. Alternatively, Monsanto should be held to have waived or surrendered its patent rights when it permitted glyphosate resistant canola to be released into the environment.

 

Source

 

Basically, from the sounds of things in this case, the farmer in question had used a Monsanto product years before his patent infringement allegation but had stopped using it. But because it's intrusive, it seems to have stuck around in future crops and Monsanto sprang into action.

 

So, if this is true, it is an absolutely unethical practice. It's not really a contract, because it basically traps people who decide not to renew thanks to how long it sticks around for.

 

EDIT: Best to assume my original point is conspiracy. I'm seeing several mentions of the problem I said earlier, some from big news websites, but not one of them can provide a source about a farmer who has been found innocent of one of their infringement lawsuits due to contamination.

 

Although I definitely do believe that such things have happened, if I can't prove it, I can't call it out as fact!

Edited January 15, 2013 by Debug Mode

[Fused King]

But we've already been tampering with nature for ages by selectively breeding plants. This was done AGES ago when any possible consequences of our actions couldn't easily be picked up, unlike genetic modification now.

 

Hmm, see your point, but was this done using the some beneficial genes from a goldfish and putting them in a tomato?

[Rummy]

I'll just say that I've always been a bit wary of people trying to tamper with nature.

I think that once you start altering nature, you end up with unforeseen consequences, which, again, you need to control and perhaps alter.

 

Food is a very difficult subject, I think, partly because there are so many ways to become and stay healthy.

 

I do think that one's attitude towards that which one eats is of great importance in how it will influence your body and state of mind to a certain extent, and I don't believe that's been fully investigated yet.

 

I'm just not sure if it's a good idea to be controlling and recreating nature.

 

So...medicine? Healthcare? Pharmaceuticals, surgery, IVF, transplants, etcetc? All of that is tampering with nature is it not, and I think in a much more extreme way than breeding* plants in a controlled environment.

 

Not a question to you per se, but why is it weirder if we're creating the product from scratch, essentially? I feel like there's something strange about it. Like, it's ok to get a liver from another person who had one, but if we could custom make one artificially(I mean unnaturally, it'll be a real liver) in a lab sort of thing and use that - it seems weirder to my mind. Don't know if it's just me, but I feel like that's some larger sort of stigma/issue.

 

EDIT: *Sorry, I should say genetically modifying plants. It isn't breeding really.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Nature doesn't have a "plan", and even if it did, I would hardly say it's worth following.

[Sheikah]

Hmm, see your point, but was this done using the some beneficial genes from a goldfish and putting them in a tomato?

 

No but what does it matter where the gene came from? It makes no difference really. DNA is a sequence, a message. It's not like DNA from a fish is 'dirty' and shouldn't be put into our food. Why should DNA going from a fish to a plant be any worse in your eyes than from plant to plant? In essence, why is, say, the sequence CCGAAAT going to a plant worse than GTCCCAA? It's trivial.

 

It's people selectively worrying about things that they don't understand that again I find really odd; for instance we eat sweets (like jellybeans) that are coated in shellac, which is a resin secreted by bugs. Far more gross than combining fish with tomato, in some respects. Things we both actually eat.

 

Really, people are just worried about whether it's 'right' to do, because they've watched films and read literature like Frankenstein. The threat to our health is non-existent.

[MoogleViper]

GM foods have gone too far.

 

 

I'm just gonna leave this right here:

 

 

"Almost 8 billion..."

 

Where the fuck does he live?

 

EDIT: He later says "almost 7 billion". Weird.

Edited January 15, 2013 by MoogleViper
Automerged Doublepost

[Supergrunch]

Pro GM all the way.

 

- GM foods have no higher chance of transferring DNA to humans than normal plants

- IIRC no evidence of plants having transferred DNA to humans via the gut.

- People have been selecting for certain genes in plants via selective breeding (ie. countering nature) for centuries/millennia. Mostly defeats ethical argument.

- Better yields (theoretically), better nutrition. Can make crops more resilient to pesticides thus reduce their use, which is good for animals and the environment.

 

Most people anti-GM are ignorant of the scientific facts.

This. It's awful that some activists think damaging GM crops is forward-thinking, when it's actually quite the opposite.

We've even done it for trivial reasons. Carrots were purple, but there were some mutant carrots that were white and yellow. These white and yellow carrots were then selectively bred to create the orange carrot, which is now the most common kind.

 

So, all carrots have technically been genetically modified by humans.

For nationalistic reasons, too! Although of course whether or not artificial selection is the same as genetic modication depends on your definition.

[arab_freak]

"Almost 8 billion..."

 

Where the fuck does he live?

 

EDIT: He later says "almost 7 billion". Weird.

 

Maybe he meant that number included animals? I'm just guessing.

[MoogleViper]

Maybe he meant that number included animals? I'm just guessing.

 

There are way more than 1 billion animals. There are more than 8 billion.

[arri]

I hate it. I really try to eat healthy, but i can't find anything really healthy.