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DraconicAcid
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Citing NaturalNews as a science source is like calling Kent Hovind a tax expert or calling on Ken Ham as a source on paleontology. It's generally
flat-out lies and propaganda.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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blogfast25
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Another thing that really amuses me are the conspiracy theory style claims of all powerful lobbies and how dissent is being suppressed, yet finding
non-peer-reviewed garbage on the subject of GMOs is far easier than finding primary, peer-reviewed literature on that subject.
Google.co.uk, on “genetically modified food dangers” returns 3.1 million results. Going by the titles, at least the first 50 results (I didn’t
look beyond page 5) were all 100 % relevant to that search term.
So much for the dissenters being suppressed or ‘silenced’: whoever’s doing the silencing is doing a really bad job!
Also in common with conspiracy theories is that GMO critics tend to wildly overshoot their target: GMO crops are now said to be responsible for
cancer, a rise in allergies, soil erosion, soil ‘suffocation’, increased use or herbicides/pesticides and whatnot. Is there anything the naysayers
don’t/can’t attribute to GMOs?
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ISCGora
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Found something interesting but dont hvae time to read all:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/pdf/a_decade_of_eu-f...
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blogfast25
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Not a single one of your sources is primary, peer-reviewed literature. NOT ONE. That doesn't bother you?
No, thought not.
Publications like 'naturalnews', 'huffpo', 'grist' etc are simply opinion pieces. They have ZERO value in a scientific debate.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by blogfast25]
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Fulmen
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Let's look at the first of the links:
http://www.anh-usa.org/genetically-engineered-food-alters-ou...
Right of the bat they make the following claim:
"The only published human feeding experiment revealed that genetic material inserted into GE soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our
intestines and continues to function."
They document this claim by linking to this study:
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v22/n2/full/nbt934.html
But when I look at the abstract I see this:
"As this low level of epsps in the intestinal microflora did not increase after consumption of the meal containing GM soya, we conclude that
gene transfer did not occur during the feeding experiment."
So who do we believe? Some unknown writer (the article isn't signed) with no known credentials or the ones that actually performed this study?
We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together.
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Chemosynthesis
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Quote: Originally posted by Loptr  |
Chemosynthesis,
You mentioned above that you participate in genetic engineering. Could you speak towards the process that takes place in order to introduce genes and
how precise these changes are? |
Sure. I do use forms of genetic engineering, or cloning, as do almost anyone in a "wet" (non-purely computational) biological science. In fact, if an
individual were to take any molecular biology or virology undergraduate course with lab and not genetically alter an organism, I would question the
validity of that class.
I do worry about people completely taking what I say next out of context, but I suppose I can't control peoples' desire to misconstrue. The process
can vary depending on what type of cell you want to change. With bacteria, one can use liposomes, phage, electroporation, or (if cheap) heat shock as
examples for cloning with varying degrees of success. With eukaryotes, modified non-reproductive viruses are more common. The vector can depend on the
size of the gene(s) you want to insert, and the specificity of insertion site can vary depending on desired outcome. It often doesn't matter where
insertion takes place, and you generally don't know or care the precise location of insertion. Example: you want to replicate a protein. You don't
care about anything but the protein. You try to constitutively express the protein in bacteria such as E. Coli, lyse your cells, and collect the
protein. Your cells may look really sick, but as long as you get enough of your target protein, everything else is entirely irrelevant since you are
destroying the cells anyway. Typically, some of your cells die from DNA inundation, disruption of housekeeping gene/promoter integrity, etc. You
select, then screen for gene insertion and functional translation. In bacteria, this is usually with antibiotic resistance genes and sometimes a color
indicator, but can also be a metabolic pathway gene. For fluorescent human cells, a common transfection, you just look for the cells with glowing
proteins of interest, select a single cell for a monoclonal culture, then see if it appears to function as normal while continuing whatever experiment
you had in mind.
New techniques, such as those used for human gene therapy, have much greater specificity, for example CRISPR. Not only can one be pretty specific
about where to insert a gene, but using techniques such as genome sequencing, you can very cheaply and rapidly determine exactly where your gene of
interest inserted. For a patented genome, one would need to publish the exact sequence, as opposed to a trade secret genome (which would be silly
given sequencing anyway).
| Quote: | Is there a high occurrence of unintended changes being introduced into the genome? What quality assurance protocols exist to ensure the genetic
engineering has occurred as intended? I know that with pharmaceuticals there exist thresholds for side-products, etc., so are there thresholds in
genetic engineering as well?
Please excuse my ignorance in this matter. |
This depends entirely on the technique used and the application of the resultant organism, but I have never heard of unintentionally inserting a gene
into an organism. There have been historical cases of accidentally putting a SCID gene therapy into an oncogene repressor, later causing leukemia, but
this can be patient-specific and worst-case-scenario, eating a plant with cancer wouldn't give a human cancer.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080807175438.ht...
Sometimes you get weird quirks, such as membrane proteins abnormally localizing to the nucleolus, and sometimes these weird models have a funny way of
finding their way into publication in a deceptive manner.... but it's usually easy to spot these, as this is more often the result of modifying an
existing protein such as for fluorescence visualization than inserting a completely new gene to encode a novel protein. I have worked on both
transformation and transfection techniques for pretty standard labwork as well as some sequencing and transcriptome applications for disease, both in
viruses and humans, but I am neither a geneticist nor anyone avidly engineering anything at the genome level, so I can't really answer anything too
in-depth as any actual alterations I perform on a genome are purely means-to-end, and I have never been a part of an organization attempting to market
said organisms, so that's really all I can think of for now.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodScienceResearch/Biotechnology/uc...
Now, with the advances in cheap, fast genomic sequencing techniques, it's easier to determine where you want to put a gene and tailor your insertion
point appropriately. You may theoretically get some transposon activity, but this occurs in normal human DNA and with viruses anyway, and to be
honest, I am not sure how controllable this is, nor do I see it as a reason to fear eating a modified plant.
One thing non-scientists don't realize is that you see unintended consequences in just growing normal cell lines for several passages, no active
'engineering' required. You begin to notice chromosomal and methylation differences which correlate well to morphological inconsistencies.
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aga
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As advanced as science is at this moment, our knowledge of the intricacies of the life systems on this planet are feeble to say the least.
Add in their interactions and the possibilities are endless.
Releasing GM organisms into the big wide world is simply asking for Disaster,
The bottom line is that they cannot be guaranteed to behave benignly.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Fulmen | | So who do we believe? Some unknown writer (the article isn't signed) with no known credentials or the ones that actually performed this study?
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This is the heart of the matter, of course. Most of us here are not molecular biologists, geneticists or involved in transgenetic work. In that sense
we’re probably no more qualified than the OP.
So who am I to believe? Material published by qualified scientists published in peer-reviewed science journals OR op eds penned by
often anonymous, unqualified and self-appointed ‘netexperts’ that make highly dubious claims, often doused in unnecessary adjectives (carefully
chosen to set the ‘mood’)?
It’s not a hard choice, IMO.
It’s a choice I also have to make regarding other fields that are outside of my expertise. And it’s why we have peer-reviewed science…
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Mesa
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| Quote: Originally posted by Loptr |
Chemosynthesis,
You mentioned above that you participate in genetic engineering. Could you speak towards the process that takes place in order to introduce genes and
how precise these changes are? Is there a high occurrence of unintended changes being introduced into the genome? |
These questions aren't really applicable. There will be unintended changes to the genome of an organism for each generation in the culture regardless
of if it has been genetically modified in a lab. Differentiating between the genomic changes caused by any human interference and a random variation
from parent to offspring would be next to impossible with any accuracy.
Sure, you can point at a recombinant E.Coli strain and show that it's basically unrecognizable as E.Coli, but the purpose of recombinant cells is to
produce as high quantities of a target enzyme as you can possibly fit in the cell without killing it. The cultures are designed to be grown and
harvested in a lab with pretty stringent conditions. Accidental contamination is a pretty huge fuck up that sometimes results in the entire culture
becoming useless, there is much incentive for the labs to ensure the proper procedures are observed.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by Mesa]
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blogfast25
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aga:
I suggest you carefully read this page (and many others from that site):
http://academicsreview.org/reviewed-content/genetic-roulette...
… to get a good idea of just how much DNA reshuffling takes place during conventional cross breeding, compared to what happens when
transgenetic organisms are created. In neither case have unintended consequences been much of a problem, if at all. But entirely logically, unintended
consequences from transgenetic methods can be expected to be even less frequent.
GM sceptics generally have a very poor understanding of just how much DNA manipulation has been induced over the ages (thousands of years) by
breeders, as well as of other more recent non-transgenetic techniques (chemical and radiative) used to create variation (allowing to then select the
'best' breeds).
Transgenetic techniques are really no more than a continuation of millennia of DNA manipulation but in many respects less brutal and more surgical
than traditional, as well as more modern chemical and radiative (but non-transgenetic) methods.
The sceptics ignorantly believe that ‘natural must be best’, without understanding what ‘natural’ (i.e. non-transgenetic) methods really do.
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aga
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Thanks for the link bloggers.
Personally i'm not anti-GM, just that i cannot subscribe to the view that we know so much about a hugely complex paradigm that we must therefore know
enough to release it into the wild.
The moment that a scientist can create a malicious lifeform, release it into the wild, then create a counter-lifeform that successfully kills 100% of
the malicious one, then promptly kills itself leaving the planet exactly as it was, will be the moment that i will believe that GM is controllable and
sufficiently understood by it's progenitors.
I do not believe that the science is at that stage yet.
Edit:
Another point of view is that we Humans are natural products of evolution on this planet and therefore whatever We do (e.g. change plant genes) is in
fact a natural event.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by aga]
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ISCGora
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I totally agree with you aga when they developed GMO corn they introduced it to public right away with such minimal research.
Also now US is pressurizing EU to allow GMO food,which means Eu has some reason not to ahve it on market also Russia doesn't allow anything involved
with GMO.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by ISCGora]
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by ISCGora | | I totally agree with you aga when they developed GMO corn they introduced it to public right away with such minimal research. |
If you don't admittedly know much of anything about the screening processes, which are identical to other types of food, or what goes into cloning a
gene, respectfully, how on earth are you qualified to determine the metric by which research is judged as 'minimal?'
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ISCGora
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What does my statement has to do anything with what you replied is it not allowed to agree with some one? I dont think it is.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by ISCGora]
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Zombie
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| Quote: Originally posted by Chemosynthesis |
As for profit, don't you own a business? Want me to tell you how to run it and why? You guys do realize that previous profits are where the money came
from to perform today's private industry experiments, right? To hire new scientists? To pay for private scholarships, post-doctoral training,
prototypes, etc.? Who cares if someone works for profit, narcissistic ego-touting, philanthropy? Just let 'good' be accomplished. By the way, there is
a push for more and more open-access data from federal funding sources. Journals are indicating being more stringent on data publishing as well. If
someone doesn't like it, they can use their own money and publish in a shrinking number of journals, or not work in the field. Open-access genomic
alterations will eventually lead to problems too. Did you know the smallpox genome is public? Companies and nation states are now in the synthetic
genome manufacturing era.
] |
I haven't read the updates on this yet (page 2).
I had to think about this reply (yours).
Making a new formula for pancake batter or a new airplane wing design is fine, and dandy. Fair game for a "for profit" venture.
Developing ways to better humanity is something I feel we OWE to each other. I believe it is our responsibility as humans to find the answers to a
better life, and world for each other.
Profit means someone has to pay. The people that can not pay are automatically, and systematically excluded. This, now is not an act of compassion or
human responsibility. It is an act of greed, and power.
The very traits I despise in humanity.
I'm going out on a limb Chemo, and am going to guess that this (genetic engineering is what you do.
My suggestion here is that we as humans should be funding the research. Everyone from the CEO of the chemical supplier to the builder(s) of the
facility(s) used for this research should be supplying it all at no cost.
Yes the engineers should be paid. This may be the single most valuable field of research there is.
Put a dollar sign on this and everything changes. It's like taking children at birth, and selling them to the highest bidder.
Let me finish with a simple statement that everyone here will understand.
You have no way of knowing so it is a statement. Do you have any idea how many medical maladies I have that remain untreated due to someone wanting to
make a profit on my suffering? Torn cartilages... improperly set bones from fractures, other mental, and physical issues that bother me yet can not be
addressed because someone wants money, and F@cking crazy amounts of it to simply help another human live a more comfortable life!!!
Actually it makes me sick(er) to think about it.
Any field in medicine should be funded but not run for profit.
Just my 2 cents. I'll catch up on the thread later because I have a cold from fixing peoples boats in the rain the past 6 days... See my point. A
frigin boat is more important than the health of the fella that fixed it...
[Edited on 4-22-2015 by Zombie]
They tried to have me "put to sleep" so I came back to return the favor.
Zom.
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by ISCGora | | What does my statement has to do anything with what you replied is it not allowed to agree with some one? I dont think it is. |
You assessed GMO research as "minimal" in your own words. I'm asking how you're qualified to make such as assessment given you admitted being very
ignorant of what that research and regulation entails. You are espousing an opinion without any factual background in formulating it.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by ISCGora | I totally agree with you aga when they developed GMO corn they introduced it to public right away with such minimal research.
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You're so full of bullshit you're simply not worth engaging any further with. Please go find some gossipy chat room, filled with likeminded morons.
You're an 'expert' in making vague, Barnumish statements without any evidentiary backing whatsoever.
This is a forum about science, not for 'believers' like you.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by blogfast25]
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Zombie
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Just caught up... 
It's good to trust your instincts (for me). I figured this is what you do.
I'm glad to know you know what you are talking about Chemo. Your point of view has always been realistic, and educated on any discussion you
contribute to.
This is a very enlightening thread. Thanks OP!
Now it's off to NiteQuill land.
They tried to have me "put to sleep" so I came back to return the favor.
Zom.
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Chemosynthesis
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Zombie,I "do" science, not genetic engineering. Most people in any biological science from the lab tech to the PI/corresponding
author PhD who isn't a management deskjockey utilizes these techniques, as they are common in undergraduate college labs.
I hate to go off on this tangent because I think it's suited for Whimsy, but you mention that there is rationing in a profit-driven system.
Services-based systems have rationing as well, but it's based on different metrics. At least in a relatively free market, people ostensibly get to
choose what they fund, be it research, entertainment, getting a fancy car/house/etc. You say "profit means someone has to pay." Nothing is free.
Operating at cost means someone has to pay, but now the dispute is on the quantity.
If the government provides a service, the taxpayer has to pay as well. There is no getting around that, and then you end up in an awkward situation
where accounting for social benefit is arbitrary and people can't opt out. While imperfect, accounting for revenue is tied to an objective measure.
The problem with the system you want, aside from a total lack practicality and possible dis-incentivization, is that rationing will still occur, and
you have provided absolutely zero basis for determining the primacy of funding. You have a limited amount of resources. Should we invest in cancer,
HIV, or your problems? While no system is perfect, you ultimately run in to the problem of how you ration scarce resources. There is no getting around
this. You can choose your interests and place them above others, or mandate that one group of people work for cost (and then how do they fund further
research, train new employees, maintain equipment, expand, etc.?) but this doesn't help people actually doing the work and making tough decisions on
what to fund. As long as people are purchasing goods and services of their own free will, they will tend to purchase things with a marginal utility
that benefits their life, be it a medical service, a movie, a vacation, etc. Why remove the profit motive from medicine and not entertainment, which
is arguably much less necessary for life? You do realize that profit incentive is what makes companies make things faster and cheaper, right? That is
how much of technology advances and we all own cars and color televisions, or can get antibiotics and generic meds for ten bucks at Walmart.
Plenty of people in the private sector put in charitable work, both medically and scientifically. Plenty of people in government work for abuse of
funding, academic power, and prestige. Ultimately, in the mixed system we have with science, where the major funding sources are government, a group
of bureaucrats decides where to spend all of our money based on their evaluation of where it is needed. We do all pay into this, and it is generally
not very efficient. With private enterprise, a group of managers decide where to spend the money private individuals willingly gave to them in
exchange for previous goods and services no one was entitled to, in order to attain the most profit. Additionally, a highly profitable sector of
research is prone to having competitors test the research, and the desire to sell a drug at least guarantees the synthetic chemistry is replicable.
It's easier to commit academic fraud in an esoteric region of science no one cares about. With the synthesis of drugs, Israel is going to be cranking
out generics day 1 if you don't have international patents in place, and the rest of the world once the patents expire (if not sooner).
Which system you prefer is entirely up to you. And it would probably surprise people which system I have spent most of my time in based on how I talk.
I say let the people doing the job choose what they want, be it salary, profit-sharing, government regulatory, academic, or private industry, and then
let the consumer choose to reward desired work. With a pricing system, profit is often an indicator of superiority between otherwise equivalent
systems (i.e. lower cost of production, faster production cycles, etc.). Are there sometimes issues with marketing perceived differences instead of
real ones? Sure. But I will say that almost no one in the sciences goes into it for money. That's a fool's game. They tell you that at every step of
the process.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by Chemosynthesis]
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aga
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In my case i understand almost nothing of the field of GM.
The miniscule fraction of Chemistry that i feel that i understand does not give me any sense of Mastery of the Universe, nor the right to put sodium
acetate crystals into other people's ears on a daily basis.
The difference seems to be that some people (companies) feel it perfectly fine to insert the products of their chemistry experiments into a food chain
that supplies entire populations.
Money (sigh).
It will probably all work out just fine, yet no true Scientist would hand-on-heart say that they have enough long-term experimental data yet to
support a claim that it Will certainly be fine.
Time will tell, and the science will advance with the accumulating data.
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Zombie
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Of course I understand all of this. Utopia is out of reach.
I live a Keep It Simple Stupid, life style. I'd rather pay twice as much in taxes to fund medical research as I do now to fund "for profit wars". More
of our money is going toward creating death than health? I might be wrong but if you break down where our tax dollars go... I think I might be right.
See the problem with Utopia is... One group will always like to be in charge. To kind of keep an eye on things for everyone.
Then they spot something that they believe is not appropriate for a Utopian... It has to be stopped, corrected, whatever. Instantly, no more Utopia.
i get it.
Give, we the people the choice. Allow US to determine where our dollars go. Open the books, and let US vote on the budget, and not for leaders.
I would instantly send MY money into fields that help people. No more bullets for you guys. You've had too many already.
Send MY money to pay for elderly care. For social betterment.
Enough said. This is not the topic.
I hate the way our world is run.
[Edited on 4-22-2015 by Zombie]
They tried to have me "put to sleep" so I came back to return the favor.
Zom.
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by aga | It will probably all work out just fine, yet no true Scientist would hand-on-heart say that they have enough long-term experimental data yet to
support a claim that it Will certainly be fine.
|
Science doesn't work towards certainty. No one would be able to release any type of technology if one would have to wait for 100.000 % certainly of
safety.
The same principle holds here: enough research needs to be done to be sure 'beyond reasonable doubt' (but that doesn't equate to 100.000 % certainty).
Re. money: what do you think motivated thousands of years of conventional cross-breeding?
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Chemosynthesis
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| Quote: Originally posted by Zombie | | More of our money is going toward creating death than health? I might be wrong but if you break down where our tax dollars go... I think I might be
right. |
Not according to my sources. Wars are discretionary funding.
http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/fil...
The trend has continued.
Back to the science, here is a great site on how E. coli evolved through the current 50k generations with artificial constraints on reproductive
diversity: http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Zombie | Of course I understand all of this. Utopia is out of reach.
I live a Keep It Simple Stupid, life style. I'd rather pay twice as much in taxes to fund medical research as I do now to fund "for profit wars". More
of our money is going toward creating death than health? I might be wrong but if you break down where our tax dollars go... I think I might be right.
|
Although I certainly agree there, even reducing the military budget to a mere fraction of what it is now does not fundamentally change the resource
allocation (rationing) problem. But it would free up a hell of a lot resources, that's for sure.
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Loptr
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| Quote: Originally posted by Mesa | These questions aren't really applicable. There will be unintended changes to the genome of an organism for each generation in the culture regardless
of if it has been genetically modified in a lab. Differentiating between the genomic changes caused by any human interference and a random variation
from parent to offspring would be next to impossible with any accuracy.
Sure, you can point at a recombinant E.Coli strain and show that it's basically unrecognizable as E.Coli, but the purpose of recombinant cells is to
produce as high quantities of a target enzyme as you can possibly fit in the cell without killing it. The cultures are designed to be grown and
harvested in a lab with pretty stringent conditions. Accidental contamination is a pretty huge fuck up that sometimes results in the entire culture
becoming useless, there is much incentive for the labs to ensure the proper procedures are observed.
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by Mesa] |
This is in response to the stated fact that unintended changes happen very frequently over generations. I would think that variation would be very
apparent as the desired attribute would then be present in the organism.
I realize that changes take place and the genetics of an organism are going to very over generations. However, what I am not clear about is how
effective the changes typically are across generations, as compared to deliberate introduction of a specific functional change to a genome, which is
known to accomplish XYZ in the original organism. Isn't it possible that such a cherry picked change is more likely to have a greater effect on the
target organism, than say those generational changes you mention?
(I probably sound like an idiot asking this...) Isn't this a sort of equilibrium difference? In a natural process, the equilibrium will be
maintained, while if you specifically introduce a gene you are essentially pushing the equilibrium favorably to one side? Nature may correct this
equilibrium down the road if the introduction of said gene has a negative effect on the organism, while nature didn't have the ability to restrict its
introduction when it was done in a lab. All this is trying to make the point that there is less of a chance of a gene being introduced that negatively
impacts a species or a dependent specie since its spread would be more inhibited by its presence. This is regarding the difference between a gene
introduced through generational changes vs one directly introduced in a lab. (EDIT: So you can't really compare the two equally.)
(I may not be very clear on what I am trying to ask, but like I said, please excuse my ignorance, since I am well out of my realm and just
trying to understand.)
[Edited on 22-4-2015 by Loptr]
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..
6 |
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
