Duck!

I don't honestly know. But I've read that a lot of allergies are caused by your immune system misdiagnosing innocent proteins on certain plants/animals as belonging to infectious agents.

So I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that allergenic proteins could be transfered from one species to another. After all, a gene's basic function is to produce proteins from what I understand.

So, it sounds plausible to me, but I don't know in practise if it actually happens. Someone with a biological qualification will probably respond and give you a more thorough explanation.


Duck!

variant 13

Yes it is possible.

If the gene that was transfered coded for a protein that a person was allergic to.

impious

HW
Thanks for the thought out post.
Each of your points apart from you final personal position seems to discount proper and complete testing.
Would you support a product that was genetically modified but had no ill effects?
Personally as an atheist insufficient testing is the only logical reason I can come up with.
If a tomato has a fish gene that makes them larger cheaper, taste more tomato and is safe, where lies the issue
Insufficient testing?

impious

Gramoxone

I would spray an area and by the time the people had to pay 20 minutes later the area looked like a war zone. As a contractor it was a very effective product. But there is always amitrol
Extreme lung scarring would sure suck as a way to die. Apparently your appendages would starve of oxygen like Gangrene except at an accelerated rate. Same thing happens in smokers but they look cool as they die. Except of course from that last part where they crawl up and down the bed begging for both relief and air, at that point its equivocal.

rlogan

Impious, you're impervious buddy. There are some very bright people here who have pointed out that your OP and a couple others were not only atrociosly worded, but carried with them at least one glaring presupposition - that "athiests" are some uniform dogmatic group.

What testing, friend? That's just empty rhetoric. IQ test? Test for Aids? You think the companies that make the tomatos are not going to see how they taste or whether people will drop dead from food poisoning before they market them?

So we have some blackberries that nearly wiped out the biota. That was traditional hybridization. So why are we allowing these diabolical plant frankenstein monsters loose without adequate testing?

I want hybrids tested dammit! Atlantic salmon are already showing up in Alaska. They aren't GM salmon. Why weren't we "testing" these Atlantic salmon!? Scotch broom - see, I told you! Inadequate testing.

Until you specify what you are testing for, and explain why it applies strictly to so-called GM foods and not traditionally hybridized foods, it's just mindless rhetoric.

It isn't clear to me. It's not enough to imbue a sense of danger by saying they are more "powerful". I'd say more "precise". More "efficient". More "accurate".

Why zero "testing" for one grossly inefficient and more random technology? Why are you putting my life at risk and the entire global ecosystem by not "testing" traditional hybridization?

Happy new year everyone...

scombrid

That could be like when Homer accidentally spliced tobacco and tomato and got nicotene filled tomatoes.

Farren

I would be 100% behind GM crops if it weren't for the very real non-technical concerns. To dispense with the technical concerns first:

There really is no major difference between producing hybrid crops by conventional selective breeding and producing hybrids by genetic modification.

Its true that hybridizing conventional wheat with wild egyptian wheat isn't going to produce wheat with spider genes, but it could quite easily produce wheat with a makeup that causes fatal allergies, so that's almost besides the point.

The safety concern is about allergies and so on and there's little reason to believe they would be more or less likely to occur from direct genetic modification instead of conventional breeding methods. It would simply produce different safety considerations, not more.

The most widely cited cautionary tales about the dangers of GM and allergies come from the labs of the GM companies themselves.

I don't have the reference handy but remember reading about GM researchers discovering that people had an allergic reaction to something after they put Brazil Nut genes in it. Astonishingly, examples like these are widely cited by the anti-GM crowd.

It goes over most people's heads that this turned up during rigorous pre-release testing by the GM co. itself - testing that is substantially more rigorous than that applied to, say, conventional herbal remedies. Its like arguing "Look, rigorous production testing of the Boeing has turned up these problems! It should never fly!"

The non-technical concerns are real, however. As previously mentioned on this thread, most GM foods are patented. Lets say two or three companies end up holding the patents on most of the world's food supply. That's a scary thing.

The African country that turned down GM food aid wasn't being as narrow minded as first appears the case. The country, by the way, is Zambia, not Zimbabwe

The Southern African states are often called the "breadbasket" of Africa. Recent food shortages can be traced to drought and infrastructural problems, but these countries are usually major exporters. There is a geniune fear of GM food aid increasing the likelyhood of GM contamination of African crops, with the knock on effect of a massive loss of income from grain sales to Europe and the UK.

This will arguably have a far more devastating effect on the people for whom the aid is intended than the short term effect of turning down GM food aid.

Drahzar

You seem to assume that the atheist evolutionists here have a problem with genetically modified food. You also seem to assume that being an atheist evolutionist has something to do with their opinion on GM food. Why not ask if women as a whole have problems with it? Or white people? The fact that someone is an atheist evolutionist has nothing to do with their opinions on GM food. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think as long as it improves the food with no ill effects it's great. I think most of the people here have said the same thing. But you keep replying saying that the only problem people would have with it is insufficient testing, as if we're trying to argue that we don't like GM food because of this. No one's trying to argue with you, if the new food is better in any way without ill effects, it's a good thing.