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Re: propaganda and clutter

: From: Fred Thompson <Freddel@pacbell.net>
: To: markspkn@iol.ie
: Subject: Re: The dirt on geneticly engineer seed.
: Date: 07 August 1998 23:15
: 
: Why don't you e-mail your propaganda to people who ask for it? Please
: don't clutter up the seeds list. Fred

Hi Fred, seeds-list subscribers,

Apologies for any unwelcome intrusion of my thoughts onto the seed list. In
future I'll keep the old keyboard in check, but can't resist replying one
last time to this thread and the mixed debate about it. Hereafter I'll bite
my tongue I promise (-:  I'm not keen on the idea of my gardening suffering
from rogue genes and I have a healthy desire to live in the beautiful world
I grew up in. Nothing too unusual in that for a gardener, eh ? We worry
about the slugs, the sawfly, too much rain, too much heat, too much
nitrogen, too little humus. If we didn't we wouldn't be gardeners !

When my name comes up, hit the delete button if you like, but of maybe
twenty posts to the list this is just the third on this topic. Interesting
that you think the Scottish Crop Research Institute issue propaganda. These
people are funded and an official arm of the British government, though
government propoganda wouldn't be unheard of either I guess. They don't
always work from the purest of motives. I think the key thing here is to
keep open minds, and to do nothing which would shut off useful information.


Incidentally I didn't start this thread, and in fact came across the page I
forwarded along with many many others during a quick internet search. I've
been subscribed to this list for more than a year now, have never submitted
any post related to this topic before this week, and I wouldn't have even
made the search if someone on the list hadn't suggested it. I am therefore
somewhere between bemused and amused to be described as a propagandist.
Would that I could get up the energy.(-: 

The search found many international bodies concerned about genetic
engineering of food crops, together with the concentration of the seed
supply into fewer and fewer companies; genetic patenting and the dangers of
failing to properly understand and keep control over what is happening. I
came across warnings from the third world network, physicians against
genetic engineering including an American Nobel laureate in medicine who's
a professor of Botany at Harvard University, and a goodly scatter of
scientific research papers. It seems the level of resistance is much higher
among the general population on the European mainland than it is here in
Ireland. I learned that 1 million Austrians have signed a petition
demanding a parliamentary debate on the subject. 

If you know of scientific papers disputing the research findings I'd be
delighted to be read those too. Meantime good gardening, and best wishes,
and my apologies for any intrusion. A thread you aren't interested in can
be wearisome, and I was slow to become interested in this thread myself.
Attaching a couple of clippings from news agencies, please don't think I'm
trying to start  a continental war, simply passing what is an unusually wet
summer here in Ireland. 
Mark
----------
Austria Says No to Frankenfoods 

VIENNA, April 15 (Reuter) - More than a million Austrians have signed a
petition calling for a ban on genetically modified foods and forced
parliament to debate the issue. 
----------------
BOYCOTT ANNOUNCED ON MODIFIED SOYBEAN/CORN ... 
OTC 07.10.96 17:43 
Thirteen of the 15 member nations of the European Union have also not
approved the importation of Ciba- Geigy's genetically engineered
corn--currently produced in the U.S., according to Rifkin. Critics charge
that the transgenic corn poses potential risks to the environment and
public health. 
Ciba-Geigy has produced a strain of corn that is resistant to the European
corn borer. 
The U.S.-based Corn Refiners Association has countered that, "Refined corn
products are not capable of biological replication or of transferring
genetic material to other living organism." 
European wholesalers and retailers will refuse to accept the U.S. products
which contain the modified crops, according to H. H. Kroner,
secretary-general of EuroCommerce, a trade organization representing
European wholesalers. 
"EuroCommerce does not reject biotechnology in general," Kroner noted. 
----------------------
WE DEMAND A BAN ON GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD 

This heading appeared today, october 23, 1996, in Sweden's largest national
newspaper, Dagens Nyheter on top of a sharply formulated proclamation
against genetically engineered food in general and the unlabelled
genetically engineered soy and corn products that now are arriving in
Europe in spite of widespread protest from consumers all over the
continent. Its heading was: 

The proclamation was signed by 15 presidents of Sweden's most important
organizations, including the Consumers council and all important consumers
organisations, the Labour Union (organizing over 80 % of all labourers),
Sweden's Cooperative Food store chain (one of the largest in the country),
the two Retired Peoples' Societies (organizing a very large proportion of
all retireds), the Nature Protection Society (very influential in Sweden)
and others. These represent a very large part of the population of Sweden. 
-----------------------

"Up to now, living organisms have evolved very slowly, and new forms have
had plenty of time to settle in. Now whole proteins will be transposed
overnight into wholly new associations, with consequences no one can
foretell, either for the host organism, or their neighbors.... ..going
ahead in this direction may be not only unwise, but dangerous. Potentially,
it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel
epidemics."

Dr. George Wald. Nobel Laureate in Medicine 1967. Higgins Professor of
Biology, Harvard University.
(From: 'The Case Against Genetic Engineering' by Georege Walt, in The
Recombinatnt DNA Debate, Jackson and Stich, eds. P. 127-128. ;Reprinted
from The Sciences, Sept./Oct. 1976 issue)
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