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Re: propaganda and clutter

Duncan:   Enough.  Please remove me from the list.  After 2 enjoyable years we
seem to have been subject to a hostile takeover by self-taught genetic
engineers with an agenda.

Mark Speakman wrote:

> : 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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