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Re: The dirt on geneticly engineer seed.

Hi Connie,
Forgive me if I've already replied to you ... I'm losing track. Asd this is
Joe Toth's paper, I'll have to write and check with him and will get back
to you. Meantime a link which provides compulsive reading is a site which
is gathering information from around the world on concerns regarding the
whole genetic food question. http://home.intekom.com/tm_info/ge_news.htm
The more I read the more I think this is an issue where the true interests
of all the global partners are best served by our leaving well enough
alone. 

You may have read the Agricultural Research Service's reply to Roddy. It
seem to be reassuring that they do not envisage deliberately applying the
technology to garden seeds at present. It didn't address the question of
cross-pollination however and I've written to them for clarification and
will let you know if I get a reply on this. A second worrying aspect of
their letter was that the agent used to treat the crops is tetracycline. I
didn't know what this is, but a web search found that it's an antibiotic
used in the treatment of some forms of arthritis.

Good gardening.
Mark

----------
: From: Connie Hoy <coneh@uswest.net>
: To: seeds-list@eskimo.com
: Subject: Re: The dirt on geneticly engineer seed.
: Date: 07 August 1998 20:54
: 
: Mark,
: Thanks for sending this..I would like your permission to forward this to
another
: list please advise me of your consent.
: Connie
: 
: Mark Speakman wrote:
: 
: > Organic food supply under attack all over
: >
: > Joe Toth
: >
(nntp-xfer.ncsu.edu!gatech!news-out.communique.net!news3.epix.net!cdc2.cdc.n

: > et!neJoe Toth)
: > Fri, 21 Feb 1997 15:21:16 -0500
: >
: > •Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] •Next
message:
: > Joe Toth: "CA Organic Act does not bar use of genes tinkered seeds!"
: > •Previous message: zzyxx: "USE YOUR COMPUTER TO MAKE $$$$, FAST AND
EASY"
: >
: > At the moment organic foods are thought safe. But soon we will not
: > be so sure.
: >
: > If that safety were gone, only home-grown food or community support
farm
: > food
: > grown far enough away from genetically manipulated / genetically
: > engineered (g.e)
: > plants, or sprouts could be natural and safe,
: > given that the seeds were not g.e'd. We would also have to consider the
: > soil
: > in which they were grown.
: >
: > 1. In 1996 there were only about two seed companies that sold the
: > genetically manipulated seed. Next year Monsanto predicts that 90
: > seed companies will be established in the marketplace. These large
: > biotech-chemical companies are moving to control the entire world's
: > food supply through genetic manipulation of national and
: > international seed. Monsanto has made a deal with Empresas La
: > Moderna, a seed company with 22 percent of the world market share in
: > vegetable seeds to provide biotechnology-derived vegetable traits.
: > How will you distinguish these seeds from natural seeds? Or one
: > squash from another? (From Eileen Danneman)
: >
: > 2. The organic industry is under assault, just as the ecosystem is, by
the
: > active, on-going cross-pollination of genetically engineered plants
with
: > other
: > plants and microorganisms. Given the range of insect and wind
pollination
: > (birds, too) transgenes have been found at unforetold distances in
: > nontargeted
: > plants and crops.
: >
: > I might add that bees can bring pollen from genetically engineered
crops or
: > plants to the hive and affect the honey.
: >
: > Gene-altered organisms cannot be kept apart from their wild and
: > cultivated relatives
: >
: > Here is a sampling of studies:
: >
: > - - Scientific studies show the high frequency and wide range of gene
flow
: > between ge'd crops and normal crops, eg, potatoes.
: > (Skogsmyr l (1994) Gene dispersal from transgenic potaotes to
: > conspecifics: A field trial. Theor. Appl. Genet 88: 770-774).
: >
: > - - Much more pollen escapes from large fields of genetically
engineered
: > oilseed
: > rape (used for canola oil) than is predicted from earlier experiments
on
: > smaller plots. Escaping pollen fertilized plants up to 2.5 kilometers
away.
: >
: > (Scottish Crop Research Institute Annual Report 1994. SCRI,
: > Invergowrie,
: > Dundee, Scotland)
: >
: > - - Spillage of crop seeds in transport over the hundreds of miles
between
: > seed
: > merchant, farmer and processing factory, could be "more worrying" than
the
: > threat through pollen spread. (New Scientist 6 July, 1996)
: >
: > - - It was found with 4 ge'd plants all containing an
antibiotic-resistance
: > gene
: > (oilseed rape, black mustard, torn-apple and sweep peas) when grown
: > together
: > with a fungus (Aspeergillus niger), or their leaves were added to the
soil,
: > that the fungus incorporated the antibiotic resistance gene in all
: > co-culture
: > experiments.
: > (Hoffman T. Golz C & Schieder O (1994) Foreign DNA sequences are
: > received
: > by
: > a wild-type strain of Aspergillus niger after co-culture with
transgenic
: > higher
: > plants. Curr. Genet. 27: 70-76).
: > It is worth noting that micro-organisms can transfer genes through
several
: > mechanisms to other unrelated micro-organisms.
: >
: > Other unexpected effects
: >
: > Soil bacteria ge'd to transform plant residues like leaves into ethanol
: > survived, competed successfully with parent strains and unexpectedly
: > inhibited
: > growth or killed off grass in different soil types. It decreased
beneficial
: > fungi in all the soils tested. These soil fungi are crucial for plant
: > health
: > and growth because they help plants take up nutrition and resist common
: > diseases. In clay soils the ge'd bacterium increased as well as the
number
: > of
: > root-feeding nematodes.
: > (Holmes T M & Ingram E R (1995) The effects of genetically engineered
: > microorganisms on soil foodwebs. In "Supplement to Bulletin of
Ecological
: > Society of America 75.2)
: >
: > A bacteria ge'd for degrading an herbicide broke it down but also
degraded
: > into
: > a substance that was highly toxic to fungi and destroyed them. These
fungi
: > were crucial to soil fertility and in protecting plants against
diseases.
: > (Doyle JK, Stotzky G, McClung G & Hendricks C W (1995) Effects of
: > Genetically
: > Engineered Microorganisms on Microbial Populations and Processes in
natural
: > Habitats, Advances in Applied Microbiology, Vol. 40 (Academic Press)).
: >
: > http://www.lisco.com/edit/mothers
: > http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/cbio/geneng.html
: > http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/campaigns/ef/toxmut/flavr.html#cflower
: > http://www.demon.co.uk/solbaram/articles/clm505.html
: > http://www.natural-law.org/issues/genetics/ge_hazards.html
: > http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rone/Genetic%20Engineering.htm
: > http://www.netlink.de/gen/home.html
: > http://www.mum.edu/PRESS/genetics/ethical_stand.html
: > http://www.bio-integrity.org
: > http://www.peg.apc.org/~acfgenet
: > http://www.nemsn.org/ems/html/ tryptophan
: >
: > •Next message: Joe Toth: "CA Organic Act does not bar use of genes
tinkered
: > seeds!" •Previous message: zzyxx: "USE YOUR COMPUTER TO MAKE $$$$, FAST
AND
: > EASY"
: 
:
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