Posted on 03/04/2007 7:14:00 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
The Agriculture Department has given a preliminary green light for the first commercial production of a food crop engineered to contain human genes, reigniting fears that biomedically potent substances in high-tech plants could escape and turn up in other foods.
The plan, confirmed yesterday by the California biotechnology company leading the effort, calls for large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins in its seeds.
The proteins are to be extracted for use as an anti-diarrhea medicine and might be added to health foods such as yogurt and granola bars.
"We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster. That is the idea," said Scott E. Deeter, president and chief executive of Sacramento-based Ventria Bioscience, emphasizing that a host of protections should keep the engineered plants and their seeds from escaping into surrounding fields.
But critics are assailing the effort, saying gene-altered plants inevitably migrate out of their home plots. In this case, they said, that could result in pharmacologically active proteins showing up in the food of unsuspecting consumers.
Although the proteins are not inherently dangerous, there would be little control over the doses people might get exposed to, and some might be allergic to the proteins, said Jane Rissler of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science policy advocacy group.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
soylent green?
Alas, Soylent Green is only a footstep away. /s
It takes exactly 30 seconds to make a batch of Soylent Green, ya know.
Yeah, those 500 gallon Waring blenders are quite impressive.
You have to order them from Walmart.com, though. They don't stock them in the stores.
There's got to be a tasteful Condoleezza joke in here somewhere...
How about "Condelicious Rice"?
Hmmm. Idon't have a problem with genetically engineered crops etc.
But I don't think I like this idea at all.
I wonder how many politicians that company has paid off.
The biblical directive in general is to fill the earth and subdue it. I see this as one way of bringing plant life into subjection for our beneifit. Yet we ought always be mindful that all life has its origin and destination in a gracious God who wants us to be with Him forever, not just for the short stint we are struggling through. FWIW.
A couple of years ago, there was a discussion about the use of luciferase, (the firefly chemical), as a genetic marker.
I suggested that it should be added to the tobacco plant genome, so that farmers could grow a new kind of tobacco -- it "lights" itself.
70% of US food is GM in some manner already. How many here feel sick?
Maybe it makes you unweaned - there are substances in mother's milk that fight infection. I know there are sugars, maybe proteins as well.
Mrs VS
Are you saying diabetes, cancer, and other problems are on the way down? Hahahahaha
Yummy for my tummy!
No, but there is the old standby, about Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice.
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