I notice that Food Safety News is reporting that GM crops are to be grown in Europe for the first time since Monsanto's GM maize was grown 12 years ago. We all remember what an outstanding success and public relations exercise that was.
The EU was able to push this through because the responsibility for sanctioning this crop of potatoes was moved from the Environmental directorate to the Heath and consumer affairs department, according to Food Safety News. You couldn't make it up, could you.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/big-win-for-gm-crops-in-europe/
The potatoes have been given the pretty name "amflora" but that does little to reassure me. Neither does the fact that the crop is not to be for human consumption, but to make glue. This is just as well, as comments left by readers to the Farmers Guardian indicate if it enters the food chain there will be problems. http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/arable/eu-approves-first-gm-crop-in-12-years/30663.article
The safety tests carried out on this GM crop showed significant changes in in white blood cell count and reductions in thymus and spleen weight - all of these point to disturbances in the immune system which our incompetent EFSA have dismissed as irrelevant. This crop should not be allowed in the food chain.
And what are the chances that over 20,000 years, a modest estimate of humankind's future on earth, I hope, GM crops won't crosspollinate with natural crops. I seem to remember the same relaxed attitude wasn't prevalent with the H1N1 flu virus.
There are quite a few activist groups springing up trying to get the decision looked at again. Good luck to them.
Hi David Thanks for posting.
This is seriously playing with 'fire' - cross contamination is inevitable 😮 and certainly not something we need.
Our poor bodies are already having to cope with some 50,000 new chemicals (in the last 100 or so years) and any further onslaught should be avoided at all costs - especially one that appears to be so damaging:speechless-smiley-0 Makes one wonder how much Monsanto or whoever have paid the EU commissioners to get this through! :dft005:
Makes one wonder how much Monsanto or whoever have paid the EU commissioners to get this through! :dft005:
BASF.
The essential lesson that needs to be remembered when playing with statistics, is that even a one in a billion chance will DEFINITELY occur. Maybe in half a million years, maybe tomorrow, we can't say when, but if we can say that there is any chance at all, it will definitely 100% occur sometime.
I think that gets missed.