Check out this video on Diet, Greenpeace, GM Crops and other environmental issues from the Penn & Teller perspective.
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RE: Penn & Teller on Environmental issues
Hi Toastie, thanks for sharing 🙂
I watched it earlier, those fellas are entertaining and informative, eh?
Oddly enough, I just came across this article which contradicts the shows' claim that no animal DNA is used in GM food:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440302&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5
In fact, it's human genes that are being used in rice. Here's an excerpt:
The development is what may people feared when, ten years ago, food scientists showed what was possible by inserting copies of fish genes from the flounder into tomatoes, to help them withstand frost. Ventria has produced three varieties of the rice, each with a different human-origin gene that makes the plants produce one of three human proteins. Two - lactoferrin and lysozyme - are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. The genes, cultivated and copied in a laboratory to produce a synthetic version, are carried into embryonic rice plants inside bacteria.
RE: Penn & Teller on Environmental issues
The Penn & Teller episode was made some time ago. At the time animal genetic experimentation with food crops was limited to the lab.
The only genuine concern brought up in the daily mail article is the possible allergic reaction some people might have to the protein. This would be true if the proteins were non-human. Because our immune systems already recognise human protein that is in us inherently, it will not be reacting as if a foreign body is entering our system (this is what an allergic reaction is: the immune system wrongly identifying something as a pathogen and attacking it, only unable to destroy it).
All the quotes talk of fears for potential problems that no evidence has been submitted to verify these claims. The USDA on the other hand say there is "virtually no risk", making no guarantees solely on the fact we live in a society of blame and litigation.
At the end of the day there are 2 sides.
The first side has fears of the unknown, fears that are irrational without substantial evidence to back up the dangers that are mere speculation and have no basis on fact.
The second side has substantial evidence that everyone can see through words, pictures and video. The evidence is starvation and poverty in the third world. We live in a world where there are families that are barely more then walking skeletons, and for us who have plenty to deny them the right not to starve to death, the basic right of enough food to live, based on unfounded fears and no evidence to proove any harm from GM crops, verges on genocide.
RE: Penn & Teller on Environmental issues
I hope it does have a positive impact on starvation and hunger abroad. You're right, we barely have enough perspective from our over-filled bellies.
I wonder what will happen when the foods hit our shelves. There was mention in the article of marketing the foods by promoting that they would soothe a childs upset tummy. Might also aid in the recovery of chemotherapy patients and the like, helping them get in food and keep it down.
RE: Penn & Teller on Environmental issues
There has always been fear of medical advancement when animals are brought into the equation. I studied the history of medicine for a year at school and I remember learning that when Jenner discovered if people caught cow pox (a weak straing of the pox) and naturally overcame it, their immune system would then be resistant to smallpox, and thus Vaccination was born (Vaccination coming from the latin Vacca "cow" and Vaccinus "from cows").
But at the time there was propaganda in the newspapers, with even cartoons alleging people might turn into some kind of half-cow, half-human mutant. Today we know this is ridiculous, but the fear of the unknown with GM crops is exactly the same as the fear of the unknown with vaccination at the beginning of the 1800's.