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Re: Glickman and Biotech



In article <aquilla.1198741853T@news.erols.com> on  Mon, 18 Nov 96 
21:56:53 GMT aquilla@erols.com (Tracy Aquilla) wrote in response to:

Is RR Soy part vegetable, part bacterium?...

> A multicellular species can't realistically be defined on the basis > 
of a single gene.

I was not saying that it should be - but we have soy, a natural 
organism, bacterium, a natural organism and RR Soy, a manmade mixture, 
transgenic by definition, of the two. My simple questions are 

A) Why is that not considered a new, man-made species?
B) Why is it not tested on people and animals?

>Remember also that we have many, many genes in common with
> bacteria, for example most of those involved in basic metabolism
> (glycolysis, etc.). Humans are even "part bacterium" in a very real 
> sense (mitochondrial genome).

Yes, but that merging of DNA etc occurred many moons ago when life was 
considerably less developed, presumably when organisms were 
predominately single celled? Is science able to say and with what level 
of confidence that this merging was any more than nature coming up with 
similar solutions for similar problems?

In short, I fail to see the relevance of this argument to the 
consideration of the safety of RR Soy.

> If you don't know a lot about the subject and don't trust the 
> scientists,

Oh, but I do trust scientists. The problem is that there seems to be 
little or no peer reviewed or refereed science specifically on RR Soy.

Also, Monsanto and others do not refer to science as a justification 
for the RR Soy roll-out. They refer us to regulators. 

Is Monsanto science to be trusted? in all their public pronouncements 
in Europe they adamantly maintain that there is no way to distinguish a 
RR Soy bean from a non RR bean. Patent untruth.

> Most of our DNA coding sequences are shared with other forms of life, 
> including plants, animals, and bacteria. We share common structural 
> elements (C,H,O,N,etc.), macromolecules like proteins and DNA, and 
> even specific gene sequences. That 'the whole world is 
> interconnected' thing is more than skin deep! 

Which is precisely why I and so many others are terrified at the 
prospect of digging into and modifying those sequences. 

> Of course asking people to 'fully explain nature' is just being 
> silly. 

I did not ask for a full explanation of nature - just the consequences 
of people consuming RR Soy - failing that, some experiments will do.

(This is a throwaway - 

     > Nobody knows everything there is to know.

isn't this statement a paradox of some sort? Does it not disprove 
itself? :-))

> Of course not, but who has claimed to be "capable of predicting the 
> full range of effects of transgenic creations"?

Monsanto. They say that RR Soy is absolutely SAFE.

> It is not possible to rule out every possibility, but it is 
> possible to make a reasonable assessment of the risks involved. 

Numbers? Variety of <learned> opinion in the independent scientific 
community?

> Exactly what potential "effects of transgenic creations" concern you? 

More or less the same thing as worries me about ionising radiation - 
undesirable mutations, invisible causes.

> What basis is there for concern?

A lot of sloppy thinking and commercial pressures.

William |WRC Solutions: Computer Consultants|Tel (+44)(0)1695  50470
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