Yobbo you are a distraction that isn't worth the effort.

Thalidomide is a great example where unforseen consequences can spiral into absolute calamity with disastrous results.

A drug originally used as an anticonvulsant for epilepsy (proven ineffective) then implemented in a trial to develop new anti-histamines (proven ineffective) These trials proved it effective in assisting sleeping and it was finally given to pregnant women to combat nausea and morning sickness.

All that investment had finally paid off... they had a use for thalidomide! It too was marketed as a non-toxic medication that had little or no side effects. Well history certainly proved that wrong as it was found to have caused cleft palate, deafness, blindness, malformed internal organs and the severe deformity of the limbs.

Wow.... How could science and medicine get it so wrong? If you have ever met a Thalidomide victim you would realise that the precautionary approach is very important. It's got nothing to do with economics it has everything to do with safety first science.

GM is not proven to be without side effects... the scientific community are still debating.... Warning bells should be ringing in the heads of the Pro GM people... It may not be safe to unleash this stuff without better science behind it.

“d- the non-GM potato-eating rats … but they were not’
Nothing about sickness in the paper Julie - just thickness. What about the data?

Julie Newman thinks silence about GM yield and cost advantages;
demonstrated at http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/canadian-producer-experience-with.html
, existence of a 20% yield penalty in TT tolerant canola Norton-report,
and yield data discussed by Preston http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/lower-crop-vigour-can-mean-more.html
means they don’t exist!

Canadians keep on sowing more GM-canola too:
http://www.canola-council.org/ind_overview.html

"GM or transgenic canola burst on the scene in 1995 and the acreage rose rapidly. In 2004, transgenic Roundup Ready and Liberty Link varieties were grown on 75 per cent of the acres, while Clearfield varieties were on 18 per cent and conventional on seven per cent of the acres… Hybrids, which can provide growers with significant yield increases, is also increasing in acreage. New Roundup Ready, InVigor and Clearfield hybrids have been introduced and hybrids are expected to take half the acres in 2005."

News just in: GM Giant Canada now sells lots of canola to the EU
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/driven-by-demand-for-biodiesel-gm.html

"By plunging the world into the great unknown - that being the long term effects on humans and plants and animals of GM foods - science obviscates it's responsibilities."

I'm not ignoring your questions opinioned2, and I'm not a GM lobby.Julie has just kept me busy. The future challenges we face include many big real problems - demand for more food, feed, fibre, and fuel, greater prosperity, less land, erosion, eradication of poverty, commitment already of 80% of our fresh water to agriculture, urbanisation to name a few. We should deal with these tangible harms before vague unknowns -see Zambia comments at
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/unintended-adverse-consequences-of-19.html

Where do you want to start? Vitamin A and disease killing 6000 kids a day, or how capitalism in the West is so awful? The third world or the first? I prefer the third. There the worries of the Western rich are making many solutions harder, and excessive precaution is slowing down projects,and regulatory cost are creating barriers to development in the non-corporate sector. Lets discuss this:

http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/public-sector-research-too-often-left.html
http://www.biotechnology.gov.au/index.cfm?event=object.showContent&objectID=534381DE-BCD6-81AC-1776B352FE9D7207

GMO Pundit
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

Julie NonGM

The credibility issue isn’t about Fitzgerald or Kentish but your own comments. However, I heard Paula Fitzgerald speak and she didn’t say you were Greenpeace funded. Nor did you make that claim at your website at the time.

This is what was on your website dated 23 March 2004, which I downloaded 7 April 2004: “Greenpeace connection?: Many rumours have been circulating regarding our supposed links with Greenpeace and it appeared to stem from Agrifood Awareness who have been known to state this at meetings with influential farm lobby groups in an attempt to supposedly discredit our debate with farmers. After a threat of legal action, this appeared to stop but not before many took Paula Fitzgerald's word as fact rather than fiction. “

But then in early April, you had to admit to the Weekly Times that you did have links with Greenpeace, which you haven’t denied here. Your links were real, not “supposed”. Kentish didn’t say that he alone joined “a Greenpeace conference”. The Times reported that Greenpeace “chaired several teleconferences with network members” (plural). “Sometimes they do (chair), sometimes they don’t”, Kentish said.

On ABC radio on April 1 2004, Kentish said “The other alternative is to talk about the Network of Concerned Farmers as a bunch of leaders, partially supported by Greenpeace, doesn’t gel too well with most farmers.” Nic was one of your members, right?

No one is saying that everyone opposed to GM is Greenpeace in disguise, but why did you obscure the fact that you had been working with them, and they helped you set up your website? Why couldn’t George pay the webdesigner directly instead of going through the Greenpeace middle man?

Answer the questions in this and my earlier messages, Julie, don’t dodge. Prove to us that you can despise lying by your example of complete transparency.

Julie, go back and read what I said: “… in 17 countries, representing more than half of the world’s population.” The countries represent half the people, not half of farmers. Misreading things and endlessly repeating your own misquotes doesn’t make you right

Dear Mahogany,

You need to read the court decision on Percy instead of listening to anti-GM propaganda. He both used Roundup and was clearly deliberately selecting for Roundup Ready canola, with intent. Examples below.

http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fct/2001/2001fct256.html

BETWEEN: MONSANTO COMPANY and PERCY SCHMEISER

A few key paragraphs from the trial judge’s decision

[39] . Using his sprayer, he sprayed, with Roundup herbicide, a section of that field in a strip along the road. He made two passes with his sprayer set to spray 40 feet, the first weaving between and around the power poles, and the second beyond but adjacent to the first pass in the field, and parallel to the power poles. This was said by him to be some three to four acres in all, or "a good three acres". After some days, approximately 60% of the plants earlier sprayed had persisted and continued to grow. Mr. Schmeiser testified that these plants grew in clumps which were thickest near the road and began to thin as one moved farther into the field.

[40] Despite this result Mr. Schmeiser continued to work field 2, and, at harvest, Carlysle Moritz, on instruction from Mr. Schmeiser, swathed and combined field 2. He included swaths from the surviving canola seed along the roadside in the first load of seed in the combine which he emptied into an old Ford truck located in the field. That truck was covered with a tarp and later it was towed to one of Mr. Schmeiser's outbuildings at Bruno. In the spring of 1998 the seed from the old Ford truck was taken by Mr. Schmeiser in another truck to the Humboldt Flour Mill ("HFM") for treatment…. and then used for planting his 1998 canola crop.

That no one can prove how Percy got the seed only shows that he was trying to cover his tracks. An innocent would not have sprayed for resistance and then saved and used those seed.

The first GM food was a GM tomato paste that was labeled as such and sold out completely in the UK, before Greenpeace started its scare campaign

“Monsanto has an end point royalty where a positive test (? as low as 0.5%) can trigger a 100% deduction of "user fees" “. Yet another furphy propogated by NonGMFarmer? Monsanto could not claim an end point royalty for that level of positive test. To claim an end point royalty, they would have to demonstrate that you planted a crop of their seeds.

“Canadians have … the highest carryover stock ever”. Yet another furphy from NonGMFarmer? A quick visit to Canadian crop statistics shows that the forecast carryover stocks for 2004/2005 are lower than for 1999/2000 (http://www.canola-council.org/oilsupplydemand.html and skip down to seed stocks). The reason is an additional 1 million tons of production.

“It is proposed (GTGC coexistence plans) that if GM crops are approved, even non-GM farmers lose our right to plant our own seed every year.” I read the GTGC coexistence plans and I think this a fair stretch of their policy. The GTGC in their stewardship principles suggest the use of certified or quality assured seed for better results. They do acknowledge that farmer-saved seed will be used and suggest for best results that only one generation of farmer saved seed be used. They also provide a long list of actions a farmer can take to minimize any negative impact of using farmer-saved seed. (http://www.avcare.org.au/files/biotechnology/gtgc/Canola%20Industry%20Stewardship%20Principles.pdf). In any case, it is recommended in Australia that canola seed not be saved for too long as it loses viability and quality (see http://www.regional.org.au/au/gcirc/3/152.htm).

Mahogany says that Percy Schmeiser was a seed saver all his life. This is merely another part of the Schmeiser myth. If you read the court transcript is says in Para 29 that he bought new seed in 1993 (http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fct/2001/2001fct256.html). Scmeiser also claims to have been breeding canola for 50 years. Impossible as canola was developed by Canadian Government Scientists in 1974.

Non-GM Farmer, I must be missing something here. If GM food is not cheaper to produce, and nobody wants to buy it anyway, then why on earth would anybody want to grow it? Either they know something you don't or you're lying about one thing or another.

"While "Yobbo" might think he should have the right to decide for all of us, I'm relieved that decisions of this magnitude involving risk to consumers and livelihoods are taken seriously by state politicians."

That's rich. The default state would be to allow people to grow whatever crops they wish. You are the one who wants to decide for everyone what crops they can and cannot grow.

Just because I support unbanning GM in Australia doesn't mean I think people should be forced to grow it. They are still free to grow non-GM crops if they want, and I am sure that majority still would. If it's more expensive and no better at anything as you say, then nobody will bother growing it and the law against it is only preventing something that nobody will ever do anyway.

Opinionated, I hate to burst your psychadelic bubble, but we're not talking about any new and unproven science here, we're talking about allowing GM produce that has already been tested, grown and eaten all around the world but is still banned in Australia primarily because of every state Labor government's dependence on the (anti-capitalist) Greens for preferences. It has absolutely nothing to do with danger to anyone, The Greens simply hate Monsanto (and all other corporations for that matter) and don't wish them to expand their operation in Australia