Rebel, you might find this press release issued by Greenpeace last October illuminating. It can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org.au/media/ge_canola_details.php?site_id=55&news_id=1812 and also at http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2474. The latter is Julie Newman's website.

To quote:

“First Australian farmer falls prey to GE contamination

Thursday, 06 October, 2005 : The first confirmed case of genetically engineered (GE) contamination in a field of commercial canola has struck a Victorian farmer. The incident opens up a legal mine-field for farmers and threatens Australian export markets.

Geoffrey Carracher, a Canola farmer from Wimmera, accepted a Greenpeace offer to test his canola seeds at an independent lab. The seeds were found to be contaminated with Bayer's Liberty Link gene at a level of 0.5%."

It did not cost anything for Carracher to get his crop tested. Greenpeace did it for him.

As I have said before, I am not a farmer and don’t know the technical things that you are trying to impress on me with your yield estimates so I am leaving that to non-GM farmer to go through with you later. What you say that has happened for years as mutagenisis that you say has been done with radiation or chemicals. This has happened with natural mutation and speeding up the process within the same plant kingdom. But GM is cross-kingdom interruption of the DNA by forcing a gene through bacteria bombardment that could disrupt the DNA sequence. This is very unstable and should be pointed out.

By cross-kingdom changes in the DNA, it produces allergens that were not allergens in the same kingdom. Look at the bean and pea example as according to GM Corporations, it was meant to be safe, but it produced allergens that were not in either the bean or pea. It created completely different allergens and had to be recalled. We did not need to demand human testing on the same plant kingdom but we should be demanding human testing if the DNA structure is being changed from cross-kingdom bombardment with a risk of transference to human DNA. GM is forcing and interrupting the DNA sequence with unstable foreign genes into the DNA structure itself in the hope that it would stick somewhere along the DNA strand. This has the potential to be very much a biohazard with unstable cross-kingdom bacterial genes crossing over to the human kingdom DNA

Julie NonGMFarmer Newman:

Here are more questions that have gone unanswered.

Other than Starlink, how many cases, and for how much money, have there been any documented claims of losses to GM “contamination” from farmers anywhere in the world?

Other than for Starlink (where the pay-outs exceeded US $110 million), how many cases have there been of farmers suing any one else?

In 2004’s ” Co-existence in North American agriculture, Brookes & Barfoot argue there have been no significant economic or commercial problems (www.pgeconomics.co.uk) at least in part because farmers talk things out ahead of time, despite more organic farms and relatively smaller farms than we have in Australia. Can’t we do the same?

Do you accept that Spain, Portugal, France and Germany now grow GM corn, and feed large quantities of GM corn and soy to their livestock? That Japan imports large quantities of GM from Canada and the US?

What if GM varieties become so popular that 90% of the canola crop is GM. Would you still require that all burdens for containment are on the GM growers instead of cooperatively? If so, doesn’t that constitute tyranny by the minority?

I understand that you won’t use a herbicide if it doesn’t work, but you have not directly answered my question “Will you keep using TT canola if atrazine resistance is found in annual ryegrass on your property?” Perhaps I need to spell this out more specifically; isn’t annual ryegrass only one of the weeds you deal with? If resistance developed only in ryegrass, would you keep using atrazine (and simizine, since they are related) for other weeds?

Where is this significant premium and demand for non-GM soy, and what is your source of information for that, especially for oil?

Who and where are there paying customers wanting guarantees that there is no GM canola present? Do you or any other members of NCF sell to such customers now? After 9 years of GM canola production in Canada, how big are these markets for Australia in terms of dollar value or a percentage of the Australian crop?

Is it really Safe 's worries also apply to non-GM food: see eg
http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2006/news06.jan.htm#jan0603

"Cellini et al.2 have considered transgene integration in the context of naturally occurring DNA recombination. It is well known that genetic variation is the cornerstone of plant breeding. Natural chromosomal recombination plays a central role in generating new variation. Non-homologous end joining, which is the predominant form of recombination in plants, rarely occurs without any sequence alterations, and usually gives rise to deletions of up to more than 1 kb and introduction of new filler DNA. Since the double-strand break repair system involved in recombination is more error-prone in plants than in other organisms, errors that change the original sequence occur at a very high frequency. The fact that gene-rich regions (and genes) are hotspots for recombination has facilitated the emergence of novel characteristics in crop plants.

Integration of exogenous DNA (transgene) occurs via the same mechanism as natural recombination. Several types of rearrangements are thus observed, both in transgene integration sites and in natural recombination sites. While this mechanism provides a selection of natural variation for breeders, it is also a source of unintended effects similar to that in genetically engineered crop plants.

In the light of variation generated by natural recombination and by the repertoire of conventional breeding technologies exploited for decades, the question is how much variation in the overall genetic makeup of a crop plant might be generated by the transfer and integration of a single gene, compared to the variation already existing...

...we made a comparative analysis of eight GM lines of potato, including vector-only lines without the target gene.3 Nine of 730 proteins showed statistically significant differences among the GM lines and controls. No new proteins that would be unique to the individual GM lines were observed. The conclusion from this study, supported by the EU-funded GMOCARE project, was that there was no evidence for any major changes in protein patterns of the GM lines tested."

Should we therefore stop all crop breeding, even though stopping it will cause long term harm to food security?

http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/01/repair-of-damaged-dna-eg-radiation.html

Is it really safe?, there are numerous examples of natural DNA changes in plant chromosomes. They arise frequently in plants repair of broken DNA strands, such as the DNA strand breaks formed during exposure of plants to radiation.(see link above)

This constantly occuring natural genetic diversity poses numerous hypothetical risks in the form unexpected, untested, novel DNA configurations. Extensively altered diverse chromosomesare found if you look for them in natural populations of plants, e.g. in maize varieties found world wide. These risks are all generated during natural evolution.

The question I have for "Is it Really Safe" is which would do more harm:

1. Continuing to take these "risks"?
2. Stopping all introduction of genetic novelty into the food supply until it is proved to be safe?

NonGMFarmerNewman:

On 23 December you stated “I have no problem with glyphosate, the article concerned clearly explains that any chemical has risk, it is a defence of atrazine which is a target by pro-GM activists.”

Atrazine is a target of many environmentalists, including those of us who were won over by GM crops on their environmental benefits.

Here are other questions not yet answered.

In government, most research proposals are funded in a competitive process of some kind, not due to lobbying. Isn’t that a good practice?

Do you believe that all sources on the web or elsewhere are equally expert, whatever their qualifications?

Why would CSIRO bother to submit data to government for the pea project, when the proposal to release would be so obviously be rejected? Isn’t self-assessment by researchers acceptable?

FSANZ has commented on this, by the way at http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/mediareleasespublications/factsheets/factsheets2005/geneticallymodifiedf3097.cfm

“FSANZ has not conducted any safety assessment of the peas since
they are still in research and development, nor has any data been
submitted to FSANZ for assessment. However, CSIRO approached FSANZ
several years ago to obtain advice on the type of data they would need
to support an application to FSANZ to approve the peas for human
consumption. FSANZ gave advice to conduct studies to, amongst other
things, fully characterise the novel protein and in particular to
determine its potential for toxicity and allergenicity in line with
internationally accepted guidelines……

“While the significance of the research results for
human allergenicity is not clear, the CSIRO has decided to end the
research program. This type of situation is not unique to the
development of GMOs - the development of conventionally bred, non-GM
plants have also been terminated when unexpected or adverse effects have
been detected.”


No one can find any difference at all between canola oils from conventional and GM crops. There is no DNA or protein left. What would you look for in a feeding trial?

As I noted on 21 December, “you still have not offered evidence for your claims against Fitzgerald” that she claimed you were funded by Greenpeace. Can you show us evidence?