Rebel, as a farmer I object to our compulsory GRDC levies being used to promote GM including pro-GM awards and tours that have no balance, no mention of resolving the serious issues associated with GM crops with the sole aim to promote the adoption of GM despite the major risk to non-GM farmers. I also object to GRDC funding $100,000/yr to Agrifood Awareness (mainly funded by the GM industry) to promote GM.

Compulsory levies from farmers should not be regarded as a money pool for anyone with a vested interest to dip into to promote something that will cause economic loss to farmers.
I am well aware GRDC receives Federal funding (as it is capped, it is considerably less than the farmer funding proportion) and the Federal government has agreed to "provide a pathway to market for GM".
However, the Ministerial direction for GRDC research priorities included a requirement for GRDC to carry out research and development that achieves "an increase in trade and market access", "a whole-of-industry approach to production, processing and marketing to ensure the chain works to its best advantage", "development of biotechnology, with sensitive handling to accommodate consumer concerns", "maintenance and enhancement of our clean, green image" and "addressing food safety concerns of consumers".

Well excuse me for stating the bleeding obvious but that is not achieved by blindly promoting commercial release with no risk management which will decrease market access, ignores industry coexistance problems, is not sensitive to accomodate consumer concerns, destroys our clean green image and does not address food safety concerns of consumers.
GRDC's mission is "to invest in research and development for the greatest benefit to its stakeholders - graingrowers and the Commonwealth". Graingrowers are not the beneficiaries of GM crops.

d-David Tribe, when human liver was mentioned, I think isitreallysafe was referring to the Japanese rice with the human liver gene insert (via GM) which was designed to give multiple chemical resistance. As he/she rightly mentioned, there is no way that you could ever get a natural cross kingdom breeding between a human and a rice plant.

With everything that you have send me d, I have gone through so far the web addresses of scientific reports that I as a non-scientist could understand and I have found flaws in them. Now you bombard me with a whole different variety of scientific gobbledeegoog that is very indirectly related to what my concerns are and the misinformation from you I have learned is making me even more skeptical and determined that something is wrong in the GM health debate. You are throwing me a whole heap of reports. Don’t lead me down a path that I am not interested in. Cross kingdom breeding is not natural. Admit it.

What is your problem with doing independent health tests if there is nothing to hide? You appear to be hiding behind your mountains of scientific gobbledeegoog. I have known many people with degrees that don’t have any common sense. Are you one of these?

Are you saying that the levy to GDC is compulsory GM-farmer? How ridiculous and they spend it on giving an awards and trips to pro-GM activist. Non-GM farmer has serious well founded concerns. How much money is spent on managing and addressing these concerns? Are they just saying to bring it in and ignore these concerns of the farmer? Good grief, I’m glad I’m not a farmer!

"Cross kingdom breeding is not natural. Admit it."
Since the point of these scientific reports and others is that trans-kingdom gene movement definitely does occur in nature and has been documented, it would be unethical for me to agree.You challenged me to produce evidence, and then refuse to discuss it when I do!

Clearly horizontal gene movement is not frequent-per-generation-per-organism, but on the other hand there are huge natural populations in which it occurs and it's occurrence in documented by the many reports that you don't want to read and many more. As for mechanisms-one report I cited shows one caught in the act - a gene moving on an insect virus.

Quite bizarrely, the concerns you raise about possible gene movement causing harm are based on assuming the actual low frequency occurrence, plant to human, of the events that you ask me to admit as being "not natural". And I do agree they are possible as I've (just ) re-read the papers by Doerfler eg AnnNYAcadSci 945(1)276 documenting them.

DIRECT_QUOTE"...the food-consuming public can be reassured by the realization that all kinds of foreign genes in almost limitless combinations have been part of the food chain throughout the evolution of the species Homo sapiens and other species as well. For millennia, these genes and their breakdown products with high recombinatorial capacities have been constant partners in our gastrointestinal inner milieu and that of other species."

I assume since you choose not to answer my question about Mules you accept that the risks you are worrying about are part of the natural very low background of DNA risks we already face in food, and have faced for millions of years.

As far as human genes being placed in food, I contend that the reasons why this is obnoxious to many people are cultural and not objective evidence of hazard. For a long time I have refused to buy X brand of Aussie pies because they have cow serum in them - I have a cultural aversion to blood products. The objections you have are probably similar in nature

NonGMFarmer

We have been through this before. There are two advantages to GM canola in Canada. The first is through being able to use post-emergent rather than pre-emergent herbicides for weed control. This allows earlier planting of the crop and hence higher yields. The second advantage is for those growers who use InVigor canola. This canola has a GM hybrid system that works better than the chloroplastic male sterility used in non-GM canola. The InVigor hybrids consistently have the highest yields of all varieties in the Prairie Canola Variety Trials. Clearfield canola acreage is going down in Canada. In part this is because of the lack of hybrids with this trait. So it is not all about weed control.

I might add that the Atrazine-resistant canola that you grow used to be known as yield-resistant canola in Canada because of its poor performance compared to conventional varieties. It was dropped immediately Pursuit Smart canola was introduced.

Certainly, the growing season is short for canola in Canada. Sowing takes place in May and harvest by October. However, as the days during the growing season are very long, I am not sure how much difference that makes. Your comment about no weeds is certianly wrong. GM canola is consistently put in the weediest fields to clean them up. There are weeds that overwinter under the snow, but more importantly weeds that germinate immediately the snow melts and compete with the canola. Wild radish is also an important weed of canola in Eastern Canada. GM canola manages wild radish just fine.

IsITsafe:
If you want to claim that my evidence is misleading you should say more clearly which evidence and argument you are referring to.

I can only deduce that the reason you assume (wrongly) that I have provided misleading evidence is this: you don't understand it.

You seem not realise that the DNA sequence of the mobile DNA is a FLAG that tells us where it has moved previously in nature between different species. By giving long lists of different species where the FLAG is found I show where the genes have moved to-and-fro at some stage in evolution. You seem to have ignored the long list, including trans-kingdom movements, that I have supplied. I make these arguments to provide context as to whether natural mutator DNAs in our diet presents a tangible hazard.

Your comments about fruit fly laboratory experiments are irrelevant to my point about natural gene movement. I am surprised you are making them because they do not refute gene movement in nature and I don't use them as such either.

I'm also pleased that the topic of "practicality " was raised because all the comments I have made about mobile genes relate to a practical issue - is DNA in the gut dangerous to humans. The practical interpretation I have is very similar to that of Doerfler that I quoted "that all kinds of foreign genes in almost limitless combinations have been part of the food chain throughout the evolution of the species Homo sapiens and other species as well. For millennia, these genes and their breakdown products with high [DNA shuffling] capacities have been constant partners in our gastrointestinal inner milieu and that of other species". I.e. we have always been exposed to this.

My numerous paper quotations merely document that the DNA shuffling capabilities of genes such as Mules are potentially active in human cells as they work in numerous species and have transferred repeatedly in nature. All of this argument is to support Doerfler and my practical judgement that the risks you talk about are commonplace already, and are tiny hazards

You want an example of misleading information. I gave you an answer to your research papers on the fruit fly saying that it was not natural as the fruit fly was injected and now you say “it is irrevelant to my point”. It was not evidence of a natural transgene as you claim as the fruit fly was injected.

Now we have the transgene contamination across kingdoms discussed,
Tell me how you will stop mutations and damage of the host DNA from forcing genes into the existing DNA structure. From this transfer, will it damage, delete or mutate the existing DNA remembering that Downes Sydrome is only caused by one bent gene in a human DNA so it is significant.

I don’t discuss the experiments that you allocate your breath to anymore because when I check them and ask about the flaws in the experiments there are no answers. So far no experiment that you have given has had any tests on humans or pigs. They have been done on ducks, rats, mice, flys and even bees. As I have said before I am not closely related to any of these and I as a consumer, demand to know with the diverse range of food we eat of these potential GM crops that you are trying to force onto us, how will it affect my health? So far the evidence that you have sent trying to persuade me to eat your product has flaws. I want independent scientific reports as mentioned before by me, so no part of the experiments that are performed are hidden.

You call me obnoxious but in reality I am a consumer questioning your research and you don’t like that at all. I am questioning if GM is a biohazard and you just want me to “shut up and eat”. You are the obnoxious righteous scientist that I don’t trust because you have not given unequivocal proof that GM is not a biohazard.