Cuphandle,

Before criticising Bugsy, it would at least be polite to read what he wrote otherwise what you say is disconnected and incoherent.

Most of us "supporters of GM" are not share holders of Monsanto, rather shareholders in humanity who are tired of the superstitious like circular arguments of the opponents of GM.

The tiniest smidgin of doubt is in the minds of those opponents and is not shared by the CSIRO or other credible organisations.

Your example of force grown tomatos has nothing to do with GM. Please argue with reason and logic than emotional blackmail.

Thanks Democritus, but emotion is everything in this argument. If one argues for GM foods, then obviously they don't have children or care about people. Even if the opposite is true, that will not be believed.

It comes back to "they" and "them" doesn't it Cuphandle? Well, when "they" looked for WMDs and found none, you accepted that, am I right? (I didn't think they would find any either).
Well, "they" (different they probably in this case) have been looking for health hazards associated with GM for quite a while now (much longer than the WMD search) and found nothing. At some point you will have to accept there is nothing to find. Your obvious bias is showing, in fact it is so obviously based on something other than reality, that I would have to suspect that you own shares in an organic food company. I can have reason to suspect this, because many anti-GM websites are actually run by such organic producers. It's a great marketing tool and a great way of getting people to pay more for substandard produce than anyone needs to pay.

I have never considered owning shares in Monsanto, it's too risky for me. They nearly went broke researching GM technology, not at least in part by anti-corporate activists that enabled blanket bans on their products in many parts of the world.

However, the simple sad fact is, at the moment oil is driving agriculture. This is not just about turning a buck, this is about making our farming systems more efficient, reducing the amount of pesticides and chemicals in our food chain, reducing the amount of fuel and resources needed to grow them, and reducing the economic risks of farmers.

It's a sad reality, but organic farming is not going to feed the world.

Feeding the world is more a matter of supply than of distribution and I doubt that increasing supply is the true motive behind GM. It's profit.

I think equating the risk of introducing mutant organisms into the environment as the same as crossing the road or eating an oyster is a little off the mark. It's potentially more devastating than cane toads and would be more difficult to remove.

Many scientists suspect that changing a single gene does not necessarily change a single characteristic as some past experiences with modified bacteria have shown.

As for Rache's last link, look at the author of that report - hardly what you would call a disinterested party.

By all means keep quoting statistics and leave judgement out of it.

Democritus, please give me an example of inter-species genetic transference. I've yet to see fish mating successfully with tomatoes.

Wobbles, in human health terms, GM is far LESS dangerous than crossing the road or eating oysters.

Interesting that you mention cane toads here, what exactly are the impacts of cane toads on native populations? I am having trouble finding any studies that show how large an impact they actually have on biodiversity etc. If can find one (an actual study, not another article), can you please send me the link?

Of course the parallels are there, but not in the way you think, cane toads had not been studied anywhere near as much as GM or were even shown to control the target insects they were released to control. That was just assumed.

The thing is a lot of assumptions continue to be made, you hear and read a lot about some supposed huge impact on wildlife, well if it's so huge why can't anyone see it? Too much rhetoric and assumptions, no supporting data.

Some of your other comments are confusing also, is supply more important than distribution? Many other anti-GM people argue the opposite.

And raches last link was supplied by her, do you think that it supports her (and your) argument or not? How is the author not a disinterested party? That comment was confusing.

The motivation of scientists working on GM crops is not profit, they really believe in what they are doing. No one is working for the destruction of the planet or the enslavement of farmers, that's just silly rhetoric.

Wobbles,

Please read
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19526125.000-snake-dna-found-inside-a-gerbil.html

I doubt the snake mated with the gerbil.

Viruses mutate and cause mutations all the time. One example of many is the human papiloma virus, for which a vaccine has just been developed for girls, causes cancer in thousands of people in Aus every year by altering the DNA of the host.

Most DNA changes are not beneficial, but every now and again the change improves the host and this is passed on.

Hybridisation of crops is done by cross breeding species, and by using radiation on the seeds to nudge the process on. These non GM hybrids that the "organic" farmers grow are so far from "natural" it is like comparing a Maltese poodle to the wolf of its ancestors.

GM food is so closely monitored, that it is almost certainly safer than non GM food. The opposition to it is based on emotion not fact.

The minister for agriculture as interviewed on ABC clearly did not want to approve the GM cannola, but faced with the CSIRO report could not do anything else.

Bugsy and Democritus:
My example was EXACTLY the situation with the "force grown" Bundaberg (and no doubt Bowen) commercial Tomatoes.

These Tomatoes are grown from GM seed stocks to enable rapid growth (at the expense of taste and quality) and require the usual "growth promotant" booster supplied through the watering system.

If you try to propogate any of the seeds from the produced fruits (if that is what you can call the pathetic results), you will be grossly dissapointed in your ensuing failure!

For the interest of all concerned with this THREAD!:......I have just carried out an analysis of the subscribers to the thread ( created by AIME) and as at 5.45am on the 2nd DEC there have been approximately 35 posts!
The results as follows: IN support of AIME there have been 17 posts!
Against AIME, there have been 18 posts, however 8 of those have been generously supplied by BUGSY!
Strikes me that we have what appear to be a couple of frustrated would-be Board Director types in our midst!