Agro: You are using the "Delphi" principle on me?
Let me explain myself on the bias thing. Research has been known to be paid for by Companies who have vested interest in the product,whether it is inside research or by a so called unbiased outside lab. Now the reports will be written up in both cases by researchers/Labs.If a company decides the results don't look favourable to present to the authorities(TGA/FDA etc) for approval they will pay the researcher to rewrite it or they change the results themselves with the name of the researcher still in place. You see that you or I don't come in to this? (unless you are on the payroll yourself) You basically don't agree with common sence displayed in above remarks, so I won't even go into any depth with you unless you can display some decent arguments why YOU are for GM and show us proof and research that GM is the way to go for Australia or the world for that matter.

All research is funded by groups who have a vested interest of some sort in the outcome, including Government-funded research. If that is your only criteria for bias, then all research is biased. The true test for research is the scientific method. This creates an hypothesis based on all observed observations, the hypothesis is tested and if found wanting, a new hypothesis is created including the new findings and tested. Once scientific results are published they are then repeated by others. It is only once they have been repeated, that research is accepted. Faulty research is usually quickly discovered.

Perhaps you should investigate these issues: What is the penalty for a company providing falsified health information to a regulator? What would be the benefit to a company to falsify health research in order to get an unsafe product on the market when the product will later be discovered as unsafe? Why do you think researchers would not complain if their research was doctored by a company?

I am not pro-GM, just anti-anti-GM. GM is just another breeding technique. It has its own benefits and problems, just like all other breeding techniques. To me being anti-GM is just plain silly. It is like being anti-fork. You can choose not to use a fork if you wish, but to claim forks are the root of all evil because they are manufactured by cutlery companies is ludicrous.

I see some GM tools as exceptionally valuable. Bt cotton for example has revolutionized Chinese cotton growing, greatly reducing pesticide use and saving the lives of about 400 Chinese cotton farmers a year. Bt cotton has also greatly changed the Australian cotton industry, reducing pesticide use and decreasing the amount of fossil fuels burned to treat cotton crops for insecticides. Roundup Ready soybeans in the Americas has precipitated the adoption of no-till agriculture, saving millions of tons of topsoil from erosion and improving the health of waterways and estuaries.

Here is a great result for/from China:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July06/Bt.cotton.China.ssl.html
Here is a great result from India:
http://www.genecampaign.org/home/GmWindow/GM-window.htm
http://www.genecampaign.org/Publication/Article/BT%20Cotton/A-disaster-called-btcotton.htm

What possibly could be wrong with the bees where they grow bt-anything?
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070728/bob9.asp
What happens when pollen from a GM'd crop (like bt-cotton)is selfproducing insecticide, would it not blow on to a different crop like Bee-visiting canola and being picked up by bees anyhow?

GM spells disaster for nature and the food chain, the longer we'll wait for more timetested results from daring overseas countries the better for Australia to stay pure.

LOL eftfnc, do you even read the links you post?

They are good links, for sure.
For example, the Chinese link is concerned with the effects of secondary pests taking over as a result of GM cotton being successful and the pesticide use decreasing. It has such quotes as:' "These results should send a very strong signal to researchers and governments that they need to come up with remedial actions for the Bt-cotton farmers. Otherwise, these farmers will stop using Bt cotton, and that would be very unfortunate," said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, the H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell, and the 2001 Food Prize laureate. Bt cotton, he said, can help reduce poverty and undernourishment problems in developing countries if properly used.'

The Indian link is more concerned with regulation than the GM technology itself. Quote:" What will it take to get a policy on GM crops in this country that work for the farmers, not against them? If Bt cotton is a technology that could benefit our farmers, it should be developed for Indian conditions, farmers must be adequately trained in the use of this complex and alien technology and provisions for compensation in the event of crop failure must be rigorously enforced."

And as for the Bee link, they don't think that GM has much of a role to play at all! In fact, most of the evidence seems to point towards an infective agent, since CCD is occurring in non-GM areas and parts of Europe as well as the US.

Read the articles you post, please.

If you think of agriculture in Australia as 'pure', then you seem to be under some very unfortunate misapprehensions.

Bugsy, I do read before I post,thank you!

I just try to prove that there are certainly two sides to this coin,it is as I see it the natural side versus the unnatural side. "Progress" as has too long been a favoured expression of the few and should be closely looked at if it is really the progress we need on this earth as you can appreciate the disasters which have been covered up for so long. Quess what...it is our kids who will pay the price for our irresponsible behaviour,as we pay the price for our forefathers' behaviour. Here again it is follow the money i.e. means not our health and that of all living things!

For those people who believe that GM is the Bees-Knees (no pun intended but highly appropiate) of science, should try to manipulate their own genes first to prove it is safe for all, like the doktors being offered $75000 to take their own mercury laden injections, NO takers so far! Why is that? mmmmmm..let me guess!