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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 16661
[Health]
Date Posted:
11/25/2006
11:04:58 am EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,967
RSS: 20,923
Comments: 9
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Genetically Engineered Rice Wins USDA Approval
Author: Christopher Lee Source: Washington Post
Title: GENETICALLY ENGINEERED RICE WINS USDA APPROVAL
The Department of Agriculture declared safe for human consumption yesterday an experimental variety of genetically engineered rice found to have contaminated the U.S. rice supply this summer.
The move by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to deregulate the special long-grain rice, LL601, was seen as a legal boon to its creator, Bayer CropScience of Research Triangle Park, N.C. The company applied for approval shortly after the widespread contamination was disclosed in August and now faces a class-action lawsuit filed by hundreds of farmers in Arkansas and Missouri.
The experimental rice, designed to resist Bayer's Liberty weedkiller, escaped from Bayer's test plots after the company dropped the project in 2001. The resulting contamination, once it became public, prompted countries around the world to block rice imports from the United States, sending rice futures plummeting and farmers into fits.
In approving the rice, the USDA allowed Bayer to take a regulatory shortcut and skip many of the usual safety tests by declaring that the new variety is similar to ones already approved, in this case two varieties of biotech rice that Bayer never commercialized because farmers did not want them in their fields. The department gave its preliminary approval Sept. 8.
Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, said the quick approval shows that the USDA is more concerned about the fortunes of the biotechnology industry than about consumers' health.
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Community Thoughts: There are 9 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| The Bad Part | Nov 26th. at 4:22:19 pm EST
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Opus the Poet (Garland, Texas) - Email Me - Web
What is really bad about this is buried deep in the article: The Franke- rice also makes the rice farmer's worst weed resistant to the same herbicides the Gene modded rice was created to resist, making things worse for everyone involved in the production side.
Grrr.
Opus
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| Chuckle | Nov 26th. at 12:22:57 am EST
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genexs (Newburgh, New York) - Email Me - Web
Hmmm. Where to start...Maybe it would be a good idea to actually look-up the term "genetic engineering" to see what it means. Maybe I'll be shocked and awed that it has little to do with the selective breeding of plants and animals. Then again, maybe not.
But anyway, "The Department of Agriculture declared safe for human consumption ...an experimental variety of genetically engineered rice found to have contaminated the U.S. rice supply this summer", sounds like something out of MST3K. Great, we did an experiment, we failed, so we'll approve it anyway.
Wow! Our gov at work! Now, that's what I call 'the scientific method'!
It's great to know our tax dollars are being spent on every imaginable way to defile the Goddess.
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| Frankenfood Nothing New | Nov 25th. at 4:30:05 pm EST
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Finn (San Marcos, Texas) - Email Me
Let me start by saying that modifying food (plants or animals) is nothing new. Human beings have been altering plants for probably 8000 years. While we have gotten more sophisticated (and faster) with our genetic manipulation, we are just doing the same thing we have always done.
Consider wheat and corn. The original stock looked nothing like it does today. It was small, hardy, and nearly indigestable. It took a whole lot of work to process it. Today it is big, calorie-rich, and easily processed. We managed all that through plant eugenics. It would not have happened without our interference, because the changes wrought don't serve the plant, only us.
I'm not saying I don't share your concerns, but to pretend Joe Farmer and his techniques were in line with nature, while modern laboratories are not is deluding ourselves. As it happens, our old-school plant modification techniques have also produced several deadly plant stocks which had some bad news effects.
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| FrankenGrain | Nov 25th. at 4:15:52 pm EST
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
Well, it's happened, and the gene-strain will either survive or not. The genetic modification produces a protein, which defends against a particular herbicide, and may effect the Amino Acids, or other ingrediants, and some way of reballancing.
Sangraal has a history of restoring nutritional homeostasis, and should be popular amongst Kitcheners and Potioners. I think I'll do an Elemental Fashion, next.
Arawn, Legendary Custodian of the Holy Grail
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| (banging Head On Desk) | Nov 25th. at 12:11:33 pm EST
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Leafy (Albuquerque, New Mexico) - Email Me
Why, why, why do these companies --not to mention the US government -- do this to us? Some of the genetic modification companies call the European authorities "ignorant" for not allowing GMO foods to be imported. So what do we have to do to get safe food -- move to Europe?
I shop at natural foods markets and health
food stores, and hope it helps.
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