Potatoes, politics and antibiotics
Good article today in the International Herald Tribune about a genetically engineered potato designed to, "yield large quantities of starch suitable for making glossy paper products and for feeding animals". That is important stuff, of course. We don't want animals going hungry, and I'm sure we all know the importance of glossy paper products.
But some scientists are worried that the gene-altered potatoes pose a risk to humans...
It also has aroused concerns that sick people and the elderly could become more vulnerable to disease because there are fears that the potato could trigger resistance to certain antibiotics in humans."The biotechnology industry threatens to set an extremely worrying example if it wins approval for this potato," said Patrice Courvalin, the head of the Antibacterial Agents Unit at the medical research center Institut Pasteur in Paris. "We should keep trying to prevent dissemination of antibiotic resistance rather than to allow products into the food chain that could potentially make a bad situation even worse."
Why should we be concerned about antibiotic resistant genes in potatoes? Troublemakers at the Union of Concerned Scientists explain.
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Comments
Hi Andrew...,
It's your grateful organic gardener here with his head now swimming with the understanding that our technology has gone far beyond our ability to understand it's impact. A great and comprehensive read and insight into the workings of our world, ...and how little we really know, ...how much there is that our own hand can hurt us.
I'm going to try an experiment with my tomatoes this year. It used to be you didn't have to spray either natural or chemical fungicides when I was child. Now it's impossible to grow without protection. I'm not a scientist, ...I'm a farmer, but it's my understanding that the additional carbon in our atmosphere is all but eliminating the levels of Hydrogen Peroxide in our rainwater and reservoirs. Since H²O² is a natural fungicide, I'm thinking a great deal of our problems growing crops is due to not having those fungi and diseases destroyed at their birth, ...when they have the least substance, by each succeeding rainfall. H²O² works very well for me diluting a 3% solution of it 19 parts of water, to 1. It eliminates the very serious disease Pythium (damping off), to seedlings I've had in the past. People that grow roses use it full strength from an eye-dropper and run it down the stalk to where the plant meets the soil, and where the disease occurs. I'm going to spray a select group of tomatoes using only hydrogen peroxide, and see if it can give me a very low cost, natural, and effective solution to the myriad of disease and fungal problems I face every year.
Again, ...cutting edge article. Thanks...
Posted by: Grateful Child | February 19, 2008 5:00 PM
If scientists have to make GM potatoes for glossy paper,what would the paper industries do?
With 640 million people living under acute food insecurity, it is a crime to overlook human nutrition and well being while wasting money for vanities like glossy paper. GM research should mind climate change and global recession.
Posted by: syeda | February 19, 2008 8:39 PM