[caroline2]

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...rid=1318022967


The Power of Knowledge

[Kobyshelby]

Wow, what a great article. Makes you think twice about what you read or hear. Doctors & Nurses always told me that's the #1 site on the web ? Thanks for this Jim

[kiwi33]

Caroline, thank you for that link. I don't often agree with Dr Mercola but this time I am largely in agreement with him.

However, I disagree with him about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). GMOs are neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad - each example should be considered rationally, based on the evidence.

Some examples:

(1) People with Type I diabetes need daily doses of insulin to say alive. Most of them get their insulin from a GMO (yeast which has had the gene for human inserted into it). I think that this is a very sensible use of recombinant gene technology.

(2) Many children in Third World countries go blind because their dietary levels of beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, are inadequate. Golden Rice (a GMO which produces high levels of beta-carotene) can help these children. Again, in my opinion, this is a good example of a GMO.

(3) Some food plants have been genetically modified to express an insect toxin made by a bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis). On one hand this is good because it avoids the need to spray them with toxic insecticides but on the other it is bad because it may harm innocent insects. On balance I am mildly negative about this.

(4) Some food plants have been genetically modified to be resistant to RoundUp (glyphosate). That means that farmers can spray their crop with this toxic herbicide without killing their crop. I think that this is a very negative use of recombinant gene technology.

One-line summary; GMOs are neither intrinsically good nor bad, as ever; "the devil is in the details".