From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Tue Aug 24 1999 - 12:06:45 MDT
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>
>The general thrust seems to be -- if it is genetically engineered
>it is new and therefore it must be bad, lets wait until we know
>everything. Nobody explains that the only way you "know
>everything" is to produce the variety of situations in which that
>knowledge becomes known. Oh no, computers with keyboards and
>monitors that may emit X-rays, oh gosh, lets not use them until we
>know for sure who might use them too much and get repetitive
>strain injury or maybe even cancer.
I certainly wasn't saying anything genetically engineered is
automatically bad, in fact I thought the micronutrient rice was a
good idea, provided it is properly tested.
"Roundup Corn" on the other hand seems to serve no one except
agribusiness, and I have concerns about the total environmental
effect.
A few years ago the agribusiness industry sued a small dairy
company because their label indicated they did not use a milk
production enhancing hormone. They tried to insist this implied
their product was "bad". The company in question simply stated that
their customers did not want milk from these sources, and their
label was to reassure these customers.
I trust agribusiness as much as I trust bill clinton.
Lets simply require labels indicating genetically engineered
content and let the consumer decide. (something agribusiness
opposes)
A few years ago Dennis Miller made a good bit out of one of the
first controversies (strawberries as I recall) showing a picture of
the field and a man dressed head to toe in a protection suit.
"Maybe I'd have a little more trust if they didn't dress like they
worked for waste management!"
>The problem Jay (returning to the original comment) is that
>everything we eat, drink and most of our activities have some
>risk associated with them and the only way to eliminate those
>risks is to stop living. Short of that the best we can
>do is educate ourselves regarding the relative risks and
>adopt reasonable precautions and behaviors.
I agree, lets require truth in label laws for genetically
engineered content and let the consumer decide.
Brian
Member, Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:52 MST