Monsanto cannabis yes or no? The DNA Protection Act of 2013

[h=1]Chile fights GMO in national protest against "Monsanto law"[/h]http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2013/15005-chile-fights-gmo-in-national-protest-against-monsanto-law


Thousands of Chileans have rallied against a bill dubbed the “Monsanto law” that would let multinationals patent GMO seeds.
There are some great pictures of the protest here: [url]http://rt.com/news/chile-protest-monsanto-law-634/[/URL]http://rt.com/news/chile-protest-monsanto-law-634/
And a video here: [url]http://rt.com/in-motion/chile-protest-gmo-monsanto-633/[/URL]http://rt.com/in-motion/chile-protest-gmo-monsanto-633/
[h=2]Chile fights GMO in national protest against "Monsanto law"[/h]Russia Today, August 18, 2013
http://rt.com/news/chile-protest-monsanto-law-634/
Thousands of Chileans have rallied against a bill dubbed the “Monsanto law” that would let multinationals patent GMO seeds. Activists say it will not only compromise food sovereignty in Chile, but will also harm consumer health.
Mass protests were held in at least nine cities across the Latin American country to protest the bill that would allow for the development of genetically modified seeds. Activists carried banners emblazoned with slogans such as “Monsanto kills” and “Monsanto will patent your life”.
Other protesters dressed up as bees and zombies to illustrate their fear that the new legislation could lead to the degradation of Chile’s biodiversity.
The legislation, which was proposed by ex-President Michelle Bachelet, is currently being discussed by the Chilean Senate and has already been approved by the House of Representatives. The law’s official name is the Plant Breeders Act, but it was branded the “Monsanto law” for the multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation.
The patent would mean large corporations would set the price of seeds and who can use them, protesters claim.
“This law puts seeds into the hands of a few transnational companies,” said Ivan Santandreu, a member of Chile Sin Transgenicos (Chile without GMOs) on Radio Universidad de Chile. “This measure does not contribute to the innovation and well-being of independent farmers at all. What it does is put food sovereignty at risk by making it dependent on big corporations.”
Santandreu said that if the law is passed, companies like Monsanto will exert their monopoly on the seeds market and introduce their own genetically modified products.
Monsanto has been the target of mass protests recently over the safety of their genetically modified products. In spite of the fact the transnational maintains its products are all perfectly safe, serious doubts have been raised. The transnational has been trying to expand into Europe, but has been thwarted by bans on GMO products in France and Germany.
The company said it had dropped its bid to get its crops cultivated in the EU in July because of strong opposition.
“We will no longer be pursuing approvals for cultivation of new biotech crops in Europe. Instead, we will focus on enabling imports of biotech crops into the EU and the growth of our current business there,” the US-based company said in an e-mailed statement.
However, EU officials told RT that the approval of genetically modified SmartStax maize was in the cards.
“The approval of SmartStax maize is expected in September or October,” a spokesman for EU health and consumer policy commissioner, Tonio Borg, told RT.

Dr Kynes said:

correction, Mostly Lies, with a few half truths and several blatant distortions of fact.

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[h=1]Is extremism in defense of GM food a vice? [/h] By Nathanael Johnson
When a study came out in 2012 associating gruesomely lumpy rats with genetically modified food, critics trashed it so thoroughly that a group of researchers and advocates called foul. This went beyond legitimate scientific critique, they wrote. It was evidence that “those with a vested interest attempt to sow unreasonable doubt around inconvenient results.”
More recently, a long-term GM feeding trial of pigs received a similar (though milder) treatment. Tom Laskawy here at Grist made the point that, though this study had flaws, the dismissals seemed knee-jerk — ideological rather than thoughtful.
So is there an echelon of corporate Pinkertons pouncing on any scientist who dares to dissent from the GM consensus? Are researchers who raise doubts about GMOs unfairly punished? It’s hard to assess while smoke billows and rhetorical bullets fly. It’s much easier to judge with the clarity of hindsight. The historical picture is sharper and simpler, and I think it really does show that scientists who step out of line on this issue are savaged in a manner that’s out of all proportion to their errors. These errors are real, but they should be exposed in the spirit of collaboration rather than castigation.

Back in 1998, Arpad Pusztai was just beginning his third year of research on the safety of transgenic potatoes when a TV program asked him to do an interview about his preliminary results.
Arpad Pusztai. A Cold War defector to Britain from Hungary, Pusztai was a world expert on lectins — naturally occurring proteins that provide plants with a measure of pest resistance. Scientists had added genes for lectin production to potatoes, and Pusztai was feeding these potatoes to rats to test for adverse effects. He’d become more concerned when he saw that the rats he’d fed with transgenic potatoes were slightly smaller, and had less-reactive immune cells, than the others. (In the end, after statistical analysis, the only real difference was a slight change in gut cells.)
All these years later, we know what happened. The lectins themselves probably weren’t hurting the rats: Pusztai had cleverly designed his experiment with a control group of rats that ate non-transgenic potatoes plus a pure dose of lectin, so the problem (if there was a problem at all), was some unknown element of the transgenic potatoes. It seemed obvious to point to genetic engineering itself; that would be the only other difference, right?
Actually, no. We’ve come to understand that the DNA differences between two potatoes in a field are usually more significant than the difference between a parent plant and its genetically modified progeny. The comparison you’d want to make to test the effect of genetic engineering would be a transgenic plant versus its unmodified clone. And you’d want to make sure that these plants grow side by side, because we know that plants alter their gene expression in response to weather, soil, and history. Plants can even turn on genes to produce natural pesticides when afflicted by insects.
When you taste the terroir in wine, it’s not just the soil’s effect on the grape, it’s also the grape’s epigenetic response. In a very real way what you’re tasting is not just cause and effect, but a conversation. You’re tasting a complex dialogue between the grape and the mineral soil beneath it, the quality of sunshine on its leaves, the hand of the vintner. All of these factors can create genetic shifts more profound than a gene inserted by a scientist. And any of these changes might provoke a slight reaction in gut cells.
Clopin clopant Back in 1998, however, people didn’t really understand any of this. So when Pusztai looked at his underweight rats, he attributed the cause to the one difference staring him in the face: genetic engineering. And, as Peter Pringle recounts in Food, Inc., he said as much on TV.
All hell broke lose. The telephone lines running to the Rowett Institute, where Pusztai worked, jammed with calls from activists, government ministers, and industry heavyweights. Scientists began to pick apart Pusztai’s techniques. The media wallowed happily in the mess. There were rumors that the command had come down from the White House, to Downing Street, to the Rowett Institute, to smother the frenzy. The director of the Institute, facing “a megacrisis we didn’t remotely anticipate,” sealed Pusztai’s lab, confiscated his notebooks, and forbade him from further communication with the press. And, though the director had given Pusztai permission to speak about the preliminary results on TV and offered congratulations immediately afterward, once the frenzy started he put Pusztai on indefinite leave.
Let’s pause here for a moment to consider how this looks. Suppose you were the director of the Rowett Institute: If you wanted to inflame fears about GM food, would there be any better way to do it than shutting down suspicious research before it’s finished and firing the researcher? A group of scientists rallied to support Pusztai, writing: “Those of us who have known Dr. Pusztai’s work or have collaborated with him were shocked by the harshness of his treatment.”
Gordon WattStained glass at the University of Aberdeen celebrating the Rowett Institute. Here’s what might have happened under less volatile conditions: Pusztai would have gone on to (um) finish his experiments, and, after peer review, would have come to more tempered conclusions. (Even under the actual, high-pressure conditions, the paper, eventually published in The Lancet, had much more modest findings.) Other scientists would have made their critiques, and Pusztai would have eventually zeroed in on the real cause of the problems. Everyone, including the biotech industry, would have come out ahead.
Instead, this affair effectively ended Pusztai’s career, and it polarized the debate. Even plant geneticist and prominent GM food supporter Nina Fedoroff (who wrote this excellent analysis of the affair, delving much more deeply than I have into the science) thought Pusztai’s treatment was inappropriate. “The whole thing was badly botched,” she emailed.
The botching continued. Ignacio Chapela, a UC Berkeley professor and author of a controversial paper suggesting that transgenic genes were mingling with traditional varieties, was denied tenure shortly after the university signed a $25 million sponsorship agreement with the agribusiness company Novartis (now Syngenta). A group of independent professors, invited by UC Berkeley to assess the situation, concluded that “there is little doubt” that the Berkeley-Novartis deal was partially to blame.
Lawrence Busch, a professor of sociology at Michigan State University, who led this review, said the sponsorship “played a very clear role and an unsatisfactory role in the tenure process.” (Chapela eventually did receive tenure.)
Steve Rhodes Ignacio Chapela Science writer Emily Waltz has catalogued other examples of what looks like overreaction to research suggesting problems with genetically engineered crops. Much of the criticism is legitimate (if ferocious) scientific exchange. But some of it is probably orchestrated by industry. There’s evidence that the Bivings Group, a PR firm, spread false information about Chapela using pseudonyms on an Internet forum for scientists. And we know that Syngenta has stooped to ad hominem attacks.
You could say the same and more about activists campaigning against biotech: Anti-GMO trolls relentlessly bully and defame scientists, while spreading misinformation. Groups of thugs, like those that trampled a plot of Golden Rice recently, try to stop experiments. Swiss researchers running recent GM trials spent 78 percent of their research funds on security.
But there’s a crucial difference: Anti-GMO activists aren’t in positions of power. The Golden Rice experiments, unlike Pusztai’s, will be completed. I haven’t found any example of a scientist losing her job for a finding that’s favorable to biotech.
DA-RFU 5 Public Information UnitTrampled Golden Rice plot I’m not saying we should smother criticism of science, or give a pass to studies that suggest there’s a problem with GM food. I’m all for thoughtful critiques, just not knee-breaking. It’s possible to assess unexpected new findings skeptically in the larger context of the existing corpus of science without setting phasers on utter destruction.
For instance, the study comparing pigs given conventional and GM feed exactly repeated Pusztai’s error. (The researchers said they couldn’t get genetic matches to GM feed because of intellectual property restrictions, but they could have partnered with any researcher at a university in the United States, which have permission to study patented seeds.) And when long-term feeding trials are done so as to compare apples to apples, they’ve reinforced the conclusion that genetically modified foods are safe. Stating these points is an appropriate response. And that’s the response most scientists have made.
Richard Muller. Given the power of corporate influence, however, I think it’s also appropriate to provide extra shelter and support for legitimate scientists with unpopular views. This is one way in which climate science is very different from genetic engineering: Reasonable climate skeptics, like Richard Muller and his team, have been given the space to check their theories and — rather than being hounded and radicalized — they’ve generated data that changed their minds and resulted in a stronger consensus.
Here’s a proposal for putting this into practice: Why not fund a team of scientists with concerns about GM foods to address popular fears under open, rigorous conditions? Instead of having top-flight pro-GM scientists attack the studies after publication, it would make a lot more sense to have some of these people on the team from the beginning, helping to design the experiments. Whatever the results, science could only win.
More in this series:

• The genetically modified food debate: Where do we begin?
• The GM safety dance: What’s rule and what’s real
• Genetic engineering vs. natural breeding: What’s the difference?
• Is nature a cradle or a battlefield?
• Genetically engineered food: Allergic to regulations?
• Genetically modified seed research: What’s locked and what isn’t
• Genetically modified literature (in which I read books so you don’t have to)

SPAM....and it is funny how self identification, of the bad actors, works. Very Freudian. The article is a tap dance, of Really Really there is evidence, we just haven't found it yet. BAD SCIENCE at the core. No one is blocked from science.

But, Science is skeptical by definition. The Hippies are gullible by definition. Easy prey for the Slant Rags that are claiming they are Journals.

Dear Doer, it seems to me that it is far more 'gullible' to belly up to and eat from the corporate/gov trough, especially considering the track record of your breeders...but I suppose that sweathogs will eat from whatever trough looks to be greedily being consumed by other sweathogs

Doer said:

SPAM....and it is funny how self identification, of the bad actors, works. Very Freudian. The article is a tap dance, of Really Really there is evidence, we just haven't found it yet. BAD SCIENCE at the core. No one is blocked from science.

But, Science is skeptical by definition. The Hippies are gullible by definition. Easy prey for the Slant Rags that are claiming they are Journals.

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Are you sure science is open to everyone, last i checked even the belief in a creator is enough to turn one into a pariah in the scientific field.
Who receives the grants? Who receives the support? Those who speak the party line. Who runs our miserable educational system? The libs who despise the very idea of a creator.
No science isnt open to anyone at least not the in depth studies that truly make a difference.
We are fed lies from all sides not just one.

Dr Kynes said:

ORLY?

when did i ever say "better living through chemistry" or any other such twaddle?
when did i ever suggest you buy pharmaceuticals? (protip: Lanolin, the product my dermatologist recommends for my own "defatting" issue is a byproduct of sheep wool)
what product of mine gave you hives?
indeed what product do i produce that you might have been exposed to? (i only sell my fruits and vegetable locally)
what does you inability to memorize shit has any bearing on my PROOF that comfrey is not banned?

for myself i prescribe cannabis, my current rotation is Northern Lights, 707 Headband, Jilly Bean, DJ Short's OG Blueberry and the Spice Melange.

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So you are a failed medical student, sorry didnt realize .

Someacdude said:

Are you sure science is open to everyone, last i checked even the belief in a creator is enough to turn one into a pariah in the scientific field.
Who receives the grants? Who receives the support? Those who speak the party line. Who runs our miserable educational system? The libs who despise the very idea of a creator.
No science isnt open to anyone at least not the in depth studies that truly make a difference.
We are fed lies from all sides not just one.

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As far as I am concerned SELF is my creator. And anyone can do science. Botany is science.

I have really thought about this. OTHER as creator is entirely unnecessary and misses the very point of continuous, spontaneous creation, IMO. So, what I would call God, is certainly not what religions limit it to.

Nor do I ascribe, smotting and smiting, or any magic or miracle to SELF beyond the very obvious, spontaneous, continuation of breathing.

Oh, BTW, worship of any kind is war cult only.

Pray to win.

'religion' in it's most legitimate form = an individuals conscience imo (needs to be a constitutional 1amen standard, it isnt yet)...not necessarily 'worship' at all deer Doer...in fact I would agree that 'worship' might as well be 'warship' if that is somehow some part of your deluded point...

Doer said:

As far as I am concerned SELF is my creator. And anyone can do science. Botany is science.

I have really thought about this. OTHER as creator is entirely unnecessary and misses the very point of continuous, spontaneous creation, IMO. So, what I would call God, is certainly not what religions limit it to.

Nor do I ascribe, smotting and smiting, or any magic or miracle to SELF beyond the very obvious, spontaneous, continuation of breathing.

Oh, BTW, worship of any kind is war cult only.

Pray to win.

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I didnt intend for this to become religious, i was only pointing out how not only one sided the scientific community is, but how rabidly one sided it is.
They even turn on their own if they even hint at the idea.
Any type of intolerance from a supposedly tolerant group not only smells fishy, its down right disgusting.

In short, I DONT BELIEVE A WORD THEY SAY, EVER.

Someacdude said:

So you are a failed medical student, sorry didnt realize .

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wow. just... WOW.

DNAprotection said:

'religion' in it's most legitimate form = an individuals conscience imo (needs to be a constitutional 1amen standard, it isnt yet)...not necessarily 'worship' at all deer Doer...in fact I would agree that 'worship' might as well be 'warship' if that is somehow some part of your deluded point...

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you seem lost in history with no point to make

78% and counting

nature happens without choice or reason . . . .my friend

Attempting to change that by design is not nature

Samwell Seed Well said:

78% and counting

nature happens without choice or reason . . . .my friend

Attempting to change that by design is not nature

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Explain that. Unless you thinking we are tampering with some grand design. I don't. Spontaneous creation creates us constantly and then doesn't.

And even the bible states the obvious. We have Dominion.

So, you know there is no design. It is all raw selection and viral infection. For all I know it is our design. Zea maze is not much of a meal. We created Corn.

changing something with design and purpose that naturally can be done like through filial generation and selection for traits . . .with no idea of the real ramifications of new tech is foolish....feeding it to the world is down right negligence

they are utterly different in all ways except perception . . . . .change is all that is seen but , natural selection however that happens is very different to genetic coding done to make money

their are no quantifiable benefits of it other then funding cooperate R/D, which i dont see as a benefit . . .try to tell me how we re invent the egg and how its better . .please . . id love to here it

ciggarettes were once believed to be healthy, and so was DDT good to use . . . .and i just dont see it as a inovation when its impact is unknown . . .risk not worth it

Samwell Seed Well said:

changing something with design and purpose that naturally can be done like through filial generation and selection for traits . . .with no idea of the real ramifications of new tech is foolish....feeding it to the world is down right negligence

they are utterly different in all ways except perception . . . . .change is all that is seen but , natural selection however that happens is very different to genetic coding done to make money

their are no quantifiable benefits of it other then funding cooperate R/D, which i dont see as a benefit . . .try to tell me how we re invent the egg and how its better . .please . . id love to here it

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come on sam you can do better than this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Oh now TW 'don't make me come back there' and show you all over again how 'nature' and or all that exists can be translated in to numbers...numbers that are continually adding up to whatever 1+1 etc is in any given moment, therefor nothing is 'random' in nature, everything adds up...even human disconnect and consequence etc...therefor it is entirely 'natural' for humans to genetically engineer anything they so choose, its just not a very wise thing to do if you dont know the numbers and what they add up to etc...and we dont...so that makes GE (Genetic Engineering) about as smart as GC (General Custer) rushing in when he also had no clue of the numbers

cool story bro

Samwell Seed Well said:

changing something with design and purpose that naturally can be done like through filial generation and selection for traits . . .with no idea of the real ramifications of new tech is foolish....feeding it to the world is down right negligence

they are utterly different in all ways except perception . . . . .change is all that is seen but , natural selection however that happens is very different to genetic coding done to make money

their are no quantifiable benefits of it other then funding cooperate R/D, which i dont see as a benefit . . .try to tell me how we re invent the egg and how its better . .please . . id love to here it

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So, in nature we have complete control of all the real ramifications? You aren't making sense, in the line you draw.

The Virus have selected for traits for a billion years in all life forms. In fact they also create manipulation directly. Why do people think nature is pastoral,, and only humans are vicious? Only humans create Pasture, for crying out loud.

Nature is vicious and humans are pastoral.

And Sam, a hen egg? That is the product of centuries of GM. It was not an much edible as a war bird. It is all war and famine. Didn't you know. W and F in the Great GM.

"Humans first domesticated chickens of Indian origin for the purpose of cockfighting in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Very little formal attention was given to egg or meat production... "[SUP][2][/SUP] Recent genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in Southeast, East, and South Asia, but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent.

DNAprotection said:

Oh now TW 'don't make me come back there' and show you all over again how 'nature' and or all that exists can be translated in to numbers...numbers that are continually adding up to whatever 1+1 etc is in any given moment, therefor nothing is 'random' in nature, everything adds up...even human disconnect and consequence etc...therefor it is entirely 'natural' for humans to genetically engineer anything they so choose, its just not a very wise thing to do if you dont know the numbers and what they add up to etc...and we dont...so that makes GE (Genetic Engineering) about as smart as GC (General Custer) rushing in when he also had no clue of the numbers

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ginjawarrior said:

cool story bro

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Yes TW I agree, even cooler though is the fact that its sponsored by fact, not opinion...and though from my perspective its plainly implied, I should add/mention specifically some of the most directly relevant numbers in the mix (in terms of sum totals and or outcomes) that go to human motivation (also relating directly to human disconnect and consequence).
Just as with GE, GC was also fueled by greed and the unquenchable thirst for power etc...