Already In Our Genes and In, On and Above the Planet

I read the article that gives a pretty good summary of the long-term radiation damage suffered by survivors of the nuking of Hiroshima, but I don't see any connection between this and the affects GMOs may be having on people in real time. There's lots of hard scientific evidence describing what nuclear radiation does to people, but very little about GMO's. Of course, there's lots of pseudoscientifc stuff floating around on the Net, but I don't even bother to read it. IMO, if GMOs were really causing the same kind of damage to people that nuclear radiation does, this would be getting massive media coverage.

Each GMO is different. That's hard to grasp... There is a lot of wisdom in being conservative about this and say that we should err on the side of caution, probably nature has ecologies of food and drinks.
But I have heard of positive examples - e.g. a variety of rice was developed which has more Vitamin B and it spread in certain regions of Asia where rice is the primary nutrient of people. Apparently tens of millions consume this product and have mostly positive side effects.

However, as much as I like soy sauce and other soy products, my body reacts differently to the GMO soy used in some parts of the world.

The similarity with radioactivity is perhaps on the archetypal level - we humans discovered things which could be dangerous and could not be directly perceived the way stale food or a sick smell or things like that. The main scary thing about radioactivity was that you cannot perceive it directly - it is unseen and invisible and science say it could be cumulative. Yet I read that some people in Japan traditionally go to certain thermal baths which have a small amount of extra radiation naturally, and after an initial reaction of some amount of sickness and weakness, it prods the immune system into action.

I also tasted several kinds of probably GMO-engineered tomato for longer shelf life - basically they have very little taste so apparently that did not work out as well as they thought...

Reg, #3, re: "Each GMO is different. That's hard to grasp... There is a lot of wisdom in being conservative about this and say that we should err on the side of caution, probably nature has ecologies of food and drinks. But I have heard of positive examples - e.g. a variety of rice was developed which has more Vitamin B and it spread in certain regions of Asia where rice is the primary nutrient of people. Apparently tens of millions consume this product and have mostly positive side effects.However, as much as I like soy sauce and other soy products, my body reacts differently to the GMO soy used in some parts of the world."

Again, a reality check is in order. Genetic engineering has now become easy enough to do that efforts to keep MGOs out of circulation are almost certain to be futile over the long haul. So governments and scientific establishments need to deal primarily with quality control on the GMOs that are already in circulation. This means identifying which ones are apparently safe and beneficial and encouraging their use and which ones seem to be dangerous and should be avoided.

re: :The similarity with radioactivity is perhaps on the archetypal level - we humans discovered things which could be dangerous and could not be directly perceived the way stale food or a sick smell or things like that. The main scary thing about radioactivity was that you cannot perceive it directly - it is unseen and invisible and science say it could be cumulative. Yet I read that some people in Japan traditionally go to certain thermal baths which have a small amount of extra radiation naturally, and after an initial reaction of some amount of sickness and weakness, it prods the immune system into action."

I remember that back in the Fifties, my great aunt and uncle, who had a very sensible attitude about most innovations both establishment and alternative, actually tried going to some of those mines here in the USA that were similar to those thermal baths in Japan, and eventually stopped, figuring that the unperceived negative consequences of exposure to the increased radioactivity probably out-weighed the postitive consequences. History seems to have proven them right, and such practices have almost completely died out.

re: "I also tasted several kinds of probably GMO-engineered tomato for longer shelf life - basically they have very little taste so apparently that did not work out as well as they thought..."

This doesn't surprise me because the same is true of tomatoes produced by ordinary selective breeding that have been on the market since before GMOs became possible.

This song was put out in 1967...nothong has changed in all these years.

Yes! This is one of the few Sixties protest songs I still listen to. And here's another I still play frequently today. It was written in the Eighties, but by an artist who was already writing and performing similar stuff in the Sixties:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ki3AbK8tM

The Boy In The Bubble

Lyrics:
It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shopwindows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in the corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry

It’s a turnaround jump shot
It’s everybody jumpstart
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
Thinking of the Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
a loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires, and baby

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry, don’t cry

© 1986 Words and Music by Paul Simon and Forere Mothoeloa

Thanks.  I have not avoided this place.  I have been very busy with my blogs and life and this durned computer.  I think I have the computer all fixed up, but life...sometimes that gets in the way...then again it bring fresh material for my blogs and sharing on forums and such.

Lady Guinevere wrote:

Thanks.  I have not avoided this place.  I have been very busy with my blogs and life and this durned computer.  I think I have the computer all fixed up, but life...sometimes that gets in the way...then again it bring fresh material for my blogs and sharing on forums and such.

Yeah, I will second most of what you just said. I haven't been posting here as much as I'd like to, and hopefully will be able to start increasing my activity...