Alert Over The March of The ‘Grey Goo’ in Nanotechnology Frankenfoods
A breed of Frankenfood is being introduced into human diet and cosmetics with potentially disastrous consequences, experts said last night.
Academics, consumer groups and Government officials are warning that the arrival of nanotechnology threatens dangerous changes to the body and the environment.
The particles it uses are so small - 80,000 times thinner than a human hair - that they can pass through membranes protecting the brain or babies in the womb.
Nano health supplements, such as antioxidants, are already on the market while the first of hundreds of new foods are expected to arrive in the next 12 months.
However, the products are being introdeduced without any regulation or independent assessment to ensure they are safe - mirroring the controversy over the launch of GM foods ten years ago.
Some critics have talked of the threat of the creation of a “grey goo” of tiny particles with hidden harmful properties.
Prince Charles has said it would be “surprising” if the technology did not “offer similar upsets” to thalidomide - the morning sickness drug that caused children to be born with deformed limbs.
Professor Vicki Stone, Professor of Toxicology at Napier University in Edinburgh, is concerned about unforeseen side effects.
“We know very little about the ability of nanoparticles to move around the body, to accumulate or to be excreted, or their potential to cause toxic effects in organs,” she said.
However, nanotech advocates have remarkable claims for the technology. For example, foods are in development that are said to stave off the aging process.
On a more trivial level, they suggest it would be possible to create a fizzy drink that changes flavour according to the number of times the can is shaken.
Scroll down for more…
The consumer group Which? is about to launch a nanotech campaign arguing that consumers need to be consulted on the risks and benefits before it is too late.
The food and farming department Defra has published an independent report which admits there are serious gaps in safety data.
It warns: “There could be very significant implications for business and the wider community if potential risks are not identified and managed before any harm to the environment or human health may be done.”
The report - Characterising the Risks Posed by Engineered Nanoparticles - states there is a shortage of research money.
It says the resulting absence of basic information about the particles means “it will be difficult or impossible to develop any general understanding of nanoparticle toxicology”.
The report adds: “Transfer across biological barriers - e.g. to the brain or foetus - should be studied. Research into how long these tiny particles persist in the body is urgently needed.”
It warns that work assessing human toxicology is being hamstrung by “profound difficulties in accessing relevant funding for these longer term projects”.
Research by Which? found six out of ten people (61 per cent) have never heard of nanotechnology.
Sue Davies of Which? said: “The benefits that nanotechnologies can offer consumers are really exciting.
‘But before the market is flooded with products, it’s crucial the Government addresses the lack of scientific understanding about how some nanoparticles behave.”
The European Food Safety Authority last year held a conference on the future of food.
Dr Donald Bruce, an expert on food and ethics, told delegates that the arrival of nanotech foods has many similarities with GM products.
US corporations attempted to introduce GM before an effective safety regime could be established.
“One of the things to ask is do we need the benefits claimed by the producers?’ he said. ‘Also there is the underlying notion that we are tampering with nature.”
Environment minister Phil Woolas admitted there were gaps in knowledge, but denied the Government was failing to provide enough research cash.
Tiny particles that have generated great hopes and growing concerns
Nanotechnology involves using a substance in particles that are so small that the substance takes on new properties.
The name of the technology comes from the size of the particles - one nanometre in diameter - a millionth of a millimetre. Reduced to this size, materials can suddenly show very different and unexpected properties.
For example, an opaque substance such as copper becomes transparent, or an inert metal such as platinum becomes a catalyst and triggers chemical reactions.
Advocates argue that such particles can be organised to work together to deliver specific effects in a piece of equipment or in the human body.
They can be used to build miniature hard drives that have an immense memory, so allowing further miniaturisation and sophistication of products such as computers and mobile phones.
Washing machines have been developed that release silver nanoparticles that will kill bacteria in dirty washing.
Sun creams have been created so they become transparent rather than chalky white.
In medicine, it is claimed that nanotechnology will allow the creation of drugs that reach and treat a problem quickly.
Manufacturers are working on nanotech foods and supplements that are also designed to deliver specific health benefits.
Similarly, firms are working on developing anti-ageing foods, where nanotech particles associated with renewing the skin from the inside could be included in everyday products such as yoghurt, spreads or breakfast cereals.
The technology promises huge riches for firms which develop winning applications.
One of the first group of nanoparticles being utilised are fullerenes - tiny hollow carbon balls and tubes. They are very heat resistant, strong and conduct electricity.
The football-shaped C60 fullerene is being used in some anti-ageing products. The creams are said to reduce fine lines and firm the skin.
C60 has some antioxidant properties in that it kills the rogue chemicals which damage cells. However, a high dose can itself damage cells.
Some nano particles are known to mimic the harmful effects of asbestos on the lungs. Consequently, they have the potential to trigger lung cancer if inhaled.
© 2007 The Daily Mail
I miss the days when food was natural with no coloring or added ingrediants. I still work hard to try to find that at farmers markets etc. However, its not always easy to get clean real food these days!
This is a really bad article lifted from a really bad source; the Daily Mail is one of those British tabloids that is barely one step above the American National Enquirer in terms of journalistic standards. I’m not going to even attempt to disentangle the many confusions and conflations and outright errors here.
Nanotechnology is a complicated and dynamic subject, about which there is a lot of confusion. For example, the term “grey goo” refers to a hypothetical threat that was discussed in the 1980s, that a very advanced form of nanotechnology might be used to create some superbug that could eat anything. By now this is a largely discredited concern. No one would create anything like “grey goo” except as a kind of WMD, and it wouldn’t even make a good weapon.
This is not to say there are no dangers from nanotechnology, but the real dangers are not the ones discussed in this crappy article. The real dangers are weapons, economic effects on labor, social effects, concentration of power, and more profound issues of human destiny and choice.
All that is way too complicated to discuss here and it really refers to issues that face us in coming decades more than to anything that is being done right now, unless you count the impacts of computers, which are already a kind of nanotech, or unless you want to discuss the impacts of advanced technology in general.
Right now, in regard to nano we are mostly talking about nanoparticulate materials, which have little to do with the real issues of nanotechnology but which do raise some concerns about possible toxicity or pollution.
This article starts off by calling nanoparticles “a breed of Frankenfood,” which is both bizarre and meaningless. Most applications of nanoparticles have nothing to do with food, and anything that is going into food is going to be very thoroughly studied. Cosmetics are another matter, and should probably be more closely regulated. The issue here isn’t really nanoparticles per se, but whether cosmetic products have ever been adequately tested for safety.
Nanoparticles are really not so new. There are some new materials being used and those should be (and are being) carefully tested for toxicity and environmental hazards. Nanoparticulate gold has been used as a pigment for centuries. Soot from burning wood is nanoparticulate. So are the ordinary protein molecules in wholesome natural organic foods.
Even smaller are the molecules of water, oil, and every type of chemical. The next time someone tells you that nanoparticles are more toxic than ordinary materials because they have a higher surface area, ask them what this implies about water molecules, particularly in vapor form.
The general argument is not very meaningful. Particular substances may be dangerous, and some substances which are safe in bulk may become more dangerous as fine particles, but each case needs to be examined individually rather than branding with fear anything that is called “nano.”
[Does Daily Mail’s tradition of reactionary Conservative scaremongering continue? Hope not]
Nanoparticles everywhere
http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=31
Could we be any more careless or ignorant? Unfortunately the answer is a resounding yes. The ignorant and uncaring are well on their way to becoming “soilent green.”
It is becoming increasingly difficult to detach from the mindless American economy, but fortunately it can still be done. Each year I become more self sufficient and self reliant. Fortunately communities of like minded people are forming in creative ways to better insure their personal and group survival and relative sustainability.
For those who have not already begun there is a learning curve so begin now.
OK, I’ll ring up Prince Charles and ask him to fill me in.
I second Mark on this one. Show me the respected [reasearcher name] et al, and I might listen.
I work in a woodshop, there’s dust all over,
that dust would be very dangerous, if it wasn’t brushed away and slipped off by my throat and nose, prior (largely) to reaching my lungs. With these new anti-science things, I get worried,
because while I don’t care for making products to cover up your wrinkling face, I think it is important to not let fear of new (or not so new) technologies hold back what might be very useful. Nano technology, microfluidics are building fields, and I know microfluidics, for example to have incredible opportunities in human medical sciences.
I guess, I just don’t see what this article has to do with CD, though I haven’t been here long, it seems to me to be pretty extraenious.
I think what bothers me most about this frankenfear approach to nano issues is that the coming of nanotechnology really does present some terrible dangers as well as incredible opportunities, and is involved in some of the most profound dilemmas humans have ever faced. This kind of reactionary opinionmaking is going to make it impossible to have a reasonable conversation about those issues. If broad-brush fear, naysaying and rejection becomes the standard “progressive” take, it will be impossible for progressives to participate usefully in the conversation or even to address the real issues in a coherent way.
Oh come on. This is just more of the science worshipping BS that we get fed all the time.
Humans cant even keep a tiger from getting out of a prison, and e are supposed to believe humans can control microorganisms.
Humans-especially science nuts, never learn.
Jonathan Swift wrote in Gulliver’s Travels about scientists trying to turn urine into drinking water. What might he have said if he had been alive in the 1980s when Nasa was trying the same thing.
A few days ago there was an article about scientists rubbing green tea powder into rabbits’ eyes.
There is no fear mongering here. Its common sense. Humans cannot be trusted to f*** around with Nature.
If we are going to OK such things then we need a draconian law that will hold scientists and their families responsible for anything that goes wrong.
I will bet you that suddenly the urge to tamper with nature will dissipate.
Science teaches us that we must live, and seeks the ways of extending human life.
Wisdom teaches us that we must die, and seeks the ways of dying well.
The latter is ultimately a more benign approach.
As with anything that human kind touches, creates, invents, develops, etc., it can be both benificial and distructive. There are always those who want to help, and those who are selfish and only want personal gain. Nanotechnology is only as good as the people who control it.
It’s small, ingenius, and can be patented–now how cool is that?!! Oh and please read the fine print because we will not be responsible for any unintended side effects these magnificent gizmos have on your health. What a crock–
Kelmer: Your PC is right now fucking nature in a most scientific way.
You can’t have science and not have it at the same time. All we can work for is responsibly applied science.
Jeez, another reason not to eat Skittles.
Mr. Abram, you don’t happen to be a biochemist, do you? People always get uppity when their livelihood gets trashed.
Kelmer said: Science teaches us that we must live, and seeks the ways of extending human life.
Wisdom teaches us that we must die, and seeks the ways of dying well.
so what do you say to people who support voluntary euthanasia for terminally ill patients?
or is that also not okay.
Also, what is it that encourages you to think the above is true, I mean it sounds nice, but is it not just the same emotionally charged argument you’d complain about those who covet science?
MARK ABRAM
i agree with you entirely about the ’source’ of this article. i cannot imagine why C.D. would want to display any article from this ‘garbage’ newspaper. they can’t even spell ‘introduced’ properly. (or maybe a typo) however i am at a loss as to know why anyone with a modicum of intelligence would want to ‘programme’ their foods………. it’s appalling in the face of the poor countries in this world who don’t even have FOOD. never mind food to programme. that is just too obscene.
NORWEGIAN WOOD
i think if you re-read mr. abram’s comments again, you would see that he is not advocating nano technology per se, but commenting on it in a sensible manner. his attitude is far from ‘uppity’ as you so described it. he writes in a very fluent and intelligent way. more than we can say for you however - ‘jeez, another reason not to eat skittles’. well, i have no idea what skittles are, but i’m sure i would never want to eat them.
Gosh, coco, maybe you SHOULD start eating them… They’re colorful fruity candies that taste like little pieces of rainbows. It appears the bacteria on non-nano laced foods is making you lusty for biochem. Are you, perhaps, Mrs. Abram?
The problem with some scientific discoveries is that they are managed by businessmen.
Who gives a nanofart about the sensationalism of the article vs. the reality of the situation? It’s hella more than the American papers are writing about GM foods & products. As usual.
We’re all guinea pigs now, in some way or another. It used to be that people had tonsils for screening toxins. It used to be that people weren’t innoculated with dead viruses. Mortality may have been higher but at least we knew our enemies.
People like Mark, et al, would have you believe we gain great advances for having tiny slippy particulate making us run better. Doubtful. Give me the good ol’ days of the plague and the pox and trichinosis, at least I don’t have to worry about sprouting a third tit.
Because of all the garbage that’s in cheap food and toiletries already, our grocery budget has about doubled in our efforts to eat real unadulterated food and only use products that aren’t likely to be later found to cause health problems. Years ago it wasn’t that difficult to avoid the worst of it and still stay in budget. Reading all the labels in the store is time consuming and getting trickier as risky products use wording that “sounds” healthy but isn’t. Recognizing bad ingredients means learning what they are.
We try to avoid genetically engineered food, pesticides, antibiotics and added hormones in food, as well as all the hidden sugar, hydrogenated fat, and refined starches in cheap convenient food. We also avoid toiletries that aren’t rated safe on the Environmental Working Group site. (ewg.org I believe.)As a result of making this effort we’re healthier but it costs more!
Seems backwards that the more fooled-around-with a product is, the less it costs compared to the real thing, once it’s mass marketed. It becomes the affordable choice over unadulterated products in many cases. Then only those who make it a huge priority and/or can afford it, can buy safer, healthier options. It is no wonder the poor have more problems with obesity and diseases. The cost of avoiding all the junk keeps going up!
EZE FLYER — When you say that “The problem with some scientific discoveries is that they are managed by businessmen”,
Something Carl Sagan once said sticks in my mind “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” Articles like this one don’t really help much to clarify the mud.
Almost everything we grow to eat or use has been altered by decades or centuries of engineering by people. The only thing that has changed is the engineering techniques that are used (breeding, cloning, transgenics). Same with medicines — I’d be curious to know how all those millions that died of plague would feel about antibiotics. Personally, I would prefer to have more effective medications and crops that can resist disease, even if this means accepting some degree of risk involved in the technology of producing them. After all, the world is a risky place, and it seems to me that science and technology have pretty good track records of mitigating these risks. I’m not arguing that technology is not without danger, nor am I advocating a technological free-for-all. What I am in favor of is clear-eyed assessment of the relative dangers of adopting vs. suppressing technology. I think this especially important in bio or agroengineering, when we consider the genuinely scary scenarios we are facing in a world with more people, limited arable land, and potentially degraded climate. If others want to make their way without the benefits of technology, I will not interfere, just please do me the courtesy of not interfering with my desire to live a longer and healthier life aided by science (and hopefully, make it possible for others to do the same).
This is not intended to provoke, just to illustrate the other side of the argument.
Any technology which is viable (read profitable) will be sequestered by corporate entities for the sole purpose of generating profits. Talk of potential benefits is illusory as our own collective and individual experience unambiguously demonstrates that any advancement brought to the market place as it stands today will be there for the benefit of a few at the expense of us all.
If you still believe “remarkable claims for the technology” reflect on any technological advance in the past 50 years and how it has been used. Advances which benefit us all but threaten existing profit structures are consistently quashed.
Untested products which make much money are consistently foisted on the consumers with corporate and governmental collusion amid a miasma of lies, untruths and deception regarding “remarkable claims for the technology”.
Nanotechnology will be no different.
“On a more trivial level, they suggest it would be possible to create a fizzy drink that changes flavour according to the number of times the can is shaken.”
Well, if that’s not worth dying for, I don’t know what is…
My impression is that this is written by someone who doesn’t have a clue as to what ‘nanotechnology’ really means. At best they took the fact that ‘nano’ is appearing in marketing buzz words to leap to some very bad conclusions.
Like anything else, nanotech is a tool. It can be used for good, or for bad.
The problem isn’t the technology. Its the existence of sociopathic organizations called corporations that deliberately don’t care about the bad effects of what it does as long as the accountants show quarterly profits.
Meanwhile, let me start a rant on a piece of technology called ‘a hatchet’ and all the evil that can come from this tool being mis-used. Next week we’ll move on to the hammer. Like any tool, it can be used to build something helpful that might stand for a century, or it can be used to bash somebodies brains out.
Imagine that!–a shortage of research money in science and technology. Imagine, too, that that’s a viable excuse for marketing goods anyway.
I owe my life the the antibiotic Linezolid, developed within the last 50 years (actually, within the last ten) by the Pfizer corporation. I certainly benefited and if they profited from its development, then all I can say is more power to them.
I agree that shameless suppression of technology has occurred, but this is hardly the fault of the technology. And what “untested” products are you referring to? Our consumer products are so safe that it makes national news when something goes wrong. A truly dangerous technology would produce so many incidents that they would hardly be worth reporting. The only technology I can think of off the top of my head that meets that criteria is automotive, and the main problem there is not unsafe cars, it’s unsafe drivers. Biotech and especially biomedical products have to pass through a maze of regulations that is truly impressive. My friend runs a biosafety lab (level 3, not even the highest level of containment) for testing drugs. He once showed me the regulatory and safety documentation he has to work under. It completely filled a book case — several linear feet!
I guess my point is, sweeping generalizations about any type of technology (or anything else for that matter) are suspect and almost always wrong. Nanotech is no different.
dgoodin and mark abram
What’s funny about your paragraph is that the ‘engineering techniques’ being used to increase food crops resistant to pesticides are actually making your antibiotics less effective(that’s right, they are genetically engineered with antibiotics). And because the genes have been tampered with, those same crops are less resistant to drought and high winds. This ‘progress’ is bringing the human race closer to, not further from extinction.
So when you are eating your round-up ready canola oil, think about that ear infection that will leave you deaf, or the chest cold turned pneumonia that will drown you. Moreover, think about me, and why I made a conscious effort never to buy milk full of antibiotics, but you had to save 20 cents a gallon, and my flesh wound loses my arm to gangrene.
And if you think the use of nanotechnology in food(if this is indeed on the table) will be closely monitored and studied by anyone before it hits the shelves, Just ask the FDA how their staff was infiltrated by monsanto employees.
Here’s a bit of info to bring you out of the darkness.
www.thecampaign.org
www.cqs.com/50harm.htm
www.thefutureoffood.com/
Any technology can be used for good or bad, serious or frivolous - the most common use today being the frivolous.
Also, a lot of technological research these days has nothing to do with making a more useful product, it just has to do with making a product that is legally patentable - which leads to big money to be made in speculative buying and selling of “intellectual property” licenses (the term put in quotes because I’ve always found it, as a socialist, appalling)
For example, this article neglects to mention the nanoparticle lithium iron phosphate batteries, which could, at last, do away with the internal combustion engine for 95% or all transportation - but instead, all it is going into some power tools, while the manufacturer finds an oil company with a high enough asking price for the license.
Mr. Abram is right, the big implication are the social and economic ones, not the ones in this article.
I view science as a non-government entity. Capitalism in science poisons it, and this I think is what angers a lot of the people who I would see as having some phobia of new things. I hope I understand now where some of this is coming from, and if I am way off or unclear, please state so. If science were done in the spirit of pure research, understanding, fixing problems that are real, I don’t see why anybody would argue its value. Spiritual people often seek natural remedies for their ailments, and this I think is a fabulous thing, but not one that can work for everybody. We have the double edge of technology. The energy wavelengths that can destroy cancer that it focuses upon, but can also cause it. It is a shame, but I believe the benefits to outdo the costs, on the things that I espouse as “good science.” The Ld-50 type testing discussed elsewhere is not so representative an example. A lot of science is analytical, or applying existing technologies, not requiring so much in the first place. Science is constantly interconnecting, and what harms things in some areas, can cure them in others, while even more common, experiments that do not achieve the result desired, can be used towards other areas of study.
I can see where a lot of the dissent originates as I see a lot of the same troubles.
This government works to promote the sale of ‘democracy’, the sale of life and justice, by their definition, and until people stop participating in the auction of our liberties, there will be nothing there but the debt for having tried to buy what can’t be sold. You point the blame at corporate america, but for the most part it is you, your neighbors, and I who make this possible. Organic food, and bicycling or not, we’re all at a computer right now, receiving electricity, internet, and streams of cables and plastics. I believe in progress, not “progressive” as I have recently learned that to mean, not the hillaryite failures for the next generation, but the attempt to organize people. Not organize sign waving, but to organize a resistance, somehow, tell me how to vanquish this system, crush this system supposedly providing opportunity for advancement, yeah, what we’ve got going now is real progress huh? We’re killing ourselves aren’t we? It’s not in attacking the technology that anything will be accomplished, it is in making it profit the society, not just the rich bastards at the top.
I do not support a non-government system, because I don’t believe in the samaritanism of the public, that is so bolstered in discussions of overthrowing the government. I wish we could and not have all of the resources developed reclaimed by opportunist capitalists. If we managed to make some sort of a communal system here in the U.S, we would be just like all the south american countries we exploit.
I am searching constantly for some sort of a way that would fix the problems I see, and actually improve what is going on. not just make myself blind to what is going on.
COmarc
hatchet and hammer………..yes, two evil pieces of technology…..(mediavically speaking)
dgoodin wrote: I’d be curious to know how all those millions that died of plague would feel about antibiotics. Personally, I would prefer to have more effective medications and crops that can resist disease, even if this means accepting some degree of risk involved in the technology of producing them.
I can see you have been fooled. All those millions who died from the plague died from lack of hygiene and access to clean water, not a lack of antibiotics.
Technology in medications and crops are more about maximizing profit for corporations, not about you, the consumer. When you wake up to this fact, you will live longer, smarter.
WTF
you’ve just reminded me of a book i read about the plague. of course i cannot remember its title. but i do remember that they isolated the village that was the main focus of the book and that some of them lived to tell the tale. and that their recovery was from herbs and plants and the fearless help of one woman and the local holy man.
DGOODIN
carl sagin……..a man after my own heart………….however, your eloquent observations of the ‘interference’ of mankind on this planet will not save you or anyone from the destruction that will evolve from these mad scientific experiments.
Dogoodin, you said , “Our consumer products are so safe that it makes national news when something goes wrong.”
I believe you will find that in personal care products manufacturers do NOT have to prove the safety of their products, you have to prove they are UNSAFE.
The EU has banned the use of the paraben preservatives because of their reputation as a likely carcinogen ( linked to breast cancer, particularly) and a hormone disruptor. You will notice we have them in everything and we don’t know their effect when you use several different products containing parabens or if they stay on your skin for a long time, as in a lotion.
So, no, I think at least in some areas what you say is in fact, not correct.
nspire asked:
EZE FLYER — When you say that “The problem with some scientific discoveries is that they are managed by businessmen”,
¿ I’ve got to ask what happens to the others ?
Businessmen can’t make money from them.
Poor “Markus Abramhs Tank” from the corporate disinformation center! He missed being the number one commentator! That’s going to cost you my boy.
Talk about fortune 500 crap! Water has been in single “vapor” molecule form for billions of years. We are used to having water in our bodies you idiot! But never have we been subjected to heavy metals like copper in nano-size particles which have cancer written all over them. How the hell is your immune system going to dispose of something this small?
Markus is a mindless corporate whore, who would sell the health of his own children for a new corporate perk.
Note: buy nothing these Frankenfood monsters dream up, until it’s been on the market for ten to thirty years and it’s safety is established with your neighbors the guinea pigs.
The above is all just my opinion only.
pacplyer - out
They’ll use this to grow brains for those Japanese robots.
“Well son, once upon a time, before silicon-based life, there was such a thing as carbon-based life.”
EZE FLYER — Damn, it’s so obvious after your state it, but once again, my common sense isn’t ‘on-line’.
Technology is seriously needing better leashes, other than just the pure profit motive, and “hope” of self-regulation.
When something is very important, more money is spent in preventative analysis and process.
We’ve mostly come to agree that corpo-fascist leadership is without any conscience or regulation, and they have no reverence for anyone’s life.
If one connect the dots, it’s easy to discover that only public outcry for severe penalties and close track of inspections (i.e. regulation & penalties), as well as the return of “deep-pockets” types of product liability lawsuits have any chance of placing some level of containment on pure greed and unhealthy chaos.
Our corporations are criminal, inconsiderate, and out-right (wrongful) liars, and long been proven to attempt to subvert any level of regulation imposed, especially when there is basically none.
Pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive to “ethically” (called efficacy trials) test, especially in synergistic combinations with environmental factors (poisons, genetic …).
This means that the illusion of the gov’t and industry looking after the health is just that, and illusion. They look after their profits, liabilities and fixed costs of production, and will nominally suppress any and all evidence contrary to their excessive greed and desire to avoid consequences.
Believe I know, my family was part of unofficial “drug” trials by being in the business.
dgoodin: Personally, I would prefer to have more effective medications and crops that can resist disease, even if this means accepting some degree of risk involved in the technology of producing them.
There are natural approaches to crop disease resistance that are better for the environment and better for farmers than the capitalist approach. The problem is the intent behind the capitalist’s utilization of science/technology. The capitalist neglects the environment and the people, and intends to dominate them. Overcome the domination intent and natural solutions reveal themselves.
After all, the world is a risky place, and it seems to me that science and technology have pretty good track records of mitigating these risks.
Capitalists ignore/suppress the problems/risks created by the capitalist approach so their track records appear good.
I’m not arguing that technology is not without danger, nor am I advocating a technological free-for-all. What I am in favor of is clear-eyed assessment of the relative dangers of adopting vs. suppressing technology.
A clear-eyed assessment requires the capitalist adopt the values of the people. But since that won’t happen, we have to put the capitalist in his place, behind his desk to fill orders, and out of influential positions. Markets should serve the better interests of the society. Technology should “do no harm”.
I think this especially important in bio or agroengineering, when we consider the genuinely scary scenarios we are facing in a world with more people, limited arable land, and potentially degraded climate.
We should be mitigating overpopulation/overconsumption. But the capitalist prefers to cultivate them for profit, so the capitalist can’t help to mitigate them. For example, the limitation in arable land is caused by the capitalist’s promotion of the most inefficient food - petro-fired beef.
If others want to make their way without the benefits of technology, I will not interfere, just please do me the courtesy of not interfering with my desire to live a longer and healthier life aided by science (and hopefully, make it possible for others to do the same).
That’s not a fair deal when “science” implies capitalists harnessing science in the interest of capital against the better interests of the society. And so to avoid that, we’re moving toward appropriate technology, localism, permaculture, preventive medicine, and public domain methods. These require minimum capital.
If we had responsible government that isn’t infiltrated with corporate lackies who dream of being rewarded with cushy VP slots at the Big pharmas and Food companies after they leave government, then, yes, I would say it’d be nice to have insect resistant crops and wonder drugs.
But that is not the reality we face today with the gutted FDA. We no longer have a trustworthy watchdog working for the people. Horsechit studies that no one with a college education would entertain as objective are accepted without any verification whatsoever. This is how Vioxx started killing off innocent Americans: we wished for a groovy arthritis drug and allowed cardiologists to be ignored who were seeing skyrocketing heart problems when using this GOVERNMENT approved drug. Then the big pharma PR machine kicked in spinning it into: VIOXX was safe all along! Tell that to the dead bodies piling up in the morgue.
Mr Abramhs Tank, my knowledge of microbiology is probably very different from yours. I know for example, that the gene swapping that goes on with bacteria is hundreds of times faster and more promiscuous than it is with higher life forms. They are highly unstable life forms. But we need them. Right now, we will die if the bacteria in our gut cannot do their job of breaking down food substances. This is the symbiotic relationship we’ve had with microbes for millions of years. It has been medically proven, that pesticides spiced into tomatoes and corn wind up killing off bacteria long after the crops are harvested. YOU DUMB MOFOS CANNOT WASH OFF PESTICIDES THAT ARE SPLICED INTO THE GENOME OF A PLANT: THE PLANT WILL CONTINUE LEACHING THESE POISONS INSIDE YOUR GUTT.
get it?
This chit is dangerous; this is why we call them Frankenfoods; cosmetics with nanoparticles that cannot be processed out by your liver are in the same category. If you want to roll the dice with heavy metals trapped in your cellular cytoplasm which are toxic to your chromosome structure then just break a themometer and drink that stuff down.
The rest of us expect this stuff to be tested on animals for ten years before it hits the shelves. But is it worth it to have a fizzle drink that turns tricks and does different flavors?
NO.
The risks far outweigh the benefits without careful testing done by an impartial (non-profiting) source. We cannot let these gov turds sell all our health down the river just to see them pop up in the boardroom later at Proctor and Gamble. This was what happened to the last FDA chief.
I’m tired of predatory capitalism gambling with my family’s health.
That’s what I think.
Who cares for concerns like nano-technology crossing biological barriers when you can have a drink that changes color everytime you shake it ? Or even more exciting, you can leave vegetables in the fridge for years and they still don’t rot. Your milk bottle tells you if the milk has gone sour. Wow, thanks, now I will finally know if my milk has gone sour. This really creates a fantastic consumer world. So colorful and wonderfully useful and interesting.
In the end corporations try to sell us everything as long as they get away with it and they make a profit. and if there is some sort of catastrophe, be sure, it is the people who have to cover the costs. Nuclear powerplants are built on borders, GM and nanotechnology are not properly researched and there is a reason for all of this. Industry wants to disperse these technologies quickly, so if there is some negative effect they cannot be brought to justice.
And by the way, the Daily Mail is indeed a poisonous tabloid, but tabloids do play important positive roles too, especially when they pick on issues which are avoided by the serious papers (or covered in such a “balanced” and scientific manner that nobody understands it). The Daily Mail has for instance put so much pressure on the UK government’s position on toxic chemicals that even the conservatives adopted a more critical position on a then debated chemicals legislation.
Wow — lots of comments this morning, and good ones.
Let’s see:
Biotech is not making antibiotics less effective. Evolution and misuse of the drugs is. Take your entire prescription — just like it says on the label. Plague is caused by a lot things, including bad hygiene. However, there are still people today who contract the plague. Their lives are routinely saved by antibiotics, and antibiotics would have saved the lives of those millions who died in the Fourteenth Century, as well. On an ominous note, the number of broad spectrum antibiotics that work against Yersina pestis is steadily shrinking. AGain, this is due to adaptation by the organism. Scary, especially for a person like me that spends a lot of time outdoors in plague prone areas. If you also do this, be careful.
I agree that the FDA has been hobbled, and I oppose that. But once again, it’s not the research that’s the problem. In the end, I guess that’s why I would be classified as a liberal, and not as a conservative or a radical leftist (opposite sides of the same coin, in my opinion). Businesses work to maximize their profit, that’s their job. Government must be big enough to ‘beat up’ (metaphorically speaking) the biggest potential corporate threat. That system is broken right now — you’ll hear no argument from me on that. By the same token, I am always concerned when I hear arguments that include words like ‘all’, ‘no’, ‘us’, ‘them’ etc. There are very few sweeping arguments that hold up in the end. Not all corporations are evil, nor are they necessarily good, either. They are composed of people who, like me, are just trying to do their thing. Whether we like it or not, the world will be “saved” by whoever can figure out how to turn a profit doing it. This doesn’t necessarily make me happy to contemplate, but I am convinced that this is how it will be done.
Other comments:
Once a plant is in your gut, unless you die or are sickened more or less immediately by it, you will not be poisoned. The proteins, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins that make up the plant will be reduced to their component parts — and these are all just molecules. On the other hand, it is possible to insert genes into crops that make them more resistant to conditions. I personally know people who do this — they created a strain of wheat that resists wheat rust, improving yields by about 15% in field trials. The world is a very hungry place, and it’s only going to get more so as the climate changes and agricultural conditions also change. Providing improved crops may be the only way to stave off actual starvation for people. These crops have been shown in field trials to be *more* resistant to drought, as well. Again, it’s important to understand that their are literally thousands of transgenically altered organisms in the world, and to the best of my knowledge there has been one instance of illness reported due to an altered crop. Can’t find the reference, though, but will keep looking.
Yes, there are natural approaches to pest control. They work. However, they have only been tried under very restricted conditions, and they are (so far) accompanied but much lower yields and greater production expense. Remember, the main threat of starvation is not here in the US, it’s elsewhere, where the luxury of using biocontrols may simply not be there. We need to have multiple techniques at our disposal, and those should include transgenics. Single solutions tend to be unstable, regardless of what the solution is.
How do you know that various technologies are bringing us close to extinction — what’s your proof? This is an argument similar to those who oppose regulation to control climate change. Both require demonstrating a negative, and you just can’t do that. So far the evidence shows that transgenic crops are safe (setting aside all the good arguments about the economics of them here, and just defining ’safe’ strictly in health terms). The human mind is wired to consider cause and effect of actions, but we must always remember the consequences of non-action. For example, we see and hear about the negative effects of some drug, but we rarely hear about the positives and the lives saved by that very drug, because we are conditioned to think of continued life as the norm and therefore non-threatening and not noteworthy.
Finally, I’m not sure what to make of the mad scientist bit. I am a scientist, and by and large I’m pretty happy. My research is into the ecology of disease — I try to understand why diseases appear when and where they do. I do this for a variety of reasons, including the intellectual challenge of it, but also because in the long run, it will improve people’s lives. Governments fund my work, but so do corporations. They do not require anything from me in return. The knowledge I gain from this goes immediately into the public domain. I work mostly in the developing world, trying to help their ministries of health control disease before it happens. Some of the countries I work in are socialist, some are not. None of them really care a whit about the lower end of the economic spectrum, as far as I can tell. Working in these parts of the world make me very grateful to live here, because even though it may not seem like it, our government is among the most responsive to the needs of its people. Of course, it is far from perfect, but compared to the conditions in most of the rest of the world, we live in paradise.
Most of the real progress I have made has been supported, ultimately, by large corporations that provided the resources to help people. Some of these same corporations are also guilty of doing some pretty awful things. Corporations are just groups of people trying to promote their own agenda, and like all people, that agenda can be complicated and contradictory. It’s a complicated world, without cartoonish good guys or bad guys. Leftists plug ‘corporation’ into the bad guy slot, whereas the right puts government there. Personally, I think it’s just people. Socialism and capitalism are, in my view, both just names people apply to methodologies for gaining power. I’ve come to the view that it’s really not that important how the power is obtained, what is important is how the power is used. I wish I could say that my experience has been that it’s used benignly, but in most cases it isn’t, by anyone of any political stripe. In fact, I’m thinking abotu organizing a new political movement, “pragmatic cynicism.” I’m not expecting it to do well.
Too much writing — time to go to work.
First of all, there has been some unfair trashing of Mr Abrams by some who seemed to misread what he said. He said that it was a shame this poorly written article is CD’s intro to an important subject, rather than something written by someone more knowledgeable. He didn’t say nanotech is groovy and full speed ahead.
I go to considerable trouble to avoid ingesting GM foods because I studied the issue a bit; I have learned a little about nanotech and I see the same sort of problems. I am not qualified to judge scientific evidence, but that is irrelevant, because the problems are not in the realm of science. The problem is that the governments that exist to protect the public have been hijacked by corporations. A common misperception sees corporations as being like people, but they are not–they are like machines and they are incapable of making decisions based on anything other than enhancing the bottom line. They now essentially dictate to governments at every level.
Let’s take a specific example of what this means for the issue under discussion. Monsanto developed a GM artificial hormone to increase milk production in cows, rBGH. There is evidence that it causes more mastititis in cows and therefore more antibiotics are used, some of which end up in the milk along with pus. There are hints that it increases cancer risk, and premature puberty in humans who drink the milk. Who studied these risks before the FDA allowed Monsanto to sell this stuff? Monsanto did, with help from Cornell. The woman who wrote Monsanto’s application for rBGH quit her job as soon as she had the application complete. Then she got a job with FDA (or was it USDA? I always mix those two up) where she worked on–guess what–the application from Monsanto for rBGH approval. She approved it, surprise, surprise–and then quit again–to go back to work for Monsanto. Monsanto threatened lawsuits when a pair of investigative reporters in Florida were about to air a piece on the problems with rBGH, and the piece was pulled–when the pair refused to make statements that rBGH was safe, they were fired. Dairies in New England that advertised that their products were rBGH-free were forced to remove that labeling because it implied something wrong with rBGH. They won, but right now dairies in PA are being told to pull similar labeling. Amazing, that corporate free speech, that consumers want, can be suppressed—because a more powerful corporation wants it that way.
Someone said we have every right to choose not to use high-tech, under-tested products as long as we allow him to choose to use them. But it’s not that simple, because we all live in the same world and these products don’t stay within the households of those consumers who choose to use them (which in any case assumes we would be allowed to know which products include GM or nanotech elements, clearly not the case in the US). It’s no longer possible to grow organic canola or corn in most of the US or Canada because of contamination by GM pollen in the wind. Our creeks are loaded with drug residues.
I’m glad that there are antibiotics, but sorry that they are being so heavily overused that they’re losing their effectiveness. The problem is that GM and nanotech are very complex and NOBODY’S IN CHARGE of regulating them or seeing to it that they are carefully tested before use. The basic science is in its infancy but the application is well adbanced, which is crazy. Likely many are harmless—but we have no way of knowing that if they aren’t carefully tested by INDEPENDENT researchers before use.
No doubt your buddy has a huge stack of code and regulations before drugs are approved…so do the DEP and OSM guys in charge of granting the permits for mountaintop removal mines that use millions of pounds of explosives daily to blow the tops off mountains here in WV and then use this “overburden” to fill in creeks. It’s a crying shame these bureaucrats are burdened with so much regulation—too bad it does nothing to protect the mountains or streams. Or our bodies, or our children—sure, if something leaves dozens of people dead it does make the news and the product is recalled. But how many cancers or heart attacks are caused by foods or drugs assumed to be safe? We’ll never know.
Do you all remember DuPont’s advertising slogan?
“Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry”. They used thise phrase since 1935. Products not affiliated with DuPont used the phrase “Better Living Through Chemistry”, to avoid tradmark infringement. In 1999 DuPont dropped the “Through chemistry” part and changed it to “The miracles of science”.
dgoodin said “A truly dangerous technology would produce so many incidents that they would hardly be worth reporting.” You’re so right - let’s discuss the vaccine industry and the amount of injuries that go un- and under-reported because of the definition of ‘injury’ put forth by the CDC. Dangerous, government-enforced technology. Try raising an unvaccinated kid and know what it is to be a pariah.
Every pendulum swings. Our good anti-bacterial products are making us sick. Our good fire retardants and stain protectors are giving us asthma. How long did it take people to learn about the effects of PBBs, DDT, PVC, Thimerosal and on and on? It took a few years and few lawsuits and maybe a handful of tests. Our science-for-hire society plays russian roulette with us routinely. How many people die from the toxic processes of radiation and chemotherapy? We undoubtedly hear more about the success stories than the failures because there’s no $ in failure. When I think of ‘good’ science, I think of the good people who brought us evolution and ended our reliance on God.
In our brave new GM world, we won’t know the true fallout for years - whether or not we’ll become mutants or have super powers - just long enough for Monsanto execs to live a rich life and pop off on top of a hooker. The only way to stop all of this is to end the technology that makes people think they need the weird food, designer drugs and convenience items that they most assuredly don’t need. Go back to a simpler society - it’s really nice to ‘talk’ online, but who does it for real anymore? Who knows how to grow their own food, or live through the flu without a freakin’ shot? We’re (America that is) becoming a nation of morons, and trying to turn the rest of the world moron, too. Don’t buy it.
DGOODIN — You state that “Once a plant is in your gut, unless you die or are sickened more or less immediately by it, you will not be poisoned. The proteins, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins that make up the plant will be reduced to their component parts — and these are all just molecules.”
I read the linked article some weeks ago, here on CD, that stated the exact opposite.
If my memory serves me well today, it was the genetic material in the food, that was placed there to ‘engineer’ resistance to toxic poisons used on the plants to kill off either/both bugs and invading weeds.
It was this same genetic snippet that violated your assertion above, and was “read” by our human symbiotic bacteria, and then translated to somehow have the cells generate similar neurotoxins that had been used externally against the plant when it was growing.
Check out the story, and then get back to us (if you’re really interested)
NSPIRE
Am interested — can you provide the link?
Norwegian Wood
Please provide numbers. And before you base an argument on the CDCs definition of ‘injury’ can you provide us with that definition, preferably documented? I have problems with CDC (based on my line of work) but the people I know that work there are excellent, dedicated scientists.
As for vaccines, yes they do cause cross reactions, but can you prove that the numbers suggest that we not use them? This is exactly the point I was trying to make — we focus on the negatives and don’t see the positives. Ask yourself, how many people have LIVED because of the effects of radiation and chemo? Each day, thousands of people are subjected to these treatments, and the majority live, who would have died otherwise. The woman in the office next door to me beat breast cancer though a combination of rad and chemo — should we ask her what she thinks? If one chooses not to avail themselves of these things, that’s up to them. I object only if they try to deny them to me. Same with GE. I want the benefits of it, because I believe it will make my life safer and better. Science did not bring us evolution — evolution is just how things work.
For what it’s worth, I agree completely about the hijacking of technology, what I object to is the use of that as an argument against the technology itself. And, more to the point, I object to its use as an argument against science.