it's a protein........ ? (.....so it has to be OK?)

We now know, where we didn't before, that eating a certain 'protein' can cause mad cow disease in humans...

The over-riding concern with GM foods is that there is no uniformity in risk assessment.

There are no regulations which oversee which countries are doing what.

The US has few if any controls at all on GM food.

Super weeds have been created which are resistant to herbicides by cross breeding with GM plants, just as super bacteria was 'bred' through the unregulated use of anti-biotics. Inadvertant toxins and allergens have been introduced into the foodchain. Crops approved for feed only have made their way into human food sources.

Profit for agribusiness is driving the research and development of GM foods, in most cases, with no controls, no regulation, and no risk/gain assessment.

The many benefits which may arise from GM food are worth investigation, .....but only if thorough independant scientific review weighing the potential benefits against the very real risks is conducted in a satisfactory manner.

Caution should be the over-riding principle employed in decisions to go ahead with any new technology. In the case of GM food, the risks are very high and not worth gambling away in the name of profits alone.

There is a wealth of information available, we should all try to be as informed of this issue as we can before we make a personal decision to blindly support GM food just for it's 'promise'.

The risks are very high, .....can we be sure the benefits will outweigh that risk? And if so, ....how?

How do we put in place the very necessary risk asssessment, the uniform testing, controls and regulations which would be adhered to and accepted everywhere?

The evidence shows it's needed..... but we don't have it now.

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I personally don't have any issues with this... it's a protein... people don't refuse to eat meat because the animal uses the same form of insulin, DNA synthetase or actin as humans (they may object on other grounds, but _very_ unlikely on this).

A human gene in an organism does NOT make the organism human... because it's more likely that humans are a younger species than whatever it is that is being compared to.

$0.02 from a biochemistry student

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Finally, .... now we really can be what we eat.

GM industry puts human gene into rice

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which is particularly good at breaking down harmful chemicals in the body.

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