This is an interesting article on how GM technology may be used to our advantage in massively reducing the Malaria problem. Over 400,000 deaths a year and over 200 million cases of malaria which can leave victims unable to continue normal lives. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48464510 I've never been so anti GM when it comes to food, TBH, I feel that it could help feed the increasingly hungary world in the future. But, being no expert, I also struggle to understand the threat GM provides, as I can't see a massive difference between GM and the "selective breeding" that has gone on for centuries in order to get more, for example, frost and disease resistant fruit and vegetables and leaner cattle. Of course, I appreciate the risks of how GM could be misused to our detriment by the unscrupulous, but that is the case with any strand of science. Any thoughts or insights?
I would tend to agree, however the above study does not fully consider the full environmental extent that a widespread introduction may cause. Although it lists some insects that it do affect, there surely would be some. Also with fewer mosquitoes, there will be a knock on effect with the creatures that eat them and then in turn those who eat those etc.
I had an excellent tour with my Uni course of the agricultural research centre down your way near Harpenden. I don’t know if it’s open to the public usually but it’s worth a look if you’re interested in that kind of thing. Fascinating stuff, not that I can remember much of it. It has one of the world’s longest ongoing scientific experiments happening with one of its wheat crops or something..... I didn’t do well with my course, mostly because of my inability to retain information.
It's not remotely the same thing. You can't naturally breed a plant with a scorpion. You can selectively breed two compatible plants. The huge problem with these completely unnatural modifications is we don't know what the long term implications on the natural world are, and you can't stop them spreading when they've got out into the wild. Biomes and food webs are incredibly delicate and there's absolutely no way we can predict the impact on them. We also can't predict how wild escaped GM seeds might evolve over time; they could become something truly horrendous (triffids, obviously). There are also a host of legal and ethical issues over ownership of seeds, the genome, etc. that make me extremely uncomfortable. I don't have a problem with Green Revolution style research into HYVs. I do have a problem with splicing scorpion venom into plants , or Round Up plants which kill all other plants around them. Selective breeding is a far cry from what's done in the labs of companies like Monsanto, and the biggest success the GMO making companies have had is convincing people of this. The fact they're both science doesn't make them the same.
