From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 21:09:55 MST
Or another subject line might be "Europe demonstrates its stupidity".
The article: "GM cows to please cheese-makers".
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99993307
Bottom line -- Europe will have to allow its cheese makers
(not a *small* business in Europe) to import and use GM cows
to produce its cheese (if they do not do this they aren't
competitive on a cost basis) or ban the import of cheese from
New Zealand or other countries using such animals (presumably
violating various free-trade agreements).
Interestingly, since cheese is "protein" and not "DNA"
(though I do not know the extent to which cheese might
contain some fraction of DNA), the argument with respect
to the transfer of genetic material, genetic corruption, etc.
becomes *much* reduced with respect to cheese derived from
GM cows.
It is a really *stupid* argument in the first place since both
cows and the bacteria one applies to the milk to produce cheese
have been *highly* bred/selected by humans. They are certainly
not "natural" or "green" (whatever that means).
The only point of this message is to recall how over the last
several years Greg and I have had some duels with regard to
how significant the "green" movement might be with respect to
negative impacts on the use of genetically modified organisms.
I have consistently maintained GMO will trump green. I simply
offer up the above news item as a case where technological
progress is backing green into a smaller and smaller corner
of the playing field.
[I will note as an aside that I strongly support *sustainability*
which is a very limited subset of what is generally involved
in the green/organic mentality.]
Robert
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