GMO wheat? what happened?
 

Awhile back there was an article on some GMO wheat that popped up in a framer field in..I think Oregon...has anyone heard any more about it?

I wasnt aware of any gmo wheat anywhere... at least not yet. :shrug:

It wasn't supposed to be that was the problem. The farmer had no idea how it got into his field neither did anyone else.

http://grist.org/news/illegal-monsan...und-in-oregon/

A farmer in Oregon found a patch of wheat growing like a weed where it wasn’t expected, so the farmer sprayed it with the herbicide Roundup. Surprisingly, some of the wheat survived.
The startled farmer sent samples of the renegade wheat to a laboratory, which confirmed something that should have been impossible: The wheat was a genetically engineered variety that had never been approved to be grown in the U.S., nor anywhere else in the world.


Yep it was Oregon, but it looks like everyone just shrugged and moved on..not having much luck finding out any more info.

Yes ... there were rumblings that someone had planted it and tried to blame Monsanto -- or so their lawyers said.

Like everything else - folks have a short attention span. I'm sure American Idol is starting soon or something.

According to NPR there is an ongoing investigation being done by USDA.. no results as of yet but they are working on it trying to track down the culprit who may have stolen some of the experimental wheat a decade ago and put it in the regular seed supply. They also suggest the possibility that someone may have simply labeled a test sample bag erroneously and it later got mixed up with standard wheat. Currently they are trying to determine exactly which variety this batch was from... that may help with their ongoing investigation. :)

Don't worry too much about it.....

With the USDA now involved, you can be sure of one thing.

NO ONE WILL BE GOING TO PRISON!!!

Are you for more government power/regulation/oversight or less? I prefer less, but you can't pull the dog's teeth and expect them to grow back when it is someone else's coon you expect to be killed. Seem like a lot of folks get real vocal about too much USDA, but when things go sideways expect a whole fleet of investigators and a big pile of laws specific to the latest thing to catch in your craw.

Funny how that works isn't it. " Why ain't they doing something about this terrible GMO thing?" "Why don't they leave my raw milk alone?" etc, etc.

You don't say.

How does that "less gov't intervention" work again ??

less intervention allows more freedom to the people. no intervention allows total freedom to the people.... anarchy... or at the other end, a totalitarian government with no freedom at all for the people.

Me? I dont like either of those options.... balanced intervention works pretty good, it keeps my neighbors from killing me and the government from enslaving me. The key here of course is maintaining that balance.

Good explanation. But everyone draws the line in a different place and freely moves the line to suit their individual tastes. I see some that want no government in their lives, but a lot of regulation in the lives of big business. Shut down the slaughter facility and recall a million pounds of burger due to a single sample testing positive seems just fine to the same folks that expect to sell their burger out of a cooler at the farmer's market.

I brought up the GMO wheat thing a year ago and was kind of "laughed off stage". No one was really rud but I was told in short order there were no such thing and advised to go to school on the subject! Oh well!

Wade

Wade,
Sorry if you got your feelings hurt. The GMO topic is a hot potato ( Just to be clear, while there was some work on GMO potatoes, there are no known GMO potatoes on the market) and emotions run high.
Wheat is in many products, we eat a lot of wheat. Ignorance abounds in the anti-GMO group, just as it exists in the "I'm gluten intolerant, aren't you?" group.
Such discussions of complex issues are difficult to articulate in the slightly larger than a bumper sticker missives we use here.
For discussion purposes, when talking about GMO crops, we are talking about corn, soybeans, canola and perhaps alfalfa and sugar beets.
While there was some work done with wheat, the patent holder pulled the product shortly after it started a decade or two ago. Each grower had signed contracts not to replant the seed under penalty of the law. When there is sufficient proof of contract violations, the patent holder goes after the violator. Since the initial distribution of GMO wheat was small, it was believed that when it went off the market, it was off the market. The anti-GMO crowd often cites the up tick of gluten intolerance as proof that GMO is evil. Those that know that GMO wheat isn't available and hasn't been available for many years, will throw water on that statement right away.
So, I can see why that thought would be thrown out, so that factual information could be discussed.
Lots of underhanded things have transpired. Shortly after the GMO alfalfa trials started, a anti-GMO group purchased crop land next to the trial field and began growing organic alfalfa seed. They then sued for pollen drift ( You might like to know Monsanto hasn't sued anyone for pollen drift) and shut down GMO alfalfa production for a decade.
With that history, I am suspicious over this recent "discovery".
I don't know what involvement the government have over this illegal wheat. Mostly, I think it is up to the patent holder to get compensated for the use of their patented wheat. Wheat growers are angry as it could devastate their export markets.

I kinda forgot on how hot a topic this could be...

I guess if I was a wheat farmer I would be really concerned as a lot of other countries have banned the GMO stuff.

As a consumer I am concerned as this wheat has not been proven ok for human consumption. Some GMO varities have made people sick. Remember 199? something the red star corn that was not approved for human consumption that got in to the human food supply and I think some kind of store taco shell. That wasn't supposed to happen and it tainted a lot of corn. Caused huge problems with them having to test every batch of corn that came off the barges.


These kinds of test plants really need to be tracked better. What if some weird combo does who know what to other plants. I don't know what but their is a first time for everything. Think about.. oh...what plant was it..I don't remember but they spliced some peanut DNA into the plant and people with peanut allergies reacted to that plant (too lazy to look it up right now).

As for regulation I agree with he middle ground. Where that is it is... hard to say. These days though it is the person who has the most money, so I guess I really don't get a say.:run:

There is nothing new about that... remember the golden rule... "the guy with the gold, makes the rules".

a few years back, my dad (in south dakota) told me that a bunch of people were up in arms trying to halt gmo wheat testing. apparently, whoever it was (monsanto, or the like) had a big pr push to get gmo wheat testing fields approved. a bunch of people were trying to stop it, cause you know the stuff being tested always makes its way all over the place and cross-pollinates eventually.

i guess the company was trying to just pretend that all the obedient little seeds would only go (and stay) right where they were put. the folks up there, weren't having any of that "logic". but, i don't know if they were able to put a stop to it or not.

I dont know how much affect "the folks up there" had on the decision, but yes, it was stopped about a decade ago. Largely because some of our major export consuming nations pitched a hissy fit and refused to buy any more US wheat if it wasnt stopped. :)

Rather than "Run for the Hills", I prefer to research things. I especially like dispelling falsehoods.
Can you point me towards some information on that Red Star corn, 199, that you mentioned. I couldn't find anything on it. I seem to recall some common ordinary GMO corn getting used in corn chips, when GMO was for livestock only. Don't recall any illnesses. But I'm willing to check it out.
The peanut DNA doesn't ring a bell either. Any more clues that would allow an educated overview of the facts?
A binding contract, a patent, vigorous prosecution to violators, what else could be done?

Here is one article about one instance. Though I thought the one I remembered was about slicing peanut DNA the research was done in some Southern country.

Sorry don't have time to look for more.



NOrdlee, et al, “Identification of a Brazil-Nut Allergen in Transgenic Soybeans,” The New England Journal of Medicine, March 14, 1996.
Identification of a Brazil-nut allergen in transgenic soybeans.

Nordlee JA1, Taylor SL, Townsend JA, Thomas LA, Bush RK.
Author information


Abstract

BACKGROUND:

The nutritional quality of soybeans (Glycine max) is compromised by a relative deficiency of methionine in the protein fraction of the seeds. To improve the nutritional quality, methionine-rich 2S albumin from the Brazil nut (Betholletia excelsa) has been introduced into transgenic soybeans. Since the Brazil nut is a known allergenic food, we assessed the allergenicity of the 2S albumin.
METHODS:

The ability of proteins in transgenic and non-transgenic soybeans, Brazil nuts, and purified 2S albumin to bind to IgE in serum from subjects allergic to Brazil nuts was determined by radioallergosorbent tests (4 subjects) and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis (9 subjects) with immunoblotting and autoradiography. Three subjects also underwent skin-prick testing with extracts of soybean, transgenic soybean, and Brazil nut.
RESULTS:

On radioallergosorbent testing of pooled serum from four subjects allergic to Brazil nuts, protein extracts of transgenic soybean inhibited binding of IgE to Brazil-nut proteins. On immunoblotting, serum IgE from eight of nine subjects bound to purified 2S albumin from the Brazil nut and the transgenic soybean. On skin-prick testing, three subjects had positive reactions to extracts of Brazil nut and transgenic soybean and negative reactions to soybean extract.
CONCLUSIONS:

The 2S albumin is probably a major Brazil-nut allergen, and the transgenic soybeans analyzed in this study contain this protein. Our study show that an allergen from a food known to be allergenic can be transferred into another food by genetic engineering.

Thank you for clarifying your statement, "These kinds of test plants really need to be tracked better. What if some weird combo does who know what to other plants. I don't know what but their is a first time for everything. Think about.. oh...what plant was it..I don't remember but they spliced some peanut DNA into the plant and people with peanut allergies reacted to that plant" I won't quibble over the peanut/Brazil nut difference. But you start out wanting better control of these GMOs and supporting that with news that people got allergic reactions from something laced with nut DNA. But to be accurate, it wasn't some experiment gone wrong and humans suffered. It was a research study that involved 8 test subjects (known to be allergic to Brazil nuts), done to prove that certain proteins from a known allergen when spliced into other plants (this was a soybean) the allergic reaction stayed with those certain proteins.
While interesting, it certainly isn't an indictment against gene splicing. FDA requires tests like this be done.
But beyond the allergic reaction some people have to Brazil nuts, I think that if we could modify the soybean to have the protein part methionine, making it a more complete livestock food and not to add methionine to a complete ration as is now done, would be an important advancement.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014...pid=foodinc-fb

This update is from this week.
Let's just hope the author's positive outlook proves true.

Positive outlook? I missed that part. :shrug:

Of course you did. We have two different perspectives and you have a preoccupation with pointing it out.

yes, we do seem to look at some things differently... I like to have the facts presented before taking part in any hanging. At this point it would appear that Monsanto "might" have deliberately distributed some gmo wheat seed to a farmer in oregon. I am not quite sure what their motive would have been? Its also possible that a disgruntled employee "might" have been up to mischief, stole some gmo wheat seed and placed it in with some non gmo seed sacks. Another possibility is that some wacko with a grudge against gmo's, stole some gmo wheat and planted it in the farmers field in order to create havoc for Monsanto.... that possibility at least has the motive covered. Since nobody knows what happened, (other than the wacko that is trying to bust Monsanto's chops) I vote to postpone any hangings.

A positive outlook isn't a fact. Neither is a negative one. It is perspective, nothing else. Well, nothing else but it being based in free thinking or lemming-like over the edge thinking.

I am not sure I understand everything I know about this statement? :shrug:

and we will never know the facts.

Zombie? The author actually called it zombie wheat? Well, that makes it sound more credible.

That's amazing...zombie wheat...rotfl

Monsanto hasn't marketed GMO wheat for a decade. All the GMO wheat they had on the open market was only available if the grower promised not to save seed.
Someone saved seed. Unknown if they did it just to cheat Monsanto or if they did it as a way of making Monsanto look like their "zombie" wheat has escaped and is contaminating crops. I can see a court thinking Monsanto should have done a better job watching over farmers that signed contracts with them and done a better job going after violators.

For sure, and so much of this misinformation is taken as credible by those that are so anti inclined on everything that is not in some mother nature publication, it makes it so laughable at times that few are so bent on these so called nature hyped up individuals not to even listen or search for the truth and will not use common sense when doing so. The misinformation about such things just races across the internet like wildfire, with no thought of getting at the truth and who starts such things.