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There's a huge difference between using GM animals for medical applications such as transplants, and GM animals in the breeding pool for food animals. Especially if the companies that hold patents are able to replace other strains of meat animals, like they're trying to do with GM food crops. That would spell disaster, sooner or later.
GM animals for transplants are another story. Those animals would never be part of the food supply. A part transplanted to a human wouldn't be escaping that human and joining with anything in the environment. Also, when it comes to something like a heart valve being replaced, even if it proves problematic down the road, it still gave that person an extension on life, when without the valve replacement, they probably would have died.
If I eat a naturally produced, open pollinated variety of corn, instead of GM corn, he lack of GM corn isn't going to harm me in any way.
You seemed to missed the part where I said gm animals and plants used for food was cause for concern. Your response to my post seemed to suggest that I stated otherwise.
Your response to my message was also more than a little condescending, not unusual on this forum when someone makes a contradictory statement to the general consensus. Very similar to the overall attitude on this forum toward factory farming in general. It's almost like no one sees any positive side to agribusiness and their ability to produce inexpensive food efficiently.
I'm well aware of the difference in transgenic animals used for transplants and in the food supply. My point is that genetic modification has proven beneficial in other areas.
First of all, if we were talking in person, instead of reading written messages, it would be a lot easier to tell what "tone" a person is using. I wasn't condescending to you at all. I was agreeing with part of what you said, and clarifying my opposition to GM animals and plants being added to the food chain.
Your statements sounded to me as if you acknowledge that there may be hazards with this technology, but that you think the risk is minimal, because there are medical applications that are beneficial. I was stating that while I agree that the medical applications are wonderful, I don't think the environmental risks of the food use applications are acceptable.
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What I actually said is, "Especially if the companies that hold patents are able to replace other strains of meat animals, like they're trying to do with GM food crops. That would spell disaster, sooner or later."
To clarify:
Monsanto and other companies involved in GM research are seeking patents on plant and animal genes. They seek to replace heirloom and open pollinated varieties with the strains they own. They'd like to do likewise with food animals. If they succeed in this, eventually all food genes will be owned by this small handful of people. Nobody else will be permitted to propagate and grow food unless they buy the seeds or stock from them, or pay for licensing from them. It would severely limit the varieties available, of everything. It would increase the likelihood of any particular strain of plant or animal being wiped out by disease, because we'd have huge mono-cultures, instead of a wide variety of strains, with resistance to different diseases and pests.
In the past, when there have been disease outbreaks that attack a particular crop, breeders and researchers have been able to use older, heirloom strains, and sometimes wild strains, to find genetic material to breed for resistance to whatever the current problem is. These things happen from time to time. If we lose that biodiversity, we lose our source material for recovering our food crops when a disaster strikes. I'm not willing to gamble losing that resource.
Nothing I've said here was intended as an attack on you, nor was it meant to be condescending.
