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Ruth - 12 Jan 2005 20:09 GMT

January 11, 2005

Tomatoes Have Genes?

By Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D.

As members of a primarily urban society, most Americans have very
little or no contact with the sources or methods of producing their
foods. Their understandable ignorance has the unfortunate consequence
of leaving them vulnerable to misinformation about food and
nutrition. Nowhere is this vulnerability more obvious than with
respect to genetic engineering, usually misnamed genetic modification.

In an article in the January 11 New York Times, Jane Brody cites a
survey from the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University of 1,200
Americans. That survey found that 43% of respondents believed that
ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes.

This level of ignorance is truly astounding. Anyone who passes a
basic high school biology course should be able to figure out that all
living organisms have genes. The fact that so many people are
misinformed helps explain why anti-biotechnology activists have been so
successful in raising spurious fears about foods that have been altered
by gene-splicing.

Incessant fear-mongering by anti-biotech groups has resulted in a
population that is not wiser but is instead more frightened of
scientific and technological advances -- even though such advances
improve their food and
environment.http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.490/news_detail.asp

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John Que - 30 Jan 2005 01:27 GMT

> January 11, 2005
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> Americans. That survey found that 43% of respondents believed that
> ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes.

How can we know they just didn't make these numbers up?
Or were the questions somehow misleading?
But that does sound about right.
What shocks me is the number of misstatements and dated
thinking one see coming from so-called experts.

> This level of ignorance is truly astounding. Anyone who passes a
> basic high school biology course should be able to figure out that all
> living organisms have genes. The fact that so many people are
> misinformed helps explain why anti-biotechnology activists have been so
> successful in raising spurious fears about foods that have been altered
> by gene-splicing.

I doubt it. This explanation is certainly wrong. Any activist worth
his salt, has at least a passing understanding of the topic.
The more likely explanation, is that a few are looking for a
cause, any cause to give meaning to their lives. Some seem
to gravitate to the extremes whether it to the extreme
of the "green" movement" or to the opposite extreme
of reactionary ideologue.

> Incessant fear-mongering by anti-biotech groups has resulted in a
> population that is not wiser but is instead more frightened of
> scientific and technological advances -- even though such advances
> improve their food and
> environment.http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.490/news_detail.asp

The devil is in the details. BT in corn is a bad idea unless you want to
eat BT. Nor do I think anti-seed saver tech is a good idea. On the
other hand, I don't have problem with changes that directly
improve nutrition provided they don't introduce common
allergens into foods.

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