> You are employing the straw man argument.
No, not straw, it would have to be either corn or switchgrass this month!
:)
The supportive comment quoted included the following "I joined the...
advisory team for the bee-health company Beeologics". We should not be
surprised in the least that someone PAID BY THE COMPANY TO ADVISE THEM is
supportive of the products of that company when they are applying for
regulatory approval. So, I'll see your "straw man" and raise you one
well-paid "sock-puppet", one who is simply too close to the company/product
to be able to offer an unbiased and impartial opinion.
> For RNA interference to work, the
> sequence has to be carefully
> designed and it has to get to the
> right place, otherwise it does nothing at all.
I am sure that men of good character and conscience who learned at the
finest schools believe the above to be true. But, as Randy mentioned just
days ago, that the Beelogics/Monsanto folks have actually "targeted"
MULTIPLE viruses with their proposed RNAi product, including at least ABPV,
KBV, and IAPV.
So if this "precisely-targeted" arrow, can somehow kill multiple viruses
through either a "collateral damage" effect, or a lucky similarity between
the different viruses, what prevents an RNAi product from INADVENTENLY doing
the same exact thing - interfering with some RNA we might find important,
beneficial, or crucial?
I for one am getting a little tired of being:
1) told with great authority that everything is going to be harmless,
2) patted on the head and reassured that everything will be fine when the
first problems crop up
3) slowly having it all unwind as it is discovered that there were a few
"unknown unknowns" that appeared only after widespread deployment.
To be fair, let's look at the track record of this company in this area:
Here is what Monsanto said as recently as 2003 about the near impossibility
of Round-Up (Glyphosate) to appear in groundwater, and the ease with which
existing municipal water-treatment systems would be able to remove any that
might happen to creep into water supplies:
http://www.monsanto.com/products/Documents/glyphosate-background-materials/g
ly_water_bkg.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/pen5ylj
And, here is the current EPA statement on Glyphosate, which by now openly
admits that the stuff is commonly-found in both groundwater and drinking
water. It is so commonly detected, they have established a "tolerance" for
the stuff in drinking water, and we are now expected to believe that this
contaminant is "safe". One can always keep waiting for the other shoe to
drop, as these problems are centipedes wearing sneakers - there's always
more shoes to drop:
http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/glyphosate.cfm
http://tinyurl.com/7tqw668
So, please spare us all the claims that everything is going to be just fine,
as history has consistently refuted that stance - the very very rare
exception is the product that turns proves to actually be as safe and
effective as first claimed.
We were warned of this trend long ago - many of us saw the movie "Westworld"
(1973, Yul Brenner), "where nothing can possibly go wrong... go wrong.. go
wrong..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcL3eP0Hfy4&t=2m10s
http://tinyurl.com/q63e2be
So little has changed since then.
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