Vandalism In The Service of Ignorance
The title of this post comes from a phrase, describing the protestors, in the third leader of The Times, which defends the work at Rothamsted to create a strain of wheat , which has a natural repellant effect to pests, by crossing it with mint using gentic engineering,
Genetic engineering is a touchy subject to many, but properly used it should benefit mankind. The aim of the Rothampsted experiment is to produce a strain of wheat that uses less pesticides.
On the other hand, I would be against genetic engineering, that produced wheat with the so-called terminator gene, that meant farmers couldn’t use some of this year’s crop for next year.
There are now drugs coming on the market, that have been created by genetic engineering using plants or hens’ eggs as a starting point. Would these protestors stop this process as well? If I suffered from a disease, where the drug could be produced by genetic engineering, I would not be happy.
As I said, provided that the purpose of creating the organism by genetic engineering has a moral purpose, I can see no reason to ban it.
I’m also a coeliac, which is a minor genetic disease. I suspect a few decades down the line, they’ll be able to correct the faulty genes in babies by some clever genetic modification.
Rainbow Cauliflowers
When I first heard this story I thought it was April 1st, 2012 and had been to sleep for a few months because of the hay fever.
But it’s true and it’s all down to clever traditional plant breeding rather than genetic engineering. But then we’ve been doing that for centuries.
The article also explains why carrots are orange.
Until the 17th century most carrots eaten Europe were white, yellow or purple. The orange pigment was added by Dutch plant breeders looking for a way to celebrate Holland’s royal family.
So blame the Dutch.
Gene Therapy on the Horizon
Horizon tonight was on gene therapy. It really did give people with genetic diseases hope.
As both my wife and our son died of cancer, it was thought that he may have inherited a faulty gene. He hadn’t, but I can understand how much something like that, would blow families apart.
On the other hand, I have an inherited genetic disease in coeliac disease. Would I want to be cured by gene therapy? Probably not now, as I control my symptoms through diet, but it would have been nice to know, I carried the faulty gene earlier and I could have modified my diet accordingly.
Mixed Messages on Cancer
A new and authoritative report says that eating five portions of vegetables a day does not protect you from cancer, as much as was thought.
Eating more fruit and vegetables has only a modest effect on protecting against cancer, a study into the link between diet and disease has found.
The study of 500,000 Europeans joins a growing body of evidence undermining the high hopes that pushing “five-a-day” might slash Western cancer rates.
The international team of researchers estimates only around 2.5% of cancers could be averted by increasing intake.
It two and a half percent benefit is worth having, but it’s not great.
Now what is interesting in these findings is that some research has shown that diagnosed coeliacs have a lower risk of cancer than normal. It could be argued that this was due to the fact that coeliacs tend to eat well and generally eat lots of unprocessed meat, fish, fruit and vegetables.
But perhaps we should all adhere to the last two paragraphs of the article.
Yinka Ebo of Cancer Research UK said: “It’s still a good idea to eat your five-a-day but remember that fruits and vegetables are pieces in a much larger lifestyle jigsaw.
“There are many things we can do to lower our chances of developing cancer such as not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, cutting down on alcohol, eating a healthy balanced diet, being physically active and staying safe in the sun.”
I do all of those things. They also supposedly protect you from strokes.
I blame the genes. After all my father and grandfather died before their time and my wife and son both died from cancer at early ages.
The Anonymous Widower 