Curtis Hannah calls out the Conventional Wisdom Trap at GLP:
When transgenic plants (the so-called GMO plants) hit the market in 1996, conventional wisdom at the time was that these new plants differed fundamentally from the older, more traditional plants in that the GMO plants contained a gene not found in the present-day plants on the market.
This difference is the reason for the testing required to “deregulate” a transgenic plant before marketing and is one of the stated causes behind the anti-GMO crusade. Recent findings, however, show unequivocally that this distinction, in fact, does not exist.
Until recently, it was thought that plant breeding programs selected the superior forms (termed alleles in genetic parlance) of existing genes. Breeders selected for the form or allele of the gene that, for example, encoded a more efficient protein, expressed the gene at a higher (or lower) level, etc. Selection by the breeder was not at the gene level but rather at a level easily observed by the breeder. This could be greater yield, enhanced disease or insect resistance, sweeter fruit, larger berry, earlier maturity, etc. Then it was thought that all members of a particular plant family (corn, soybean, wheat, blue berry, orange, etc.) contained the same genes; they simply differed in the forms of those genes existing in a particular family.
It turns out that this is all wrong...
More @ GMO ‘foreign gene’ fears? Breeders incorporating unknown’ DNA into food crops for centuries | Genetic Literacy Project:
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