French protesters destroy biotech grapevines – Taiwan News Online
Item via Associated Press
2010-08-15 11:48 PM
Associated Press are reporting that Protesters have destroyed vines of genetically modified grapes at a government research site in eastern France.
The item says that the security chief for the Haut-Rhin region, Jean-Christophe Bertrand said that 50 people were detained after the incident Sunday morning.
Government ministers for the environment, agriculture and research condemned the “intentional destruction” at the National Institute for Agronomic Research in Colmar.
Research on the biotech vines poses no risk to health or the environment, and was meant in part to study a virus that damages grapevines.
French environmental vandals have routinely destroyed fields of genetically modified crops.
According to this, they were rootstocks. So, no chance cross pollination or escaping GMOs. It was done by the government, so no corporate control or patents or that sort of stuff. They were designed to resist a virus, so no chemical sales. They weren’t even the part of the plant that produces the grapes, the scion, so even if the health concerns did have merit, there still wouldn’t be any. Every major anti-GE argument, totally not applicable here, and yet this still happened. How enlightened. Asinine arson is what it is.