surfsteve wrote:GMO's are patented and can only be studied if the patent holder gives permission.
That's a misleading statement. Some GMO's are patented, but not all GMO's are patented. Those that are patented can only be legally studied with permission of the patent owner. Many GMO's have been created for research purposes and the research community is allowed to work with them without any more than the usual permissions required for such research. My feeling is that all GMO's should be open to scientific scrutiny and so I object to patents being permitted to serve as a barrier to such scrutiny.
I believe it is the documentary "FOOD INC." in which they discuss legal restrictions on seed saving. It seems bizarre, but it is my understanding that farmers who own adjacent plots who haven't even signed a contract with one of the seed companies peddling GMO's cannot save their own seeds since they may have crossbred with the GMO crop. This more or less forces the non-GMO farmers to buy seed from seed companies since they are not legally permitted to save their own. This is so outlandishly unfair that I can only hope that these claims are exaggerated!
Probably the best known GMO is bt corn. There is interesting information on bt corn at wikipedia.
LINK:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bt_corn