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Comment by Sammi | Hacker News Reader

What happens if man made super food like the Broccoli escapes it's man made field? Nothing. It can't compete with plants in the harsh natural competition for the survival of the fittest, because it hasn't been bred for that. It's only been bred to grow and grow, not to a wage war for survival against it's surroundings like all other plants in nature do.

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> It can't compete with plants in the harsh natural competition for the survival of the fittest, because it hasn't been bred for that.

not a biologist in any way, but i'm pretty sure an addition/modification of one trait to an existing genetic line doesn't immediately render null-and-void all existing fitness of that line, such that they are immediately so unfit as to not propigate further

>i'm pretty sure an addition/modification of one trait to an existing genetic line doesn't immediately render null-and-void all existing fitness of that line

That's true, but these lab lines generally are inbred for generations on purpose before the disease gene is even added, so even the "normal" lab mice without the disease are quite different than wild mice, and even quite different than other strains of lab mice.

There is a very small risk that artificial transgenic DNA sequences can cause "transformation" (horizontal gene transfer) from the genetically modified plant to wild bacteria, with unknown consequences.

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