Comment Re:Why would I assume it has been settled? (Score 1) 432
And then the one harmful change of these huge number of all sorts of random mutations becomes predominant in 90% of the wheat out there? Yeah, I don't see that happening as easily as when the GMO company selects the gene they want and put it into 100% of the seeds.
One of the major goals of modern breeding is to get extremely homogeneous (i.e. inbred) populations. So if a dangerous trait was caused by a gene that was being selected for, or was near a gene that was being selected for, then becoming 'fixed' in the new variety would be expected, because that' s the goal. The major difference from a GMO variety being that (at least for the time being) nobody's doing a complete sequencing to find those genes, and then researching them each for potential problems. For example, Golden Delicious apple trees all descend from one plant, often grafted clones of the original - and if the yellow color happened to be toxic...
And the only reason that 90% of US corn and soy ended up having the same glyphosate resistant gene was because of a lack of competition and the fact that it was very, very useful. Now that other companies are using GMO techniques, Roundup resistance has become an issue, and future developments are likely to have smaller benefits or more targeted uses, it's less likely for something similar to happen.