some peoples ask me privately to give the references about  the news of
genetically engineered lettuces, and because there is a discussion going on
about it,  i managed to find back the article that i received and deleted
last month.
So everybody can have their opinions about it.
It is clearly stated here ( up to anyone to found out if it is true or not )
that those specific scientists in Australia foresee using genetically
engineered food with viruses proteins as a means to vaccinate .

It is also stated that they will grow those lettuces specifically for that
purpose and not as a food.
Maybe those scientists are just crazy ones and the world scientific
commmunauty will reason  with them ! Yet they got financed to do the
researchs.

I remember the trauma of being forced by the doctor to have the needle stuck
in my bum as a very young kid . Eating lettuce instead will had made me less
resistant and more cooperative and will had  saved me from overreacting to
the idea now.
If it is true,  as paleo eaters concerned by "foreign proteins" .we are
faced with an open door to "nobody knows what".
jean-claude allways  seriously smiling

 Friday January 28 2:45 AM ET

  Australia Scientists Plan Measles-Modified Food

  By Wendy Pugh

  MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australian scientists are researching putting a
 measles gene into genetically modified food to provide an
  alternative to traditional vaccination against the virus.

  Alfred Hospital infectious disease unit director Stephen Wesselingh
 said a research team had successfully created measles modified
  tobacco and was now putting the gene into lettuce.

  ``We started with tobacco just because it is very easy to work with and
 grows quickly, and we mashed up the leaves and fed them to
  mice. Now we are moving into lettuce and rice,'' he told Reuters.

  ``We have been working on it for the past two or three years and we
 have been getting positive results for the last six months or so.''

  Wesselingh said the research by the Alfred team and the Commonwealth
 Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)
  would provide a cheaper vaccine, that avoided using needles and which
 didn't need to be kept at cold temperatures.

  ``That is not a problem in Australia, but in the countries where
 measles is a big problem, in Africa etc, keeping the vaccine cold can
  sometimes be a major difficulty,'' he said.

  The researchers are looking to use crops where existing genetically
 modified organism research has already been successfully
  conducted.

  Wesselingh said in the tobacco experiments the H protein of the measles
 virus was placed in the plant.

  ``The plant is then making all its normal leaves and things, but it is
 also making this extra protein,'' he said.

  ``When we feed the leaves of that plant to mice, those mice then
 develop antibodies against the H protein, which is part of the
  measles virus so those antibodies then protect against measles as
 well.''

  Rice Offers Potential

  Wesselingh said rice offered great potential as the measles vaccination
 could be used in rice flour milk produced for children who are
  not covered by the current measles vaccination.

  Release of measles modified food was still a ``long way down the
 track,'' he said, with trials in people likely to start sometime in the
  next five years.

  Wesselingh said the modified food would be treated as a medical product
 and would not be available for mass consumption.

  ``These crops wouldn't be generally released. You would make them in
 special areas and then distribute them in the same way you
  would distribute other vaccines,'' he said. ``I think that would allay
 a lot of the GM-type fears.''

  Similar research has also been conducted in the United States for
 hepatitis B and cholera and the Melbourne-based team is starting
  to look at genetic modification for the HIV virus, which can lead to
 AIDS.

  Wesselingh said the Melbourne research had focused on measles as it was
 still a major health problem in the developing world.

  ``About a million children still die of measles each year and most of
 those are under the age of one and the current vaccine doesn't
  work in very young children,'' he said.

  ``We felt that an oral vaccine that could work in very young children
 might be a way to arrest that problem.''