What frustrates me endlessly about the GMO debate is that "GMO" tells you about as much about safety as "chemical." You could certainly GM something into being dangerous or more dangerous, for example transplanting allergens or increasing the production of natural pest control toxins. You could also modify a protein into an equivalent protein, changing nothing.
The only real answer to fears about GMOs is to point people towards longitudinal studies that show that the specific modification in question isn't causing any problems. Sadly, this really isn't possible in our current system, as I have no idea which changes were made to the organisms that get put in the consumer products I buy. In an ideal world, I could read NGK-028181 off the tin of baked beans in my pantry and realize that I needed to throw it out because they discovered something wrong with that one specific genome (or because I know I'm allergic).
As a consumer, if I ever get suspicious about one specific change made to one specific breed, my only option is to buy non-GMO everything. That doesn't make any sense!
The GMO debate isn't just about whether the molecules of something you're eating are safe in relation to the modifications. It includes considerations such as what kinds of practices are enabled by GMO: like producing a plant that is resistant to certain herbicides so that you can douse the heck out of the crop to kill everything else. Or how some genetically modified plant is someone's intellectual property, so you're a criminal if you happen to plant its seeds back in the soil. (Just two issues off the top of my head in regard to an area I don't think much about.)
On the topic of intellectual property, you are completely wrong. Plant patents predate GMO (like 50 years) and they are not "enabled by GMO" in any sense whatsoever.
Huh, didn't know--thank you. Plants have apparently been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2].
This 2017 study says that herbicide use has been increasing overall, also on non-GMO crops such as wheat and rice. And that the increase rate in GMO crops (corn, soy, cotton) is no faster than in non-GMO crops.
Monsanto released Roundup-Ready Soybean in 1996 to INCREASE herbicide use, without affecting crop yield [1]
Programs like Bt-corn reduce pesticide use... by making the plant produce the herbicide in the fruit. So, instead of being able to peel or rinse fruit (with varying results), you're eating corn kernels that have pesticide on the inside.
Those both being 100% natural, yes they are used as pesticides. However, they are not are engineered chemicals which can be a differentiator in the comparisons and conversation.
The endotoxin used in Bt corn is also 100% natural [1].
I'm not arguing for (or against) Bt corn. I'm trying to show that the language we used to describe GMOs is misleading. Something we think of as natural isn't inherently healthy or unhealthy compared with something we think of as artificial. The same applies to GMO.
That's not a fair description of what GMO herbicide resistance means. The other way to frame it is: GMOs allow you to make use of simpler, broad-spectrum herbicides with fewer known health impacts on animal life, as opposed to selective grass- and broadleaf-targeting herbicides that have known, proven human health risks but no PR due to a lack of connection to GMOs.
Unless you're paying $3/# for carrots, herbicides are in the mix one way or the other. GMOs allow us to be pickier about which herbicides we're exposed to.
Regarding IPR issues: you're referring to Monsanto lawsuits. Monsanto enforced its IPR against people who not only planted Roundup-ready crops, but then used Roundup on them --- in other words, people who took advantage of the IPR itself, not merely people who happened to plant Roundup-ready seeds unknowingly. Farmers don't accidentally spray their crops with Glyphosate.
We are at the point where vast stretches of land are used to grow food that's turned into fuel because we don't have any other real use for it. People don't see benefit from increased farming efficiency at this point, they just get stuck with the risks.
Doesn't that have something to do with government mandates and subsidies for adding ethanol to fuel? It could have been well used for something more important.
This is reminiscent of the "debate" over cellular radiation causing cancer. How much Roundup do I have to drink to increase my cancer risk by a percentage point?
In March 2015 the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic in humans" (category 2A) based on epidemiological studies, animal studies, and in vitro studies.[1]
It doesn't mean "right" either. Meanwhile, acrylamide is an example of an IARC 2A compound where there's little controversy: it causes stomach cancer and lymphoma. And yet we keep eating potato chips and grilling meat.
Just because we keep doing something does it make it safe?
I’m inclined to agree with the WHO because I can’t see how they could profit from having the results be the way they are, if you believe the conspiracy theories. The old adage, “follow the money” still holds true; so if there is a conspiracy where is the money for calling RoundUp harmful?
That Reuters article is loaded with conspiracy. No actual evidence of wrongdoing, unless I just missed it.
Honest question: If glycosate is safe couldn’t you drink it? Why then did this Monsanto lobbyist refuse to drink it? Honest question.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
No offense --- I don't know you or anything about you --- but this comment is like the Triple Crown of dumb GMO arguments.
1. That's a dude who was asked by Canal+ to give an interview about Golden Rice, a product that has nothing to do with herbicides, and is at the end of the interview asked to drink a glass of herbicide.
2. That dude doesn't work for Monsanto, isn't a "Monsanto lobbyist", and has never taken a dollar from Monsanto.
3. I don't need to watch Canal+ stunt interviews to know how dangerous glyphosate is, because there's something called "the medical literature", which documents people having drunk a half liter of the stuff with no effect.
4. But drinking a half liter of glyphosate-based herbicide is an extremely bad plan, because glyphosate isn't the only thing in glyphosate herbicide. Lots of routinely-used fungicides are extremely toxic to humans and found commonly in households.
5. Even if drinking a half liter of random herbicide was completely safe, I'd be upset if you demanded I drink it, for the same reason I'd be upset if you asked me to drink a glass of grapeseed oil or of human urine.
6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
> this comment is like the Triple Crown of dumb GMO arguments
Regarding points 1-5, did you miss that I said it was an honest question? I clearly did not say that it was an argument. I asked precisely because I knew there might be facts I am not aware of. Thank you for filling me in.
> 6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
And this addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
> 7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
And that also is not an argument for rejecting 2A carcinogenic labeling on glyphosate.
So I ask again: This addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
Well, I ask rhetorically. Apparently an answer will not be given, only misdirection.
Sorry but I don't have the energy to debate with people who won't read carefully or provide answers that are not misdirecting. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
P.S., "a significant number of scientists" is a fallacious appeal to authority. A significant number of scientists is not the same as having a majority of consensus.
The use of pesticides in non-GMO crops is likely one of the major factors for a modern extinction event. There's been a 75% decline in the total biomass of flying insects over the last 27 years (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....). This is affecting the entire ecosystem.
GMO crops can be engineered to be pest resistant, requiring far less use of pesticides, without harming the crop's suitability for human consumption.
Ignorance on this issue is destroying ecosystems in agricultural areas.
Okay, so pollen from Bt corn is lethal to monarch butterfly caterpillars.
Meanwhile, pesticides are killing off 75% of all flying insects.
I like monarchs, but if I had to choose between a world with no monarchs, and a world with no monarchs and also just 25% of the flying insect biomass we had 30 years ago and also fewer birds and everything else that consumes insects and all of the beneficial pollination that those 75% of insects would have accounted for ... well, that seems like a pretty easy choice to me.
Gene editing would also provide an avenue for a different approach here, where the crop could be made resistant to its costliest pests without harming monarchs. Good luck doing that through cross-breeding.
Surprisingly, avoiding GMO foods may not be as viable as one might think:
> Currently, up to 92% of U.S. corn is genetically engineered (GE), as are 94% of soybeans and 94% of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products). It has been estimated that upwards of 75% of processed foods on supermarket shelves – from soda to soup, crackers to condiments – contain genetically engineered ingredients. [1]
Close, but it’s food producers who buy organic and non-gmo certifications which additionally makes them jump through a couple arbitrary hoops to make it seemingly mean something.
So, you are saying that the certifications are not meaningful in that companies and certifiers cheat on the standards, or that the standards are inadequate?
And unlike giving up the unnatural extreme sugar content of the latter, let's spend money to fix a problem that is likely not even real considering pest control practices used in organic farming.
Consumers who are attached to eating food like Oreos or Coca Cola, the ingredients of which have been demonstrated to be unhealthy in every way possible, are generally not as concerned about avoiding GMOs as consumers of other products.
I suppose there is some overlap, but I would think that as a first step people with dietary health concerns would cut out things like white flour and high fructose corn syrup.
Viable, but not a good strategy for everyone. GMOs are often cheaper, due to higher yields and greater resistance to pests. It _might_ be healthier to avoid them, but that's another example of eating healthy being a luxury.
Better to investigate, report, regulate, so all society can benefit from the benefits of targeted engineering without fear.
We've come up with a definition for "GMO" which is about as arbitrary as "plants grown on the north side of a mountain."
Look at a wild carrot [1]. There is no good reason for plants to stuff their roots with beta carotene. But nutrient-rich roots are tastier and healthier, so we bred them. It blows my mind that someone might consider a mutation bred [2] vegetable healthier or safer than one where the desired gene is precisely injected.
The economics of GMO produce are compelling. They will be produced. All anti-GMO consumers guarantee is having their views, tastes and concerns ignored as agriculture develops. That lack of consumer input is, in my opinion, unhealthy for us all.
How about "contains genetic modifications that are strictly Copyright (C) Mother Nature". Seems like a good first approximation at a working definition.
So, "north side of the mountain" is non-GMO right off the bat.
This is a meaningless distinction. It's like saying two files with idential content and checksum are different because one file was written by Vim and the other by Emacs.
The law can, if it chooses, make a distinction between on the one hand a plant with a genome produced by non-GMO methods and on the other hand a plant with the same exact genome produced with GMO methods. The law regularly chooses to pay attention to things like this even though nature makes no distinction.
> How about "contains genetic modifications that are strictly Copyright (C) Mother Nature"
Plants have been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2]. IP concerns and GMO are orthogonal issues, as non-GMO varieties have been patented.
Nobody puts labels like this on products unless they (1) respond to a regulatory requirement or (2) convey something positive about the product. In both cases, the label implies there's something wrong with products containing genes that aren't "strictly Copyright (C) Mother Nature".
You may think the only issue the ethical problem of enforcing genetic IPR, but casual consumers do not give a shit about IPR ethics. They assume "genetically modified" is in approximately the same category as "contains toxic herbicides".
Ironically, the most commercially viable way to produce non-GMO crops are toxic herbicides.
What would be the point of it? In both cases we're seeking genetic modifications. In one case, it is targeted and precise, in another - random and probabilistic, i.e. we don't know whether the modification we want (sweeter apple, nicer carrot, etc.) didn't also bring along something we don't. Or at least we don't without analyzing the genome and selecting only those with genome we want - in which case it's just a very convoluted way of producing GMO.
It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding" - surely, you could do that, but what exactly is the point?
If you say "but those genetic modifications have been tested by centuries of time" - also not really, many cultivars we're eating today are relatively recent, late 19th to 20th century. E.g. Fuji apples one sees everywhere were introduced to US marked in 1980s. And for many cultivars, there was no serious studies about their safety. Of course, if people start dropping dead in place from eating certain kind of apple, it would be noticed. But otherwise - we have little data, and nobody is too worried about it.
Simply to try to define "GMO"; do you have a better idea?
Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification. To be useful, the definition probably has to carve some subset in the M space.
> It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding"
That may be so, but I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
> Simply to try to define "GMO"; do you have a better idea?
Yes. "GMO" is a scare term, devoid of any real content, used by tiny number of overly cautions ecologists and vast number of charlatans to trick gullible people into fearing modern technology.
> Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification
That's where you realize "GMO" is meaningless, and stop using that term.
> I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
You are both. One does not contradict the other, and being made of organic molecules in no way diminishes your humanity. And being made of other organic molecules, some of which were purposedly put there to make it better (for varying definitions of "better") does not diminish the quality of your food. Which is not just declared by me, some guy on the internet typing some bullshit into the browser, but was actually verified by scientists.
> That's where you realize "GMO" is meaningless, and stop using that term.
It's not meaningless at all. GMO could be used maliciously. A tomato could be produced which deliberately make a protein such that a fraction of a milligram can kills. That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
"GMO" is just as meaningful as "infected executable".
> You are both.
Completely besides the point; which wasn't about human versus molecules, but rather that random evolution did a pretty good job there.
> A tomato could be produced which deliberately make a protein such that a fraction of a milligram can kills. That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
That's a strange claim to make about a member of the nightshade family.
> That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
That is happening all the time with evolution. Hundreds of types of plants produce poisons. In fact, producing various poisons is the plant's main weapon in the struggle for survivial - it has no claws and can not run, so it's either making itself completely indigestible (like trees) or making itself unfit or at least hard for eating. Like tomatoes, which were, like all nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, etc.) originally highly toxic. Only we humans convinced tomatoes and potatoes not to kill us, by genetically modifying them since at least 500BC. Of course, we could develop ones that kill too. Or we could worry about grocers to just shooting you - if they'd be willing to kill you with tomatoes, why not with rifles? Of course, in reality nobody tries to kill anyone, so worrying about weaponized GMO is pointless - if you wanted to kill people, nobody would bother with GMO, there are much cheaper ways.
This raises a question for which I have never found a satisfactory answer, perhaps some of the people chiming in here can help.
It seems likely (intuitively, which is why this is a question) that a naturally-occurring mutation which is artificially selected-for by a grower actually is very different from a transgenic insertion. The former arises within the complex regulatory/inhibitory genetic environment of the natural plant, so it sort of feels less risky, less likely to be disruptive or to renovate the biochemistry. Transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial, activated by default, and not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites -- this is where they get their power. An ecosystem analogy comes to mind, natural mutations are like species evolving in an ecosystem, and transgenic insertions are like invasive species, potentially throwing the ecosystem seriously out of whack.
Is this just a sort of romantic fallacy, supported by a bad analogy?
I think it's tangential to the safety question -- actually-existing commercial GMO crops have been tested and demonstrated to be safe, that seems to be clear. But I think the space for unsafe combinations is much larger than it is for natural mutations, and the analogy to selective breeding understates the danger (and the power)?
> a naturally-occurring mutation which is artificially selected-for by a grower
Actually plant breeders use radioactive radiation, and certain mutagenic poisons, to increase to mutation rate way above normal, in order to get more mutated offspring to work with.
What you write about "transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial" and "not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites" is total bollocks and I have no idea where you got that particular misinformation from.
Most of what I've read on this subject, from the scientific community, suggests that gene editing is safer than breeding for characteristics, because it's more targeted and controlled. If the concern is long-term viability of a species, then plants whose genes have been carefully edited are subject to all of the same evolutionary selection pressures as plants that have been altered through breeding.
Note that for instance the heavily-selection-bred Cavendish banana is currently facing possible extinction due to its susceptibility to a fungus. So on the one hand here you have exactly the problem you're worried about with gene-edited crops, and meanwhile gene editing is a possible solution to the problem.
I regret that I'm not well-enough versed in the science of this subject to communicate it better.
> The acute oral lethal dose of cyanide for adult humans is reported to be 0.5–3.5 mg/kg (0.2–1.6 mg/lb) of body weight (approximately 50 bitter almonds), whereas for children, consuming 5–10 bitter almonds may be fatal.
The mutation that makes the bitter almonds produce cyanide is very old, totally natural and dangerous. It was mutated at least 300 million yeas ago, before the almond became a different plant than peach and cherry and other similar plants. Probably to make the animals avoid the plant and kernels.
Ah, ok. Yes, the last paragraph on page 1 says that the feature appeared before flowering plants, conifers and ferns split up. So yes, it is very ancient. Thank you.
This is interesting, and a good point, but the existence of harmful natural mutations isn't by itself a refutation.
The idea I have (again, perhaps wrongly) is approximately that harmful-to-humans mutations make up a smaller fraction of the space of viable (i.e. allows the organism to survive at all) natural mutations, and a larger fraction of the space of viable transgenic mutations. A secondary point is that this is because the space of viable transgenic mutations is not constrained by the prior state of the genome, the same thing that makes transgenic mutations powerful also makes them risky.
So, I am (or I was, anyways) positing _fewer_ dangerous natural mutations, not necessarily zero.
I'm certainly less convinced that there's an important difference than I was yesterday, though, but mostly because the _accessible_ space of transgenic behaviors is evidently limited by investigator effort, which does not scale, so even if the _theoretical_ space is larger, it doesn't matter, we're not going to sample it.
>>> I think it's tangential to the safety question -- actually-existing commercial GMO crops have been tested and demonstrated to be safe, that seems to be clear.
Actually, it's not that clear. They have been proven to not be unsafe, which arguably is a lot easier. But a lot of countries still ban them specifically because the "safe" part wasn't proven. Obviously this depends on the crop, as GMO means a lot of different things.
You are lucky you live in a rich, first world country where you can make decisions to not eat certain foods.
Guess what? GMO food saves millions of people from malnutrition in the 3rd world. But yet it's just not good enough for the cocky American consumers, despite that scientists agree it's perfectly safe and despite that GMO food is everywhere (without you realizing). I happily by GMO food, I proudly support GMOs because it saves lives, and I can't believe ignorant people would rather these people starve.
Well it is a USA government website so it holds some credence. Let's not commit a genetic fallacy. (Hah, pun totally not intended.)
The article points to an open letter signed by a number of scientists (are they all food/agricultural/health-related scientists?) who evidence Golden Rice, which in my opinion is thin evidence. But I am definitely not a food/agricultural/health-related scientist, so my opinion counts for a hill of non-GMO beans.
A US government run website is not credible? But the article isn't the thing, anyway. The letter that the article refers to, if you bothered to read the article, is why I posted it.
More importantly, it is not actual evidence that "GMO food saves millions of people from malnutrition in the 3rd world" as you asserted. So as to avoid repeating myself, please look here:
So I read the open letter linked to in the article.[1] The only evidence given there that GMOs could (potentially) save millions of lives is centered around 'Golden Rice', a crop whose beta carotene has not yet been proven to be usable by the human body[2], and which is not even available for sale yet because an effective crop has not yet been produced.[2] Also it is believed (if gut absorption could ever be evidenced) that a child would need to eat 27 bowls of the stuff per day to satisfy his minimum requirement for vitamin A.[3]
Also, a lot of the signatories are those who received the Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Economics, and Peace awards.[4] I'm not sure which Nobel award would be given for agricultural scientists, so many of those receiving the award could indeed be specialists in that field. But I could only find one agricultural scientist who received an award for anything, and he is dead now, so he couldn't have signed this, and indeed he did not.[5]
Best I can tell, this open letter was signed by people who aren't specialists in this field, who gave as their evidence for support a crop whose value (or even safety?) has not yet been proven. A lot of smart people to be sure, but not experts on this topic. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
You are correct that there is no Nobel prize in agriculture, and the Nobel prize winners are not subject specialists in crop science, plant breeding, nutrition and plant biotechnology.
But if you ask from the scientists from those fields, you are going to get the same answer.
"the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between currently commercialized genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops."
> But if you ask from the scientists from those fields
Ask them what, about the many lives that are saved from malnutrition as the commenter asserted? You answered about safety. Neither of us are discussing safety. (Well, I did as an aside. It was not the main point.) That is a separate subject.
Are millions of lives really saved from malnutrition? Kindly provide evidence for such assertions. I’m interested.
As another aside, while looking for evidence that GMOs saved lives through nutrition I was reminded that the economic engine seed producers profit from has brought poverty to farmers in India. 200,000 have committed suicide over increased farming debts. Seeds are far more expensive now, and cannot be saved.[1]
The problem is lack of control group. The control group is heavily pesticide laden non-GMO... (Green Revolution. Heh.) Those practices were invented some 60 years ago. It is not just artificial fertilizers.
So unless you somehow solve the problem of mass producing food in pesticide free agriculture, please do not ask for impossible studies.
If evidence cannot be provided, then I kindly ask that impossible-to-prove assertions not be made.
But the control group — wouldn’t it be non-GMO crops of any kind, organic or non? The assertion, yet to be provided evidence for, is that with gene editing many more millions are no longer suffering malnutrition. That seems to me to be easy evidence to provide if it’s true. If it’s true, evidence should be able to be shown that nutrition content has increased by X percent leading to X thousand lives not perishing. “Since the introduction of high vitamin C rice in Zambezia, the rates of scurvy have dropped by 32%. Vitamin C is difficult to obtain in Zambezia by any other means.” I don’t see how a discussion of pesticides enters into it.
By the way, Nobel laureates can be wrong. The prize was awarded in 1948 for the invention of DDT.[1]
I think there are lots of problems with GM stuff. It all starts with 'We have only one earth'. The vacuum of space combined with the stickiness of matter isolates biological systems very well. So if someone would start a genetically modified plant series on some space station or distant planet I would have much less of a problem with that.
Second, I have got the feeling that many people who experiment with genetic manipulation don't know what they are actually doing. Yes, they might know it on a high-level perspective and for experiments that is fine, but as long as we can't simulate even single cells its is hard to tell that we know what we are doing.
As a computer scientist it feels to me like someone is patching the binaries of 'grep' and 'cp' together and hopes to use the resulting binaries to build autonomous drones. It is just irresponsible to use the results are long as the have only one petri dish which is actually the one we are living in.
So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories. There might be exceptions to that rule when it comes to 'specific modification' as you call it, but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
> Second, I have got the feeling that many people who experiment with genetic manipulation don't know what they are actually doing.
This is frankly ridiculous. You describe yourself as a computer scientist and presumably have no expertise in the field and then use your gut feeling about how well people understand the consequences of their efforts? I know plenty of people who think that I'm just typing words and random until my code compiles.
Demanding that we are able to model living organisms in computers before we can productionize gmo tech is like saying that we can't deploy any web app until it has been formally verified in Coq.
Well, the difference is that we aren't living in the web. So even if the web goes down, the rest of the internet is still there and even without the internet we would survive.
So if we would live within the web, I would certainly demand to formally verify every web app before it would be deployed.
There is no hypothetical scenario for ecological collapse caused by gene editing that, when critically examined, doesn't look like arguing for a flat Earth.
Conventional agricultural practices are already causing massive ecological devastation. Gene editing is a very good solution to that problem.
> So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research
If you are pro research, maybe you should understand what you are talking about before you make ignorant claims that are completely backward, disconnected, and unfavored by the majority of scientists. You ignorance in this comment is incredible. The large majority of scientists support GMO research and confirm it's safety, while ignorant civilians (like you) fail to understand, fail to listen, and fail to learn.
I am not sure if I am the only ignorant person out here. I am well aware, that I am ignoring any statements about that technology being safe, because this isn't about some tech being safe or unsafe (most technologies can be used both ways), its about risk:
The problem I have, is that nobody really knows what happens when you place those products in our ecosystem. We might have some theories and observations but in the end nobody knows enough about the whole system to understand all its processes and sometimes small changes have much larger effects.
And as long as we have only one system and no backup, I don't want to risk changing the ecosystem on this planet in ways we can't predict.
They have been growing GMO papaya in Hawaii for 26 years (20 years commercially) now. Nothing happened.
It's all "unknown unknowns" territory here. There are no known threat scenarios. But if you're into being concerned of unknown unknowns, you have thousands of other things to be concerned of, too.
Well, risks are always about probability of occurrence and impact. So while it is unlikely that some GM plant causes some catastrophic scenario, but when it does it is likely to spread so the impact would be big.
I know that unknown threats are everywhere and there are a lots of other things I am concerned of too, but in the end I am used to live with that and it doesn't change my view on the topic.
More like if ever it spreads to a place that is not some other farmer's field. Even unmodified plants have problems with that and modified ones might be terminator or less viable crops too.
> As a computer scientist it feels to me like someone is patching the binaries of 'grep' and 'cp' together and hopes to use the resulting binaries to build autonomous drones.
No, it's like applying a patch to a code base, compiling it, testing it and expecting it to work. Which is literally what millions of software engineers do every day.
> So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories.
What's the point in that research than? Idle curiosity?
> but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
That's like saying it's ok to run binaries, but only if we compile them by hand on paper without using a compiler. If the result is the same, as even you admit, what's the point of taking the hard route?
> As a consumer, if I ever get suspicious about one specific change made to one specific breed, my only option is to buy non-GMO everything. That doesn't make any sense!
It seems rational to me that the operation is on its head. If I want to grow GMO soy I just buy it, plant it, and spray it. But if I want to certify Organic I must go through a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
I’d like to see it exactly the opposite: If you use proven, centuries-old methods it’s easy, but if you want to spray and use weird stuff it requires a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
Don’t we do that in other industries? Why not with our own food?
You can grow food however you like, for the most part. If you want to participate in certification, then that's what you have to do.
Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods are anything but centuries old. Heavy use of Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, copper compounds, compost tea, etc. etc. are all quite new. That's not to say they aren't safe; there are a few practices which warrant more scrutiny, but for the most part they're alright. But the point is that many people are terribly mischaracterizing actual farming practices.
> You can grow food however you like, for the most part. If you want to participate in certification, then that's what you have to do.
Yes you can grow as you like but it seems backwards to me that you have to prove you are /not/ doing unusual things. If any regulation should occur it ought to be in doing the /unusual/ things.
> Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods
I'm not speaking of newer methods. I would have any new method more strictly regulated until proven.
I am not arguing against your core point, but would like to point out that "unusual" itself is going to be difficult to define, as are terms such as "natural".
Unusual in the sense that it has not been practiced for hundreds of years and proven out. The short-term studies typically done with new practices are annoyingly inconsistent with reality. Time and lots of exposure are needed.
There’s lies, there’s damned lies, and then there’s studies. Monsanto’s maize study was only done for 90 days and then got approved. When the same study was replicated for two years, significant health issues were discovered.[1]
And by the way, Monsanto was the only one required to confirm that the study showed positive results. Safety testing is not done by the FDA, only required by the company, who may or may not be telling the truth about the results.[2]
Lies, damned lies, and studies.
So the question remains: Why should I if I were farming have to spend a lot of time, effort, and money to prove what I am not doing? Shouldn't it be the other way 'round?
Please don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. There are practices that the fruits of that labor, every human being has either consumed and/or his ancestors has consumed, across the entire face of the planet, for dozens of generations, including pesticides. Accepting those by default and holding back new practices seems a far smarter approach, to me.
But then I live in the United States where we do quite a number of backwards things.
I don’t have all day to sit around debating so take my thoughts as they are. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
What makes you think that the current process isn't good? That regulatory experts, say like the FDA/USDA/EPA haven't given it any rigorous thought?
Hybridization of plants swaps thousands of genes at random, in an uncontrolled manner. We've been doing that for a thousand years, and just breeding stuff out in fields to see what sticks.
Geneticaly modifying rice to produce more vitamin A required changing only 2 genes, instead of thousands, but somehow people find that scarier because it seems "new".
I don't suppose the FDA/USDA/EPA have ever been known to be wrong about relatively new practices?
But classic methods have been used and proven for centuries. It seems riskier and frankly, backwards, to me to require stricter regulation on what has been proven but easily permit that which is new and still being tried out.
Is the fox guarding the (non-GMO) hen house? "Testing for GMO products is currently voluntary," according to an FDA spokeswoman. "Although the consultation process is voluntary, compliance with the law is mandatory; it is the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure that the food products it offers for sale are safe and otherwise comply with applicable requirements," the spokeswoman said in a statement to ABC News.[1]
What has the FDA really "rigorously thought" about if they aren't testing?
well, those are good questions. As frustrating as it is, scientists should be well aware that science doesn't happen in a political, juridical or economical vacuum.
This social sensibility should be part of the soft skills of the modern scientist. Same goes for engineers (let’s think about the Facebook crisis), or any profession, really.
Ideas have consequences.
Edit: Also that's is quite infuriating: "How am I supposed to explain the consequences of abandoning a technology that can help feed millions to Swiss students who enjoy the world's highest standard of living?" - if you think that the problem of malnutrition is mainly a technological/agrological problem, that's very disingenuous.
> if you think that the problem of malnutrition is mainly a technological/agrological problem, that's very disingenuous
This is true right now. But a sane world has to plan ahead. Our existing agricultural system can easily feed the world today without GMOs. But if the world population really does grow as anticipated this century (I have my doubts), with a fast-changing climate, high levels of topsoil loss & degradation, there is zero chance without every technological trick we can muster.
My point regarding patents was that these questions do not get asked (or not with such ferocity) of my colleagues in biomedicine. Most people seem ok with medical researchers having patents but not plant/agricultural research.
I do not think malnutrition is a technological problem, but it does have a technological solution, or rather, technology is a part of the solution.
I live in a region where very many are vehemently 'anti-GMO'. It's clear within seconds of talking to such people here that they have only the dimmest notion of what GMOs actually are, but they know they are Evil. They also know that all GMOs are created by Monsanto (which is Evil). It is not dissimilar to their opposition to much "allopathic medicine", which comes from Big Pharma (Evil). The dividing line between good and evil is not inherently related to corporations, because these folk don't abjure solar panels, 4WDs or mobile 'phones, the manufacturers of which are presumably Good. Even Big Pharma, which is Evil, is at the same time Good when it flogs them supplements. It is all a little confusing.
I definitely sympathize, but I've come to recognize that we can only expect so much of people in mass numbers. I agree with the poster further up that people have a reason to fear the application of expensive technology to the food they eat...they are awash in stories of problems that were identified much later. When the people act on those fears we say they are irrational.
Of course they are, they are human beings, not computers. When have we ever seen such delicate reasoning survive at a mass scale? We call it scientific illiteracy, as if all those people promised to behave in a scientifically literate fashion at some earlier point, and are now behaving defectively.
No such agreements were made.
This tendency to "spread" the Evil label (and the Good one) across categories and into related but distinctly different domains is a biological rather than digital approach to threat. As the elite of a culture that aspires to the digital, we get outraged.
It's not going to make any difference, y'all know that, right?
"Personally, the thought that no matter what steps I take there’s always going to be people who think my research will harm them is profoundly distressing, and feels really unfair."
Duh. That's the case of almost every very high professional job on this planet. Almost nobody cares. Almost everybody stays in their own little belief. Few try to learn. Even less will admit they were once wrong.
Tell people humanity has been modifying all kinds of life forms for thousands of years and they are flabbergasted. When you tell them it's about selecting plants and breeding dogs or cattle they tell you 'it's not the same', because it was a slower process.
They're scared we are going to mess up evolution and then tell us to stop playing god. Kinda paradoxal.
This. Something so fundamental that has been part of our civilization since forever is suddenly out of fashion because of a name.
If you'd try eating real pure non-gmo'd banana you'd break your teeth because of all the seeds, but that thing hasn't existed for millenia. Apples would be disgusting too by today's standards.
It's not out of fashion because of a name. It's considered dangerous because of the rate, and there is logic to that.
The slow change in dogs or crops over many decades or generations is tolerable. But rapid change can kill, or at least it excites danger signals in the affected organisms (people).
A car that creeps towards you slowly is fine. One that moves too fast might kill you.
I think rate is the central question in this problem, but it always gets elided in discussion with the word "just," as if rate was a minor concern.
Admits it is vital research but "constantly confronting people who think my research will harm them is profoundly distressing." This is a very personal decision, but I'm glad for those who continue on despite the misguided activism. Imagine if vaccine researchers quit because of the unpleasantness caused by anti-vaccine activists.
I find the whole GMO debate to be depressingly asinine.
There's a very good concern, which is seldom raised clearly -- if Monsanto patents the genomes that we need to feed the planet, then that is likely to be very harmful for the development of the poorer half of the world.
But there's simply no credible concern at this point about "genes escaping from one plant to another". There are mechanisms by which gene transfer can occur between bacteria and viruses, but there is no mechanism by which a gene could get from maize to a weed.
I hear complaints mostly about the latter, and seldom about the former -- but note that the former concern could be ameliorated by having governments or other public institutions do the research, and either hold the patents or just make them available for all.
> but there is no mechanism by which a gene could get from maize to a weed.
I'm not sure why you say that; this has been unremarkable for a while and is often seen in the wild. Insects play a role too, though this article from Nature specifically discusses cross-pollination.
Thanks, I think my claim was a bit sloppy and underspecified there. The typical anti-GMO concern that I was addressing is that a gene, once introduced, could spread into any plant in the ecosystem and into the weeds that compete with farmed plants, i.e. beyond the species with which the organism can pollinate. The paper you linked shows:
> that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance
which I believe is a much narrower claim. If the anti-GMO claim was that "GMO crops can share their genes with wild/weedy/non-GMO versions of those crops", I don't think anyone would be freaking out in the same way.
But my specific claim was about gene transfer to unrelated species, which (to my understanding) is not likely. (There's also horizontal gene transfer to worry about, but this is very unlikely in eukaryotes, e.g. see https://www.ebr-journal.org/articles/ebr/pdf/2008/03/ebr0742...)
> There's a very good concern .. if Monsanto patents the genomes ..
The trouble is the anti-GMO-on-principle stance badly undermines the political case for taking such concerns seriously, by a sort of unintended divide-and-conquer.
It's much easier for legislators to ignore corporate power over food production systems when so many of the objections come from obvious crazies. And it's hard for those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world but are otherwise pro-knowledge to make common political cause with people who think GMOs are 'evil' (due to their Manichaeanism they'll reject anyone who isn't anti-GMO on principle as political allies).
This is a sad result of people's rightful and fully earned suspicion of large corporations and the food industry. How many times have new products been introduced, people assured they're safe, and later we find they cause cancer, or men to grow breasts, or children to lose IQ points? The number of these stories that implicate the chemical industry are nearly countless.
Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.
If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.
EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.
One problem is consumers have segmented into two mutually exclusive groups. One likes healthy food and hates GMO. The other cares much less about both health and GMO. Since the first group has self-selected out of the market for GMO, sellers optimize for a health-indifferent population.
Side note: is the plural of one GMO two GMO? Two GMOs?
> Is that a problem with consumers or a problem with unregulated markets?
Consumers are voters, so it's both. The number of voters one can productively engage about thoughtful GMO regulation is basically zero. People are against it or don't care.
It is a problem with GMO labeling requirement. GMO labeling requirement should be abolished because it is a meaningless distinction and consumers have no right to know such things.
> "GMO labeling requirement should be abolished because it is a meaningless distinction and consumers have no right to know such things."
I can understand why someone would argue it's a meaningless distinction. I don't agree with the idea that a consumer has no right to be informed. Let the consumer know, make the case that your product (any product) is safe, and let the consumer decide.
My stance on GMO labeling is analogous to kosher and halal foods. Consumers can and do demand arbitrarily meaningless standard such as kosher, halal, or GMO-free. I am even in favor of protecting such labels by advertising standard law: i.e. forbidding things to be labeled kosher if it actually is not kosher. But GMO labeling requirement is as ridiculous as kosher labeling requirement.
Do you want to make a case that health and safety have gone down since we adopted our current “economic system”?
If so, when was this? AFAIK, health and safety have been trending positively in a significant way for well over a century, with nation-state conflict causing the most significant regressions, not profit-motivated corporations.
Health and safety typically increase in response to workers advocating for additional health and safety. Those increases were won in spite of the system not because of it.
Noam Chomsky makes the following point: Slave societies also exhibited improvements over time. It wasn't an argument for slavery.
Sure, but comparing the virtual slave state of North Korea with the prosperity of South Korea is a pretty good argument for freedom and against slavery.
Do you have some examples of societies that radically increased their overall health and safety without adopting liberal economic policies? Cuba, maybe?
This is a very reasonable question, but I think this is too off topic from this article to comply with HN's guidelines as it verges on more general questions. The latest issue of Jacobin does compare the Cuban health system to the US health system and to the Dominican Republic if you're interested, but it's print/subscriber only. SK and NK are too complex to be analyzed under these textual constraints.
Thalidomide, asbestos, DDT, commercial fishing, logging, industrial agriculture’s dependence on phosphate, western nations entirely addicted to oil … there are plenty of examples.
The overall positive trend is slowing down, with life expectancy in the USA dropping, mostly due to the opioid epidemic.
Overall the picture is pretty grim. Long term stability of civilisation is under threat due to fertility rates not falling fast enough to offset longevity. Food production is consuming limited non-renewable resources.
> Nevertheless, my time in GMO research creating virus-resistant plants has meant dealing with the overwhelming negative responses the topic evokes in so many people. These range from daily conversations halting into awkward silence when the subject of my work crops up, to hateful Twitter trolls, and even the occasional fear that public protesters might destroy our research.
Do any folks working at social media or adtech firms feel the same way, out of interest? Curious if the recent CA scandals have caused an uptick in confrontational behavior.
I collected some mentions of "Monsanto" from this very discussion:
...Monsanto lawsuits...
...created by Monsanto (which is Evil)...
...Monsanto patents...
...those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world...
I would be funny to be a software engineer if every discussion with friends and family about your work would involve suspicious mentions like "Facebook lawsuits..." , "...created by Facebook (which is Evil)...",
"Facebook patents...", "...those of us who are suspicious of the Facebooks of this world..."
I guess the major 'problem' is that (at least the media representation) most of the effort in GMO is not going into products being more healthy, but towards increasing yield.
Put in that light it's immediately obvious the first argument will be 'big industry.' People don't trust big industry, so therefore if they are the largest supporters/drivers of GE it will wholly be placed in the 'bad' basket.
'Big Industry' players time and time again do act poorly, fund outcomes, corrupt policies etc so you concerns can't be dismissed easily and will be conflated either way.
So the question out of this is: how do we increase the integrity of actors involved: science, media, government, business? What would it take to be able to identify and understand which GE is 'honest' vs not?
Until that can be done in any meaningful way, it will continually just be an argument between those saying all GMO/GE can't be trusted and those saying it can. Not to mention the different points being that the distrust is in those engineering/producing GMO vs the actual products/processes themselves...
This article is good, and there's literally nothing of value I could say better than the author - which is why I really like Massive's (the site's) commenting system. I've never seen a comment system allows so few people to participate, and I wonder if this model ought to be tried elsewhere. By restricting comments to approved scientists, Massive lets us observe informed discourse without risking the mess that so many other discussion systems devolve into.
I think part of the problem is that fundamental decisions around IPR collided in time with the decision to explore this space outside of nationally funded research. Had bodies which have charitable status and seek government funds done the majority work rather than monsanto, I suspect GMO would have been understood more widely for its benefits. Having it go rapidly from government funded labs to commercial exploitatio of IPR tied knots into the model: who owns infected wheat next door to a field which was sown with GMO wheat, is a very wierd story. How can you expect farmers to relate well to this? Likewise, the decision of the organic farming movement to de-rate GMO meant the consequential loss to farms around a GMO crop was high. This is pitting farmer against farmer, and farmer against seed merchant. Seed hoarding has been a part of farming practice since Noah. Now, it incurs a long-tail lease payment? Bizarre!
None of this is about the FUD on GMO and health. Its the economics of IPR, and the effect on emotional feelings about GMO. I think the science is fantastic. The commercialization is awful.
Plants that are more resistant to herbicides/pesticides (weeds/bugs) due to GMO is my main gripe. Indoor growing and hydroponics is the best solution to this from my point of view. I have no problem with making food more nutrient-rich via GMO. I am well aware that all foods get sprayed, I'd be nice if none needed to be used and plants didn't get modified to make their own herbicides/pesticides.
I'll probably anger both side of the debate because I'm not 100% on one side or the other.
Also indoor farming/hydroponics is great for crops that are mainly water (think tomato or lettuce) but much less so for staple calorie crops like corn or wheat.
I view this less on the merits of GMO. I think this is a reflection of the negativity pervasive on the internet. People separate into their own camps on the internet. Then they take a mentality to meat space that they’re somehow fighting a fight against “the other side”. People are using the internet to collectively ferment their angers to disasterous results.
Yes, this is probably the biggest issue, and mainstream media don't help by mostly publishing 'bad GMO' stories where no one hears of the hundreds of success stories (in fact you could apply that to most of the sciences)
> It really showed how futile researchers’ attempts at science communication can be.
There is the Cultural Cognition Project (http://www.culturalcognition.net/kahan/), and if I understand the research they did correctly, you really should not expect explanations of science to be effective at changing people's minds like that. In the past, and in psychology experiments, this technique has been shown to be ineffective even though it seems really intuitive that it should work.
How safe are GMO plants from a systems perspective?
When we breed plants through selection, the changes are slow and the plants do not acquire capabilities from outside their species.
When we change fast growing species like grasses, and give them capabilities they do not have in nature, do we really understand what those species do when they enter a natural ecosystem? Ecosystems have a delicate balance.
I really wonder how comprehensive GMO testing really is.
Having said that, I have no problems eating GMO crops. I don’t think the risks are to humans directly. I think the issue is environmental.
Like you, I have no problem eating GMO crops but as you say, there are potential knock-on effects from a systems perspective. Similar to the financial system, if the sole pursuit is yield, systemic problems arise.
The main issues I have with GMO is the patenting of crops, specifically those that are introduced to third world countries which are typically sterile, causing the farmers to have an ongoing dependence/obligation to the patent holders. Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases. In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
> The main issues I have with GMO is the patenting of crops, specifically those that are introduced to third world countries which are typically sterile, causing the farmers to have an ongoing dependence/obligation to the patent holders.
Incidentally, this is also the solution to one of the major criticisms of GMO plants: in the event of significant cross-pollination, the GMO plants won't be viable.
> Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases.
We already massively reduce diversity in agricultural crops. This is not a problem specific to, or even exacerbated by, GMO crops.
> In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
Diversity is doing exactly piss-all for the hundreds of millions of conifers in California that have been killed by bark beetles.
Mostly because the natural state is that species outcompete others on long timeframes. The problem is that alleged natural state is currently vastly reduced diversity.
If anything, adding GMO will improve on that.
Patenting of plants predates GMOs and actually, the majority of patented plant varieties are non-GMO. GMO plants are not sterile. They are usually hybrids and like with all hybrids (even non-GMO) their offspring do not maintain the same traits. This is why Monsanto's (and other non-GM hybrid seed providers) agreements with farmers do not allow for replanting--they don't want liability for trait failure in offspring.
It looks like a lot of commenters here are talking about the public opinion of GMOs and whether or not it's justified. As a graduate student, I'd like to comment on the author of this article instead of GMOs, since I find his story more profoundly disquieting.
The author is leaving his primary research specialization after spending literally years studying it. It's not uncommon for people to change their research focus, but he is moving to a different subfield and specialization altogether. More importantly, his decision is precipitated by unceasing vitriol for something he was passionate enough about to spend the best years of his life working on.
I'm not sure what else to say. I can't imagine what it's like to give something like that up just to avoid having research decisions litigated by other people. It must have been so exhausting and disheartening for him.
Thanks for writing your article, it was good, and I sympathize with your experience!
I think we are brought up to believe we can pursue whatever we want to pursue, and of course this is true, but there is a cost. If that pursuit falls out of alignment with the community of which you are a part, life can lose it's joy. This isn't fair, it just is. We need to feel in a relationship of give and take with our community.
My own thought here is that the research itself is a good thing, and the act of pursuit deepens your character and experience in a way that makes you more valuable to your community. But people don't like the stories they hear about "patented" crops, about DRM in farmers fields. It's not the research that's a problem, it's the use to which it's put (at least in the eye of the public). GMOs seem to become a lever corporations use to monetize activities that we aren't sure should be monetized.
[I recognize that my "story" above is likely tainted with outrageous misconceptions. I don't disagree! I'm just playing back the image in my head around GMOs, mostly built by passive listening to the conversation in our culture over some years. You can argue with that story, but it's exhausting.]
I think you are caught in the gears of the working out of this vast cultural argument.
I don’t for a moment believe GMOs are in anyway harmful. I do wonder though if they have had the effect of fueling population growth, without necessarily helping the hungry.
It’s often stated that GMOs are needed to feed the growing population, but I get the sense that the most of the benefits go to just increasing population and not lowering the raw number of people who are actually undernourished.
In a world without GMOs would there be fewer total people and would that be better than the alternative?
Also. It's disheartening to see that no one wants to discuss if population growth is actually something desirable in the long run. Everyone cares only about the immediate economic necessities.
All available evidence indicates that as a society stabilizes and the long-term health and viability of children improves, then population growth slows down.
If you want fewer people in the world, help them live longer.
They actually had this same discussion in the 1960s when the original "green revolution" used plant breeding and fertilization to increased crop yields dramatically.
If they had done then as you propose, half of the people today in Third World, or having Third World grandparents, would not exist today. How many of your friends and family would not exist?
As a person trained in scientific thought and practice, I am against GMO research for the simple reason that it is one of the main factors enabling runaway population growth. The community involved in GMO research often cite the need to feed growing numbers of people (the author of this article, for one) as one of the motivators of their work, but they never seem to openly acknowledge the fact that they themselves are contributing to the problem they claim to help solve. Based on this alone I wish the entire field could be massively curtailed, if not entirely shut down. The earth needs far less people, not more, and this type of research seems to be making the odds of a future population crisis higher, not lower. Please note that I'm not at all questioning the actual science or the validity of the topic as a research area - merely the impact that said activities have upon the real world, impacts that I don't believe we can ignore.
It seems like Taleb et al captured the nebulous fears many people have around GMOs fairly rigorously with the "Precautionary Principle"[1]. I see some people attempt to refute that paper with specific evidence of safety for some GMOs, but have not seen a work that deals fundamentally with section "X"; which or how GMOs can be sufficiently "non-global".
Taleb is a skilled writer, I give him that. But he doesn't know anything about biology.
From section X.B:
"GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably, and thus their risks cannot be localized. The crossbreeding of wild-type plants with genetically modified ones prevents their disentangling, leading to irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides."
Now, the very reason crop plants (GMO or not) cannot spread uncontrollably is tightly coupled to why they are crop plants. They are not poisonous, they are easy to eat, and they produce a good yield. A dream come true for every plant-eating animal. That's why they are crop plants. But they wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell in the wild nature, animals and insects would eat them quickly. Wild plants invest a lot of effort to not being eaten (unless they want to, for seed spreading purposes).
There are no cases of crop plants having invaded back to wild nature. Perhaps there is an odd canola plant that escaped a field and grows on a roadside or by an abandoned gas station somewhere, but these are also situations where humans first cleared the wild plants and bared the soil before the canola was able to set roots.
Crop plants don't spread outside of the farmers' fields, and GMO breeding is not trying to change that. (If they wanted to breed competitive wild plants, they'd use wild plants as the starting stock.)
Very interesting. I've heard stories of the GMO spreading to another farmers field, causing some problems. But that field is mostly devoid of insects, so it's easy for the GMO to live there.
I still think that a fear of "irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides" will persist, despite the good sense of your argument.
Also, as a technologist, I know that we move from solving easier problems to more complex ones. Who is to say that GMO tech isn't just beginning in farmers' fields, and that flush with success in that space, all those engineers, technology and know-how will happily move on to the Next Big Problem. This might be in wild-plant space.
This is the major issue that prevents me from self-identifying as a progressive. The arguments are strikingly similar to arguments over vaccines causing autism; no matter how many times you debunk the myths and fantasies and throw facts at the irrational fears, progressives just keep coming back to the position that "GMOs are scary".
And, like anti-vaxxers, this has a real negative impact on human and ecological health.
I wish there was some kind of "yay, science!" political movement that would advocate for applying science in ways intended to improve human health and happiness in both the short and long term (which would include funding further GMO research).
Isn't GMO old hat now that we are using Gene Editing?
"There is another reason gene editing is causing excitement in industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has concluded that the new plants are not “regulated articles.” The reason is a legal loophole: its regulations apply only to GMOs constructed using plant pathogens like bacteria, or their DNA."
I cited the same link in my article. But there are uses of GM technology that cannot be achieved using gene editing. The best example is Bt crops for insect resistance. This is a hugely important trait that is only possible through genetic engineering.
178 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 223 ms ] threadThe only real answer to fears about GMOs is to point people towards longitudinal studies that show that the specific modification in question isn't causing any problems. Sadly, this really isn't possible in our current system, as I have no idea which changes were made to the organisms that get put in the consumer products I buy. In an ideal world, I could read NGK-028181 off the tin of baked beans in my pantry and realize that I needed to throw it out because they discovered something wrong with that one specific genome (or because I know I'm allergic).
As a consumer, if I ever get suspicious about one specific change made to one specific breed, my only option is to buy non-GMO everything. That doesn't make any sense!
Huh, didn't know--thank you. Plants have apparently been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Delicious
I think you're referring to Round-up Ready? Wasn't the point of that program to reduce pesticide use?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crop...
http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2017/04/gmos-and-herbicides-its...
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600850
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/01/492091546/ho...
Programs like Bt-corn reduce pesticide use... by making the plant produce the herbicide in the fruit. So, instead of being able to peel or rinse fruit (with varying results), you're eating corn kernels that have pesticide on the inside.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_soybean
We eat lots of pesticides. Capsaicin (in chilis) [1] and piperine (in peppers) [2] are two examples.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piperine
The endotoxin used in Bt corn is also 100% natural [1].
I'm not arguing for (or against) Bt corn. I'm trying to show that the language we used to describe GMOs is misleading. Something we think of as natural isn't inherently healthy or unhealthy compared with something we think of as artificial. The same applies to GMO.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_endotoxin
https://www.amazon.com/Bonide-Products-803-Thuricide-16-Ounc...
"Engineered chemicals" shouldn't be used when you mean "harmful". It sounds ignorant.
Unless you're paying $3/# for carrots, herbicides are in the mix one way or the other. GMOs allow us to be pickier about which herbicides we're exposed to.
Regarding IPR issues: you're referring to Monsanto lawsuits. Monsanto enforced its IPR against people who not only planted Roundup-ready crops, but then used Roundup on them --- in other words, people who took advantage of the IPR itself, not merely people who happened to plant Roundup-ready seeds unknowingly. Farmers don't accidentally spray their crops with Glyphosate.
15.1 billion bushels of corn... wasted.
Maybe its not directly toxic like agent orange, but these chemicals are still dangerous.
[1] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-20...
To say that IARC 2A classification is controversial would be understating.
I’m inclined to agree with the WHO because I can’t see how they could profit from having the results be the way they are, if you believe the conspiracy theories. The old adage, “follow the money” still holds true; so if there is a conspiracy where is the money for calling RoundUp harmful?
That Reuters article is loaded with conspiracy. No actual evidence of wrongdoing, unless I just missed it.
Honest question: If glycosate is safe couldn’t you drink it? Why then did this Monsanto lobbyist refuse to drink it? Honest question. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
1. That's a dude who was asked by Canal+ to give an interview about Golden Rice, a product that has nothing to do with herbicides, and is at the end of the interview asked to drink a glass of herbicide.
2. That dude doesn't work for Monsanto, isn't a "Monsanto lobbyist", and has never taken a dollar from Monsanto.
3. I don't need to watch Canal+ stunt interviews to know how dangerous glyphosate is, because there's something called "the medical literature", which documents people having drunk a half liter of the stuff with no effect.
4. But drinking a half liter of glyphosate-based herbicide is an extremely bad plan, because glyphosate isn't the only thing in glyphosate herbicide. Lots of routinely-used fungicides are extremely toxic to humans and found commonly in households.
5. Even if drinking a half liter of random herbicide was completely safe, I'd be upset if you demanded I drink it, for the same reason I'd be upset if you asked me to drink a glass of grapeseed oil or of human urine.
6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
Regarding points 1-5, did you miss that I said it was an honest question? I clearly did not say that it was an argument. I asked precisely because I knew there might be facts I am not aware of. Thank you for filling me in.
> 6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
And this addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
> 7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
And that also is not an argument for rejecting 2A carcinogenic labeling on glyphosate.
So I ask again: This addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
Well, I ask rhetorically. Apparently an answer will not be given, only misdirection.
Sorry but I don't have the energy to debate with people who won't read carefully or provide answers that are not misdirecting. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
P.S., "a significant number of scientists" is a fallacious appeal to authority. A significant number of scientists is not the same as having a majority of consensus.
IARC works under WHO, but WHO itself doesn't think glyphosate poses a cancer threat:
http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MkH08772A4
GMO crops can be engineered to be pest resistant, requiring far less use of pesticides, without harming the crop's suitability for human consumption.
Ignorance on this issue is destroying ecosystems in agricultural areas.
Meanwhile, pesticides are killing off 75% of all flying insects.
I like monarchs, but if I had to choose between a world with no monarchs, and a world with no monarchs and also just 25% of the flying insect biomass we had 30 years ago and also fewer birds and everything else that consumes insects and all of the beneficial pollination that those 75% of insects would have accounted for ... well, that seems like a pretty easy choice to me.
Gene editing would also provide an avenue for a different approach here, where the crop could be made resistant to its costliest pests without harming monarchs. Good luck doing that through cross-breeding.
That would be the result of getting rid of pesticides and insecticides...
A viable option actually.
> Currently, up to 92% of U.S. corn is genetically engineered (GE), as are 94% of soybeans and 94% of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products). It has been estimated that upwards of 75% of processed foods on supermarket shelves – from soda to soup, crackers to condiments – contain genetically engineered ingredients. [1]
[1] https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/311/ge-foods/abou...
I suppose there is some overlap, but I would think that as a first step people with dietary health concerns would cut out things like white flour and high fructose corn syrup.
Cottonseed oil is not food, it is a waste product of the cotton industry that should only be used for biodiesel.
Better to investigate, report, regulate, so all society can benefit from the benefits of targeted engineering without fear.
We've come up with a definition for "GMO" which is about as arbitrary as "plants grown on the north side of a mountain."
Look at a wild carrot [1]. There is no good reason for plants to stuff their roots with beta carotene. But nutrient-rich roots are tastier and healthier, so we bred them. It blows my mind that someone might consider a mutation bred [2] vegetable healthier or safer than one where the desired gene is precisely injected.
The economics of GMO produce are compelling. They will be produced. All anti-GMO consumers guarantee is having their views, tastes and concerns ignored as agriculture develops. That lack of consumer input is, in my opinion, unhealthy for us all.
[1] http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/wild.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
So, "north side of the mountain" is non-GMO right off the bat.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
Plants have been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2]. IP concerns and GMO are orthogonal issues, as non-GMO varieties have been patented.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o...
That's that gathering of political representatives from all corners of the planet, to make decisions for humanity.
You may think the only issue the ethical problem of enforcing genetic IPR, but casual consumers do not give a shit about IPR ethics. They assume "genetically modified" is in approximately the same category as "contains toxic herbicides".
Ironically, the most commercially viable way to produce non-GMO crops are toxic herbicides.
What would be the point of it? In both cases we're seeking genetic modifications. In one case, it is targeted and precise, in another - random and probabilistic, i.e. we don't know whether the modification we want (sweeter apple, nicer carrot, etc.) didn't also bring along something we don't. Or at least we don't without analyzing the genome and selecting only those with genome we want - in which case it's just a very convoluted way of producing GMO.
It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding" - surely, you could do that, but what exactly is the point?
If you say "but those genetic modifications have been tested by centuries of time" - also not really, many cultivars we're eating today are relatively recent, late 19th to 20th century. E.g. Fuji apples one sees everywhere were introduced to US marked in 1980s. And for many cultivars, there was no serious studies about their safety. Of course, if people start dropping dead in place from eating certain kind of apple, it would be noticed. But otherwise - we have little data, and nobody is too worried about it.
Simply to try to define "GMO"; do you have a better idea?
Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification. To be useful, the definition probably has to carve some subset in the M space.
> It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding"
That may be so, but I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
Yes. "GMO" is a scare term, devoid of any real content, used by tiny number of overly cautions ecologists and vast number of charlatans to trick gullible people into fearing modern technology.
> Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification
That's where you realize "GMO" is meaningless, and stop using that term.
> I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
You are both. One does not contradict the other, and being made of organic molecules in no way diminishes your humanity. And being made of other organic molecules, some of which were purposedly put there to make it better (for varying definitions of "better") does not diminish the quality of your food. Which is not just declared by me, some guy on the internet typing some bullshit into the browser, but was actually verified by scientists.
It's not meaningless at all. GMO could be used maliciously. A tomato could be produced which deliberately make a protein such that a fraction of a milligram can kills. That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
"GMO" is just as meaningful as "infected executable".
> You are both.
Completely besides the point; which wasn't about human versus molecules, but rather that random evolution did a pretty good job there.
That's a strange claim to make about a member of the nightshade family.
Anything can be used maliciously.
> That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
That is happening all the time with evolution. Hundreds of types of plants produce poisons. In fact, producing various poisons is the plant's main weapon in the struggle for survivial - it has no claws and can not run, so it's either making itself completely indigestible (like trees) or making itself unfit or at least hard for eating. Like tomatoes, which were, like all nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, etc.) originally highly toxic. Only we humans convinced tomatoes and potatoes not to kill us, by genetically modifying them since at least 500BC. Of course, we could develop ones that kill too. Or we could worry about grocers to just shooting you - if they'd be willing to kill you with tomatoes, why not with rifles? Of course, in reality nobody tries to kill anyone, so worrying about weaponized GMO is pointless - if you wanted to kill people, nobody would bother with GMO, there are much cheaper ways.
It seems likely (intuitively, which is why this is a question) that a naturally-occurring mutation which is artificially selected-for by a grower actually is very different from a transgenic insertion. The former arises within the complex regulatory/inhibitory genetic environment of the natural plant, so it sort of feels less risky, less likely to be disruptive or to renovate the biochemistry. Transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial, activated by default, and not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites -- this is where they get their power. An ecosystem analogy comes to mind, natural mutations are like species evolving in an ecosystem, and transgenic insertions are like invasive species, potentially throwing the ecosystem seriously out of whack.
Is this just a sort of romantic fallacy, supported by a bad analogy?
I think it's tangential to the safety question -- actually-existing commercial GMO crops have been tested and demonstrated to be safe, that seems to be clear. But I think the space for unsafe combinations is much larger than it is for natural mutations, and the analogy to selective breeding understates the danger (and the power)?
Actually plant breeders use radioactive radiation, and certain mutagenic poisons, to increase to mutation rate way above normal, in order to get more mutated offspring to work with.
What you write about "transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial" and "not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites" is total bollocks and I have no idea where you got that particular misinformation from.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding
Note that for instance the heavily-selection-bred Cavendish banana is currently facing possible extinction due to its susceptibility to a fungus. So on the one hand here you have exactly the problem you're worried about with gene-edited crops, and meanwhile gene editing is a possible solution to the problem.
I regret that I'm not well-enough versed in the science of this subject to communicate it better.
In particular:
> The acute oral lethal dose of cyanide for adult humans is reported to be 0.5–3.5 mg/kg (0.2–1.6 mg/lb) of body weight (approximately 50 bitter almonds), whereas for children, consuming 5–10 bitter almonds may be fatal.
The mutation that makes the bitter almonds produce cyanide is very old, totally natural and dangerous. It was mutated at least 300 million yeas ago, before the almond became a different plant than peach and cherry and other similar plants. Probably to make the animals avoid the plant and kernels.
I don't know, the whole group of flowering plants is about 300 million years old (says Wikipedia). Perhaps you mean 30 million years.
Apparently is a very very old feature (even older than what I though).
The idea I have (again, perhaps wrongly) is approximately that harmful-to-humans mutations make up a smaller fraction of the space of viable (i.e. allows the organism to survive at all) natural mutations, and a larger fraction of the space of viable transgenic mutations. A secondary point is that this is because the space of viable transgenic mutations is not constrained by the prior state of the genome, the same thing that makes transgenic mutations powerful also makes them risky.
So, I am (or I was, anyways) positing _fewer_ dangerous natural mutations, not necessarily zero.
I'm certainly less convinced that there's an important difference than I was yesterday, though, but mostly because the _accessible_ space of transgenic behaviors is evidently limited by investigator effort, which does not scale, so even if the _theoretical_ space is larger, it doesn't matter, we're not going to sample it.
Actually, it's not that clear. They have been proven to not be unsafe, which arguably is a lot easier. But a lot of countries still ban them specifically because the "safe" part wasn't proven. Obviously this depends on the crop, as GMO means a lot of different things.
Guess what? GMO food saves millions of people from malnutrition in the 3rd world. But yet it's just not good enough for the cocky American consumers, despite that scientists agree it's perfectly safe and despite that GMO food is everywhere (without you realizing). I happily by GMO food, I proudly support GMOs because it saves lives, and I can't believe ignorant people would rather these people starve.
Kindly provide evidence for such assertions.
The article points to an open letter signed by a number of scientists (are they all food/agricultural/health-related scientists?) who evidence Golden Rice, which in my opinion is thin evidence. But I am definitely not a food/agricultural/health-related scientist, so my opinion counts for a hill of non-GMO beans.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16703874
Also, a lot of the signatories are those who received the Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Economics, and Peace awards.[4] I'm not sure which Nobel award would be given for agricultural scientists, so many of those receiving the award could indeed be specialists in that field. But I could only find one agricultural scientist who received an award for anything, and he is dead now, so he couldn't have signed this, and indeed he did not.[5]
Best I can tell, this open letter was signed by people who aren't specialists in this field, who gave as their evidence for support a crop whose value (or even safety?) has not yet been proven. A lot of smart people to be sure, but not experts on this topic. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
[1] http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-le...
[2] https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden...
[3] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/gmo-food_b_91496...
[4] http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/view-signatures_rjr.h...
[5] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970...
But if you ask from the scientists from those fields, you are going to get the same answer.
"the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between currently commercialized genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops."
http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/2016/05/16/report-in-brief/
http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/category/committee/
Ask them what, about the many lives that are saved from malnutrition as the commenter asserted? You answered about safety. Neither of us are discussing safety. (Well, I did as an aside. It was not the main point.) That is a separate subject.
Are millions of lives really saved from malnutrition? Kindly provide evidence for such assertions. I’m interested.
As another aside, while looking for evidence that GMOs saved lives through nutrition I was reminded that the economic engine seed producers profit from has brought poverty to farmers in India. 200,000 have committed suicide over increased farming debts. Seeds are far more expensive now, and cannot be saved.[1]
[1] http://www.voltairenet.org/article159305.html
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
Where is the _actual_ evidence of GMO’s salvation of millions?
So unless you somehow solve the problem of mass producing food in pesticide free agriculture, please do not ask for impossible studies.
But the control group — wouldn’t it be non-GMO crops of any kind, organic or non? The assertion, yet to be provided evidence for, is that with gene editing many more millions are no longer suffering malnutrition. That seems to me to be easy evidence to provide if it’s true. If it’s true, evidence should be able to be shown that nutrition content has increased by X percent leading to X thousand lives not perishing. “Since the introduction of high vitamin C rice in Zambezia, the rates of scurvy have dropped by 32%. Vitamin C is difficult to obtain in Zambezia by any other means.” I don’t see how a discussion of pesticides enters into it.
By the way, Nobel laureates can be wrong. The prize was awarded in 1948 for the invention of DDT.[1]
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1...
It seems unnatural to eat a big sweet apple. Nature provided small bitter apples.
Second, I have got the feeling that many people who experiment with genetic manipulation don't know what they are actually doing. Yes, they might know it on a high-level perspective and for experiments that is fine, but as long as we can't simulate even single cells its is hard to tell that we know what we are doing.
As a computer scientist it feels to me like someone is patching the binaries of 'grep' and 'cp' together and hopes to use the resulting binaries to build autonomous drones. It is just irresponsible to use the results are long as the have only one petri dish which is actually the one we are living in.
So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories. There might be exceptions to that rule when it comes to 'specific modification' as you call it, but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
This is frankly ridiculous. You describe yourself as a computer scientist and presumably have no expertise in the field and then use your gut feeling about how well people understand the consequences of their efforts? I know plenty of people who think that I'm just typing words and random until my code compiles.
Demanding that we are able to model living organisms in computers before we can productionize gmo tech is like saying that we can't deploy any web app until it has been formally verified in Coq.
So if we would live within the web, I would certainly demand to formally verify every web app before it would be deployed.
Conventional agricultural practices are already causing massive ecological devastation. Gene editing is a very good solution to that problem.
If you are pro research, maybe you should understand what you are talking about before you make ignorant claims that are completely backward, disconnected, and unfavored by the majority of scientists. You ignorance in this comment is incredible. The large majority of scientists support GMO research and confirm it's safety, while ignorant civilians (like you) fail to understand, fail to listen, and fail to learn.
The problem I have, is that nobody really knows what happens when you place those products in our ecosystem. We might have some theories and observations but in the end nobody knows enough about the whole system to understand all its processes and sometimes small changes have much larger effects.
And as long as we have only one system and no backup, I don't want to risk changing the ecosystem on this planet in ways we can't predict.
It's all "unknown unknowns" territory here. There are no known threat scenarios. But if you're into being concerned of unknown unknowns, you have thousands of other things to be concerned of, too.
I know that unknown threats are everywhere and there are a lots of other things I am concerned of too, but in the end I am used to live with that and it doesn't change my view on the topic.
No, it's like applying a patch to a code base, compiling it, testing it and expecting it to work. Which is literally what millions of software engineers do every day.
> So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories.
What's the point in that research than? Idle curiosity?
> but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
That's like saying it's ok to run binaries, but only if we compile them by hand on paper without using a compiler. If the result is the same, as even you admit, what's the point of taking the hard route?
It seems rational to me that the operation is on its head. If I want to grow GMO soy I just buy it, plant it, and spray it. But if I want to certify Organic I must go through a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
I’d like to see it exactly the opposite: If you use proven, centuries-old methods it’s easy, but if you want to spray and use weird stuff it requires a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
Don’t we do that in other industries? Why not with our own food?
Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods are anything but centuries old. Heavy use of Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, copper compounds, compost tea, etc. etc. are all quite new. That's not to say they aren't safe; there are a few practices which warrant more scrutiny, but for the most part they're alright. But the point is that many people are terribly mischaracterizing actual farming practices.
Yes you can grow as you like but it seems backwards to me that you have to prove you are /not/ doing unusual things. If any regulation should occur it ought to be in doing the /unusual/ things.
> Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods
I'm not speaking of newer methods. I would have any new method more strictly regulated until proven.
There’s lies, there’s damned lies, and then there’s studies. Monsanto’s maize study was only done for 90 days and then got approved. When the same study was replicated for two years, significant health issues were discovered.[1]
And by the way, Monsanto was the only one required to confirm that the study showed positive results. Safety testing is not done by the FDA, only required by the company, who may or may not be telling the truth about the results.[2]
Lies, damned lies, and studies.
So the question remains: Why should I if I were farming have to spend a lot of time, effort, and money to prove what I am not doing? Shouldn't it be the other way 'round?
[1] https://www.gmoseralini.org/faq-items/why-this-study-now/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16704019
Then welcome the next potato blight...
But then I live in the United States where we do quite a number of backwards things.
I don’t have all day to sit around debating so take my thoughts as they are. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
Hybridization of plants swaps thousands of genes at random, in an uncontrolled manner. We've been doing that for a thousand years, and just breeding stuff out in fields to see what sticks.
Geneticaly modifying rice to produce more vitamin A required changing only 2 genes, instead of thousands, but somehow people find that scarier because it seems "new".
But classic methods have been used and proven for centuries. It seems riskier and frankly, backwards, to me to require stricter regulation on what has been proven but easily permit that which is new and still being tried out.
What has the FDA really "rigorously thought" about if they aren't testing?
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Health/eating-gmo-produce/story?id=300...
well, those are good questions. As frustrating as it is, scientists should be well aware that science doesn't happen in a political, juridical or economical vacuum.
This social sensibility should be part of the soft skills of the modern scientist. Same goes for engineers (let’s think about the Facebook crisis), or any profession, really.
Ideas have consequences.
Edit: Also that's is quite infuriating: "How am I supposed to explain the consequences of abandoning a technology that can help feed millions to Swiss students who enjoy the world's highest standard of living?" - if you think that the problem of malnutrition is mainly a technological/agrological problem, that's very disingenuous.
This is true right now. But a sane world has to plan ahead. Our existing agricultural system can easily feed the world today without GMOs. But if the world population really does grow as anticipated this century (I have my doubts), with a fast-changing climate, high levels of topsoil loss & degradation, there is zero chance without every technological trick we can muster.
I do not think malnutrition is a technological problem, but it does have a technological solution, or rather, technology is a part of the solution.
Of course they are, they are human beings, not computers. When have we ever seen such delicate reasoning survive at a mass scale? We call it scientific illiteracy, as if all those people promised to behave in a scientifically literate fashion at some earlier point, and are now behaving defectively.
No such agreements were made.
This tendency to "spread" the Evil label (and the Good one) across categories and into related but distinctly different domains is a biological rather than digital approach to threat. As the elite of a culture that aspires to the digital, we get outraged.
It's not going to make any difference, y'all know that, right?
Duh. That's the case of almost every very high professional job on this planet. Almost nobody cares. Almost everybody stays in their own little belief. Few try to learn. Even less will admit they were once wrong.
Tell people humanity has been modifying all kinds of life forms for thousands of years and they are flabbergasted. When you tell them it's about selecting plants and breeding dogs or cattle they tell you 'it's not the same', because it was a slower process.
They're scared we are going to mess up evolution and then tell us to stop playing god. Kinda paradoxal.
If you'd try eating real pure non-gmo'd banana you'd break your teeth because of all the seeds, but that thing hasn't existed for millenia. Apples would be disgusting too by today's standards.
The slow change in dogs or crops over many decades or generations is tolerable. But rapid change can kill, or at least it excites danger signals in the affected organisms (people).
A car that creeps towards you slowly is fine. One that moves too fast might kill you.
I think rate is the central question in this problem, but it always gets elided in discussion with the word "just," as if rate was a minor concern.
Compared to that widespread action, GMO is safe as it is thoroughly tested. Though diversity is not being increased with it either.
There's a very good concern, which is seldom raised clearly -- if Monsanto patents the genomes that we need to feed the planet, then that is likely to be very harmful for the development of the poorer half of the world.
But there's simply no credible concern at this point about "genes escaping from one plant to another". There are mechanisms by which gene transfer can occur between bacteria and viruses, but there is no mechanism by which a gene could get from maize to a weed.
I hear complaints mostly about the latter, and seldom about the former -- but note that the former concern could be ameliorated by having governments or other public institutions do the research, and either hold the patents or just make them available for all.
I'm not sure why you say that; this has been unremarkable for a while and is often seen in the wild. Insects play a role too, though this article from Nature specifically discusses cross-pollination.
https://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-crops-pass-...
> that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance
which I believe is a much narrower claim. If the anti-GMO claim was that "GMO crops can share their genes with wild/weedy/non-GMO versions of those crops", I don't think anyone would be freaking out in the same way.
But my specific claim was about gene transfer to unrelated species, which (to my understanding) is not likely. (There's also horizontal gene transfer to worry about, but this is very unlikely in eukaryotes, e.g. see https://www.ebr-journal.org/articles/ebr/pdf/2008/03/ebr0742...)
The trouble is the anti-GMO-on-principle stance badly undermines the political case for taking such concerns seriously, by a sort of unintended divide-and-conquer.
It's much easier for legislators to ignore corporate power over food production systems when so many of the objections come from obvious crazies. And it's hard for those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world but are otherwise pro-knowledge to make common political cause with people who think GMOs are 'evil' (due to their Manichaeanism they'll reject anyone who isn't anti-GMO on principle as political allies).
Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.
If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.
EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.
One problem is consumers have segmented into two mutually exclusive groups. One likes healthy food and hates GMO. The other cares much less about both health and GMO. Since the first group has self-selected out of the market for GMO, sellers optimize for a health-indifferent population.
Side note: is the plural of one GMO two GMO? Two GMOs?
Consumers are voters, so it's both. The number of voters one can productively engage about thoughtful GMO regulation is basically zero. People are against it or don't care.
I can understand why someone would argue it's a meaningless distinction. I don't agree with the idea that a consumer has no right to be informed. Let the consumer know, make the case that your product (any product) is safe, and let the consumer decide.
If so, when was this? AFAIK, health and safety have been trending positively in a significant way for well over a century, with nation-state conflict causing the most significant regressions, not profit-motivated corporations.
Noam Chomsky makes the following point: Slave societies also exhibited improvements over time. It wasn't an argument for slavery.
Do you have some examples of societies that radically increased their overall health and safety without adopting liberal economic policies? Cuba, maybe?
The overall positive trend is slowing down, with life expectancy in the USA dropping, mostly due to the opioid epidemic.
Overall the picture is pretty grim. Long term stability of civilisation is under threat due to fertility rates not falling fast enough to offset longevity. Food production is consuming limited non-renewable resources.
Do any folks working at social media or adtech firms feel the same way, out of interest? Curious if the recent CA scandals have caused an uptick in confrontational behavior.
...Monsanto lawsuits...
...created by Monsanto (which is Evil)...
...Monsanto patents...
...those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world...
I would be funny to be a software engineer if every discussion with friends and family about your work would involve suspicious mentions like "Facebook lawsuits..." , "...created by Facebook (which is Evil)...", "Facebook patents...", "...those of us who are suspicious of the Facebooks of this world..."
Or the same for s/Facebook/Google/g.
Put in that light it's immediately obvious the first argument will be 'big industry.' People don't trust big industry, so therefore if they are the largest supporters/drivers of GE it will wholly be placed in the 'bad' basket.
'Big Industry' players time and time again do act poorly, fund outcomes, corrupt policies etc so you concerns can't be dismissed easily and will be conflated either way.
So the question out of this is: how do we increase the integrity of actors involved: science, media, government, business? What would it take to be able to identify and understand which GE is 'honest' vs not?
Until that can be done in any meaningful way, it will continually just be an argument between those saying all GMO/GE can't be trusted and those saying it can. Not to mention the different points being that the distrust is in those engineering/producing GMO vs the actual products/processes themselves...
None of this is about the FUD on GMO and health. Its the economics of IPR, and the effect on emotional feelings about GMO. I think the science is fantastic. The commercialization is awful.
I'll probably anger both side of the debate because I'm not 100% on one side or the other.
Also indoor farming/hydroponics is great for crops that are mainly water (think tomato or lettuce) but much less so for staple calorie crops like corn or wheat.
There is the Cultural Cognition Project (http://www.culturalcognition.net/kahan/), and if I understand the research they did correctly, you really should not expect explanations of science to be effective at changing people's minds like that. In the past, and in psychology experiments, this technique has been shown to be ineffective even though it seems really intuitive that it should work.
When we breed plants through selection, the changes are slow and the plants do not acquire capabilities from outside their species.
When we change fast growing species like grasses, and give them capabilities they do not have in nature, do we really understand what those species do when they enter a natural ecosystem? Ecosystems have a delicate balance.
I really wonder how comprehensive GMO testing really is.
Having said that, I have no problems eating GMO crops. I don’t think the risks are to humans directly. I think the issue is environmental.
The main issues I have with GMO is the patenting of crops, specifically those that are introduced to third world countries which are typically sterile, causing the farmers to have an ongoing dependence/obligation to the patent holders. Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases. In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
Incidentally, this is also the solution to one of the major criticisms of GMO plants: in the event of significant cross-pollination, the GMO plants won't be viable.
> Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases.
We already massively reduce diversity in agricultural crops. This is not a problem specific to, or even exacerbated by, GMO crops.
> In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
Diversity is doing exactly piss-all for the hundreds of millions of conifers in California that have been killed by bark beetles.
The author is leaving his primary research specialization after spending literally years studying it. It's not uncommon for people to change their research focus, but he is moving to a different subfield and specialization altogether. More importantly, his decision is precipitated by unceasing vitriol for something he was passionate enough about to spend the best years of his life working on.
I'm not sure what else to say. I can't imagine what it's like to give something like that up just to avoid having research decisions litigated by other people. It must have been so exhausting and disheartening for him.
I think we are brought up to believe we can pursue whatever we want to pursue, and of course this is true, but there is a cost. If that pursuit falls out of alignment with the community of which you are a part, life can lose it's joy. This isn't fair, it just is. We need to feel in a relationship of give and take with our community.
My own thought here is that the research itself is a good thing, and the act of pursuit deepens your character and experience in a way that makes you more valuable to your community. But people don't like the stories they hear about "patented" crops, about DRM in farmers fields. It's not the research that's a problem, it's the use to which it's put (at least in the eye of the public). GMOs seem to become a lever corporations use to monetize activities that we aren't sure should be monetized.
[I recognize that my "story" above is likely tainted with outrageous misconceptions. I don't disagree! I'm just playing back the image in my head around GMOs, mostly built by passive listening to the conversation in our culture over some years. You can argue with that story, but it's exhausting.]
I think you are caught in the gears of the working out of this vast cultural argument.
It’s often stated that GMOs are needed to feed the growing population, but I get the sense that the most of the benefits go to just increasing population and not lowering the raw number of people who are actually undernourished.
In a world without GMOs would there be fewer total people and would that be better than the alternative?
If you want fewer people in the world, help them live longer.
If they had done then as you propose, half of the people today in Third World, or having Third World grandparents, would not exist today. How many of your friends and family would not exist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Malthusian_cr...
GMO are currently being deployed to fix the pesticide problem without breaking the economics...
[1]https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.5787.pdf
From section X.B:
"GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably, and thus their risks cannot be localized. The crossbreeding of wild-type plants with genetically modified ones prevents their disentangling, leading to irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides."
Now, the very reason crop plants (GMO or not) cannot spread uncontrollably is tightly coupled to why they are crop plants. They are not poisonous, they are easy to eat, and they produce a good yield. A dream come true for every plant-eating animal. That's why they are crop plants. But they wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell in the wild nature, animals and insects would eat them quickly. Wild plants invest a lot of effort to not being eaten (unless they want to, for seed spreading purposes).
There are no cases of crop plants having invaded back to wild nature. Perhaps there is an odd canola plant that escaped a field and grows on a roadside or by an abandoned gas station somewhere, but these are also situations where humans first cleared the wild plants and bared the soil before the canola was able to set roots.
Crop plants don't spread outside of the farmers' fields, and GMO breeding is not trying to change that. (If they wanted to breed competitive wild plants, they'd use wild plants as the starting stock.)
I still think that a fear of "irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides" will persist, despite the good sense of your argument.
Also, as a technologist, I know that we move from solving easier problems to more complex ones. Who is to say that GMO tech isn't just beginning in farmers' fields, and that flush with success in that space, all those engineers, technology and know-how will happily move on to the Next Big Problem. This might be in wild-plant space.
Those are the true systemic effects wee should be looking into - there is no way back to 1700s farming now. (Organic farming is not there either.)
And, like anti-vaxxers, this has a real negative impact on human and ecological health.
I wish there was some kind of "yay, science!" political movement that would advocate for applying science in ways intended to improve human health and happiness in both the short and long term (which would include funding further GMO research).
"There is another reason gene editing is causing excitement in industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has concluded that the new plants are not “regulated articles.” The reason is a legal loophole: its regulations apply only to GMOs constructed using plant pathogens like bacteria, or their DNA."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609230/these-are-not-your...