Yet to be fair, GMOs still produce changes that aren't possible through mutagenesis. Also GMOs are not without their own random mutations since the process of transgene insertions often produce their own random set of side effect changes.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/
Selective breeding, the ancient form of GMO, which these people interestingly don't seem to object to, uses inbreeding and other techniques that are in fact known to produce unhealthy organisms.
Because breeding is thousands of times slower at producing mutations and it gives researchers (and society in general) enough time to assess the health effects of a crop.
In 2015 we are still learning about crops that has been around for centuries.
The right has Climate Change and the left has GMOs with the extremes of both having very different reasons to reject vaccines. Humans are not scientific animals.
>"...They blame it (horrific profits) on consumers getting concerned about what they put in their bodies."
Even though health food has become fashionable (for perhaps less than rational reasons), I believe that greater awareness of what you eat is extremely important and I'm glad it's becoming mainstream. Now if only they would stop putting so much sugar in bread...
as much as I hate the anti-GMO stuff, cause in reality, we've genetically modified everything we eat through thousands of years of forced selection, I am all for better bread. I bake my own with minimal sugar and gluten, and it is soooo much better then store bread, and really makes a sandwich amazing(note, when I say minimal gluten, I mean no extra gluten, not gluten free flour).
I believe you, but I really think that has absolutely nothing to do with GMO, raher than the simple fact that fresh, homemade food is intrinsically better than store bought food, which is usually tuned for aesthetics and long shelf life as opposed to flavor.
Not really true! All of our grocery stores hereabouts bake every day, in-house.
And don't assume a restaurant does a worse job than you of managing their freshness. They buy from the same grocery most likely. In fact, the grocery you buy from is a store; their fresh food is managed quite well. In fact everything you make is worse than that, because you have to buy it from them, THEN make something out of it. So its not as fresh.
Sorry if it seemed like I was linking them, but I wasn't in any way. All the grocery store bread where I live, unless you go to the bakery, is this insanely soft sweet stuff, like Wonderbread and such. It feels like I use less sugar then there is in 2 slices of that stuff.
Remember that "GMO" opposition is anti-scientific nonsense, and has led to millions of children left blind or dead [1], making it probably worse than vaccine opposition, even if the vaccine opposition is more likely to affect you personally.
Don't forget that before we had GMO's we just blasted millions of seeds with radiation until we found mutants with cool characteristics, which we then branded as natural mutations, and mass distributed.
and before that we genetically modified them through forced selection. Modern crops(pre-GMO even) bear little to no resemblance to what they were originally. Anti-GMO sentiment is bullcrap.
Says someone comparing plants with human children to make a point. (And no, not much of a difference, other than with modern technique we have more control over the results)
Perhaps the example was not the best, but surely you see the difference between splicing DNA from different species, and selecting certain specimen based on desired traits?
The circle in the middle is the radiation source, and the further away the plants were planted the less mutations occurred, with the plants right next to the source dying.
So this was not the normal method of breeding prior to GMOs? I always hear the argument above mentioned whenever GMOs are discussed.
Fallacy aside, it's an emotionally persuasive argument. I'm wondering if it's a central talking point that was developed by a marketing team for forum use.
I don't know how normal atomic gardens were, looking at their history, it looks like they were relatively popular from the mid-40s to the 60s.
There are more ways to raise the mutation rate in plants, for example, by using chemicals like ethyl methanesulfonate. Ironically, many "organic" companies still sell cultivars that have been mutated using these processes. I'd be more scared of a plant with several unknown, unpredictable mutations than of a plant that has a single, directed mutation.
The most "standard" breeding methods are still the "manual" ones like hybridization, where you use two different plant lines that are as homozygous as possible (in other words, they have been inbred for many generations so there's little to no genetic variety, you won't have any surprises when you use them for breeding).
One famous example are Norman Borlaug's high yield semi-dwarf wheat varieties (edit: made roughly at the same time as atomic gardens were en vogue) - he crossed dwarf wheat varieties from Japan that gave little yield with high-yield varieties from America that were so thin that if the season was good and the seeds were heavy, the plants would break from the weight. The resulting semi-dwarf varieties had good yield with a stable stem.
This is an extremely weak argument. You seem to be saying "the old method had all the risks people use to argue against GNOs. Therefore, GMOs are fine."
If the old methods were as bad as you suggest, that doesn't prove GMOs are good. It merely extends the anti-GMO argument to modern radiation breeding methods too.
The most compelling anti-GMO argument is that they could produce an interaction we wouldn't have been able to predict due to complexity, and the interaction could have negative effects that would never have been produced by random selection in nature. Once this is in the wild, it could be impossible to eliminate. Critics argue we are aiming at known, limited upside benefits, while facing unknown, potentially much larger risks. Does this apply equally to radiation mutation breeding?
> The most compelling anti-GMO argument is that they could produce an interaction we wouldn't have been able to predict due to complexity, and the interaction could have negative effects that would never have been produced by random selection in nature.
The problem is, there is no proof in that statement. It's just suspicion, fear, uncertainty, doubt. Instead of proving an actual harm, anti-GMO people are asking the industry to prove a negative.
It would be like asking for a cup of water, and I hand you a cup that I filled from my Brita filter. You complain saying the mechanism contains a carbon filter, and that you believe a carbon filter can contaminate the water. Suddenly you're forcing the burden of proof on me, essentially asking me to prove your fear incorrect. Your fear that is based on... nothing. That's not how science should work. If you have uncertainty about something after the initial studies have been completed to verify safety, the burden is on you to prove it's a danger.
In the case of GMOs, the industry has thrown the public a bone, so-to-speak, and done extensive testing to show that the crops are safe, even when there is no indication that they SHOULD be unsafe. Now, don't get me wrong, there is evidence that PESTICIDES are unsafe, but there's no real evidence that just adding something like a carrot gene to rice is dangerous. NO. EVIDENCE. Yet that doesn't stop people from complaining. When the evidence doesn't support their view, they immediately say that the research was funded by the evil GMO corporations, and rarely even bother to actually look up the real study.
It's like Aspartame... It's one of the most tested food ingredients in history, there is ample documentation to show that it is perfectly safe, yet some people still believe it causes everything from diabetes to cancer. How much solid, peer-reviewed proof do they have to back up their belief? None.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. A quick google search does you no good because of all of the misinformation about it. Read the real information... Wikipedia has a great summary with plenty of references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Safety_and_health_eff...
I would also like to point out the conclusion in the article you linked:
> These 3 studies add to a growing body of evidence on the adverse health effects of soft drinks; however, given the limited and conflicting data available, these findings can at the present time be considered only suggestive, not conclusive, but they warrant further investigation in other prospective studies with data on long-term intake of soft drinks, diet soft drinks, and aspartame
Take that along with the extensive references in the Wikipedia article and you can see why I say the public is asking the food industry to prove a negative. The closest they can come is, "something that contains aspartame seems to be a bit unhealthy, but not always, but sometimes," yet those same people (like you) will say that aspartame itself is the issue. It's just silly.
You may be right about aspartame. I'm not an expert. Perhaps that study was also disproven.
But my larger point is that it's really, really hard to prove a negative to an acceptable standard. Particularly across all categories we care about, not just cancer and heart disease.
> Critics argue we are aiming at known, limited upside benefits, while facing unknown, potentially much larger risks. Does this apply equally to radiation mutation breeding?
To the extent that it can be said to approximate something valid in the case of GMOs, it applies at least as strongly to mutation breeding (regardless of how the mutation is achieved, radiation isn't the only mutation source used in mutation breeding.)
There's a lot more than what acheron linked to support his/her statement that "GMO" opposition is anti-scientific nonsense, the scientific consensus on the matter is equal to that of climate change.
There was a Forbes article[1] last year that linked to a number of studies. If you're looking for a less journalistic take and want to poke around with the data/studies yourself check out GENERA[2] (a database of peer reviewed GMO studies).
FiveThirtyEight did a good piece on the gap between "what the public thinks and what scientists know" and saw the widest margin in the subject of GMO safety[3]. A recent NYT op-ed explains some of the benefits of GMOs and what caused the author to change their stance[4].
I will have a look at what you've provided above shortly. However, my opposition to GMOs lie in the fact that GMO crops have led to a widespread INCREASE in herbicide use, particularly glyphosate, which is a wide spectrum herbicide to boot. Monsanto owns glyphosate AND RoundUp Ready seeds, so they profit surreptitiously on both ends.
Source? In my personal experience, usage of roundup-ready seeds decrease herbicide use. It allows the replacement of a cocktail of several selective herbicides with a single broad sprectrum one.
Herbicide-resistant crop technology has led to a 239 million kilogram (527 million pound) increase in herbicide use in the United States between 1996 and 2011http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24
Your links clearly state that the increase in herbicide use is due to the fact that weeds are becoming resistant to the herbicides in common use. That herbicide is glyphosate because of the wide use of glyphosate on Roundup-ready crops.
The same thing is happening to other herbicides, just slower, because they weren't used as much. They weren't used as much because they were replaced with glyphosate.
I think "consensus" is a term we should all be wary of no matter what the argument. In order to discover merits of an argument one needs to really dig into the evidence on both sides regardless of so called consensus.
I recall about over 15 years ago how all my peers and many experts in the industry said the "consensus" on building web services was to use SOAP BPEL and develop using waterfall methodologies. At that time Agile development and REST services might have been considered quackery.
> In order to discover merits of an argument one needs to really dig into the evidence on both sides regardless of so called consensus.
One of the links in my comment was to GENERA[1], a large database of peer reviewed GMO studies, feel free to "dig" away.
> 15 years ago how all my peers and many experts in the industry said the "consensus" on building web services was to use SOAP BPEL
First of all that's just generic use of the word consensus[2], not quite the same as the concept of scientific consensus[3]. Scientific consensus can certainly change over time (you wouldn't want science to just assume whatever if previously thought was right, would you?) but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the current collective judgment of scientists because they might change their position X years from now.
"Folding"? It's what customers want. According to the article, the CEO of Chipotle believes GMO ingredients are fine. But I don't think it's the duty of a fast food restaurant to tell the public that they are wrong for wanting one ingredient over another.
If you were hoping to make the case for evidence-based nutrition and nutritional science on the backs of the America's fast food restaurants, I think you are in for a lot of disappointment.
And the majority of GMO crops being grown: Canola, Maize, Soybean, and Cotton aren't stopping these children from going blind either. The cotton might be making clothing cheaper, but the rest are processed into oils or HFCS or animal feed at a far higher rate than they are consumed in an unprocessed form.
I support this point especially when I consider companies like Monsanto who genetically engineer crops to resist just their own brand of pesticides.
If you were to genetically engineer products for everyone's good, it would make sense to enter such uncharted territories, but to do it solely for the good of one entity is simply horrific.
Thank you. As many other sticking points GMO tend to be polarizing, and acritically defending them makes a disservice to science same as considering them "evil".
Humans have been genetically modifying food (and animals) long before DNA was known.
Then again, like every other product meant for human consumption it should be subject to scrutiny and monitoring, to ensure saftety.
And even then, most companies will tune food products to maximize profits, and this generally means favoring the looks, yield, consistency and shelf life of a product, as opposed to flavor and texture, with the result of food that looks and feels "artificial".
In general banning all GMO is a fairly stupid political and marketing move, that has little bearing on the final quality of the product: if anything they should guarantee thier customers the freshness and the quality of the ingredients, independently of their origin.
Isn't GMO usually equivalent to excessive use of herbicides? Isn't the most common genetic modification "roundup readiness?" Adding vitamin A producing genes to rice sounds good, but spraying all of our foods with herbicides not so much.
The interesting part is that wheat is not commonly GMO, but it is still sprayed with roundup in the harvesting process to increase yield.
I'm not opposed to GMO, but I am certainly opposed to patents on biological organisms. Also, I worry about increased use of pesticides and herbicides.
The most common GMO crops are: canola, corn, cotton, soy and sugar beets.
Canola, soy and sugar beet modification is for roundup readiness (glyphosate).
Corn and cotton are modified to make them resistant to insects without using additional pesticides.
Newer studies have shown potential risks to mammals from excessive intake of roundup:
Roundup-ready crops are generally sprayed with fewer herbicides than conventional crops. Conventional crops are generally sprayed with a cocktail of selective herbicides -- one to kill broadleafs, another to kill wild oats, et cetera. Roundup-ready crops are sprayed with a single broad-sprectrum herbicide (aka Roundup).
'Anti-scientific nonsense' suggests a measure of zealotry and someone who thinks they have total command of all the facts. How wonderful to be so sure. Don't you think a somewhat more circumspect tone would be appropriate and more persuasive?
I guess the 'anti-scientific folk' in Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, and Russia who have banned GMO crops altogether are beyond the pale.
Resorting to authority is a weak argument. There's logic and history as well - like the history of nobody ever got ill from GMOs. Or the logic of, we've massively altered wild foods for millennia and had no issues; why is it different to do it in the lab?
But instead we have populist fear holding sway in all those countries instead.
There are an increasing number of studies listing the harmful effects of glyphosate (Roundup) poisoning. So saying that "nobody ever got ill from GMOs" is patently false.
Monsanto specifically makes genetically modified seeds (seeds they sell and have patented) to withstand Roundup (an herbicide they sell). That is the antithesis of being tangentially involved.
Something containing soya isn't labled as containing brazil nuts. Since parent is replying to someone who says "no one ever got ill from eating a GMO" it seems a fair enough, and obvious, point.
This wasn't a case of food becoming toxic due to an unforeseen chemistry stemming from genetic tinkering. They put the albumin in the bean. Albumin has a well-known effect on those sensitive to it. Nothing surprising here. They could just as well have cooked the beans with some albumin.
> I guess the 'anti-scientific folk' in Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, and Russia who have banned GMO crops altogether are beyond the pale.
Governments banning something doesn't mean it's either a) based on science or b) the right thing to do.
14 governments banning GMs (while not banning vaccines and other scares) suggests that dismissing the anti-GM crowd as 'anti-scientific folk' might be unreasonable.
> dismissing the anti-GM crowd as 'anti-scientific folk' might be unreasonable
As I pointed out in another comment[1] there's a wide gap between "what the public thinks and what scientists know" regarding GMOs[2]. Having an opinion that is the opposite to scientific consensus is by definition anti-scientific.
It's funny how people like the market when it's going like they want and dislike it when it's the opposite. The majority of the population does not want to eat GMO, everyone have their own reasons, maybe they are scientifically good, maybe they are scientifically bad but at the end it does not matter. People prefer non-GMO products, that's just a fact gathered by hundreds of polls and statistics. The only thing which is keeping the GMO business still alive is the fact that there is no labeling on GMO products thanks to the lobbies. If you really want to know if the GMO business can survive alone in a free market, just label it and see what happens, it would close the debate once-for-all.
People don't want GMOs because they've been force-fed propaganda by the anti-GMO crowd.. go ahead and place GMO labels on everything, and see how many people still oppose it when they find their favorite food with a GMO label on it.
Exactly, maybe it will change people's mind and they will accept it more, or it could be just the opposite and people would boycott lots of products. But until there is a label, it's difficult to know. At least with a label, we will see instantly if GMOs are making economic sense.
As a consumer, I deserve to know the truth about what is in the food that I purchase and feed to my family. If putting a GMO label on the food that has it, leads consumers to still purchase that, it's their right to do that. My question to you is, what harm is there in that label?
A label on your food isn't necessarily the truth. If you want want the truth, you really have to take that responsibility for yourself. The government is not good at labeling organic food[0], and there is no reason to believe they'll get GMO labeling right, since the same issues are involved.
I am skeptical of nutrition labels, so what you're saying isn't lost on me. However, much like putting the nutrition labels (or ingredient lists for that matter) on food, GMO labeling is a starting point.
Misleading labeling (like there is with organics) is worse than no labeling. What you end up with is a product of questionable quality that is more expensive than it should be because someone has to pay the inspectors.
No, it's a collective of small companies who profit off the stupidity and false-validation of anti-GMO "activists". Every time a anti-GMOer googles "Why GMOs are bad" and clicks the first link someone who is pushing that propaganda gets paid.
Hm. I don't think you understand how Google's paid SE placement works (i.e. Google gets paid by the so-called propagandists to place those links).
Just FYI, I used to do research where I spliced genes for a certain enzyme into yeast in order to study the enzymatic mechanism, so I'm not exactly uninformed.
That comes down to one question: Do you want to eat food that someone has tampered with genetically, or do you want to eat food that humans have been eating for thousands of years with no recorded negative side effects?
The fact is GMO food may be generally regarded as safe - according to... the studies funded by the companies that promote these GMOs [conflict of interest much?] but I've got thousands of years of human consumption with no recorded negative side effects on the side of non-GMOs and you've got a couple of scientific studies that cover a laughably small "cross section" (if you can call it that) of society with no ability to do any long term studies because you only started down this path in very recent human history. Add to this the fact that when you pump your crops full of herbicides and pesticides there appears to be an alarming degree of correlation between the uptick in food allergies and autism. This is huge cause for concern. Whether this is the actual cause, the jury is out, but there is anecdotal evidence from a number of places including celebrities which suggests that removal of those foods from the diets of their autistic children has brought them back.
If someone can do an actual independent study on GMOs that isn't funded by pharma or agribusiness, doesn't suffer from a conflict of interest and compares in scale to the thousands of years of human history, I'd say the studies don't compare. Even as valid as they may appear on the surface, those of us on the outside have little confidence in them. Especially with information being leaked from inside these studies to suggest corruption and cover-ups to promote the corporate agenda all the way to the highest level to increase profits at all costs - up to and including the collateral damage of a few thousand deaths per million. Deaths that can easily be swept under the rug using underhanded tactics such as smear campaigns, sewing tactical doubt, lied about, gagged by payouts or flat out covered up. There are a number of reports of the FDA aiding and abetting in this behaviour. The F.D.A! If you can't trust the very Government office that is funded with the goal of looking after your best interests as the consumer, then who can you trust?
Nature has nothing to prove. Agri-business and Big-Pharma are run by people. People are fallible and when bound to their responsibility to investor profits, corrupt. Who would you rather trust?
It's no wonder people don't want to eat GMO. It might be the safest thing on earth, but when you add human fallibility and corruption into the equation, which way do you turn?
I've worked in R&D for <big ag> for 4 years. We've been crossing different plants for ever and the amount of genetic change introduced by doing that dwarfs using BT to inject a single gene into corn/beans. These aren't just crap shoots, either, big-ag spends billions on R&D making sure it does just what it says. The FDA has some onerous requirements, flow charts that take up an 8'x10' wall. And usually foreign governments are even more restrictive.
One GMO trait on the market kills corn borer. You know where we found the gene that kills corn borer? From a bacteria that already flourishes in the human digestive track.
Can you point to a single, documented, peer-reviewed case where a GMO crop has caused any adverse effect in humans?
Dwarf wheat has saved a billion lives. Golden Rice can do the same but only if the anti-GMO crowd gets out of the way.
Poor article with poor statements. Round Up does not equal GMO. There are GMO that are Round Up tolerant BUT 8 out of 10 were all Round Up related and 1 was just another argument about risk of potential dangers. 1 was plant DNA in human blood system but showed no harm and also didn't show why a GMO would be doing that more than if you ate Soy or other plants that are not GMO.
1) identified the presence of pesticides (GMO uses less pesticides than non GMO)
2) Quote "This still doesn’t mean that GMOs can enter into our cells"
3) Gluten is due to Roundup aka GMO use less pestised and herbisides. "Most GMOs are engineered to tolerate
a weed killer called glyphosate (Roundup®). They contain high levels of this toxin at harvest. Corn and cotton varieties are also engineered to produce a
n insecticide called Bt toxin.
4) Peer Review is not some magical fool proof system. It actually has been causing harm (Looking at the false claim that Vaccines causing Autism was peer reviewed)
"This study has since been retracted, which is odd, because the journal it was published in is a very well known, reputable peer reviewed scientific journal. In order for a study to be published here it has to go through a rigorous review process."
The report focuses primarily on the effects of these two
toxins.
5) & 6) & 7) & 8) & 9) Once again a Round Up issue not really a GMO issue.
"Researchers also determined that Monsanto’s roundup is considered an “xenoestrogen,” which is a foreign estrogen that mimics real estrogen in our bodies"
"The direct effect of glyphosate on early mechanisms of morphogenesis in vertebrate embryos opens concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to glyphosate in agricultural fields"
"Because humans that’ve been exposed to glyphosate have a drop in amino acid tryptophan levels, they do not have the necessary active signalling of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is associated with weight gain, depression and Alzheimer’s disease."
"A new study out of Germany concludes that Glyphosate residue could reach humans and animals through feed and can be excreted in urine."
"Herbicide tolerant crops are engineered to produce one or more proteins that allow the crop to survive being sprayed with a given herbicide."
10) Flat out the same nothing harmful BUT the RISK.
"The risk assessment of genetically modified (GM) crops for human nutrition and health has not been systematic."
Isn't it also true that much of what people are discussing when they're talking about GMOs and appearing to suffer this misconception that roundup and GMOs are the same thing that what they're really communicating is that the increase in use of RoundUp is due to the genetic modification of RoundUp ready crops? Isn't it also true that the increase in use of RoundUp that is in the food we eat the cause of their concern? And finally isn't it also true that the correlation of increased use of RoundUp and rise in food intolerance, allergies and autism what is fueling these concerns?
So to unlink RoundUp from the sentiments against GMO is disingenuous. It's the genetic modification that allows the proliferation of herbicides and pesticides that are used in food crops and is making its way into our bodies, its these chemicals that the plants are genetically modified to withstand (and then pumped full of) that is in our food at the heart of a large proportion of the arguments against GMOs.
If there is no need for RoundUP, then there is no need for the genetic modification to make crops RoundUp ready. So you can't just argue that most of these arguments aren't about GMOs, they're about RoundUp which is a different argument. The two are inter-linked. If you didn't need RoundUp, you wouldn't need the genetic modification to make the crop RoundUp ready and RoundUp wouldn't be making its way into our bodies where you claim it does us no harm anyway.
Don't forget that the food industry has done this time and again with herbicides and pesticides:
It doesn't get into our bodies! Oh, it does? Okay, well, it doesn't matter, it's harmless. Oh, there are people getting sick and dying? Okay, we'll do a study. Oh, it's not harmless? There's evidence suggesting it is harmful? Okay, well it's not harmful to humans because we don't digest it. Oh, it is harmful to humans? Okay, the chances of it causing problems in humans is an acceptable trade-off because the amount it costs us in medical treatment [or settlements] is far less than the profit we make and we can pay off those that suffer severe consequences to keep their mouth shut so nobody else will ever find out.
You see where this is going right? You cannot act like this and expect people to trust you. The problem is that this behaviour has been recorded time and again with these companies. They've demonstrated time after time that they cannot be trusted and will put profits above everything else, including human life... yet every time they're caught in a lie they keep asking us to trust them again, like they're the NSA or something. You can only break people's trust so many times before they say fuck you and annex you to the sideline of history they'd rather forget. This is the position that big ag and big pharma are starting to find themselves in today.
> It's the genetic modification that allows the proliferation of herbicides and pesticides that are used in food crops and is making its way into our bodies
No. Genetic modification for one particular purpose (herbicide resistance, the best example of which is Monsanto's RoundUp Ready) might increase the use of the particular herbicides (e.g., RoundUp) and might have some connection to levels of them in food we eat, but pesticides are a different issue, and, in any case, modification for purposes related to herbicide and pesticide use aren't the only genetic modifications.
So, insofar as there is a legitimate reason to be concerned about the use RoundUp Ready crops and other herbicide-resistant genetic modifications, it makes as much sense to generalize from that to generalized opposition to GMOs as it makes sense to generalize from legitimate reasons to be concerned about the use of software by the NSA to implement mass surveillance systems to generalized opposition to software.
That may be so, but GMO crops never became the huge issue it is today until the mental (and emotional) link was made between chemicals pumped into our crops and our health. GMOs for better or worse have allowed one or more of these to proliferate. So for all the other good things it may have done that are unlinked to these chemicals, that may be totally safe for humans, GMOs have been villainized because in their minds, GMOs have allowed these chemicals to interfere with our health and now people are on a witch hunt. They've found someone to blame and they're on their way with their pitchforks. When they've killed GMOs off and there are still problems, they'll move on with their pitchforks to the next point of blame.
Our food pre-GMO Round Up resistant seed was sprayed with herbicides already, just not Round Up. They would have to spray for specific weeds and do multiple of sprays and mix these herbicides together. To argument is that now that it is one herbicide it is actually less chemicals and less mixing of different chemicals to keep out weeds.
GMO that are naturally resistant to insects will also help lower the amount of pesticides that are used.
In the 1990s I had friends that were wheat farmers and I would fly out there and work for 2 weeks for a vacation. It was fun but I also would go out and inspect the fields to see if there were bugs or weeds (Wild Wheat and mustard was the worst) to see if something had to be done to say the crops. My friend always was worried about losing his crops to something and sadly he did sometimes lose whole square miles of crops.
Well what do you think of statements on the article on harm from GMO was really a list of articles with concern about the toxicity of Round Up? Do you think that is fair?
Do I think it's fair that if Monsanto is going to genetically modify seeds to withstand increased use (read this as selling) of their herbicide, that they face increased scrutiny and understandable criticisms? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY
The problem you're up against is that every piece of evidence that displays that big-ag and big-pharma profits are more important than human life, and every piece of evidence that shows a conflict of interest, corruption or even just incompetence undermines any real credibility. To get there you have to not only be whiter than white, you've got to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are whiter than white.
I'm not saying GMOs are bad, I'm not advocating against them. I choose not to eat them because for all the evidence that suggests they're useful and good there is too much smoke for there not to be something amiss. Just like I don't believe in God. I'm not saying there is no God, I'm just saying that evidence hasn't yet convinced me there is one, equally it's not yet convinced me there isn't one. I believe in evolution, but that doesn't negate divine intervention.
You've found there is bacteria in the human digestive track that kills corn borer. Awesome. You're somehow convinced that genetically engineering this into corn is good. Fantastic. Your studies have shown no negative side effects... yet. When were these studies enacted and who were they paid for by? Who were they carried out by? Whi were they carried out on? Is there any conflict of interest there? Can you prove that your genetic modification to this corn or the Golden Rice will have no longer term health effects, either for the positive or negative? Not so much. There are many mutations and genetic defects that don't become evident for one or more generations further down the gene pool.
I'm not saying your argument is false, I'm not saying that Big-Ag and Big-Pharma are necessarily bad. The problem is that you're playing God and you're asking for evidence where it's documented and peer reviewed that it has caused adverse effect in humans... that cannot be swept under the rug, paid off, gagged or covered up. There is no evidence, because it appears that any such evidence has been er... removed from circulation. Again, not to say it has been removed from circulation, but appearance of underhandedness is usually accompanied by some level of actual underhandedness.
When Big-Ag and Big-Pharma start acting completely transparently and putting all their cards on the table, presenting all their findings fairly and without bias, with actual independent studies that show both positive and negative and letting the public make a truly informed decision, you're going to be up against the anti-GMO crowd. These people want answers, they want transparency and they want honesty. They don't want to have to dig and find flawed evidence, complacency, corruption, misdirection and conflicts of interest every time they dig a bit further.
Prove your honesty and prove your transparency and people will be more receptive to any evidence you have to present. Until then, people are going to remain skeptical and there's not an awful lot you're going to be able to do about that - except with a well engineered media campaign to brainwash the masses like you've been doing remarkably successfully with everything else.
> That comes down to one question: Do you want to eat food that someone has tampered with genetically, or do you want to eat food that humans have been eating for thousands of years with no recorded negative side effects?
Well, that's the question asked by people who know absolutely nothing about the modern techniques that are not classified as "genetic modification" and, in fact, frequently accepted for "organic" labeling, like mutation breeding.
Almost everything in crop development is about tampering with crops on a genetic level; the differences are about particular techniques (and lots of the opposition to GMOs is subsidized by big business that makes money off of alternative techniques of tampering on a genetic level that produce results that are no more "food that humans have been eating for thousands of years with no recorded negative side effects" than the results of genetic modification are.)
> > Well, that's the question asked by people who know absolutely nothing about the modern techniques
> Which is virtually everyone.
Perhaps, but its no one that has any ground to be taken seriously on the issue of whether we should selectively abandon one of those techniques (in effect promoting the others.)
Everyones concerns deserve to be taken seriously. That's how we get along as a society. We play nicely with others and we don't do things that piss off 99.9% of the population... because more often than not, the 99.9% of the population turn out to prove what we think is right, wrong. Occasionally you find a Copernicus that manages to proves an entire civilization wrong and their ideas stand the test of time. But more often than not, history eventually proves much scientific theory wrong, most studies flawed and that many of the most powerful companies will eventually put their profits ahead of human life if they can afford to successfully lobby their Government to allow them or make laws to protect them.
This is why we see continuous flip-flopping of scientific research that suggests that red wine is good for you, bad for you, makes no difference. 1 glass a day with dinner is fine, women should avoid it. Men should avoid soy etc. Yesterday salt was bad for you, today I see studies that claim they were wrong and it has little to do with high blood pressure and so the suggestions keep coming. If the science weren't flawed, we wouldn't see this continuous flip-flopping of scientific opinion, yet we do. So should those doing the research be taken any more seriously than those who just have concerns? Perhaps slightly, but I wouldn't offer it a great deal more credence, someone else will do another study tomorrow to prove it wrong and then I'm right back to square one. Until then, I'll stay on the fence eating my home grown heirloom produce that I can be as confident as I am able is safe - at least insofar as I know its providence and I can make an informed decision about it - chemical free. Draw conclusions as you see fit.
> The fact is GMO food may be generally regarded as safe - according to... the studies funded by the companies that promote these GMOs [conflict of interest much?]
"Monsanto is a medium sized company ($57.43B). Is it really possible that they’ve manipulated tens of thousands of scientists performing thousands of studies for three decades with no whistleblowers? Could Monsanto’s power have resulted in a scientific consensus that has been bent completely to their will? In comparison, fossil fuel behemoths Exxon Mobil ($394.83B), Chevron ($215.45B) and BP ($150.07B) (total: $760.35B) have been completely stymied in their efforts to buy a scientific consensus on climate change."[1]
"Biology Fortified’s GENERA database lists more than 1,000 studies with another 1,300 or so to add. GM crops have been investigated for more than 20 years. There are nuances in conclusions, but the evidence is consistent whether the study was funded by industry or the European Commission: GM crops are as safe as other conventional or organic crops and foods—or safer."[2]
Monsanto isn't the whole GM crop industry, or even the biggest corporation by market cap in the industry, so, while the general question of plausibility may be valid, pretending the comparison of Monsanto's market cap to the combination of the market caps of major players in the fossil fuels industry is so irrelevant as to undermine, rather than reinforce, the legitimate point.
Of course it isn't the whole industry, but it does get most of the attention, e.g. this NPR article[1] mentions Monsanto 17 times and uses it as one of only three tags(seed saving and gmos are the other two) - despite the piece being about GM seeds, not specifically Monsanto.
> or even the biggest corporation by market cap in the industry
The "Big Six" are BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto, and Syngenta[2][3].
"The top 10 seed companies account for $14,785 million – or two-thirds (67%) of the global proprietary seed market.The world's largest seed company, Monsanto, accounts for almost one-quarter (23%) of the global proprietary seed market."[4]
Sure DuPont and Dow have bigger market caps than Monsanto (or more importantly, more revenue) but they're also larger and more diverse business with seeds making a much smaller portion of their total revenue than Monsanto. But even forgetting that the original point (that the oil industry has far more money than the GM industry) still stands - Dow's market cap is $60B, DuPont's is $68B, Monsanto's is $55B...market caps like that wouldn't even break the top ten for oil companies[5].
Much of the opposition to GMOs isn't related to the science, but to the business practices of GMO companies and the farming methods involved in the industry. I'm totally on your side about the anti-science nature of many anti-GMO activists, but there's more to it than that.
Best TL:DR in video form on the issue. It is 2 minutes long and it stumps every anti-GMO friend I have. They don't switch but they also can't argue "natural" apples, strawberries or wheat since they are all artificial.
Not ignoring the benefits to GMO, but how can I be sure any long-term health risks are aggressively watched for by the Cargill's and Monsanto's of the world? The US and EU are reasonably good at food safety, but managing food-related health risks is much more complexly difficult, and few in the lay public even appreciate the distinction.
Will the producers spend the budget to proactively and aggressively seek to test for health failure modes once the product is accepted by regulatory bodies and even consumers? No.
Even if they happen to find suggestions of a potential defect, will they pursue those hints with well-funded efforts for timely conclusions? No.
If long-term harm is found, will they continue to sell the product unless forced to retract by regulatory action or consumer backlash? Yes.
Let me put it another way. Say there is a $10B annual profit on $100B annual revenue for just one GMO product. It is all on the line, including the hefty annual bonuses contingent upon that profit, by the personal action of the executive board upon the results of a study that isn't well-publicized, but internal scientists say the study's conclusion of a strongly-suggested causal link are legit. Through inaction, "we need to study this more before taking drastic steps", yet another profitable quarter and bonuses are assured. What do you reasonably expect to happen in the real world?
The historical record conclusively shows the food industry as a whole does not work with extremely long-term (decades) health issues. They generally leave that up to the medical industry, which introduces an entirely different set of problems. It is only recently that the lipid hypothesis is coming under much more rigorous scrutiny. We continue to flood our supply chains with simple carbohydrates, even after ample evidence showing how they play a large role in harming our bodies when consumed in large quantities over decades-long periods.
Understand I'm not claiming this is by malicious action. This is simply what happens under our current incentive structures and our current civilization's culturally-driven risk assessment mechanisms. As a species so far, we're pretty good at responding to fast-acting risks on short timelines, but as the risks' effects become more diffuse to detect over longer timelines, our capacity to respond, especially through committee-heavy organizations, is sharply diminished.
Stepping back for perspective, this is actually somewhat a good problem to face. This signals our tool usage has gotten complex enough that we are facing increasingly longer timespans of effects, meaning over successive generations we are gradually building up surplus productive capacity to fund increasingly sophisticated and/or complex tools to address ever more complex problem spaces.
Golden rice was planned to address the problem of a (almost) rice-only diet leading to vitamin-a deficiency. This completely ignores the other effects of such a imbalanced diet. Eating different kinds of food is like the number one recommendation of food scientists.
The next step would be replacing the varieties of rice grown by golden rice. This includes the difficulty of distribution. This is really notable because one of the reasons for the project is that it's seen as too hard to distribute other sources of vitamin A (like pills) in those regions. There also might be a reduction of genetic diversity.
>"I don't think this is about GMOs being harmful or not being harmful to your health," Ells tells The Salt. "It's a bigger picture.
That mentality is what kills me about all of this. Let's make decisions contrary to what the evidence shows. I know this is probably a smart move because I'm sure the anti-gmo movement people would love to have a company to crusade against like Chipotle. I still don't like it.
I'm glad this trend is so far limited only to a few companies that I can easily boycott. There's even a group on the "Buycott" app against anti-GMO companies.
It would really be great if there were a three-letter code we could use to demonize Monsanto and Syngenta's harmful patent practices and shift the discussion to where it used to be and still should be.
I think it's decently price for the amount of calories you get.
I get it's 1.5k but it's not the corporation's responsibility to regulate how a much a person eat. I'm glad that we have laws posting calories count and I think it's good enough. You can eat half and save the rest or if you work out for 2-3hours then 1.5k calories is pretty nice.
I did body building for a bit and I use myfitnesspal to count my calories. I had a food scale and a measure cup too. I don't get why we have to shame a food place for giving us a good deal. If anything have social programs to raise awareness to obesity.
No doubt, I agree with you 100% and think individuals should be allowed to make their own choices based on the information provided. That said, there is some definite marketing wizardry with this along with "organic" ingredients and not-so-subtle suggestions that both are somehow automatically healthy for you.
But do you eat fast food? In the fast food world, Chipotle is pretty high up on the "brand perception" scale. Sure, it's not incredible, but it "feels" better than eating Wendys/McDonalds/Burger King. (I don't eat fast-food much, but my bias is towards Chipotle when I do.)
No, and I know that puts me in a bit of a minority, but I carved out time for good food a long time ago, in a bet with myself that I could stay out of the doctor's office for a long time. (Won that bet 6 years in a row, now)
> But do you eat fast food? In the fast food world, Chipotle is pretty high up on the "brand perception" scale.
Chipotle aims for a fast casual ambiance (which can be a reason to prefer it), but to me the food quality seems to be between lower-end fast-food places like Taco Bell and better fast-food places like El Pollo Loco.
It's frightening how many people don't understand the arguments against GMOs.
Read this: http://fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf and before making arguments, make sure your argument hasn't already been responded to in the "Fallacy" section.
Of course, there are many non-scientific arguments about GMOs. I'm not talking about those.
EDIT: Someone asked for a tldr. It's a useful skill to learn how to read a paper (start with the abstract and the conclusion), but I'm pasting the conclusion here anyway:
This formalization of the two different types of un-certainty about risk (local and systemic) makes clear when the precautionary principle is, and when it isn’t, appropriate. The examples of GMOs and nuclear energy help to elucidate the application of these ideas. We hope this will help decision makers to avoid ruin in the future.
Exactly the reason what is wrong with the world in general. You can't be arse to read a few pages, but I bet you feel entitled to an opinion, right? I bet you have opinions on many things. How did you form them? By reading tl;dr versions in the newspaper and discussing with friend on the dinner table?
What are you even talking about? Who said anything about opinions? I asked for a TL;DR, that's all.
I also think it's interesting that you choose to rant when it's about a long and advanced scientific article full of terminology I don't even understand. Shouldn't this be a case where a TL;DR is justified if anything?
Papers come with their own tldr. It's not because people are lazy, but because that's all most people reading it actually need.
This is in contrast to many op-eds, blog posts, and even news articles, which intentionally make it hard to find a summary, disperse shallow content between ads, just like to hear their own voice, or other such behaviours that are worth avoiding.
I think asking for a tldr here is mistaking the former for the latter (an honest mistake).
To be honest, I only read it because one of the authors is Nassim Taleb and I liked his books.
Anyway, the gist of it is that there are different kinds of risk. Some risks can be calculated with certain probabilities, and you can do cost-benefit analysis with them.
For example, you should only spend money on a security system for your home or business if the cost-of-being-attacked times the probability of attack exceeds the cost of the system, right?
However, there is another kind of risk for which you can't do that, because their cost is so high that nobody will live to tell the tale and collect the statistics (extinction events), or maybe they will but it will be too late (global financial crisis).
The paper argues that monocultures present that kind of risk. You can't calculate "probability of massive blight that kills all our genetically homogeneous food" for example because we don't have much of a sample size. And by the time we do have the sample size, it will be too late.
Then, the paper points out some other risks and explains why the risks of artificial selection are different from the risks of GMO. Long story short, it's because a bad mutation in a "natural" crop only kills a few people before they realize that they should plant something else.
It is because the industry has done a great job as labeling the critics as anti-science. Yet the source of the controversy for anyone who spends enough time to look into it is other scientist.
It is somewhat ironic, that most everyone agrees the GMO companies are quite evil in nature when it comes to their business practices. Yet the same people say we should absolutely trust the same companies when they make claims about their products benefits or safety.
I think part of this is because progressive science fans see the potential of GMOs and latch on to the possibilities and ignore that we are still quite immature with our understanding and implementation of the technology.
> It is because the industry has done a great job as labeling the critics as anti-science.
It's not "the industry" doing the labeling, scientific consensus isn't so easily bought - if it were oil companies (who have far more money than Monsanto et al) would have made sure the science on climate change was on their side.
In another comment[1] I provided several links you may find useful in making a more informed opinion.
> It's not "the industry" doing the labeling, scientific consensus isn't so easily bought - if it were oil companies (who have far more money than Monsanto et al) would have made sure the science on climate change was on their side.
You are confusing the complexity and difficulty of bending the truth around climate change VS GM.
Interestingly enough, I've been a very vocal proponent of GMO labeling here in Oregon. When the labeling issue made the last ballot, and of course I voted FOR it, my ballot mysteriously got pulled and I had to prove that I was the one that submitted it (based on my signature). I was told that Monsanto lawyers were staked out in the counting offices and demanding that particular ballots be pulled for further "authentication".
TL:DR
Abstract
—The precautionary principle (PP) states that if an action
or policy has a suspected risk of causing severe harm to the public
domain (affecting general health or the environment globally), the action
should not be taken in the absence of scientific near-certainty about its
safety
It is pretty important if you want people to read a random link, especially 24 pages of reading. You have to give a LITTLE context for why anyone should read something that is contrary to scientific research. It sure looks like there is Scientific certainty that their is 100% no observed harm caused by a GMO. THis has been going on since 1940s. https://gmoanswers.com/ask/how-long-have-genetically-modifie...
When the authors are the following:
School of Engineering, New York University
New England Complex Systems Institute
Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, C.N.R.S., Paris
School of Philosophy, University of East Anglia
Why is it Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering important for me to feel that they are experts for a study in GMO. I get the Philosophy part and agree that should be more utilized, but this isn't based on medical and or scientific facts. This is based on theoretical harm though we have had decades to see its effects already.
Pepsi announced it was getting rid of aspartame
Kraft announced it was dropping artificial dyes
McDonald's said it would start sourcing chicken raised without antibiotics
Nestle declared it would dump artificial colorings and flavorings
It seems blanket statements are bad for healthy GMOs but also have a secondary positive effect elsewhere within the food industry.
Like many here, I'm confused with how people could be upset with GMOs but not random mutation. Either could result in the same vegetables.
It turns out - when talking to strongly GMO-opposed persons - it's usually not the genetic modification they're worried about. Instead, it's that a crop has been showered in roundup before we eat it. Saying "anti-GMO" has become a simpler way of saying that you're anti-roundup-sprayed-crops.
Even though I disagree with this redefinition, I've found it to be common among anti-GMO parties. I also consider their real argument much more respectable than actually being opposed to arbitrary genetic mutations.
When a seed is genetically modified to support wide spectrum herbicide use, does the nuance really matter? A lot of people in this thread are poo pooing the anti GMO movement, when a lot of anti GMO folks are against genetically modifying food to support corporate greed. Monsanto isn't an angel sent from the heavens to feed the starving.
I agree. Personally, my concerns with GMOs lie more with environmental factors (contamination of surrounding areas for example) and concerns about gene/seed patenting by "big agro".
I have a friend who likes to parrot out every anti-GM article in the mainstream press.
He eventually kind of changed his argument (he is a stubborn bastard who will never admit being wrong), when I asked him:
What is it about targeted gene mutation (as in GM organisms) that you think is so much more dangerous than random gene mutation that occurs in nature?
Just a reminder to the "all GMO is bad" crowd - you're condemning yourself to a life of needles or a mechanical implant if you have or get type-1 diabetes (lack of insulin production). With genetic modification, it's possible to transfect genes to start insulin production but that would make the recipient a GMO...
As people as written, this subject is nuanced. As best you can, try to understand what is involved rather than just listening to the noise.
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Yet to be fair, GMOs still produce changes that aren't possible through mutagenesis. Also GMOs are not without their own random mutations since the process of transgene insertions often produce their own random set of side effect changes. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559911/
Even though health food has become fashionable (for perhaps less than rational reasons), I believe that greater awareness of what you eat is extremely important and I'm glad it's becoming mainstream. Now if only they would stop putting so much sugar in bread...
And don't assume a restaurant does a worse job than you of managing their freshness. They buy from the same grocery most likely. In fact, the grocery you buy from is a store; their fresh food is managed quite well. In fact everything you make is worse than that, because you have to buy it from them, THEN make something out of it. So its not as fresh.
[1] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/03/15/go...
Don't forget that before we had GMO's we just blasted millions of seeds with radiation until we found mutants with cool characteristics, which we then branded as natural mutations, and mass distributed.
I wonder if that's how Chipotle does it....
If I want to have a Scandinavian child, I just reproduce with someone from Sweden.
If I want my child to be immune to the sun and skin cancer, I just add a gene from the leaf of a tree, inject it into his DNA and see what happens?
I support GMOs but nuance is important.
Says someone comparing plants with human children to make a point. (And no, not much of a difference, other than with modern technique we have more control over the results)
a) because understandably customers may have concerns and b) results are very, very random
Here's one in Japan that seems to be still active: https://www.google.com/maps?q=2425,+Kamimurata,+Hitachiohmiy...
The circle in the middle is the radiation source, and the further away the plants were planted the less mutations occurred, with the plants right next to the source dying.
Fallacy aside, it's an emotionally persuasive argument. I'm wondering if it's a central talking point that was developed by a marketing team for forum use.
What is the standard non-GMO breeding method?
There are more ways to raise the mutation rate in plants, for example, by using chemicals like ethyl methanesulfonate. Ironically, many "organic" companies still sell cultivars that have been mutated using these processes. I'd be more scared of a plant with several unknown, unpredictable mutations than of a plant that has a single, directed mutation.
The most "standard" breeding methods are still the "manual" ones like hybridization, where you use two different plant lines that are as homozygous as possible (in other words, they have been inbred for many generations so there's little to no genetic variety, you won't have any surprises when you use them for breeding).
One famous example are Norman Borlaug's high yield semi-dwarf wheat varieties (edit: made roughly at the same time as atomic gardens were en vogue) - he crossed dwarf wheat varieties from Japan that gave little yield with high-yield varieties from America that were so thin that if the season was good and the seeds were heavy, the plants would break from the weight. The resulting semi-dwarf varieties had good yield with a stable stem.
If the old methods were as bad as you suggest, that doesn't prove GMOs are good. It merely extends the anti-GMO argument to modern radiation breeding methods too.
The most compelling anti-GMO argument is that they could produce an interaction we wouldn't have been able to predict due to complexity, and the interaction could have negative effects that would never have been produced by random selection in nature. Once this is in the wild, it could be impossible to eliminate. Critics argue we are aiming at known, limited upside benefits, while facing unknown, potentially much larger risks. Does this apply equally to radiation mutation breeding?
The problem is, there is no proof in that statement. It's just suspicion, fear, uncertainty, doubt. Instead of proving an actual harm, anti-GMO people are asking the industry to prove a negative.
It would be like asking for a cup of water, and I hand you a cup that I filled from my Brita filter. You complain saying the mechanism contains a carbon filter, and that you believe a carbon filter can contaminate the water. Suddenly you're forcing the burden of proof on me, essentially asking me to prove your fear incorrect. Your fear that is based on... nothing. That's not how science should work. If you have uncertainty about something after the initial studies have been completed to verify safety, the burden is on you to prove it's a danger.
In the case of GMOs, the industry has thrown the public a bone, so-to-speak, and done extensive testing to show that the crops are safe, even when there is no indication that they SHOULD be unsafe. Now, don't get me wrong, there is evidence that PESTICIDES are unsafe, but there's no real evidence that just adding something like a carrot gene to rice is dangerous. NO. EVIDENCE. Yet that doesn't stop people from complaining. When the evidence doesn't support their view, they immediately say that the research was funded by the evil GMO corporations, and rarely even bother to actually look up the real study.
It's like Aspartame... It's one of the most tested food ingredients in history, there is ample documentation to show that it is perfectly safe, yet some people still believe it causes everything from diabetes to cancer. How much solid, peer-reviewed proof do they have to back up their belief? None.
A quick search on google scholar found dozens of articles like this that suggest problems linked to aspartame use:
http://m.ajcn.nutrition.org/content/96/6/1249.full
The jury is still out, but it's not correct to say that aspartame has been proven conclusively safe.
I would also like to point out the conclusion in the article you linked:
> These 3 studies add to a growing body of evidence on the adverse health effects of soft drinks; however, given the limited and conflicting data available, these findings can at the present time be considered only suggestive, not conclusive, but they warrant further investigation in other prospective studies with data on long-term intake of soft drinks, diet soft drinks, and aspartame
Take that along with the extensive references in the Wikipedia article and you can see why I say the public is asking the food industry to prove a negative. The closest they can come is, "something that contains aspartame seems to be a bit unhealthy, but not always, but sometimes," yet those same people (like you) will say that aspartame itself is the issue. It's just silly.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25313461/
You may be right about aspartame. I'm not an expert. Perhaps that study was also disproven.
But my larger point is that it's really, really hard to prove a negative to an acceptable standard. Particularly across all categories we care about, not just cancer and heart disease.
Have the biome effects been disproven too?
To the extent that it can be said to approximate something valid in the case of GMOs, it applies at least as strongly to mutation breeding (regardless of how the mutation is achieved, radiation isn't the only mutation source used in mutation breeding.)
There was a Forbes article[1] last year that linked to a number of studies. If you're looking for a less journalistic take and want to poke around with the data/studies yourself check out GENERA[2] (a database of peer reviewed GMO studies).
FiveThirtyEight did a good piece on the gap between "what the public thinks and what scientists know" and saw the widest margin in the subject of GMO safety[3]. A recent NYT op-ed explains some of the benefits of GMOs and what caused the author to change their stance[4].
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/09/17/the-debate-...
[2] http://genera.biofortified.org/
[3] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/theres-a-gap-between-what...
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/sunday/how-i-got-c...
Herbicide-resistant crop technology has led to a 239 million kilogram (527 million pound) increase in herbicide use in the United States between 1996 and 2011 http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24
But a new study released by Food & Water Watch yesterday finds the goal of reduced chemical use has not panned out as planned. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crops...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/genetically-engineered-crops-mo...
The same thing is happening to other herbicides, just slower, because they weren't used as much. They weren't used as much because they were replaced with glyphosate.
I recall about over 15 years ago how all my peers and many experts in the industry said the "consensus" on building web services was to use SOAP BPEL and develop using waterfall methodologies. At that time Agile development and REST services might have been considered quackery.
One of the links in my comment was to GENERA[1], a large database of peer reviewed GMO studies, feel free to "dig" away.
> 15 years ago how all my peers and many experts in the industry said the "consensus" on building web services was to use SOAP BPEL
First of all that's just generic use of the word consensus[2], not quite the same as the concept of scientific consensus[3]. Scientific consensus can certainly change over time (you wouldn't want science to just assume whatever if previously thought was right, would you?) but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the current collective judgment of scientists because they might change their position X years from now.
[1] http://genera.biofortified.org/
[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus
What we think of scientific consensus may not be what it actually is in reality. https://plus.google.com/+ChrisReeveOnlineScientificDiscourse...
What is scientific nonsense is generalizing, either one way or the other
Golden rice looks like a great invention, but being in favor of it means that we can't oppose any GMO or any company producing GMOs?
Each case is different.
If you were to genetically engineer products for everyone's good, it would make sense to enter such uncharted territories, but to do it solely for the good of one entity is simply horrific.
Humans have been genetically modifying food (and animals) long before DNA was known.
Then again, like every other product meant for human consumption it should be subject to scrutiny and monitoring, to ensure saftety.
And even then, most companies will tune food products to maximize profits, and this generally means favoring the looks, yield, consistency and shelf life of a product, as opposed to flavor and texture, with the result of food that looks and feels "artificial".
In general banning all GMO is a fairly stupid political and marketing move, that has little bearing on the final quality of the product: if anything they should guarantee thier customers the freshness and the quality of the ingredients, independently of their origin.
The interesting part is that wheat is not commonly GMO, but it is still sprayed with roundup in the harvesting process to increase yield.
The most common GMO crops are: canola, corn, cotton, soy and sugar beets.
Canola, soy and sugar beet modification is for roundup readiness (glyphosate). Corn and cotton are modified to make them resistant to insects without using additional pesticides.
Newer studies have shown potential risks to mammals from excessive intake of roundup:
http://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-c...
http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/06/biotech-crops-use-less-pes...
Also, pedantic lesson for ESL learners: "You're arguing for GMO then."
http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230443110457...
which is weakly responded to by
http://www.cornucopia.org/2014/05/response-wall-street-journ...
I guess the 'anti-scientific folk' in Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, and Russia who have banned GMO crops altogether are beyond the pale.
But instead we have populist fear holding sway in all those countries instead.
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416
http://sustainablepulse.com/2013/04/27/dr-swanson-gmos-and-r...
See this 1996 study: Identification of a Brazil-nut allergen in transgenic soybeans. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8594427
This is also obvious, to tell the truth.
Governments banning something doesn't mean it's either a) based on science or b) the right thing to do.
As I pointed out in another comment[1] there's a wide gap between "what the public thinks and what scientists know" regarding GMOs[2]. Having an opinion that is the opposite to scientific consensus is by definition anti-scientific.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9451873
[2] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/theres-a-gap-between-what...
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_certification#Issues
Is this a well-funded crowd, full of large corporate support? What do they have to gain with their 'propaganda' exactly?
Just FYI, I used to do research where I spliced genes for a certain enzyme into yeast in order to study the enzymatic mechanism, so I'm not exactly uninformed.
Sad, but true.
The fact is GMO food may be generally regarded as safe - according to... the studies funded by the companies that promote these GMOs [conflict of interest much?] but I've got thousands of years of human consumption with no recorded negative side effects on the side of non-GMOs and you've got a couple of scientific studies that cover a laughably small "cross section" (if you can call it that) of society with no ability to do any long term studies because you only started down this path in very recent human history. Add to this the fact that when you pump your crops full of herbicides and pesticides there appears to be an alarming degree of correlation between the uptick in food allergies and autism. This is huge cause for concern. Whether this is the actual cause, the jury is out, but there is anecdotal evidence from a number of places including celebrities which suggests that removal of those foods from the diets of their autistic children has brought them back.
If someone can do an actual independent study on GMOs that isn't funded by pharma or agribusiness, doesn't suffer from a conflict of interest and compares in scale to the thousands of years of human history, I'd say the studies don't compare. Even as valid as they may appear on the surface, those of us on the outside have little confidence in them. Especially with information being leaked from inside these studies to suggest corruption and cover-ups to promote the corporate agenda all the way to the highest level to increase profits at all costs - up to and including the collateral damage of a few thousand deaths per million. Deaths that can easily be swept under the rug using underhanded tactics such as smear campaigns, sewing tactical doubt, lied about, gagged by payouts or flat out covered up. There are a number of reports of the FDA aiding and abetting in this behaviour. The F.D.A! If you can't trust the very Government office that is funded with the goal of looking after your best interests as the consumer, then who can you trust?
Nature has nothing to prove. Agri-business and Big-Pharma are run by people. People are fallible and when bound to their responsibility to investor profits, corrupt. Who would you rather trust?
It's no wonder people don't want to eat GMO. It might be the safest thing on earth, but when you add human fallibility and corruption into the equation, which way do you turn?
One GMO trait on the market kills corn borer. You know where we found the gene that kills corn borer? From a bacteria that already flourishes in the human digestive track.
Can you point to a single, documented, peer-reviewed case where a GMO crop has caused any adverse effect in humans?
Dwarf wheat has saved a billion lives. Golden Rice can do the same but only if the anti-GMO crowd gets out of the way.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/04/08/10-scientific...
1) identified the presence of pesticides (GMO uses less pesticides than non GMO)
2) Quote "This still doesn’t mean that GMOs can enter into our cells"
3) Gluten is due to Roundup aka GMO use less pestised and herbisides. "Most GMOs are engineered to tolerate a weed killer called glyphosate (Roundup®). They contain high levels of this toxin at harvest. Corn and cotton varieties are also engineered to produce a n insecticide called Bt toxin.
4) Peer Review is not some magical fool proof system. It actually has been causing harm (Looking at the false claim that Vaccines causing Autism was peer reviewed)
"This study has since been retracted, which is odd, because the journal it was published in is a very well known, reputable peer reviewed scientific journal. In order for a study to be published here it has to go through a rigorous review process." The report focuses primarily on the effects of these two toxins.
5) & 6) & 7) & 8) & 9) Once again a Round Up issue not really a GMO issue.
"Researchers also determined that Monsanto’s roundup is considered an “xenoestrogen,” which is a foreign estrogen that mimics real estrogen in our bodies"
"The direct effect of glyphosate on early mechanisms of morphogenesis in vertebrate embryos opens concerns about the clinical findings from human offspring in populations exposed to glyphosate in agricultural fields"
"Because humans that’ve been exposed to glyphosate have a drop in amino acid tryptophan levels, they do not have the necessary active signalling of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is associated with weight gain, depression and Alzheimer’s disease."
"A new study out of Germany concludes that Glyphosate residue could reach humans and animals through feed and can be excreted in urine."
"Herbicide tolerant crops are engineered to produce one or more proteins that allow the crop to survive being sprayed with a given herbicide."
10) Flat out the same nothing harmful BUT the RISK.
"The risk assessment of genetically modified (GM) crops for human nutrition and health has not been systematic."
Isn't it true that the harm is Round Up related?
So to unlink RoundUp from the sentiments against GMO is disingenuous. It's the genetic modification that allows the proliferation of herbicides and pesticides that are used in food crops and is making its way into our bodies, its these chemicals that the plants are genetically modified to withstand (and then pumped full of) that is in our food at the heart of a large proportion of the arguments against GMOs.
If there is no need for RoundUP, then there is no need for the genetic modification to make crops RoundUp ready. So you can't just argue that most of these arguments aren't about GMOs, they're about RoundUp which is a different argument. The two are inter-linked. If you didn't need RoundUp, you wouldn't need the genetic modification to make the crop RoundUp ready and RoundUp wouldn't be making its way into our bodies where you claim it does us no harm anyway.
Don't forget that the food industry has done this time and again with herbicides and pesticides:
It doesn't get into our bodies! Oh, it does? Okay, well, it doesn't matter, it's harmless. Oh, there are people getting sick and dying? Okay, we'll do a study. Oh, it's not harmless? There's evidence suggesting it is harmful? Okay, well it's not harmful to humans because we don't digest it. Oh, it is harmful to humans? Okay, the chances of it causing problems in humans is an acceptable trade-off because the amount it costs us in medical treatment [or settlements] is far less than the profit we make and we can pay off those that suffer severe consequences to keep their mouth shut so nobody else will ever find out.
You see where this is going right? You cannot act like this and expect people to trust you. The problem is that this behaviour has been recorded time and again with these companies. They've demonstrated time after time that they cannot be trusted and will put profits above everything else, including human life... yet every time they're caught in a lie they keep asking us to trust them again, like they're the NSA or something. You can only break people's trust so many times before they say fuck you and annex you to the sideline of history they'd rather forget. This is the position that big ag and big pharma are starting to find themselves in today.
No. Genetic modification for one particular purpose (herbicide resistance, the best example of which is Monsanto's RoundUp Ready) might increase the use of the particular herbicides (e.g., RoundUp) and might have some connection to levels of them in food we eat, but pesticides are a different issue, and, in any case, modification for purposes related to herbicide and pesticide use aren't the only genetic modifications.
So, insofar as there is a legitimate reason to be concerned about the use RoundUp Ready crops and other herbicide-resistant genetic modifications, it makes as much sense to generalize from that to generalized opposition to GMOs as it makes sense to generalize from legitimate reasons to be concerned about the use of software by the NSA to implement mass surveillance systems to generalized opposition to software.
GMO that are naturally resistant to insects will also help lower the amount of pesticides that are used.
In the 1990s I had friends that were wheat farmers and I would fly out there and work for 2 weeks for a vacation. It was fun but I also would go out and inspect the fields to see if there were bugs or weeds (Wild Wheat and mustard was the worst) to see if something had to be done to say the crops. My friend always was worried about losing his crops to something and sadly he did sometimes lose whole square miles of crops.
I'm not saying GMOs are bad, I'm not advocating against them. I choose not to eat them because for all the evidence that suggests they're useful and good there is too much smoke for there not to be something amiss. Just like I don't believe in God. I'm not saying there is no God, I'm just saying that evidence hasn't yet convinced me there is one, equally it's not yet convinced me there isn't one. I believe in evolution, but that doesn't negate divine intervention.
You've found there is bacteria in the human digestive track that kills corn borer. Awesome. You're somehow convinced that genetically engineering this into corn is good. Fantastic. Your studies have shown no negative side effects... yet. When were these studies enacted and who were they paid for by? Who were they carried out by? Whi were they carried out on? Is there any conflict of interest there? Can you prove that your genetic modification to this corn or the Golden Rice will have no longer term health effects, either for the positive or negative? Not so much. There are many mutations and genetic defects that don't become evident for one or more generations further down the gene pool.
I'm not saying your argument is false, I'm not saying that Big-Ag and Big-Pharma are necessarily bad. The problem is that you're playing God and you're asking for evidence where it's documented and peer reviewed that it has caused adverse effect in humans... that cannot be swept under the rug, paid off, gagged or covered up. There is no evidence, because it appears that any such evidence has been er... removed from circulation. Again, not to say it has been removed from circulation, but appearance of underhandedness is usually accompanied by some level of actual underhandedness.
When Big-Ag and Big-Pharma start acting completely transparently and putting all their cards on the table, presenting all their findings fairly and without bias, with actual independent studies that show both positive and negative and letting the public make a truly informed decision, you're going to be up against the anti-GMO crowd. These people want answers, they want transparency and they want honesty. They don't want to have to dig and find flawed evidence, complacency, corruption, misdirection and conflicts of interest every time they dig a bit further.
Prove your honesty and prove your transparency and people will be more receptive to any evidence you have to present. Until then, people are going to remain skeptical and there's not an awful lot you're going to be able to do about that - except with a well engineered media campaign to brainwash the masses like you've been doing remarkably successfully with everything else.
Well, that's the question asked by people who know absolutely nothing about the modern techniques that are not classified as "genetic modification" and, in fact, frequently accepted for "organic" labeling, like mutation breeding.
Almost everything in crop development is about tampering with crops on a genetic level; the differences are about particular techniques (and lots of the opposition to GMOs is subsidized by big business that makes money off of alternative techniques of tampering on a genetic level that produce results that are no more "food that humans have been eating for thousands of years with no recorded negative side effects" than the results of genetic modification are.)
Which is virtually everyone.
> Which is virtually everyone.
Perhaps, but its no one that has any ground to be taken seriously on the issue of whether we should selectively abandon one of those techniques (in effect promoting the others.)
This is why we see continuous flip-flopping of scientific research that suggests that red wine is good for you, bad for you, makes no difference. 1 glass a day with dinner is fine, women should avoid it. Men should avoid soy etc. Yesterday salt was bad for you, today I see studies that claim they were wrong and it has little to do with high blood pressure and so the suggestions keep coming. If the science weren't flawed, we wouldn't see this continuous flip-flopping of scientific opinion, yet we do. So should those doing the research be taken any more seriously than those who just have concerns? Perhaps slightly, but I wouldn't offer it a great deal more credence, someone else will do another study tomorrow to prove it wrong and then I'm right back to square one. Until then, I'll stay on the fence eating my home grown heirloom produce that I can be as confident as I am able is safe - at least insofar as I know its providence and I can make an informed decision about it - chemical free. Draw conclusions as you see fit.
"Monsanto is a medium sized company ($57.43B). Is it really possible that they’ve manipulated tens of thousands of scientists performing thousands of studies for three decades with no whistleblowers? Could Monsanto’s power have resulted in a scientific consensus that has been bent completely to their will? In comparison, fossil fuel behemoths Exxon Mobil ($394.83B), Chevron ($215.45B) and BP ($150.07B) (total: $760.35B) have been completely stymied in their efforts to buy a scientific consensus on climate change."[1]
"Biology Fortified’s GENERA database lists more than 1,000 studies with another 1,300 or so to add. GM crops have been investigated for more than 20 years. There are nuances in conclusions, but the evidence is consistent whether the study was funded by industry or the European Commission: GM crops are as safe as other conventional or organic crops and foods—or safer."[2]
[1] http://www.biofortified.org/2014/02/industry-funded-gmo-stud...
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/09/23/will-the-us...
Of course it isn't the whole industry, but it does get most of the attention, e.g. this NPR article[1] mentions Monsanto 17 times and uses it as one of only three tags(seed saving and gmos are the other two) - despite the piece being about GM seeds, not specifically Monsanto.
> or even the biggest corporation by market cap in the industry
The "Big Six" are BASF, Bayer, Dupont, Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto, and Syngenta[2][3].
"The top 10 seed companies account for $14,785 million – or two-thirds (67%) of the global proprietary seed market.The world's largest seed company, Monsanto, accounts for almost one-quarter (23%) of the global proprietary seed market."[4]
Sure DuPont and Dow have bigger market caps than Monsanto (or more importantly, more revenue) but they're also larger and more diverse business with seeds making a much smaller portion of their total revenue than Monsanto. But even forgetting that the original point (that the oil industry has far more money than the GM industry) still stands - Dow's market cap is $60B, DuPont's is $68B, Monsanto's is $55B...market caps like that wouldn't even break the top ten for oil companies[5].
[1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/10/18/163034053/top-fi...
[2] http://www.biofortified.org/resources/genetic-engineering-co...
[3] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/%22Big_6%22_Pesticide_a...
[4] http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/10558-the-worlds-top-ten-see...
[5] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010715...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ecT2CaL7NA
Best TL:DR in video form on the issue. It is 2 minutes long and it stumps every anti-GMO friend I have. They don't switch but they also can't argue "natural" apples, strawberries or wheat since they are all artificial.
Will the producers spend the budget to proactively and aggressively seek to test for health failure modes once the product is accepted by regulatory bodies and even consumers? No.
Even if they happen to find suggestions of a potential defect, will they pursue those hints with well-funded efforts for timely conclusions? No.
If long-term harm is found, will they continue to sell the product unless forced to retract by regulatory action or consumer backlash? Yes.
Let me put it another way. Say there is a $10B annual profit on $100B annual revenue for just one GMO product. It is all on the line, including the hefty annual bonuses contingent upon that profit, by the personal action of the executive board upon the results of a study that isn't well-publicized, but internal scientists say the study's conclusion of a strongly-suggested causal link are legit. Through inaction, "we need to study this more before taking drastic steps", yet another profitable quarter and bonuses are assured. What do you reasonably expect to happen in the real world?
The historical record conclusively shows the food industry as a whole does not work with extremely long-term (decades) health issues. They generally leave that up to the medical industry, which introduces an entirely different set of problems. It is only recently that the lipid hypothesis is coming under much more rigorous scrutiny. We continue to flood our supply chains with simple carbohydrates, even after ample evidence showing how they play a large role in harming our bodies when consumed in large quantities over decades-long periods.
Understand I'm not claiming this is by malicious action. This is simply what happens under our current incentive structures and our current civilization's culturally-driven risk assessment mechanisms. As a species so far, we're pretty good at responding to fast-acting risks on short timelines, but as the risks' effects become more diffuse to detect over longer timelines, our capacity to respond, especially through committee-heavy organizations, is sharply diminished.
Stepping back for perspective, this is actually somewhat a good problem to face. This signals our tool usage has gotten complex enough that we are facing increasingly longer timespans of effects, meaning over successive generations we are gradually building up surplus productive capacity to fund increasingly sophisticated and/or complex tools to address ever more complex problem spaces.
Golden rice was planned to address the problem of a (almost) rice-only diet leading to vitamin-a deficiency. This completely ignores the other effects of such a imbalanced diet. Eating different kinds of food is like the number one recommendation of food scientists.
The next step would be replacing the varieties of rice grown by golden rice. This includes the difficulty of distribution. This is really notable because one of the reasons for the project is that it's seen as too hard to distribute other sources of vitamin A (like pills) in those regions. There also might be a reduction of genetic diversity.
That mentality is what kills me about all of this. Let's make decisions contrary to what the evidence shows. I know this is probably a smart move because I'm sure the anti-gmo movement people would love to have a company to crusade against like Chipotle. I still don't like it.
It would really be great if there were a three-letter code we could use to demonize Monsanto and Syngenta's harmful patent practices and shift the discussion to where it used to be and still should be.
edit: just adding a link to a recent John Stewart segment, which will hopefully stop some of the fearmongering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY-UPHLJ31A
I get it's 1.5k but it's not the corporation's responsibility to regulate how a much a person eat. I'm glad that we have laws posting calories count and I think it's good enough. You can eat half and save the rest or if you work out for 2-3hours then 1.5k calories is pretty nice.
I did body building for a bit and I use myfitnesspal to count my calories. I had a food scale and a measure cup too. I don't get why we have to shame a food place for giving us a good deal. If anything have social programs to raise awareness to obesity.
Chipotle aims for a fast casual ambiance (which can be a reason to prefer it), but to me the food quality seems to be between lower-end fast-food places like Taco Bell and better fast-food places like El Pollo Loco.
This. Hint: the problem isn't the GMOs in that Big Mac you're eating
Read this: http://fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf and before making arguments, make sure your argument hasn't already been responded to in the "Fallacy" section.
Of course, there are many non-scientific arguments about GMOs. I'm not talking about those.
EDIT: Someone asked for a tldr. It's a useful skill to learn how to read a paper (start with the abstract and the conclusion), but I'm pasting the conclusion here anyway:
This formalization of the two different types of un-certainty about risk (local and systemic) makes clear when the precautionary principle is, and when it isn’t, appropriate. The examples of GMOs and nuclear energy help to elucidate the application of these ideas. We hope this will help decision makers to avoid ruin in the future.
I also think it's interesting that you choose to rant when it's about a long and advanced scientific article full of terminology I don't even understand. Shouldn't this be a case where a TL;DR is justified if anything?
This is in contrast to many op-eds, blog posts, and even news articles, which intentionally make it hard to find a summary, disperse shallow content between ads, just like to hear their own voice, or other such behaviours that are worth avoiding.
I think asking for a tldr here is mistaking the former for the latter (an honest mistake).
To be honest, I only read it because one of the authors is Nassim Taleb and I liked his books.
Anyway, the gist of it is that there are different kinds of risk. Some risks can be calculated with certain probabilities, and you can do cost-benefit analysis with them.
For example, you should only spend money on a security system for your home or business if the cost-of-being-attacked times the probability of attack exceeds the cost of the system, right?
However, there is another kind of risk for which you can't do that, because their cost is so high that nobody will live to tell the tale and collect the statistics (extinction events), or maybe they will but it will be too late (global financial crisis).
The paper argues that monocultures present that kind of risk. You can't calculate "probability of massive blight that kills all our genetically homogeneous food" for example because we don't have much of a sample size. And by the time we do have the sample size, it will be too late.
Then, the paper points out some other risks and explains why the risks of artificial selection are different from the risks of GMO. Long story short, it's because a bad mutation in a "natural" crop only kills a few people before they realize that they should plant something else.
It is somewhat ironic, that most everyone agrees the GMO companies are quite evil in nature when it comes to their business practices. Yet the same people say we should absolutely trust the same companies when they make claims about their products benefits or safety.
I think part of this is because progressive science fans see the potential of GMOs and latch on to the possibilities and ignore that we are still quite immature with our understanding and implementation of the technology.
It's not "the industry" doing the labeling, scientific consensus isn't so easily bought - if it were oil companies (who have far more money than Monsanto et al) would have made sure the science on climate change was on their side.
In another comment[1] I provided several links you may find useful in making a more informed opinion.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9451873
You are confusing the complexity and difficulty of bending the truth around climate change VS GM.
It is pretty important if you want people to read a random link, especially 24 pages of reading. You have to give a LITTLE context for why anyone should read something that is contrary to scientific research. It sure looks like there is Scientific certainty that their is 100% no observed harm caused by a GMO. THis has been going on since 1940s. https://gmoanswers.com/ask/how-long-have-genetically-modifie...
When the authors are the following:
School of Engineering, New York University
New England Complex Systems Institute
Institute of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, C.N.R.S., Paris
School of Philosophy, University of East Anglia
Why is it Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering important for me to feel that they are experts for a study in GMO. I get the Philosophy part and agree that should be more utilized, but this isn't based on medical and or scientific facts. This is based on theoretical harm though we have had decades to see its effects already.
Pepsi announced it was getting rid of aspartame Kraft announced it was dropping artificial dyes McDonald's said it would start sourcing chicken raised without antibiotics Nestle declared it would dump artificial colorings and flavorings
It seems blanket statements are bad for healthy GMOs but also have a secondary positive effect elsewhere within the food industry.
It turns out - when talking to strongly GMO-opposed persons - it's usually not the genetic modification they're worried about. Instead, it's that a crop has been showered in roundup before we eat it. Saying "anti-GMO" has become a simpler way of saying that you're anti-roundup-sprayed-crops.
Even though I disagree with this redefinition, I've found it to be common among anti-GMO parties. I also consider their real argument much more respectable than actually being opposed to arbitrary genetic mutations.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150424105348.ht...
I have a friend who likes to parrot out every anti-GM article in the mainstream press. He eventually kind of changed his argument (he is a stubborn bastard who will never admit being wrong), when I asked him:
What is it about targeted gene mutation (as in GM organisms) that you think is so much more dangerous than random gene mutation that occurs in nature?
As people as written, this subject is nuanced. As best you can, try to understand what is involved rather than just listening to the noise.