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Many people believe GMOs are dangerous to human health, environmentally destructive, and a tool for multinational corporations like Monsanto to control the glob

Many people believe GMOs are dangerous to human health, environmentally destructive, and a tool for multinational corporations like Monsanto to control the global food supply. Many people believe that vaccines cause autism, too. The answer is better education, not pandering to the crowds.

tzs 11y ago
There are some legitimate reasons to be concerned, though. GMOs aren't inherently dangerous to human health or inherently environmentally destructive. But they do let producers do things faster and more extreme than they could do via conventional breeding techniques. They've used those conventional techniques to reduce crop diversity, and select for things like uniform time to grow and uniform size/shape to make mechanical processing easy, over selecting for things like nutrition and flavor. Is there any good reason to believe that the increased power GMO techniques give them won't be used to go even farther in those directions? With great power comes great responsibility. I'm skeptical that the big food companies are responsible enough for GMO, and with government food regulation more determined by industry lobbying than by actual science I have little faith that the government will do anything to make sure GMO techniques are only used for good.
nefitty 11y ago
My thoughts exactly. I am saddened that some of the most passionate among the left seem to have unhinged their politics from science. We're supposed to be the rational counterbalance to the idiocy of the far right, not the ones who help tip the boat over.
legulere 11y ago
It's not so clear cut as it seems that anti-GMO needs to be anti-scientific. For instance the agroindustry wanted GMOs to simply be treated the same as the non-modified Organisms, without any additional analysis. This would make it legal to add genes for the production of toxins and it would be still seen as the same thing (This is exactly what is happening with the commonly transplanted BT-gene, just that the toxin is harmless for humans). Then - this is what the article is about - there are concerns of how the technology is used. Most genetically engineered plants today are either just glyphosate tolerant or carry the BT-gene, while the industry claims that gene modification reduces the need for pesticides.
bigethan 11y ago
The issue in the US is that GMO === Monsanto. And Monsanto is very clearly a company that does not care about the long term implications of its science (you think they'd sit on data like Exxon did with climate change data? I do, 100%). I fear Monsanto, so in the US I fear GMO. Remove hard core capitalism from our food supply science and I'll be less scared of it.
- socialist_coder 11y ago
  Completely agree. I wish it was easier to support GMOs in the US, but because of Monsanto, everyone just equates GMOs with Monsanto's business practices. And now it seems like the whole idea of GMOs is ruined in the US because of it.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Fearing GMOs because you don't like Monsanto'spractices is like fearing computers in the 1990s because you don't like Microsoft's practices. Not to mention, Monsanto is the biggest GMO -- or, really, seed, regardless of GMO status -- company everywhere, they aren't restricted to the US. And there are plenty of non-Monsanto US companies doing GM and non-GM crop work, including companies working on the same kind of environmental tolerance traits that the Argentine firm, Bioceres, was discussed in the article as working on (one of those US companies, Arcadia Biosciences, actually has a joint venture, Verdeca, with Bioceres.)
  - bigethan 11y ago
    > Fearing GMOs because you don't like Monsanto's practices is like fearing computers in the 1990s because you don't like Microsoft's practices. I disagree. I can live without a computer. I can't live without food. I'm aware that there are other companies doing GMO work in the US, and that Monsanto is a global cancer. But the US is their place of greatest power and influence. How many members of the EPA & FDA are former employees of Arcadia and Bioceres, and how much lobbyist money have they put into those pockets? You think Monsanto will let anyone try to succeed in "their" space without a brutal fight?
swsieber 11y ago
Granted, I don't know a lot about GMOs, and I'm not really agaisnt them, but one issue that I can think of is that when you breed food to create larger varieties, the larger versions are less nutritional pound for pound than their smaller cousins - and without realizing it the could decrease people's nutrion in exchange for efficiency. So I think we ought to be at least a little wary of changing things because there will probably be unintended side effects. That said, I do support the use of GMOs.

tzs 11y ago

There are some legitimate reasons to be concerned, though. GMOs aren't inherently dangerous to human health or inherently environmentally destructive. But they do let producers do things faster and more extreme than they could do via conventional breeding techniques. They've used those conventional techniques to reduce crop diversity, and select for things like uniform time to grow and uniform size/shape to make mechanical processing easy, over selecting for things like nutrition and flavor. Is there any good reason to believe that the increased power GMO techniques give them won't be used to go even farther in those directions? With great power comes great responsibility. I'm skeptical that the big food companies are responsible enough for GMO, and with government food regulation more determined by industry lobbying than by actual science I have little faith that the government will do anything to make sure GMO techniques are only used for good.

nefitty 11y ago

My thoughts exactly. I am saddened that some of the most passionate among the left seem to have unhinged their politics from science. We're supposed to be the rational counterbalance to the idiocy of the far right, not the ones who help tip the boat over.

legulere 11y ago

It's not so clear cut as it seems that anti-GMO needs to be anti-scientific. For instance the agroindustry wanted GMOs to simply be treated the same as the non-modified Organisms, without any additional analysis. This would make it legal to add genes for the production of toxins and it would be still seen as the same thing (This is exactly what is happening with the commonly transplanted BT-gene, just that the toxin is harmless for humans). Then - this is what the article is about - there are concerns of how the technology is used. Most genetically engineered plants today are either just glyphosate tolerant or carry the BT-gene, while the industry claims that gene modification reduces the need for pesticides.

bigethan 11y ago

The issue in the US is that GMO === Monsanto. And Monsanto is very clearly a company that does not care about the long term implications of its science (you think they'd sit on data like Exxon did with climate change data? I do, 100%). I fear Monsanto, so in the US I fear GMO. Remove hard core capitalism from our food supply science and I'll be less scared of it.

socialist_coder 11y ago
Completely agree. I wish it was easier to support GMOs in the US, but because of Monsanto, everyone just equates GMOs with Monsanto's business practices. And now it seems like the whole idea of GMOs is ruined in the US because of it.
dragonwriter 11y ago
Fearing GMOs because you don't like Monsanto'spractices is like fearing computers in the 1990s because you don't like Microsoft's practices. Not to mention, Monsanto is the biggest GMO -- or, really, seed, regardless of GMO status -- company everywhere, they aren't restricted to the US. And there are plenty of non-Monsanto US companies doing GM and non-GM crop work, including companies working on the same kind of environmental tolerance traits that the Argentine firm, Bioceres, was discussed in the article as working on (one of those US companies, Arcadia Biosciences, actually has a joint venture, Verdeca, with Bioceres.)
- bigethan 11y ago
  > Fearing GMOs because you don't like Monsanto's practices is like fearing computers in the 1990s because you don't like Microsoft's practices. I disagree. I can live without a computer. I can't live without food. I'm aware that there are other companies doing GMO work in the US, and that Monsanto is a global cancer. But the US is their place of greatest power and influence. How many members of the EPA & FDA are former employees of Arcadia and Bioceres, and how much lobbyist money have they put into those pockets? You think Monsanto will let anyone try to succeed in "their" space without a brutal fight?

swsieber 11y ago

Granted, I don't know a lot about GMOs, and I'm not really agaisnt them, but one issue that I can think of is that when you breed food to create larger varieties, the larger versions are less nutritional pound for pound than their smaller cousins - and without realizing it the could decrease people's nutrion in exchange for efficiency. So I think we ought to be at least a little wary of changing things because there will probably be unintended side effects. That said, I do support the use of GMOs.