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107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs
- mmastrac 10y agoI'm not a fan of the term "real food" that Greenpeace uses. Your body can get nutrition from anything in a compatible form. It doesn't matter if it's been engineered, crawls on tree back, created in a science kit - if it's compatible, your body will absorb it. > “The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago"real food", "natural", etc - these are language signs that pseudo-knowledge is creeping into the issue.
- dmritard96 10y agoI am waiting for entirely synthetic food options that will compete with photosynthesis from an energy perspective. That could be huge for space for instance.
- anotherhacker 10y agoIt's not about nutrition. It's the risk that hidden risks that GMOs engender. E.g. Unknown effects upon the ecosystem. Another example: GMO Wheat contains an unnaturally high gluten content. Gluten is an irritant for everyone--some more than others. We have many people who are not really "gluten intolerant", but think they are. They are just sensitive to the unnaturally high gluten content in GMO foods.
- mikeash 10y agoI assume you mean certain varieties of GMO wheat have high gluten content? There's nothing about GMO itself that would cause that, it's a matter of what they decide to change.
- AngrySkillzz 10y agoThere is no commercially grown GMO wheat. I have no idea where you heard this nonsense. And within different non-modified wheat varieties, gluten content varies greatly. Ex. Hard, red winter wheat has more gluten and is often used as bread flour. There is no incentive to breed wheat for higher gluten content anyway.
- anotherhacker 10y agoYou're wrong on both accounts. 1) A GMO wheat currently is used. It's called Renan. 2) Higher gluten flour is desirable for bread products such as pizza. I make my own pizza. The best pizza bread is made from high-gluten flour.
- anotherhacker 10y agoCorrection: Artificial selection and contemporary milling processes have increased the gluten content. Not from GMO.
- darpa_escapee 10y agoThis isn't necessarily true. Vitamins often need to be consumed with the foods they're found in to be absorbed properly. Fructose as an additive, fructose in squeezed juice and fructose in whole fruit are processed differently in the body. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/08/reduce-type-2-diabetes-risk/ http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/08/reduce-type-2-...
- 100ideas 10y agoGreenpeace on what GMOs are: >"Genetic engineering enables scientists to create plants, animals and micro-organisms by manipulating genes in a way that does not occur naturally." The article: > "Virtually all crops and livestock have been genetically engineered in the broadest sense; there are no wild cows, and the cornfields of the United States reflect many centuries of plant modification through traditional breeding." Conclusion: 'GMO' should stand for "Generally Modified Organism"
- defen 10y agoWithout taking a stance either way...that argument isn't very convincing. By that argument a car is just a really fast horse.
- MichailP 10y agoI like this example [1], about fish tomato. Now, you can't call THAT natural. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_tomato https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_tomato
- collyw 10y agoA fish gene in a tomato! I guess you are unaware that human and banana genomes are 50% the same. http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=12889 http://www.askabiologist.org.uk/answers/viewtopic.php?id=128...
- hyperion2010 10y agoReading the VAD section of the wikipedia article on golden rice [0] always makes me angry. I would go so far as to call Greenpeace's continued political activity evil, since averaged out over time it has contributed to the preventable deaths of millions of children. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Vitamin_A_deficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Vitamin_A_deficien...
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoI suppose if your goal is to keep as many human beings alive as possible, then the noble laureates are right. However if your goal is to keep the earth alive for as long as possible then it seems Greenpeace is right.
- maxerickson 10y agoNothing we as humans will ever do will destroy life on Earth. We might level a devastating blow to the diversity that exists today (and thus also to ourselves), but life will persist here until the Sun eats the planet.
- millerm 10y agoCould you please explain your statement "keep the earth alive"? I don't understand what this means.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoI'm merely commenting on the Greenpeace fears. They write that the GMO crops are untested and have the potential cross-pollinate with non-GMO crops in an irreversible way, thereby permanently changing the local non-GMO ecosystem.
- morgante 10y agoWhy would GMOs intrinsically hurt the environment? You could in fact engineer crops which require substantially less resources and are better for the environment than traditional crops.
- byuu 10y agoI have to admit that the science side of this is very compelling: zero documented negative health outcomes is pretty compelling evidence for its safety. And it's a much easier solution than trying to scale up global food production naturally with our exponentially growing population. But I am also sympathetic to the concerns over GMOs. These things spread in the wild, and we are basically playing god with the building blocks of (plant) life itself, which we definitely do not fully understand. If we fail to acknowledge some detail after meddling with something that could not have happened in nature, we might not find out until it's reaped devastating effects on global agriculture or even long-term human health. Even if GMOs can do a lot of good in the short-term, it would be terrifying to find out in the long-term that we've caused horrific damage due to our arrogance. We're rightfully weary about human genetic engineering, but plant life is just as important to our survival. I'm perfectly fine with there being opposing sides double-checking each other's work here.
- ebbv 10y agoYou've hit upon my concerns. For me the consistent messaging from Monsanto and other GMO backing corporations about "There's no evidence it's unsafe to eat." is a red herring. I know some people are concerned about eating GMOs, but personally I'm a lot more concerned with the long term environmental impacts. Even setting aside the possibility of GMO strains of life (whether plant or animal) reproducing and escaping containment; what about side effects on other species? We know insecticides have had many unforeseen side effects, it's not unreasonable to expect that GMO plants might also have impacts on insects, birds and other animals. Then there's the business aspects where these mega corporations will use their GMO crops to force onerous contracts/purchasing agreements on farmers. The way they always try to turn the issue on "There's no evidence its unsafe to eat." is telling to me; they have picked one issue to focus on to try to keep the public from noticing all the other issues with GMOs. I don't think GMOs need to be made illegal, but I do think the public has a right to know if the food they are consuming comes from GMOs not because I'm worried necessarily about safety of eating, but so that we can choose to support or not support them with our purchasing power.
- Tiksi 10y ago
- brooklyndude 10y agoIf it's GMO put a label in it. What's the big deal? The way companies try to skirt that law is pretty mind blowing. Companies number 1 priority is shareholder value, consumer safety is a distant 2nd place. Take it slow, what's the rush? 40% of food now goes to wast. People seem to forget that farmers that don't use GMO crops are probably far more conscience about other aspects of the food chain than Monsanto, that's just common sense.
- dogma1138 10y agoLet's put warnings on vaccines then? There's just as much (or lack there of) "evidence" that vaccines cause autism as GMO's being harmful.
- brooklyndude 10y agoThey do. It's a big read too. This reminds me of talks with my dentist. Me: What about mercury fillings, could they really harm you, or is that just a bunch of BS. Dentist: That's crazy. There is nothing wrong with mercury fillings. Nothing. Me: Would you use them for your children? Dentist: What! Never, composites only. The science is really not out yet on that. An interesting talk for sure. :-)
- mrep 10y agoHe's talking about labels, not warnings.
- largote 10y agoBut if you label it, why wouldn't you start labeling all other sorts of ridiculous things? GMO vs not-GMO is irrelevant information for the consumer outside of marketing and ignorance-based paranoia.
- conistonwater 10y agoIt goes against the idea that labels should be helpful and contain useful information. For example, compare with a similar idea: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/01/17/over-80-percent-of-americans-support-mandatory-labels-on-foods-containing-dna/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- kristopolous 10y agoThe criticism is about the emergent incentives due to the interplay of capitalism and technology. The question is whether the industry can be trusted to self-regulate or if there are externalities and endogenous variables which may spur a generalized irresponsible utility. In the same way that environmentalists criticize coal for its abuses in the context of capital markets, there's a concern that not every for-profit biotech firm will value multi-generational probabilistic long-term effects on an ecosystem as much as the company's business interests.
- twinkletwinkle 10y agoThank you for the cogent framing of the issues. It's so easy to bash GMO skeptics for being "anti science" or stubborn vegan hippies. There are legitimate concerns to discuss.
- tstactplsignore 10y agoSurely this argument can be used to criticize any field, though - "the question is whether the technology industry can be trusted to self-regulate" - "the question is whether the pharmaceutical industry can be trusted to self-regulate"- and so on. If you what you have is a concern about capitalist abuse and are calling for checks on and regulation of corporate power, all the power to you (I strongly support these concerns and calls in all industries). However, to be "anti-GMO" because of what some corporations who make them may do in the future is like being "anti-Internet" or "anti-medicine" for the same reasons.
- kristopolous 10y agoEnvironmentalists are those with concerns about environmental consequences and advocate for scrutiny of things which may lead to them. The organizations chartered with environmental concern decidedly focus on such things. There are certainly people who are anti-internet or anti-medicine, but they are called different things. Additionally there are purely anti-capitalist people. However, one can be pro-capitalist and pro-free market while simultaneously claiming that the tobacco companies violated this trust of the market. People are complex creatures and take on a variety of labels with varying degrees of precision, passion, and commitment.
- tstactplsignore 10y agoWhile the common GMO crops on the market have been shown to be completely safe for human consumption time after time again, I think it's important to get across that being "anti-GMO" is inherently an unscientific position, regardless of the safety profile of any specific food products. Why? From a biologist's perspective, the phrase "anti-GMO" is meaningless - what are you really against if you're anti-GMO? It means you're completely against the use of a wide range of specific biotechnologies, protocols, and experiments that modify the genome of an organism. To dismiss the safety profile of all of these biotechnologies by themselves is irrational, not only because there is no proven mechanism for how they can cause harm, or because they've been shown to create perfectly safe crops, but because they use very different mechanisms (from Agrobacterium to gene guns to RNA-i to the new CRISPR/Cas) from each other. To be skeptical of the safety profile of the concept of gene editing in principle is also irrational, unless one is willing to also be skeptical of the safety profile of induced mutagenesis methods that humans have used for a century, and cross-breeding methods that humans have used for thousands of years. Why? Because both of these conventional methods "edit genes", but there is an inherent risk that is significantly higher: randomness. When scientists apply modern biotechnological methods to edit genomes, they utilize and target known and characterized genes and pathways, which can have any associated risks or consequences profiled and understood. Broad mutagenesis and cross-breeding create organisms (especially in polyploidy plants) with rearranged and mutated genes at random, which creates a scenario which makes it even currently impossible to truly understand and predict the safety or nutritional profile of the resulting organism. Of course, even these "oh-so-risky" methods are responsible for creating the entire repertoire of fruits and vegetables we eat today. Therefore, the anti-GMO movement truly does seem anti-scientific - by definition it isn't making specific claims about specific crops, or even specific technologies, but rather the broad generalization that an entire range of very different technologies are unsafe. It is also applying that generalization unfairly to modern technologies (which sound scarier and riskier) as opposed to the ones that have successfully created all modern crops (which have a similarly very low but distinctly higher risk involved). With a bit of context, it seems impossible to interpret the movement as anything besides having a problem with the existence of the field of biotechnology itself.
- zaroth 10y ago
- akamaka 10y agoIs there any legitmacy left to the argument that we need technology to solve malnutrition? According to some sources, the world has recently crossed a threshold where there are more overweight people in the world than there are malnourished people. [1] If one excludes considerations around national security, labour markets, land use, etc., is there a good case to be made that increased food production is even necessary? [1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-the-underweight-study.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/31/obese-humans-now-outnumber-th...
- morgante 10y agoAbsolutely. There being overweight people does not mean there aren't still malnourished. Technology can help not only to increase overall food production, but also to enable greater production in the localized areas where there is still insufficient supply.
- akamaka 10y agoI wasn't very clear in that I was referring to developing new technologies. Undeveloped parts of the world don't have access to even the most basic agricultural technology, like mechanization and efficient irrigation. Of course it would be good to spread technologies both old and new. Inventing new things, including GMOs, is fantastic for those who adopt them, but won't help if undeveloped areas that have difficulty adopting any new techniques.
- btilly 10y agoIt turns out to be a lot easier to convince farmers to use better seeds than to change everything else about how they work. We have a lot of experience with successfully getting poor farmers to try better varieties. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug for the man who made it work.
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y agoI always thought distribution of food was the impediment. And if we could reliably ensure that the people who needed the food got it and not some local dictator (or whatever) then there would be no problem. Then it would be worth building infrastructure in the countries that needed it and just ship food over.
- cperciva 10y agoThis brings to mind "Project Steve" (https://ncse.com/project-steve https://ncse.com/project-steve) which lists scientists named Steve/Stephen/Stefan/Stephanie/etc. who agree with a statement endorsing evolution. On the other hand, maybe a list of 110 Nobel Laureates (100 of whom are Nobel prize-winning scientists) isn't enough, and we need a "Project John": There are six Nobel prize-winning scientists named John (or Johann, or Jean-Marie) who endorse GMO foods.
- peterkshultz 10y agoI have no problem with people wanting to have GMO labels. Consumers should have a choice as to what they put in their body. But the argument that GMOs are dangerous has had little--if any--scientific proof. That so many Nobel laureates are getting behind this fact is reassuring, especially in a world where malnutrition is still existent.
- largote 10y agoBut if you label it, why wouldn't you start labeling all other sorts of things? GMO vs not-GMO is irrelevant information for the consumer outside of marketing and ignorance-based paranoia.
- nitrogen 10y agoBut if you label it, why wouldn't you start labeling all other sorts of things? Good question. More labels for everyone! I want to know the soil composition where my vegetables were grown, for example, and the average and peak levels of various airborne pollutants during the growing season.
- adrr 10y agoThere is no fundamental difference between genetic modification done in a lab then done with selective breeding. Each relies on modification of the underlying DNA. Selective breeding just takes longer to get the desired results as it requires trial and error. Any result that produced by produced with genetic modification can be produced with selective breeding if given sufficient time. I don't understand the argument against GMO if you support selective breeding.
- dmritard96 10y agoActually I might argue there is a difference. Going through selective breeding means the plants/animals live long enough to reproduce and likely reproduce sexually. Cloning + GMOs means you can make things that don't need to go through this process but still exist and serve some purpose.
- Natsu 10y agoThat would seem to argue that severely deleterious effects will only persist as long as people keep creating more of that modification and thus preventing unwanted spread of such things. If anything, my only real concern with GMOs relates to the IP rights and how it could give Monsanto & co. too much control over our food supply, but that's a legal issue, not a safety issue and it's not a good reason to oppose them outright.
- dmritard96 10y ago"That would seem to argue that severely deleterious effects will only persist as long as people keep creating more of that modification and thus preventing unwanted spread of such things." Eh, sorta. I didn't say it precludes living a long time or reproduction, more that its not a necessity. I don't have huge concerns with GMOs but do worry more on the ecological side - specifically biodiversity and whether superspecies will have larger unintended impacts than we predict today. The flip side to this is that using less resources to produce our food is a tremendously under-discussed ecological benefit of GMOs.
- 10y ago
- whack 10y agoIt's ironic that the same people who insult conservatives for denying the scientific consensus behind global warming, would themselves deny the scientific consensus behind GMO safety and efficacy. Makes you wonder if anyone actually believes in science, or if everyone simply sees it as a pawn to use and discard when convenient.
- btilly 10y agoIt is normal and expected that people present arguments because they come to the desired conclusion. However the reason those people believe those arguments has nothing to do with that conclusion. The result is that the arguments both don't convince, and the same arguments fail to convince you in a different situation where the facts line up differently. That said, people who do try to come to evidence based conclusions will pay attention to science in both cases.
- rickycook 10y agothere is a difference between "the temperature is going up" and "this very complex system has no side-effects". one requires a rough model; the other requires a full understanding. one we have, the other we do not. it's not a fair comparison at all.
- tgb 10y agoI dunno. You paint it as a hypocrisy to take the scientific consensus view on one topic but not the other. They would paint it as a hypocrisy to take the "let's minimize human toying with the environment in ways we can't fully understand" side for one but not both topics. The power of the climate change consensus is much stronger than that of GMOs in the following sense. If someone doesn't believe climate change is happening (or doesn't believe it's bad), then they had better have a damn good reason for thinking that pumping huge quantities of CO2 into the air is OK. Their argument can't be "the environment is complex, so the climate modelers might be wrong" since that only argues for even greater caution in disturbing the chaotic system of the environment. Therefore their argument must be "there is scientific evidence that it doesn't matter". So you counter that with "but then why don't any scientists think that?" even if you think we don't truly understand the environmental impact. Contrast to the GMO argument where the views of "the scientific community understands the ramifications of our actions" and "the system is too complex to analyze" come to opposite conclusions.
- socialist_coder 10y agoThe demonization of GMOs has been one of the most frustrating things for me to witness. GMOs are not inherently bad (as everyone here is basically agreeing with), but it is unfortunate that their primary use case right now is for a shitty company to squeeze more profit out of its customers, so you can kind of see why it's easy to be against GMOs. I still don't agree with it though. I hope public opinion changes on this, but I don't have much hope until some very positive things actually start to happen with GMOs.
- maxerickson 10y agoThe market for glyphosate-resistant crops is competitive, it isn't just Monsanto selling them. (glyphosate itself went out of patent in 2000, the various resistance mechanisms may be under patent)
- socialist_coder 10y agoTheir business practices surrounding it though, are terrible, to say the least. If they wanted to give GMOs a bad name, they couldn't have done a better job.
- sampo 10y agoThere are so many urban legends about "Monsanto is evil". Do you have an example of some actual evildoings?
- socialist_coder 10y agoLike so many other things in our world today, the truth is distorted by spin on all sides. Everyone has an agenda and it's quite difficult to know if what you're reading is actually factual. You can google it yourself and read both sides of the story for hours and still come away like you aren't sure what the actual deal is. But, it does seem safe to say that Monsanto as a company is only in it for the money, much like the vast majority of other companies. Do they care about farmers? Do they care about food? Do they care about people? Or do they only care about making money? I think it's clear what the answers are, but I can't really blame them for that, I blame our system at large. But still, they could choose to be less greedy, less capitalist, and a little more human. It's very easy to hate them as it is now. Anyways, it doesn't really matter what the actual truth is. The public hates Monsanto and to them, GMO and Monsanto seeds are one and the same. Until we see more usages of GMO that are not tainted by questionable business practices, this won't change. We need a GMO farming company that puts the farmer and the food first, not profits. Secondly, and this is a whole different issue, I do not think our modern industrial farming practices are sustainable in the least. Industrial farming companies exist only to sell fertilizers and pesticides and other profitable things. They are not interested in fixing any of the problems with modern industrial farming because that would not be profitable. Again, capitalism is the problem, not really Monsanto. Interestingly enough, Monsanto started out as a chemical company. So it's no wonder they push chemical based solutions to farming problems. For an alternative to modern industrial farming, google forest gardening, aquaponics, or food forests. This applies "the 5 whys" to modern industrial farming: Why do we need fertilizers and pesticides? What problems do they solve? Why are those problems? Finally, you come to the conclusion that trying to grow hundreds of acres of the same crop is just not what nature is built for. Nature wants diversity, nature wants things that look like forests. Industrial farming is what you get when Man tries to force Nature to do something that is not natural.
- bobthechef 10y agoThe Nobel laureate thing is a gimmick. "Nobel laureate" has a cachet that seems to sedate the brain. How many of these Nobel laureates have any real authority on the subject at hand that would make their signatures particularly meaningful?
- dleslie 10y agoI reject the notion that self-replicating organisms ought to be treated as intellectual property, and I have concerns about particular commercially-available herbicides that rely upon gene sequencing to make them safe for plants. I have no substantive concerns about eating the available GMO product. Yet the pro-GMO movement wishes to frame the anti-GMO movement as a cause which is focused upon the harms of consumption. It's dishonest at best, and has me questioning for motives.
- repliculture 10y agoThese debates on the merits/possible side effects of GMOs often disregard an important point. Why are companies modifying the genomes of plants? For the big four GMO crops - corn, soybeans, cotton and canola, many of the modifications are focused on breeding in pesticide resistant traits so that more pesticides may be sprayed (which has environmental implications and ultimately will fail as the organisms targeted by the pesticides become resistant). For other crops, many of the modifications are cosmetic - e.g. apples that don't brown after being cut. It's much rarer for crops to be genetically modified for nutrition (as in the case of the golden rice). I often wonder: what if all of the effort used to produce these GM crops was focused on increasing the acreage and availability of crops that were nutritious and finding better ways to implement non-chemical control of pests? Of course it would me much more difficult to sell those solutions.... Just to clarify, I'm not anti- or pro-GMO, but think the other factors and motivations deserve consideration.
- frank_jaeger 10y agoI was looking into those who signed (currently at 110 by the way) and I was a bit interested in the age range. Even though the years that individuals were granted the prize ranged to as far back as 1962 (James Watson was around 32 at the time), I didn't find anyone who's currently under 60 who signed. My search was far from exhaustive, so I'd be interested if anyone found a young laureate on this list.
- carapace 10y agoI firmly believe that all genetic engineering applications, except for human health-related medical interventions, should be delayed for at least several hundred years. Research, yes, but applications are out of the question for centuries. Anything less stringent is open-ended experimentation on the only biosphere in the known Universe. It is hubris of the rankest sort. Further I believe that this is a scientific view. We know our ignorance is far too vast. The only reasons to use GMOs are hubris and greed. That is it. Either you are a scientific ego-tripper who can't or won't understand that real people have serious reservations about participating in your open-ended genetic experiment, or you just want to make a buck and don't care. If it could be shown that, for some given application of GE, there is absolutely no other alternative to save lives, then that's something. However, I believe we can feed ourselves without GMOs by means of "applied ecology" ("Permaculture" etc.) so there is no call to use GMOs. These doubtless well-meaning scientists are using the reduction of "Vitamin-A deficiencies causing blindness and death in children in the developing world" to insist on a highly controversial technology. It's kind of just as ugly and self-serving as they paint Greenpeace to be. The report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is quoted in the article as saying, "such crops are relatively new and that it is premature to make broad generalizations, positive or negative, about their safety." We know we don't know enough. I don't want to eat your faith.
- sampo 10y ago> I believe that this is a scientific view. > hubris Don't you think there is maybe a little hubris in you thinking you know the scientific view better than 107 Nobel Price winners?
- carapace 10y agoNo. Argument from Authority. There isn't one "the" scientific view. And, in this case, "107 Nobel Price winners" (sic) have said merely, "Greenpeace are superstitious baby-killers." not a scientific repudiation of the points I've raised.
- nitrogen 10y agoScientists' prior experiments with irradiated plants would probably have caused far worse damage by now if GMOs are a significant threat (apart from some hypothetical deliberately malignant possibilities). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening
- fovc 10y agoI do not like GMO* and try to avoid buying the stuff. I understand that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it has no ill-effects compared to non-GMO foods. For me there are two main arguments for avoiding it, one selfish, one less-so. 1. The less selfish one: GMO is strongly associated with massive monoculture. The lack of genetic diversity presents serious systemic risks. 2. The selfish one: The majority of GMO encountered in a US supermarket is modified for resistance to herbicide (canola, roundup) [citation needed], rather than for nutrition, flavor, or texture. Though not a strong signal, being non-GMO correlates with higher quality. (Yes, I prefer buying uncommon cultivars where e.g., the tomato hasn't been bred for mass transport) While I don't think there's anything a priori wrong/harmful/etc. with genetically modifying organisms, I think the current applications on the market are not ideal. I would love to see the cost of GMing food come down to the point where we don't have oligopolies controlling seed production and see some more beneficial uses of the technology. * If you consider cross/selective-breeding GMOing, then just s/GMO/roundup ready crops, BT-corn, flavr savr, etc./.
- sampo 10y agoThere is one extremely simple [1], unequivocally positive GMO success story: Rainbow papaya in Hawaii [2,3]. In the 90s, papaya ringspot virus was about to wipe out papaya cultivation from Hawaii. Scientist (the leading scientist was Hawaiian born even) transferred a gene from the virus to a cultivar of papaya, making the cultivar resistant to the virus. Hawaiians have been happily producing papaya ever since. But still the general anti-science, anti-GMO sentiment is strong. Banning GMOs seems to be the fashionable thing to do. So in 2013 the main island in Hawaii banned the cultivation of any GMO crop [4]. Except the papaya. They have been safely growing and eating GMO papayas for 20 years, and growing papaya is economically important to them. But with some cognitive dissonance they can still jump on the "GMOs are dangerous" bandwagon, and ban all other GMO crops. Talk about hypocrisy. [1] There are other successes, but their stories are more complicated. For example herbicide tolerant cultivars are usually 'good', considering that they facilitate switching from more toxic herbicides to less toxic, but the story is more complicated, and can be quite easily attacked by a populist demagogue. [2] http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-news/papaya-gmo-success-story.html http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-news/pap... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#Papaya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#Local_government_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering_in_Hawaii#...
- cyphunk 10y agoRead the Greenpeace response in the update shown at the end of the article. They might be right.
- Qantourisc 10y agoGMO themselves might not be bad, yet I see 3 issues: patents ; mono-culture (so 1 disease could wipe out a lot); allergy-cross-contamination, as in: lets introduce this peanut gene into this rice (for whatever reason).
- jrkelly 10y agoIf you'd like to spin up on GMO debate / tech this series is the best source I've found: https://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/ https://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/