14 ms·

I am listening to you and your concerns. You are afraid that what we don't know could have disastrous consequences for us all. You want to see it demonstrated t

by Kalium 10y ago

I am listening to you and your concerns. You are afraid that what we don't know could have disastrous consequences for us all. You want to see it demonstrated that serious people are taking these real, serious concerns seriously. After all, taking people's concerns seriously is the best way to make people feel validated and thus you can calm their fears, right? We all know that taking arbitrary concerns seriously never validates them. > (1) are banned in the EU for human consumption, a reasonable choice I think until we have more data. Seems very reasonable. How much data is enough? How will we know when we've got so much data that we can start just ignoring those who call for more study as unreasonable? When they're convinced, perhaps? > (2) is a much lower risk than most would thing. But it is one of those things where the naive/amateur answer is far from reality, and that naive answer is scary. (Like nuclear, or more rules vs more responsibility.) Seems reasonable. How do you propose to address these unknowns? And are you aware that non-GMO plants can product dangerous super species we can never get rid of? Purple loosestrife comes to mind. Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Nothing in here leads me to think these fears will be calmed by study. The nature of science is that there's always another unknown to point to, and GMOs are seen by many as inherently scary - unlike safe, cuddly natural plants, obviously. What I see is people who have a fundamentally emotional position and think that study will validate them. They will continue to want more study until their fears are validated, and every result that fails to do so only feeds their fears.

EpicWaves 10y ago
"How much data is enough?" Double blind study spanning over 100 years.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Clearly, we should also apply the same safety standard to non-GMO crops as well.
  - yessql 10y ago
    Nature is out there randomly mutating genes without any oversight. We need to test each plant for 100 years to make sure it didn't have any dangerous mutations.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - bdamm 10y ago
    A somewhat specious argument, as many foods have undergone the ultimate trial of sustaining people for millennia.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      The species in general have. I think you'll find most modern strains have not been double-blind tested for a century. Modern dwarf wheat strains, for instance, date from the 70s or so.
      - KingMob 10y ago
        An excellent argument for being dubious of modern cultivars.
        Kalium 10y ago
        If people are willing to apply the same standards uniformly, I'm OK with it. I suspect that's not actually the case for most people, though. GMOs are seen by many as a special case deserving of infinite scrutiny.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  For those downvoting: Is it because you think "enough" data would take longer to gather? Or, as I am assuming is the case, you think it would take less time but are unable to articulate it. Personally I think 100 years is more than enough, and for most crops I would take 25 years of a double blind as great data.
  - zo1 10y ago
    Because it appears that 100 years is proposed because of some sort of vague "we don't know what we don't know." It's as if people assume there is some magical property that we are as-yet unaware of and will only be able to be sure of the not-existence-of after 100 years. Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it? Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA. Also, 100 years is just an answer to effectively shut down all GMO products. Permanently, for 100 years. That is not a solution, it's fear-mongering.
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      > Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it? The world isn't responsible for maintaining your business model. If you can't be profitable without slavery, if you're forced to pay taxes, without pervasive monitoring of all human communication, or without walling off the state of Nevada, you can't be profitable. > Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA. The prices of drugs have little or nothing to do with R&D or testing.
      - eanzenberg 10y ago
Retric 10y ago
My sister worked as a plant geneticist for a while creating GMO foods and decided to avoid eating them. They are essentially unregulated. Full on FDA style testing seems overkill, but right now it's just wild west with essentially zero oversight. Honestly, there is a tiny but real risk however the benefit for upper middle class westerners is basically non existent. Eventually, someone is going to make a major mistake that harms millions. PS: It's really not about existing GMO, it's the next change someone makes. IMO, labeling GMO by most recent year would make me feel better. After 10 years it's far more likely to be safe than eating the first major batch.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Seems like the sort of common-sense strain identification regulation we should require for all crops. After all, it was 60s-era breeding that brought us a toxic potato - the golden lenape.
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    Because there's been untargeted genetic manipulation going on for decades. And it seems to me that we're more likely to see that black swan event when we're just rolling the dice as we used to, compared to today's much more directed and precise manipulations.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      We've seen some of that, actually. Look up the golden lenape - it was a potato bred in the 60s. Beautiful color. Made great chips. Kinda toxic, though.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  This is a great summary. The entire argument frustrates me, because the two sides appear to be "GMOs are safe!" and "GMOs are inherently harmful!" I can't take either position, I want a way to assert "GMOs represent rapid and potent change with limited oversight, regulation, and trial periods!" There's no reason at all to oppose GMOs inherently. If you use CRISPR to turn one strain of well-established corn into another strain of established corn, no one is going to get hurt. But that's not what's happening; the point of concern is that these changes are going into national consumption with minimal testing. GMO-by-year makes more sense to me than any other position going, and yet somehow your comment is the first time I've seen it proposed.
unclebucknasty 10y ago
One of the problems with studies is that they are short-term relative to the period of time that the product is in use. We have a tendency to assume safety if heads are not immediately combusting upon consumption. I don't mean that literally and I am not demeaning testing protocols, but once the product is approved and in wide use, it becomes difficult to discern long-term effects. Many conditions are sharply on the rise, and certainly you cannot point to a study that implicates GMOs as the causative agent. But, neither can you exclude them definitively, as the time in-market eventually dramatically outpaces the study duration. One thing for certain is that something is causing a marked increase in certain conditions, which our best science ostensibly tells us is as safe as GMOs. Another shortcoming of testing is that GMOs tend to be tested individually. This tells us nothing about how they may interact or how the "total body burden" of new and foreign proteins might affect us as a higher percentage of our food moves towards GMOs. I get that all we have is our best science. But, I also find nothing unreasonable about being cautious in choosing what to consume. There is too much belittling of people who elect caution, especially given the history of presumed safe products that turned out to be anything but safe, and--at times--disasterously so.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Speaking only for myself, it strikes me as decidedly odd that people elect caution only in the face of scary science-y things. The primitive plant breeding from decades ago was not and is not safe. It can and did produce dangerous and toxic products. I applaud caution, but selective caution paired with willful blindness looks like madness.
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    >people elect caution only in the face of scary science-y things A convenient, though not entirely accurate dismissal. Perhaps it's the scale of the usage combined with the financial incentive to declare safety, further combined with the fight to ensure that people are uninformed with regard to what they are ingesting. Where else is it acceptable to deny people information they desire to make their own choice? And, what else is more sensitive and personal than what we choose to consume? Imagine for a moment that your own review led you to believe the science was still out on GMOs. Then, you might imagine the desire to know. And, all of this is then combined with a decidedly checkered past in declaring safety through science. It's no coincidence that all of your arguments could have equally been applied to, say, thalidomide. Painting anyone who holds a different viewpoint as willfully blind and mad doesn't present you as some sort of enlightened pro-science champion. In fact, the scientific process itself is one of continuous discovery. Some people may prefer to choose whether and when to volunteer their bodies for such discovery. Reasonable people can disagree here. You'd make a more effective advocate with that understanding.
random_upvoter 10y ago
Not too many decades ago it was claimed that famine would be solved forever by spraying everything with DDT. But nobody had ever imagined this thing called the food-chain and the birds started dying. Now we're toying with DNA without even comprehending half of it. I'm not opposed to it. We will probably learn some new, interesting things on the way that nobody had ever imagined.
- Kalium 10y ago
  You're absolutely right! There's a very great deal to be learned. And in the meantime, there's a great many problems that we know we can address with tools like golden rice. The idea of a food chain dates from the 8th century, though. DDT wasn't used in agriculture until the 1940s.
  - sooheon 10y ago
    The fact that we knew, in a scholastic sense, about the concept of the food chain, but could not foresee the extent of downstream effects is even more reason to be far more careful than seems necessary now. Our best guess is probably not good enough.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      A laudable attitude! Are we going to extend this caution to all things, or just to scary-sounding new-ish things like GMOs? Because we have people doing profoundly unnatural things right now like growing rice in Texas, and we cannot know the full extent of the downstream effects of that either.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        There genuinely is a GMO-skeptical branch of analysis which applies this to everything. I'm hesitant about how we're using GMOs, without being opposed to the basic principle of genetic modification. I'm also vehemently opposed to growing rice in Texas and cotton in Arizona; we know those things are stupid with far greater certainty than we know about GMOs. For me, this isn't about fear of the unknown. This is about a history of prioritizing short-term gains in agriculture over long-term sustainability. It covers everything from nitrogen fertilizers to neonicotinoids to water-rights law. GMOs concern me as they're currently used in the US; the abuse of the Ogallala Aquifewr horrifies me on a much deeper level.
marcosdumay 10y ago
> How much data is enough? How much data do we have? In special, how much data not compiled that a party that would have monetary gains attached to an specific result? Because, for the specific case of Monsanto varieties, I've never seen any that fits the later requirement. If some exist, the onus of making the public aware should be theirs. Really, GMO crops were legalized in my country by the most undemocratic procedure we could have at the time. If something similar happened today, we'd probably see politicians losing their job outside of the electoral cycle because of that (and probably some journalists too). But nowadays it's done, and nobody cares, because (1) was mostly a failure anyway. But I don't trust anything anymore on that area unless there's some clear and unbiased validation.
- euyyn 10y ago
  >> How much data is enough? > How much data do we have? Say we have X. Do we need 2X then? Because that's a request that never ends.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    I'm saying that, as far as I know, X = 0. 2X won't be enough either, and you better work on getting some reasonable evidence that your data is impartial too.
  - eanzenberg 10y ago
    Until it's statistically significant. And if you then ask "well do we wait for 2 sigma or 5 sigma" then you're just playing devil's advocate. Peer-reviewed science isn't perfect but it moves towards better understanding of nature.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      Peer-reviewed science isn't perfect. The point I was implying previously is that to many people, this means it can never provide a satisfactory answer, because the unspoken requirement is perfection.
ozy 10y ago
I think you missed the point of my comment. These are not my concerns. In my opinion we should encourage GMOs while making sure we do so responsibly. My problem is that this article is polarizing the discussion. By leaving out the core of anti GMO concerns it lets the pro GMO people feel justified in their position. But the other side will not see their concerns addressed, and will discard the article as stupid, and missing the point, feeling equally justified in their position. To (1) actually the eu merely regulates GMOs, and by default they are not allowed. Today 51 GMO products are allowed, including 1 that has a herbicide (mon810). I would hope that the strictness of checking and data would depend on a case by case basis. (2) for me is not a concern. In the wild GMOs will not do better than non GMOs, probably even worse, because the traits added by GMO do cost the plant. It is not like we can create zombie maize. But of course, we do need to apply caution. Think about Australia where foreign plants do become pests pushing existing plants out of the ecosystem.
- Kalium 10y ago
  What I've found is that if you seriously listen and engage with people's concerns surrounding GMOs, the result is only more concerns. It validates that the worries are real, that there's real reason to fear. Look at how that expert treated them! Listening, engaging, and taking these fears seriously does not result in reasoned debate. It results in pushing people ever-further into fear as every attempt to engage becomes further proof of evil.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    I think you have been downvoted because your statement is pretty much anathema to the HN ethos (if there is one). If nobody will ever change their mind based off of discourse, what's the point? Why even have comment sections? Are you saying you've never changed your mind after ruminating over time about information you've received? When I first heard of GMOs, especially since my information/propaganda channels inexorably linked GMOs with Monsanto's controversial business practices, I was lead to distrust GMOs. A few years later, I read a few articles about GMOs in popular magazines. It turned out that I had some basic misconceptions that are extremely common. The most important being that traditional breeding is far more fraught with uncertainty. The second misconception is that GMO practitioners are just tinkering around; where in reality genetic modification is narrowly targeted and predictable. The outcome is to increase food safety; fewer pesticides are used, causing less damage to waterways and ecosystems. Less food is wasted, meaning more is available for consumption. What didn't work was overt ridicule of my ignorant position. Several opportunities to digest non-confrontational information were required.
perseuswiki 10y ago
>What I see is people who have a fundamentally emotional position and think that study will validate them. >They will continue to want more study until their fears are validated, and every result that fails to do so only feeds their fears. ;) see ::: ''Stop “Gene Spills” Before They Happen'' https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602633/stop-gene-spills-before-they-happen/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602633/stop-gene-spills-b... from the link: "There’s already a precedent for using patents to limit the spread of gene-drive technology. In September, Monsanto purchased a license to CRISPR patents from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in order to genetically engineer new plants. But that license came with an extraordinary proviso: Monsanto was “prohibited” from developing a gene drive. The Broad Institute noted, in a statement explaining the restrictions, that gene drives have “the potential to disrupt ecosystems.” Esvelt first worked out the idea for a CRISPR gene drive in 2014 and filed his patent. He did his work mostly on paper. But his fears of risky lab work were realized a few months later when a lab in California arrived at the idea independently and used it to turn black fruit flies yellow, implementing less than perfect safety controls. What if one of the flies had escaped? “My nightmare is a wave of yellow flies spreading across the country,” says Esvelt. He imagines a corresponding wave of negative media coverage and loss of trust in scientists. "
corey_moncure 10y ago
>Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Nothing in here leads me to think these fears will be calmed by study. There is more to the issue than concerns over the direct health effects of GMO food. This is a club that is used to intimidate and marginalize GMO detractors by insinuating that health is the only issue. Do you consider yourself an informed computer user? Do you prefer to use open source software or hardware for ideological or practical reasons, when it is functionally comparable to closed source software competition, or even when it is inferior but satisfactory? Would you tolerate an operating system or application that had a hidden back-door to control your computer's activity or spy on you? Would you tolerate a computer that had a remote kill-switch? All else being equal, wouldn't you prefer to use open-source software and hardware that had been audited for your safety and security? Are you comfortable with regulation, enacted or proposed, that attempts to criminalize reverse-engineering or bypassing protection mechanisms of patented, proprietary software? Would you tolerate patented, proprietary technology built into the genetics of your food itself? Can you envision food organisms becoming subject to regulation akin to the DMCA? Would you tolerate your food being designed with a kill switch? http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto_and_Terminator_Technology http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto_and_Terminator... What if the economic advantages of GMO food (yield, shelf life, pest resistance) were so great that they effectively destroyed all traditional farming competition, leaving our nation's food production at the mercy of the rights holder with a genetic kill switch, and consumers never had any economic agency in the matter because labeling was not mandated? These scenarios are not far fetched if you can make the tiny leap from everything we've learned about the war between open and closed source software, and apply it by analogy to the genetics of our food. If you and "moms" want to buy GMO food, I say "go ahead", it's your right. If you want better labeling so that it is easier to choose the GMO food you want, that's great! There is NO argument that will ever convince me that we need to remove the agency of CHOICE by removing the burden of package labeling. As for me personally, I believe food needs its own Free Software Foundation, and I will start selecting GMO foods only when they are open source and their genetics are published, audited, and verifiable.
- Kalium 10y ago
  Labels that say "Contains GMO" do not hold back the tide you fear. Also, have you heard of plant breeder's rights? Are you aware of golden rice?
pessimizer 10y ago
> Seems very reasonable. How much data is enough? How will we know when we've got so much data that we can start just ignoring those who call for more study as unreasonable? When they're convinced, perhaps? You're perfectly right. We shouldn't ask for evidence for anything, because no amount of evidence will convince everyone. > Seems reasonable. How do you propose to address these unknowns? And are you aware that non-GMO plants can product dangerous super species we can never get rid of? Purple loosestrife comes to mind. I see what you mean. If disasters can be caused by things that are not GMOs, then it would be ignorant to try our best to make sure that GMOs do not cause the same sort of disasters. Anyway, the people who make their living from coming up with new GMOs and getting them adopted as widely as possible can be trusted to objectively determine their safety. They're very smart. > Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Having listened to your responses and attempting to detect anything in them that is actually responsive, all I see is sarcasm. Unbounded sarcasm. What I see is people who have a fundamentally emotional position mixed with people who have a fundamentally venal position insisting that potentially dangerous products (like all products) not be labeled or tested, and rarely giving a reason why other than the strawman that it is ignorant to think that the process of genetic modification itself is dangerous because it is fundamentally similar to human-guided breeding. I'm sure somebody is arguing that somewhere, but the fact that I don't have a problem with GMOs as a class is why I want more labeling. I don't just want to know if something is made from GMOs, I want to know that it's made from GM wheat. I don't just want to know that it's made from GM wheat, I want to know which GM wheat, because I might have entirely different feelings about one than about the other. I don't just want to know for health reasons, I might want to know for environmental reasons that have nothing to do with health. Most importantly, I do not want to hear that some GMO was allowed into the food system because of a substantial similarity to another GMO that was previously allowed. If the differences are insubstantial enough to avoid testing, then they're insubstantial enough that not allowing them to go to market isn't a significant hardship. I don't understand how your idea of enlightenment depends on keeping people in ignorance. Not only am I lumped in with people who think that the process of genetic modification is against some nebulous ironically supernatural concept called "nature," but I'm also expected to cheer on limitations on those people's agency to eat as they see fit (and limit my own in the process.) It's so cynical. I'd rather GMOs be completely disallowed than to be regulated by people who think along these lines.
devy 10y ago
> Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Nothing in here leads me to think these fears will be calmed by study. The nature of science is that there's always another unknown to point to, and GMOs are seen by many as inherently scary - unlike safe, cuddly natural plants, obviously. What you said above exactly sounded like those scientists and studies sponsored by Monsanto. I am no expert on biology and chemistry. And I am aware that majority of the studies on GMO so far has yet to prove any harm to human races. However, I don't know any study can address the long term effect on humans? When I said long term, I mean the a few generations (so hundreds of years) ahead. Testing long term effects on animals or insects are easy because their generations lasts only very short amoubt of time, but average human life span is 71 years[1] according to Google, so how can you be so sure that GMO food won't affect my great grandchildrens a few hundred years down the road? (We all know that evolution sometimes take a LONG time to appear[2]) Perhaps someone or some new studies can enlight the few of us who does feel uncertain about GMO products? [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+life+span&oq=average+life+span https://www.google.com/search?q=average+life+span&oq=average... [2]: http://phys.org/news/2011-08-fast-evolutionary-million-years.html http://phys.org/news/2011-08-fast-evolutionary-million-years...
- Kalium 10y ago
  I understand why you're afraid. It feels like arrogant assholes playing god with our most intimate things so they can cash in with no regard for safety at all. It all seems completely unreasonable. How can we be sure of the common strains of dwarf wheat we all eat, developed in the last century? Do you feel safe eating bread? How long a term of study do you need before you feel safe? Is it ever possible for you to feel safe eating human-bred plants?
  - devy 10y ago
    Not afraid. More like "please tell me why?".
    - Kalium 10y ago
      Because telling you why tells you that you were right to be afraid and won't make you less afraid. Nothing is gained, time is spent, and you're no less fearful. You know full well that nobody has studied any GMO across centuries. What level of study would assuage your fears? Three human generations? Six? Ten? Do you think this standard should apply to all foods, or just GMOs? If you're genuinely curious, you can read this - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
soufron 10y ago
The nature of science is to get paid studying science, not doing PR stunts for the gmo industry.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Much of the food chemistry from, say, the 1930s to 1970s turned out to be dangerous to health. Much of it turned out to be essential for a major population boom. We all see the potential for human well-being that GMOs offer, but scientists have a long history of misassessing (or lying about) risks early in a field's development. It troubles me that GMO proponents don't address the frequent and life-destroying failures of science when experimenting with new technologies. (For potential GMO trouble, see the honey bee debate.) I think that much of this will be settled in about 100 years -- the time it takes to run a reasonable 3 generation study on long-term health and epigenetic risks. Is it really so unreasonable people only want to partially transfer something as critical to the existence and well-being of the species as base food production to a new system until after it's able to sustain a full generational cycle? Lots of problems are hard to detect in less than 1 or 2 full generations, such as systemic cancer risk.
- Kalium 10y ago
  It's not that people are unwilling to address real, serious concerns. It's that there's little belief that the concerns are raised in good faith and that they can be addressed. The nature of science is that it's always possible to demand more sigmas, and there's skepticism that it's possible to ever provide enough sigmas here. I think people are being unreasonable because they are trying to assert a degree of control people don't actually have. People want to believe that there are easy, clear controls on this stuff. That we can stay on the safe system we have now if we wish. There aren't those controls. They aren't possible. CRISPR can be done in a high school biology lab. The genie's out of the bottle, and the bottle is dust. To top it off, the system we have now isn't nearly as safe as we like to pretend. We get famine and agricultural disasters regularly today. without any GMOs involved. You're absolutely right. There are a lot of problems that are difficult to detect without fifty or seventy years of study. I submit that this is why societies have developed systems for dealing with those problems, instead of avoiding risks entirely.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    > I submit that this is why societies have developed systems for dealing with those problems, instead of avoiding risks entirely And that's why I said before we roll over our entire food production system, not any of it. What I'm saying is we should leave their risk preference up to individuals, and allow them to pick their exposure to new science -- using things like GMO labels. (Tracking numbers for cultivars in a databse would be good, just like chemical data.) I just find your insistence that the public isn't allowed to give science as an institution a prior on "going to pose a health risk with new technology" to be unethical. Science has had many high profile safety failures regarding new technologies being rolled out, particularly in food, and it's entirely fair for the public to respond, even if they don't have specific objections at present. Why trust people with a history of systematic mistakes to be right at first blush?
tiatia 10y ago
"> (2) is a much lower risk than most would thing. But it is one of those things where the naive/amateur answer is far from reality, and that naive answer is scary. (Like nuclear, or more rules vs more responsibility.)" Wrong. And Talib spoke about this and warned against it. Nuclear has a predictable and limited effect, both in area and time. The effect of an organism released into the wild (speak CRISPR e.g.) are can be unpredictable and unlimited regarding area and time.

by Kalium 10y ago

EpicWaves 10y ago

"How much data is enough?" Double blind study spanning over 100 years.

Kalium 10y ago
Clearly, we should also apply the same safety standard to non-GMO crops as well.
- yessql 10y ago
  Nature is out there randomly mutating genes without any oversight. We need to test each plant for 100 years to make sure it didn't have any dangerous mutations.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- bdamm 10y ago
  A somewhat specious argument, as many foods have undergone the ultimate trial of sustaining people for millennia.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    The species in general have. I think you'll find most modern strains have not been double-blind tested for a century. Modern dwarf wheat strains, for instance, date from the 70s or so.
    - KingMob 10y ago
      An excellent argument for being dubious of modern cultivars.
      - Kalium 10y ago
        If people are willing to apply the same standards uniformly, I'm OK with it. I suspect that's not actually the case for most people, though. GMOs are seen by many as a special case deserving of infinite scrutiny.
Normal_gaussian 10y ago
For those downvoting: Is it because you think "enough" data would take longer to gather? Or, as I am assuming is the case, you think it would take less time but are unable to articulate it. Personally I think 100 years is more than enough, and for most crops I would take 25 years of a double blind as great data.
- zo1 10y ago
  Because it appears that 100 years is proposed because of some sort of vague "we don't know what we don't know." It's as if people assume there is some magical property that we are as-yet unaware of and will only be able to be sure of the not-existence-of after 100 years. Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it? Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA. Also, 100 years is just an answer to effectively shut down all GMO products. Permanently, for 100 years. That is not a solution, it's fear-mongering.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    > Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it? The world isn't responsible for maintaining your business model. If you can't be profitable without slavery, if you're forced to pay taxes, without pervasive monitoring of all human communication, or without walling off the state of Nevada, you can't be profitable. > Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA. The prices of drugs have little or nothing to do with R&D or testing.
    - eanzenberg 10y ago

Retric 10y ago

My sister worked as a plant geneticist for a while creating GMO foods and decided to avoid eating them. They are essentially unregulated. Full on FDA style testing seems overkill, but right now it's just wild west with essentially zero oversight. Honestly, there is a tiny but real risk however the benefit for upper middle class westerners is basically non existent. Eventually, someone is going to make a major mistake that harms millions. PS: It's really not about existing GMO, it's the next change someone makes. IMO, labeling GMO by most recent year would make me feel better. After 10 years it's far more likely to be safe than eating the first major batch.

Kalium 10y ago
Seems like the sort of common-sense strain identification regulation we should require for all crops. After all, it was 60s-era breeding that brought us a toxic potato - the golden lenape.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  Because there's been untargeted genetic manipulation going on for decades. And it seems to me that we're more likely to see that black swan event when we're just rolling the dice as we used to, compared to today's much more directed and precise manipulations.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    We've seen some of that, actually. Look up the golden lenape - it was a potato bred in the 60s. Beautiful color. Made great chips. Kinda toxic, though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
Bartweiss 10y ago
This is a great summary. The entire argument frustrates me, because the two sides appear to be "GMOs are safe!" and "GMOs are inherently harmful!" I can't take either position, I want a way to assert "GMOs represent rapid and potent change with limited oversight, regulation, and trial periods!" There's no reason at all to oppose GMOs inherently. If you use CRISPR to turn one strain of well-established corn into another strain of established corn, no one is going to get hurt. But that's not what's happening; the point of concern is that these changes are going into national consumption with minimal testing. GMO-by-year makes more sense to me than any other position going, and yet somehow your comment is the first time I've seen it proposed.

unclebucknasty 10y ago

One of the problems with studies is that they are short-term relative to the period of time that the product is in use. We have a tendency to assume safety if heads are not immediately combusting upon consumption. I don't mean that literally and I am not demeaning testing protocols, but once the product is approved and in wide use, it becomes difficult to discern long-term effects. Many conditions are sharply on the rise, and certainly you cannot point to a study that implicates GMOs as the causative agent. But, neither can you exclude them definitively, as the time in-market eventually dramatically outpaces the study duration. One thing for certain is that something is causing a marked increase in certain conditions, which our best science ostensibly tells us is as safe as GMOs. Another shortcoming of testing is that GMOs tend to be tested individually. This tells us nothing about how they may interact or how the "total body burden" of new and foreign proteins might affect us as a higher percentage of our food moves towards GMOs. I get that all we have is our best science. But, I also find nothing unreasonable about being cautious in choosing what to consume. There is too much belittling of people who elect caution, especially given the history of presumed safe products that turned out to be anything but safe, and--at times--disasterously so.

Kalium 10y ago
Speaking only for myself, it strikes me as decidedly odd that people elect caution only in the face of scary science-y things. The primitive plant breeding from decades ago was not and is not safe. It can and did produce dangerous and toxic products. I applaud caution, but selective caution paired with willful blindness looks like madness.
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  >people elect caution only in the face of scary science-y things A convenient, though not entirely accurate dismissal. Perhaps it's the scale of the usage combined with the financial incentive to declare safety, further combined with the fight to ensure that people are uninformed with regard to what they are ingesting. Where else is it acceptable to deny people information they desire to make their own choice? And, what else is more sensitive and personal than what we choose to consume? Imagine for a moment that your own review led you to believe the science was still out on GMOs. Then, you might imagine the desire to know. And, all of this is then combined with a decidedly checkered past in declaring safety through science. It's no coincidence that all of your arguments could have equally been applied to, say, thalidomide. Painting anyone who holds a different viewpoint as willfully blind and mad doesn't present you as some sort of enlightened pro-science champion. In fact, the scientific process itself is one of continuous discovery. Some people may prefer to choose whether and when to volunteer their bodies for such discovery. Reasonable people can disagree here. You'd make a more effective advocate with that understanding.

random_upvoter 10y ago

Not too many decades ago it was claimed that famine would be solved forever by spraying everything with DDT. But nobody had ever imagined this thing called the food-chain and the birds started dying. Now we're toying with DNA without even comprehending half of it. I'm not opposed to it. We will probably learn some new, interesting things on the way that nobody had ever imagined.

Kalium 10y ago
You're absolutely right! There's a very great deal to be learned. And in the meantime, there's a great many problems that we know we can address with tools like golden rice. The idea of a food chain dates from the 8th century, though. DDT wasn't used in agriculture until the 1940s.
- sooheon 10y ago
  The fact that we knew, in a scholastic sense, about the concept of the food chain, but could not foresee the extent of downstream effects is even more reason to be far more careful than seems necessary now. Our best guess is probably not good enough.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    A laudable attitude! Are we going to extend this caution to all things, or just to scary-sounding new-ish things like GMOs? Because we have people doing profoundly unnatural things right now like growing rice in Texas, and we cannot know the full extent of the downstream effects of that either.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      There genuinely is a GMO-skeptical branch of analysis which applies this to everything. I'm hesitant about how we're using GMOs, without being opposed to the basic principle of genetic modification. I'm also vehemently opposed to growing rice in Texas and cotton in Arizona; we know those things are stupid with far greater certainty than we know about GMOs. For me, this isn't about fear of the unknown. This is about a history of prioritizing short-term gains in agriculture over long-term sustainability. It covers everything from nitrogen fertilizers to neonicotinoids to water-rights law. GMOs concern me as they're currently used in the US; the abuse of the Ogallala Aquifewr horrifies me on a much deeper level.

marcosdumay 10y ago

> How much data is enough? How much data do we have? In special, how much data not compiled that a party that would have monetary gains attached to an specific result? Because, for the specific case of Monsanto varieties, I've never seen any that fits the later requirement. If some exist, the onus of making the public aware should be theirs. Really, GMO crops were legalized in my country by the most undemocratic procedure we could have at the time. If something similar happened today, we'd probably see politicians losing their job outside of the electoral cycle because of that (and probably some journalists too). But nowadays it's done, and nobody cares, because (1) was mostly a failure anyway. But I don't trust anything anymore on that area unless there's some clear and unbiased validation.

euyyn 10y ago
>> How much data is enough? > How much data do we have? Say we have X. Do we need 2X then? Because that's a request that never ends.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I'm saying that, as far as I know, X = 0. 2X won't be enough either, and you better work on getting some reasonable evidence that your data is impartial too.
- eanzenberg 10y ago
  Until it's statistically significant. And if you then ask "well do we wait for 2 sigma or 5 sigma" then you're just playing devil's advocate. Peer-reviewed science isn't perfect but it moves towards better understanding of nature.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Peer-reviewed science isn't perfect. The point I was implying previously is that to many people, this means it can never provide a satisfactory answer, because the unspoken requirement is perfection.

ozy 10y ago

I think you missed the point of my comment. These are not my concerns. In my opinion we should encourage GMOs while making sure we do so responsibly. My problem is that this article is polarizing the discussion. By leaving out the core of anti GMO concerns it lets the pro GMO people feel justified in their position. But the other side will not see their concerns addressed, and will discard the article as stupid, and missing the point, feeling equally justified in their position. To (1) actually the eu merely regulates GMOs, and by default they are not allowed. Today 51 GMO products are allowed, including 1 that has a herbicide (mon810). I would hope that the strictness of checking and data would depend on a case by case basis. (2) for me is not a concern. In the wild GMOs will not do better than non GMOs, probably even worse, because the traits added by GMO do cost the plant. It is not like we can create zombie maize. But of course, we do need to apply caution. Think about Australia where foreign plants do become pests pushing existing plants out of the ecosystem.

Kalium 10y ago
What I've found is that if you seriously listen and engage with people's concerns surrounding GMOs, the result is only more concerns. It validates that the worries are real, that there's real reason to fear. Look at how that expert treated them! Listening, engaging, and taking these fears seriously does not result in reasoned debate. It results in pushing people ever-further into fear as every attempt to engage becomes further proof of evil.
- linkregister 10y ago
  I think you have been downvoted because your statement is pretty much anathema to the HN ethos (if there is one). If nobody will ever change their mind based off of discourse, what's the point? Why even have comment sections? Are you saying you've never changed your mind after ruminating over time about information you've received? When I first heard of GMOs, especially since my information/propaganda channels inexorably linked GMOs with Monsanto's controversial business practices, I was lead to distrust GMOs. A few years later, I read a few articles about GMOs in popular magazines. It turned out that I had some basic misconceptions that are extremely common. The most important being that traditional breeding is far more fraught with uncertainty. The second misconception is that GMO practitioners are just tinkering around; where in reality genetic modification is narrowly targeted and predictable. The outcome is to increase food safety; fewer pesticides are used, causing less damage to waterways and ecosystems. Less food is wasted, meaning more is available for consumption. What didn't work was overt ridicule of my ignorant position. Several opportunities to digest non-confrontational information were required.

perseuswiki 10y ago

>What I see is people who have a fundamentally emotional position and think that study will validate them. >They will continue to want more study until their fears are validated, and every result that fails to do so only feeds their fears. ;) see ::: ''Stop “Gene Spills” Before They Happen'' https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602633/stop-gene-spills-before-they-happen/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602633/stop-gene-spills-b... from the link: "There’s already a precedent for using patents to limit the spread of gene-drive technology. In September, Monsanto purchased a license to CRISPR patents from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in order to genetically engineer new plants. But that license came with an extraordinary proviso: Monsanto was “prohibited” from developing a gene drive. The Broad Institute noted, in a statement explaining the restrictions, that gene drives have “the potential to disrupt ecosystems.” Esvelt first worked out the idea for a CRISPR gene drive in 2014 and filed his patent. He did his work mostly on paper. But his fears of risky lab work were realized a few months later when a lab in California arrived at the idea independently and used it to turn black fruit flies yellow, implementing less than perfect safety controls. What if one of the flies had escaped? “My nightmare is a wave of yellow flies spreading across the country,” says Esvelt. He imagines a corresponding wave of negative media coverage and loss of trust in scientists. "

corey_moncure 10y ago

>Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Nothing in here leads me to think these fears will be calmed by study. There is more to the issue than concerns over the direct health effects of GMO food. This is a club that is used to intimidate and marginalize GMO detractors by insinuating that health is the only issue. Do you consider yourself an informed computer user? Do you prefer to use open source software or hardware for ideological or practical reasons, when it is functionally comparable to closed source software competition, or even when it is inferior but satisfactory? Would you tolerate an operating system or application that had a hidden back-door to control your computer's activity or spy on you? Would you tolerate a computer that had a remote kill-switch? All else being equal, wouldn't you prefer to use open-source software and hardware that had been audited for your safety and security? Are you comfortable with regulation, enacted or proposed, that attempts to criminalize reverse-engineering or bypassing protection mechanisms of patented, proprietary software? Would you tolerate patented, proprietary technology built into the genetics of your food itself? Can you envision food organisms becoming subject to regulation akin to the DMCA? Would you tolerate your food being designed with a kill switch? http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto_and_Terminator_Technology http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Monsanto_and_Terminator... What if the economic advantages of GMO food (yield, shelf life, pest resistance) were so great that they effectively destroyed all traditional farming competition, leaving our nation's food production at the mercy of the rights holder with a genetic kill switch, and consumers never had any economic agency in the matter because labeling was not mandated? These scenarios are not far fetched if you can make the tiny leap from everything we've learned about the war between open and closed source software, and apply it by analogy to the genetics of our food. If you and "moms" want to buy GMO food, I say "go ahead", it's your right. If you want better labeling so that it is easier to choose the GMO food you want, that's great! There is NO argument that will ever convince me that we need to remove the agency of CHOICE by removing the burden of package labeling. As for me personally, I believe food needs its own Free Software Foundation, and I will start selecting GMO foods only when they are open source and their genetics are published, audited, and verifiable.

Kalium 10y ago
Labels that say "Contains GMO" do not hold back the tide you fear. Also, have you heard of plant breeder's rights? Are you aware of golden rice?

pessimizer 10y ago

> Seems very reasonable. How much data is enough? How will we know when we've got so much data that we can start just ignoring those who call for more study as unreasonable? When they're convinced, perhaps? You're perfectly right. We shouldn't ask for evidence for anything, because no amount of evidence will convince everyone. > Seems reasonable. How do you propose to address these unknowns? And are you aware that non-GMO plants can product dangerous super species we can never get rid of? Purple loosestrife comes to mind. I see what you mean. If disasters can be caused by things that are not GMOs, then it would be ignorant to try our best to make sure that GMOs do not cause the same sort of disasters. Anyway, the people who make their living from coming up with new GMOs and getting them adopted as widely as possible can be trusted to objectively determine their safety. They're very smart. > Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Having listened to your responses and attempting to detect anything in them that is actually responsive, all I see is sarcasm. Unbounded sarcasm. What I see is people who have a fundamentally emotional position mixed with people who have a fundamentally venal position insisting that potentially dangerous products (like all products) not be labeled or tested, and rarely giving a reason why other than the strawman that it is ignorant to think that the process of genetic modification itself is dangerous because it is fundamentally similar to human-guided breeding. I'm sure somebody is arguing that somewhere, but the fact that I don't have a problem with GMOs as a class is why I want more labeling. I don't just want to know if something is made from GMOs, I want to know that it's made from GM wheat. I don't just want to know that it's made from GM wheat, I want to know which GM wheat, because I might have entirely different feelings about one than about the other. I don't just want to know for health reasons, I might want to know for environmental reasons that have nothing to do with health. Most importantly, I do not want to hear that some GMO was allowed into the food system because of a substantial similarity to another GMO that was previously allowed. If the differences are insubstantial enough to avoid testing, then they're insubstantial enough that not allowing them to go to market isn't a significant hardship. I don't understand how your idea of enlightenment depends on keeping people in ignorance. Not only am I lumped in with people who think that the process of genetic modification is against some nebulous ironically supernatural concept called "nature," but I'm also expected to cheer on limitations on those people's agency to eat as they see fit (and limit my own in the process.) It's so cynical. I'd rather GMOs be completely disallowed than to be regulated by people who think along these lines.

devy 10y ago

> Having listened to your concerns and seriously pondered them, all I see is fear. Unbounded fear. Nothing in here leads me to think these fears will be calmed by study. The nature of science is that there's always another unknown to point to, and GMOs are seen by many as inherently scary - unlike safe, cuddly natural plants, obviously. What you said above exactly sounded like those scientists and studies sponsored by Monsanto. I am no expert on biology and chemistry. And I am aware that majority of the studies on GMO so far has yet to prove any harm to human races. However, I don't know any study can address the long term effect on humans? When I said long term, I mean the a few generations (so hundreds of years) ahead. Testing long term effects on animals or insects are easy because their generations lasts only very short amoubt of time, but average human life span is 71 years[1] according to Google, so how can you be so sure that GMO food won't affect my great grandchildrens a few hundred years down the road? (We all know that evolution sometimes take a LONG time to appear[2]) Perhaps someone or some new studies can enlight the few of us who does feel uncertain about GMO products? [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=average+life+span&oq=average+life+span https://www.google.com/search?q=average+life+span&oq=average... [2]: http://phys.org/news/2011-08-fast-evolutionary-million-years.html http://phys.org/news/2011-08-fast-evolutionary-million-years...

Kalium 10y ago
I understand why you're afraid. It feels like arrogant assholes playing god with our most intimate things so they can cash in with no regard for safety at all. It all seems completely unreasonable. How can we be sure of the common strains of dwarf wheat we all eat, developed in the last century? Do you feel safe eating bread? How long a term of study do you need before you feel safe? Is it ever possible for you to feel safe eating human-bred plants?
- devy 10y ago
  Not afraid. More like "please tell me why?".
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Because telling you why tells you that you were right to be afraid and won't make you less afraid. Nothing is gained, time is spent, and you're no less fearful. You know full well that nobody has studied any GMO across centuries. What level of study would assuage your fears? Three human generations? Six? Ten? Do you think this standard should apply to all foods, or just GMOs? If you're genuinely curious, you can read this - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/07/are_gmos_safe_yes_the_case_against_them_is_full_of_fraud_lies_and_errors.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

soufron 10y ago

The nature of science is to get paid studying science, not doing PR stunts for the gmo industry.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

Much of the food chemistry from, say, the 1930s to 1970s turned out to be dangerous to health. Much of it turned out to be essential for a major population boom. We all see the potential for human well-being that GMOs offer, but scientists have a long history of misassessing (or lying about) risks early in a field's development. It troubles me that GMO proponents don't address the frequent and life-destroying failures of science when experimenting with new technologies. (For potential GMO trouble, see the honey bee debate.) I think that much of this will be settled in about 100 years -- the time it takes to run a reasonable 3 generation study on long-term health and epigenetic risks. Is it really so unreasonable people only want to partially transfer something as critical to the existence and well-being of the species as base food production to a new system until after it's able to sustain a full generational cycle? Lots of problems are hard to detect in less than 1 or 2 full generations, such as systemic cancer risk.

Kalium 10y ago
It's not that people are unwilling to address real, serious concerns. It's that there's little belief that the concerns are raised in good faith and that they can be addressed. The nature of science is that it's always possible to demand more sigmas, and there's skepticism that it's possible to ever provide enough sigmas here. I think people are being unreasonable because they are trying to assert a degree of control people don't actually have. People want to believe that there are easy, clear controls on this stuff. That we can stay on the safe system we have now if we wish. There aren't those controls. They aren't possible. CRISPR can be done in a high school biology lab. The genie's out of the bottle, and the bottle is dust. To top it off, the system we have now isn't nearly as safe as we like to pretend. We get famine and agricultural disasters regularly today. without any GMOs involved. You're absolutely right. There are a lot of problems that are difficult to detect without fifty or seventy years of study. I submit that this is why societies have developed systems for dealing with those problems, instead of avoiding risks entirely.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  > I submit that this is why societies have developed systems for dealing with those problems, instead of avoiding risks entirely And that's why I said before we roll over our entire food production system, not any of it. What I'm saying is we should leave their risk preference up to individuals, and allow them to pick their exposure to new science -- using things like GMO labels. (Tracking numbers for cultivars in a databse would be good, just like chemical data.) I just find your insistence that the public isn't allowed to give science as an institution a prior on "going to pose a health risk with new technology" to be unethical. Science has had many high profile safety failures regarding new technologies being rolled out, particularly in food, and it's entirely fair for the public to respond, even if they don't have specific objections at present. Why trust people with a history of systematic mistakes to be right at first blush?

tiatia 10y ago

"> (2) is a much lower risk than most would thing. But it is one of those things where the naive/amateur answer is far from reality, and that naive answer is scary. (Like nuclear, or more rules vs more responsibility.)" Wrong. And Talib spoke about this and warned against it. Nuclear has a predictable and limited effect, both in area and time. The effect of an organism released into the wild (speak CRISPR e.g.) are can be unpredictable and unlimited regarding area and time.