5 ms·

My default stance on GMOs is one of caution — in fact, I supported the failed California GMO labelling proposition — but really, I think that their risks and be

My default stance on GMOs is one of caution — in fact, I supported the failed California GMO labelling proposition — but really, I think that their risks and benefits should be evaluated individually. Lumping them all together, either for advocacy or for opposition, is like lumping together all synthetic pharmaceuticals. So although there are some GMOs I'm concerned about, Golden Rice is not one of them. I'm not an expert or anything, so take that for whatever you think it's worth, but nothing I've read suggests to me that it's likely to cause a problem. This could change given new information, but I don't think that those of us urging a certain caution do ourselves any favors by opposing every single GMO, even those that are pretty clearly beneficial.

alexandercrohde 8y ago
> This could change given new information, but I don't think that those of us urging a certain caution do ourselves any favors by opposing every single GMO, even those that are pretty clearly beneficial. If only we could say things are "clearly beneficial." However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. I reflexively push back because proponents won't admit GMO is a giant experiment. I'm open-minded on the idea of letting people experiment en-masse with their health. But considering 33% of Americans are obese, I'm not entirely sold from a pragmatic perspective.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  The idea with golden rice isn't to feed it to fat Americans as a novelty, it is to make it available in countries where 650,000 children are dying each year from vitamin A deficiencies. Concerns about allergies and autoimmune disorders and such associated with golden rice are comparable to illiteracy, so be sure to wear it proudly.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    Then why is the US FDA approving it? Nowhere in this article does it say this won't be sold in America.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      I guess a mix of being able to grow it for export and because other countries may look to the FDA decision for guidance.
  - makomk 8y ago
    No, the idea is to taint anti-GMO activists with the accusation that they're killing third world children so that other, more profitable GMOs can be fed to fat Americans. Golden rice is so utterly incapable of actually solving vitamin A deficiency that even the IRRI have given up pretending that it can (notice how the article describes it as "a complementary, food-based solution to existing nutritional interventions, such as diet diversification and oral supplementation" - a working oral supplementation program is effective without any complementary solution and is much cheaper). To give some idea of how fundamentally absurd an approach this is, two 5-cent capsules of vitamin A a year are sufficient to prevent vitamin A deficiency in kids, whereas as far as I can tell replacing all the rice eaten in countries whose poor populations are almost entirely dependent on rice with the most modern, improved varieties of golden rice still wouldn't achieve this. (Oh, and by the way it inherently has worse yields than the varieties it's based on, so that golden rice will be more expensive too.) Even if it worked, the licensing issues made it undeployable in practice. There's a free license to certain third-world countries that GMO proponents like to wave in the face of opponents, but that's basically all it's useful for - due to a one-two punch of requiring the rice to be grown in the country it's sold in and only licensing countries that can't grow enough rice to feed their population (almost all of which can't grow rice at all), it cannot be used for any kind of meaningful deployment of the tech. Despite the complete and utter lack of any profitable commercial market for golden rice, the GMO industry couldn't bear to actually give up the possibility that they could somehow make money from starving third world kids.
    - Turing_Machine 8y ago
      > No, the idea is to taint anti-GMO activists with the accusation that they're killing third world children 670,000 kids a year die from vitamin A deficiency (and, of course, many more than that "only" go blind). Golden rice has been around for 18 years now, but "activists" have prevented its widespread use. That's 12 million preventable deaths.
      - sjburt 8y ago
        Is there a reason they need to get their vitamin A from rice, a crop that demands precise cultivation practices, and not cheaper and more convenient vitamin pills?
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  > If only we could say things are "clearly beneficial." Personally, I'm quite comfortable describing "keeping children from going blind or dying outright" as "clearly beneficial". > However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. That "argument" would prevent us from ever introducing a new plant variety of any kind.
- lukeschlather 8y ago
  Anything that results in genetically or chemically novel foods should be viewed with caution. However GMO is a very tiny subset of the different ways to come up with chemically or genetically novel foods. I don't see why GMOs should be treated differently from any other novel cultivar or species.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    Maybe it shouldn't, maybe other cultivar species should be regulated much more thoroughly.
    - wyattpeak 8y ago
      How much more thoroughly? Golden rice has been going through clinical trials for almost a decade now. When do we decide it's safe? Fifty years? Two hundred? Or never, because it's not really about "enough testing", it's about a kneejerk reaction to an unfamiliar process.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  > However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. People shouldn't be downvoting you. That's a very important point. There shouldn't be knee-jerk reactions in either direction. (GMOs in general, not the rice.) Here's an example of how little humans know about how vitamins work: if you give smokers beta carotene in supplement form, it increases their chance of lung cancer, even though in food form it reduces it.[1][2] [1] http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/dangers-beta-carotene-and-smoking http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/dangers-be... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756
lisper 8y ago
> there are some GMOs I'm concerned about Like what?
- seattle_spring 8y ago
  (in the Men's Wearhouse guy voice) He's going to mention the terminator seed that doesn't actually exist. I guarantee it.
- ScottBurson 8y ago
  Roundup Ready — not because of the plants, but because of the glyphosate that is sprayed on them.

alexandercrohde 8y ago

> This could change given new information, but I don't think that those of us urging a certain caution do ourselves any favors by opposing every single GMO, even those that are pretty clearly beneficial. If only we could say things are "clearly beneficial." However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. I reflexively push back because proponents won't admit GMO is a giant experiment. I'm open-minded on the idea of letting people experiment en-masse with their health. But considering 33% of Americans are obese, I'm not entirely sold from a pragmatic perspective.

maxerickson 8y ago
The idea with golden rice isn't to feed it to fat Americans as a novelty, it is to make it available in countries where 650,000 children are dying each year from vitamin A deficiencies. Concerns about allergies and autoimmune disorders and such associated with golden rice are comparable to illiteracy, so be sure to wear it proudly.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Then why is the US FDA approving it? Nowhere in this article does it say this won't be sold in America.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    I guess a mix of being able to grow it for export and because other countries may look to the FDA decision for guidance.
- makomk 8y ago
  No, the idea is to taint anti-GMO activists with the accusation that they're killing third world children so that other, more profitable GMOs can be fed to fat Americans. Golden rice is so utterly incapable of actually solving vitamin A deficiency that even the IRRI have given up pretending that it can (notice how the article describes it as "a complementary, food-based solution to existing nutritional interventions, such as diet diversification and oral supplementation" - a working oral supplementation program is effective without any complementary solution and is much cheaper). To give some idea of how fundamentally absurd an approach this is, two 5-cent capsules of vitamin A a year are sufficient to prevent vitamin A deficiency in kids, whereas as far as I can tell replacing all the rice eaten in countries whose poor populations are almost entirely dependent on rice with the most modern, improved varieties of golden rice still wouldn't achieve this. (Oh, and by the way it inherently has worse yields than the varieties it's based on, so that golden rice will be more expensive too.) Even if it worked, the licensing issues made it undeployable in practice. There's a free license to certain third-world countries that GMO proponents like to wave in the face of opponents, but that's basically all it's useful for - due to a one-two punch of requiring the rice to be grown in the country it's sold in and only licensing countries that can't grow enough rice to feed their population (almost all of which can't grow rice at all), it cannot be used for any kind of meaningful deployment of the tech. Despite the complete and utter lack of any profitable commercial market for golden rice, the GMO industry couldn't bear to actually give up the possibility that they could somehow make money from starving third world kids.
  - Turing_Machine 8y ago
    > No, the idea is to taint anti-GMO activists with the accusation that they're killing third world children 670,000 kids a year die from vitamin A deficiency (and, of course, many more than that "only" go blind). Golden rice has been around for 18 years now, but "activists" have prevented its widespread use. That's 12 million preventable deaths.
    - sjburt 8y ago
      Is there a reason they need to get their vitamin A from rice, a crop that demands precise cultivation practices, and not cheaper and more convenient vitamin pills?
Turing_Machine 8y ago
> If only we could say things are "clearly beneficial." Personally, I'm quite comfortable describing "keeping children from going blind or dying outright" as "clearly beneficial". > However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. That "argument" would prevent us from ever introducing a new plant variety of any kind.
lukeschlather 8y ago
Anything that results in genetically or chemically novel foods should be viewed with caution. However GMO is a very tiny subset of the different ways to come up with chemically or genetically novel foods. I don't see why GMOs should be treated differently from any other novel cultivar or species.
- alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Maybe it shouldn't, maybe other cultivar species should be regulated much more thoroughly.
  - wyattpeak 8y ago
    How much more thoroughly? Golden rice has been going through clinical trials for almost a decade now. When do we decide it's safe? Fifty years? Two hundred? Or never, because it's not really about "enough testing", it's about a kneejerk reaction to an unfamiliar process.
JoshMnem 8y ago
> However we still don't understand allergies, autoimmune disorders, or nutrition well. On top of that, there's the whole field of gut bacteria that we're just starting to take seriously. People shouldn't be downvoting you. That's a very important point. There shouldn't be knee-jerk reactions in either direction. (GMOs in general, not the rice.) Here's an example of how little humans know about how vitamins work: if you give smokers beta carotene in supplement form, it increases their chance of lung cancer, even though in food form it reduces it.[1][2] [1] http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/dangers-beta-carotene-and-smoking http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/answered-questions/dangers-be... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756

lisper 8y ago

> there are some GMOs I'm concerned about Like what?

seattle_spring 8y ago
(in the Men's Wearhouse guy voice) He's going to mention the terminator seed that doesn't actually exist. I guarantee it.
ScottBurson 8y ago
Roundup Ready — not because of the plants, but because of the glyphosate that is sprayed on them.