6 ms·

The safety thing is a weird question. Why is eating one pattern of DNA more dangerous than another? (Assuming you didn’t modify it to produce novel proteins, e

The safety thing is a weird question. Why is eating one pattern of DNA more dangerous than another? (Assuming you didn’t modify it to produce novel proteins, etc)

xwdv 4y ago
It isn’t. And that’s why people who argue that GMO food is bad for you just don’t get it. It’s not the food that’s bad, it’s the business practices. The GMO food itself is perfectly fine to eat. In fact, humans have been genetically modifying food for centuries, we’ve just gotten much faster at it.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Why are the business practices bad? Details, please.
  - yetanother-1 4y ago
    Many explinations are available on the web, but it comes down to the dependence on these seeds and thus on the producer of them.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      How is that different from use of hybrid seeds, which have been available since forever and don't breed true? The solution to dependence is to have multiple suppliers. One can always use an older variety of seed. If the complaint is that the benefits are going to the company that made the seeds rather than the farmer, then how is that different from any other patented technology? The farmer is never going to be worse off, since he can always just use older varieties if the cost > his benefit. Perhaps your actual argument is that this will reduce food prices, driving out producers who don't keep up with the latest advances. But again, how is that different from any other improvement in agricultural technology? Is this just more European objection to the steamroller of US industrial agriculture?
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    Suing small farmers for copyright infringement isn't very nice.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      You are aware you're spouting bullshit there, right? First of all, copyright isn't the applicable IP; patents are. Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that. These urban legend arguments are one of the reasons I view the entire anti-GMO movement with a very jaundiced eye.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        > Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that. Yes, deliberate use of the patented gene/interaction. That's still suing small farmers, doing farmer stuff, for IP infringement. So it's not bullshit.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        The farmer deliberately attempted to concentrate the gene. The only reason he would do this is to try to violate the patent. This was not an innocent action. Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        I didn't say it was innocent. But he's still doing pretty normal farming stuff. > Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler. Nah, burgling doesn't work like IP rights. The analogy is hopelessly broken.
        4y ago
  - xwdv 4y ago
- sillystuff 4y ago
  GM crops that produce BT toxin are supposed to be safe for humans due to the acid in our stomachs breaking down the BT toxin. But, I wasn't able to find any studies that investigated the safety of BT toxin in contact with mucus membranes in the mouth etc. before being processed by the stomach. It seems, at least, possible that this could lead to an increased risk of throat and mouth cancers. GM BT corn, egg plant (aubergine), and potatoes are common. Herbicide resistant GM crops used to get slathered with more herbicides than non-GM crops, so you probably were getting less exposure to these herbicides with non-GM conventional crops vs. GM conventional crops (I guess you could argue this falls into business practices, but it is the point of these GM crops). But, Ag schools, at least in the US, have been promoting using herbicides like glyphosate and Reglone to desiccate crops immediately prior to harvest[1] to avoid having to mow the crops to get a low uniform crop moisture content for harvesting equipment. So, conventional non-GM grains, oil seeds and legumes may also have high herbicide residues. Of course, buying organic avoids both sources of herbicides. [1] https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/managing-wheat-harvest https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m...
  - xwdv 4y ago
    Meh, none of those issues are inherent to GM crops themselves, and even some non-GM crops can be bad for you in certain circumstances.
    - sillystuff 4y ago
      Your "meh" is similar to disregarding contemporary environmental PFAS contamination because of historic lead contamination from tetraethyllead. "There exist bad things already" does not automatically make the additional potentially bad thing harmless. BT is sprayed on some food crops, but with GM food crops, it is contained within every cell of the plant, and cannot be washed off. You are consuming BT toxin, if you eat GM BT crops (the US EPA requires BT crops to be registered as pesticides). Putting poison in contact with mucus membranes seems, at the very least, 'possible' to have negative long-term health consequences. Non GM conventional crops can use systemic pesticides (the irrigation water contains the poison and/or the seed is pre-treated. This also incorporates the pesticide within plant tissues so it cannot be washed off). These systemic pesticides are usually neonicotinoids. Presence of systemic neonicotinoid use in conventional agriculture does not negate concerns about GM BT crops. My point was that GM, as it exists today, makes conventional agriculture's issues of pesticide exposure and low genetic diversity in our staple food crops worse, not that conventional agriculture doesn't already have issues.
- imtringued 4y ago
  >In fact, humans have been genetically modifying food for centuries, we’ve just gotten much faster at it. No we didn't, we have been conducting artificial selection for centuries, farmers just pick among the best varieties available to them. By your logic the act of buying GMO seeds is what modifies their genes rather than their production process.
  - xwdv 4y ago
    No, the artificial selection is genetic modification, on a slow scale.
arcticbull 4y ago
I think it's fair to say eating one plant is not comparable with eating a different plant. Why is eating one pattern of DNA (rice) less dangerous than another (Castor beans, where ricin comes from)? I think that's pretty self-explanatory. They code for different proteins. I think the answer is more that we have no reason to believe that these modifications introduced harmful proteins, and we tested it on animals and humans, and they were fine. The problem I have with GMOs generally speaking is the business model of patenting, selling sterile seeds that put farmers on mandatory subscription model - and that frequently the only genetic modification is to make the crop resistant to pesticides and herbicides so you can soak the fields, sterilize them and kill everything else. Or all 3 at once, like RoundUp Ready corn and soy.
- gruez 4y ago
  >The problem I have with GMOs generally speaking is the business model of patenting, selling sterile seeds that put farmers on mandatory subscription model What you said also applies to hybrid varieties, yet they don't receive nearly as much pushback. Furthermore, what's wrong with a subscription model? GMO seeds costs money to develop and that has to be recouped somehow. The alternative is paying some sort of upfront fixed cost, which is probably even worse on a farmer's finances and gives large scale operations even more of an advantage (they have easy access to capital).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - memco 4y ago
    > Furthermore, what's wrong with a subscription model? GMO seeds costs money to develop and that has to be recouped somehow. The alternative is paying some sort of upfront fixed cost, which is probably even worse on a farmer's finances and gives large scale operations even more of an advantage (they have easy access to capital). A subscription isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, but the expectation is a little strange given that the plants themselves spread and grow in places that cannot be regulated by the developers. Thus someone could subscribe once then cancel but still grow the crop. Further, people who didn’t subscribe could end up having some of the crop spread onto their land then could unintentionally grow it without permission. This has sometimes led to attempts to either force people to pay for services they didn’t agree to or to destroy something growing on their own land through no fault of their own. In those cases, non-customers are actively penalized for their non-participation rather being left alone or being incentivized to try product through positive means.
pulse7 4y ago
"Why is eating one pattern of DNA more dangerous than another?" => Because some plants/animals have poisons, which is encoded in their DNA...
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Generally people carve out potato blemishes, and blight spots, and rotten parts, and smelly parts and butchers will carve out cancerous growths. It's a standard practice, something that humans do, partly do to our sense of disgust. Our senses are not always correct, but most of the time it's a good survival adaptation to avoid rotten food and getting sick.

The safety thing is a weird question. Why is eating one pattern of DNA more dangerous than another? (Assuming you didn’t modify it to produce novel proteins, etc)

xwdv 4y ago

It isn’t. And that’s why people who argue that GMO food is bad for you just don’t get it. It’s not the food that’s bad, it’s the business practices. The GMO food itself is perfectly fine to eat. In fact, humans have been genetically modifying food for centuries, we’ve just gotten much faster at it.

pfdietz 4y ago
Why are the business practices bad? Details, please.
- yetanother-1 4y ago
  Many explinations are available on the web, but it comes down to the dependence on these seeds and thus on the producer of them.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    How is that different from use of hybrid seeds, which have been available since forever and don't breed true? The solution to dependence is to have multiple suppliers. One can always use an older variety of seed. If the complaint is that the benefits are going to the company that made the seeds rather than the farmer, then how is that different from any other patented technology? The farmer is never going to be worse off, since he can always just use older varieties if the cost > his benefit. Perhaps your actual argument is that this will reduce food prices, driving out producers who don't keep up with the latest advances. But again, how is that different from any other improvement in agricultural technology? Is this just more European objection to the steamroller of US industrial agriculture?
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Suing small farmers for copyright infringement isn't very nice.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    You are aware you're spouting bullshit there, right? First of all, copyright isn't the applicable IP; patents are. Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that. These urban legend arguments are one of the reasons I view the entire anti-GMO movement with a very jaundiced eye.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > Second, no farmer has ever been sued for accidental contamination with patented GMOs. There have been cases where farmers deliberately tried to concentrate trace contamination, but the courts properly recognized the deliberate nature of that. Yes, deliberate use of the patented gene/interaction. That's still suing small farmers, doing farmer stuff, for IP infringement. So it's not bullshit.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        The farmer deliberately attempted to concentrate the gene. The only reason he would do this is to try to violate the patent. This was not an innocent action. Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        I didn't say it was innocent. But he's still doing pretty normal farming stuff. > Your argument here is like blaming a homeowner for catching a burgler. Nah, burgling doesn't work like IP rights. The analogy is hopelessly broken.
        4y ago
- xwdv 4y ago
sillystuff 4y ago
GM crops that produce BT toxin are supposed to be safe for humans due to the acid in our stomachs breaking down the BT toxin. But, I wasn't able to find any studies that investigated the safety of BT toxin in contact with mucus membranes in the mouth etc. before being processed by the stomach. It seems, at least, possible that this could lead to an increased risk of throat and mouth cancers. GM BT corn, egg plant (aubergine), and potatoes are common. Herbicide resistant GM crops used to get slathered with more herbicides than non-GM crops, so you probably were getting less exposure to these herbicides with non-GM conventional crops vs. GM conventional crops (I guess you could argue this falls into business practices, but it is the point of these GM crops). But, Ag schools, at least in the US, have been promoting using herbicides like glyphosate and Reglone to desiccate crops immediately prior to harvest[1] to avoid having to mow the crops to get a low uniform crop moisture content for harvesting equipment. So, conventional non-GM grains, oil seeds and legumes may also have high herbicide residues. Of course, buying organic avoids both sources of herbicides. [1] https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/managing-wheat-harvest https://extension.umn.edu/small-grains-harvest-and-storage/m...
- xwdv 4y ago
  Meh, none of those issues are inherent to GM crops themselves, and even some non-GM crops can be bad for you in certain circumstances.
  - sillystuff 4y ago
    Your "meh" is similar to disregarding contemporary environmental PFAS contamination because of historic lead contamination from tetraethyllead. "There exist bad things already" does not automatically make the additional potentially bad thing harmless. BT is sprayed on some food crops, but with GM food crops, it is contained within every cell of the plant, and cannot be washed off. You are consuming BT toxin, if you eat GM BT crops (the US EPA requires BT crops to be registered as pesticides). Putting poison in contact with mucus membranes seems, at the very least, 'possible' to have negative long-term health consequences. Non GM conventional crops can use systemic pesticides (the irrigation water contains the poison and/or the seed is pre-treated. This also incorporates the pesticide within plant tissues so it cannot be washed off). These systemic pesticides are usually neonicotinoids. Presence of systemic neonicotinoid use in conventional agriculture does not negate concerns about GM BT crops. My point was that GM, as it exists today, makes conventional agriculture's issues of pesticide exposure and low genetic diversity in our staple food crops worse, not that conventional agriculture doesn't already have issues.
imtringued 4y ago
>In fact, humans have been genetically modifying food for centuries, we’ve just gotten much faster at it. No we didn't, we have been conducting artificial selection for centuries, farmers just pick among the best varieties available to them. By your logic the act of buying GMO seeds is what modifies their genes rather than their production process.
- xwdv 4y ago
  No, the artificial selection is genetic modification, on a slow scale.

arcticbull 4y ago

I think it's fair to say eating one plant is not comparable with eating a different plant. Why is eating one pattern of DNA (rice) less dangerous than another (Castor beans, where ricin comes from)? I think that's pretty self-explanatory. They code for different proteins. I think the answer is more that we have no reason to believe that these modifications introduced harmful proteins, and we tested it on animals and humans, and they were fine. The problem I have with GMOs generally speaking is the business model of patenting, selling sterile seeds that put farmers on mandatory subscription model - and that frequently the only genetic modification is to make the crop resistant to pesticides and herbicides so you can soak the fields, sterilize them and kill everything else. Or all 3 at once, like RoundUp Ready corn and soy.

gruez 4y ago
>The problem I have with GMOs generally speaking is the business model of patenting, selling sterile seeds that put farmers on mandatory subscription model What you said also applies to hybrid varieties, yet they don't receive nearly as much pushback. Furthermore, what's wrong with a subscription model? GMO seeds costs money to develop and that has to be recouped somehow. The alternative is paying some sort of upfront fixed cost, which is probably even worse on a farmer's finances and gives large scale operations even more of an advantage (they have easy access to capital).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- memco 4y ago
  > Furthermore, what's wrong with a subscription model? GMO seeds costs money to develop and that has to be recouped somehow. The alternative is paying some sort of upfront fixed cost, which is probably even worse on a farmer's finances and gives large scale operations even more of an advantage (they have easy access to capital). A subscription isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, but the expectation is a little strange given that the plants themselves spread and grow in places that cannot be regulated by the developers. Thus someone could subscribe once then cancel but still grow the crop. Further, people who didn’t subscribe could end up having some of the crop spread onto their land then could unintentionally grow it without permission. This has sometimes led to attempts to either force people to pay for services they didn’t agree to or to destroy something growing on their own land through no fault of their own. In those cases, non-customers are actively penalized for their non-participation rather being left alone or being incentivized to try product through positive means.

pulse7 4y ago

"Why is eating one pattern of DNA more dangerous than another?" => Because some plants/animals have poisons, which is encoded in their DNA...

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Generally people carve out potato blemishes, and blight spots, and rotten parts, and smelly parts and butchers will carve out cancerous growths. It's a standard practice, something that humans do, partly do to our sense of disgust. Our senses are not always correct, but most of the time it's a good survival adaptation to avoid rotten food and getting sick.