Rejecting Genetically Modified Foods

[villager]

Rejecting Genetically Modified Foods

By Elisabeth Rosen

Picture a supermarket where half the foods contain toxic chemicals. All the contaminated food is clearly labeled, with the health risks displayed on the side of the container. Would you buy the contaminated food?

This situation is not hypothetical. If you’ve ever eaten corn, tofu or canola oil, you’ve been exposed to such foods. In an effort to increase their pesticide sales, biotechnology companies like Monsanto — which also controls a large percentage of the seed market -— have altered the DNA of foods like corn and soybeans to make them less vulnerable to pesticides. This means that they can be sprayed with more weedkiller and other chemicals. Unless you buy organic food, there is no way to avoid this problem.

On the surface, these genetically modified (GM) foods don’t sound so bad. What is wrong with using science to invent foods with more nutrients? And indeed, genetic engineering has led to some great nutritional advances. Golden rice, for instance, is a fortified variety of rice that provides people in developing nations with vitamins their diet may otherwise lack.

But other GM foods do not offer any inherent nutritional benefits. Rather, their chief advantage is resistance to pesticides, which allows farmers to spray crops without fear of destroying the plants. Last month, in a huge victory for Monsanto, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled that GM alfalfa could be cultivated without federal regulation. This meant that Monsanto could now distribute its GM alfalfa seeds — resistant to the company’s weedkiller Roundup — without having to give further evidence that the product was safe.

There is growing evidence that GM crops can harm consumers. Rats fed GM corn developed serious kidney and liver problems, according to a 2009 study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences. Although Monsanto claimed that it had tested the corn for safety, the 2009 study found significant flaws in the methods that the company used to analyze its data. Yet this corn remains approved for commercial use. In fact, you have probably eaten some today, and unless something changes, you will likely eat some tomorrow.

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http://www.cornellsun.com/section/opinion/content/2011/02/15/rejecting-genetically-modified-foods

[mike_c]

1. this is mostly hysterical fear mongering BS....

The ludites are loose again.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mike_c]

3. I'm no friend of Monsanto-- I'm a biologist....

Monsanto's business model is greedy and evil. I will happily dance on their grave. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, holds immense promise.

[villager]

4. So engineering for increased pesticide resistance doesn't actuallly *mean* increased pesticides?

Yum yum!

[Indydem]

6. Not all GMOs are for pesticides.

The GMO used in the disproven rat study was genetically engineered to resist corn rootworm.

BUT HEY IT'S A GMO! STOMP YOUR FEET AND GET ANGRY!

[mike_c]

7. so engineering for increased yield, longevity, nutrition, and taste...

...or to produce crops that can thrive on otherwise marginal land is somehow a bad thing? Actually, sometimes it might be, but the answers to that question rarely have anything directly to do with genetic engineering. GE is only a tool-- WE decide what uses to apply that tool to and what outcomes we want to achieve. The instance you cite is an example of Monsanto's evil business model applied to a genuine, real world problem. Rather than engineering resistance to Monsanto's patented herbicides, for example, I'd rather see crops engineered to out compete weed species-- this is likely a much more difficult task, however, and Monsanto sees greater profitability in the more direct and simpler route. Again however, the real issue isn't GE, it's Monsanto's greed.

on edit-- just to be clear, the example I give above is a rhetorical example. Corn that can out-compete crabgrass would actually scare me a whole lot more than corn that can withstand Roundup application. Just sayin'.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Thank you for bringing a voice of reason to this discussion

It's not the process, it's the way it's marketed that is evil. There seem to be a lot of folks around here scared of science, and we need people who really work with this stuff to set the record straight.

Gave you my last allotted heart!

[mike_c]

19. thank you!

xoxo
Mike C.

[bergie321]

22. It can also be disastrous

As we turn more and more towards a monoculture food system, the likelihood of a disease or pest developing that will be capable of wiping out most of our food supply.

[mike_c]

27. of course, but that's a DIFFERENT problem....

Mono-cropping is just as dangerous and ecologically ill-advised whether one plants GM crops or sexy heirloom varieties. Most bad husbandry is simply that-- it has nothing to do with genetic engineering. Limiting genetic variation within the food production system is a BAD mistake, but it's generally a business practice chosen for economic reasons, not anything that has to do with genetic engineering. In fact, MOST objections to genetic engineering that I read are either based on misunderstanding the underlying science or on confusing business and economic considerations for scientific ones.

[Fokker Trip]

12. Prove that these foods are safe before you call people "ludites"

Are those the same ludites who were concerned over the use of Agent Orange? (another Monsanto product)

Nobody(except perhaps Monsanto itself) has any long term data on what dangers GM foods pose and the benefits of GM are all about fattening the corporate bottom line.

Watch "The world according to Monsanto".

[Indydem]

5. GMOs have been proven safe time and time again.

This contant clinging to disproven junk science and propganda is getting really old.

Every food you eat is a GMO. The foods that Columbus ate were GMOs. We are just more advanced at it now.

No one is getting upset or angry at the approval at alfalfa because we aren't scare dof science, sorry to disappoint.

[Richard D]

8. Perhaps . . .

. . . you might want to look up the difference between hybridization and genetic modification. They are very different processes.

[mike_c]

9. yet they yield pretty much exactly the same results...

...i.e. they both provide means for introducing desirable phenotypic qualities into offspring. One is a very old tool, nearly as old as agriculture, and it has vastly modified human foods for thousands of years, to the point where few, if any of the foods we eat would be recognizable to someone foraging 10,000 years ago. The other is a new tool that provides greater specificity and control to the same process, and extends it to gene combinations among organisms that cannot hybridize. It's just a newer and better tool for achieving the same results we've been seeking for thousands of years. One is the biological equivalent of a stone ax, the other a laser.

[Richard D]

10. Well . . .

. . . the major concern I have is that while hybridization occurs by constantly improving on a species, breeding in selectively positive traits from existing successful species and varieties, GM is direct manipulation of the genetic material, introducing specific traits that now seem to be done more as a marketing and control tool than for species improvement. Round up ready seeds from Monsanto, manufactured to sell more roundup come to mind. Additionally, the patent issue is pretty serious, especially as courts seem to have favored Monsanto's when GM pollen has infected neighboring fields, turning the farmer's crop and thus any seed's for replanting he might have saved, into crops with genetic material owned by monsanto - thus the farmer had to pay monsanto for this unwilling privilege.

There's also the issue of safety. Do you really think that monsanto's scientists have that in mind, or maximizing profit? Would they release into the wild a GM strain that could cause environmental or health damage if the final outcome, after any legal cases were settled would involve more profit for them? Does big tobacco ring any bells?

I'm not against GM outright. But IMNVHO it's too new of a science to be releasing crops into the wild that have airborne pollen and can cross-pollinate with non-GM crops. Especially given that many of these crops are not being tested for long term environmental or health safety.

I also strongly object to the laws that prohibit the labeling of non-gmo products. People should be able to choose, logical or not.

[mike_c]

17. but again, all of your *reasonable objections* have more to do...

...with corporate conduct than with genetic engineering. Your last one puzzles me though: "People should be able to choose, logical or not." It seems to me this is exactly the same logic republicans apply when they say "global climate change doesn't exist, regardless of the evidence" or "people should decide whether they believe in evolution, no matter what science tells us." In other words, I read your statement to mean that people should be encouraged to make illogical decisions based on pseudoscience because that's what they're inclined to do regardless of the evidence, which they shouldn't have to actually ever consider, anyway.

That makes absolutely no sense in an educated society.

[Richard D]

20. Not at all.

If I choose not to eat anything made from potatoes just because those little eyes gross me out (not true!) it is my choice to not eat potatoes. Sovereignty over ones own body is a right. I don't have to be logical about it. In reality, I choose not to eat pork. I can read a label on a package of food and see if it contains pork or not. That is my choice.

We should have the same choice regarding GM foods, especially considering that most of them come from a corporation that reeks of sulfur.

I personally believe that my decision not to eat food that is not grown sustainably and organically (e.g. with no artificial pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, or other petrochemicals) is fully logical. You may disagree. That's your right.

My choice supports traditional agriculture which existed for a very long time without destroying billions of tons of top soil, polluting almost all sources of fresh water, creating virtually tasteless food with less nutritional value, driving family farms out of business and many farmers in India to suicide, etc. It's a personal choice, but also a political one. I want a world with people who choose an agrarian life to be able to live on their small farms and take pride in what they grow and live long healthy lives. it's such a different picture from the world that the corporations want - vast industrial farms worked by near slave labor peons.

On the other hand, something like Golden Rice, mentioned above, seems like a good thing, though I don't know what it's financial implications are for the farmers who choose to use it. Are they allowed to harvest seeds? That's the most important thing for a small farmer. Or are they forced into buying new seeds every year? that's death for 3rd world farmers.

[mike_c]

21. your last paragraph summarizes what I think are the best arguments...

...against corporate ownership of food resources like seed and plant/animal varieties. It's an argument I've been making among my colleagues for decades now, since the early 1990s when early discussions about the economic impact of genetic engineering appeared in the American Journal of Botany. Again though, the culprits are corporate greed and human nature rather than the science of molecular biology and the enhancements it offers to improve genetic recombination.

I work in an academic science environment, a university biological sciences department. Many of my colleagues work on genetic engineering problems, and they do it to advance knowledge or to solve real world problems, like toxic waste remediation. We're not doing it to make lots of money or to control anyone's use of technology products (I say "we" in the solidarity sense-- I'm actually an entomologist and an ecologist, not a practicing molecular biologist). It pains me to hear my colleagues' work demonized by people with either unreasonable fear of science and technology, or broad brush but justifiable anger toward unsustainable corporate greed.

[Richard D]

26. Agreed

I'd feel much safer about genetic modification if the profit motive was removed from it.

[Fokker Trip]

13. Umm..I have to diaagree

How is inserting an animal gene in a plant in any way similar to hybridizing peas or corn?

How can you claim that this is a "better" mechanism than hybridizing. These technologies are so new that there is no proof that they are better in the long term.

Asbestos was considered a wonder technology when introduced, but that didn't work out so well for a lot of people.
Have you seen the old ads about doctors who are claiming the health benefits of smoking?

If its such a great technology then why do the corps not label it as such..hmmm. Perhaps because they know it is all about increasing their profits(what they are legally mandated to do at all costs) and not about helping people or making the food supply safer and better.

Do you really believe that a corp. like Monsanto gives a crap about humanity?

Cross pollination allows this unproven tech to spread in nature and create completely unpredictable results.

[mike_c]

18. look, with all due respect...

...I understand that you're passionate about this, but your response reveals rather poor understanding of the biology involved. For example, your first question reveals your misunderstanding of my statement that genetic engineering and cross breeding share similar goals, e.g. the creation of desirable phenotypes among offspring. You second question reveals your misunderstanding of the three domains of life on Earth-- plants and animals are both eukaryotes that share considerable common descent. That's WHY inserting genes from animals into plants results in expressed proteins and other biological machinery-- they're far more similar than they are different at the molecular level.

I believe I've made it clear that I have no love for Monsanto-- I think the terms I used up thread included "evil business model" and "I'll dance on their grave."

[villager]

16. People do seem to be confusing Luther Burbank with the CEO of Monsanto, quite a bit in this thread

n/t

[jtuck004]

14. Just askin, would you mind posting a few of your favorite links to

your line "GMOs have been proven safe time and time again."

Just curious what sources might support that.

thank you

[bergie321]

23. Columbus

Didn't eat food with strands of poison woven into the plants' DNA.

[Indydem]

28. What are you TALKING about?

There is no POISON in GMO crops. They don't produce roundup on their own.

They are IDENTICAL to regular crops, they just resist unwanted things (herbicides, insects, fungi)

The idea that they have POISON in them, is just plain ignrance.

[bergie321]

24. We have been using medicines

For thousands of years. So why bother testing new drugs before rushing them to market?

[Indydem]

29. How long would you take to evaluate them? Eternity?

Roundup ready corn took 6 years to make it through the European approval process.

Who is rushing anything?

[Fokker Trip]

15. This thread seems to be host to two groups of people...

Those who trust Monsanto and the other GM plant corps and those who don't trust Monsanto. This article is not about the theoretical and ethical uses of GM in food crops, that's another discussion entirely.

The theoretical benefits of GM mean very little if the groups doing the vast majority of commercial crop genetic modifications are greedy sociopaths(as all corps are).

You folk who want to eat this stuff knock yourselves out, but at least admit that by supporting these corps and this use of this technology that you are also supporting removing the choice to eat it from all consumers in NA.

I want all GM food labelled as I want the choice not to have anything to do this crap. Isn't choice part of the "free market" system?

Oh that's right, Obama appointed a Monsanto Corp head to his science advisory board and the USG is in charge of regulating the labeling of food. That's change you can believe in.

You can talk about the supposed wonders and benefits of GM all you want, as long as Monsanto and the other big agri-corps are involved in its development and dissemination it will be bad for people and good for the Corporations bottom line. and we see every day that there is very little if any overlap between Corporate interests and the interests of everyday people.

What is the point in fighting about this issue (and calling people "ludites" and "hysterical" IS starting a conflict)...label the foods as GM and people will decide what they want to eat...doesn't that seem reasonable?

[bergie321]

25. I would be satisfied

If all food that contains GMOs be clearly labeled and all fields that grow it be contained to prevent cross-contamination of the real food supply.