A few facts about GMOs in the food industry:
1) Proliferation of patented genetically designed bio-foods enables large corporations to claim ownership over (scientifically modified) naturally occurring plants and food sources, potentially allowing monopolies to arise on entire branches of the world’s food supply. Bad effing idea, that.
2) Creation of co-dependant plant/insecticide GMO pairings run the risk of replacing entire sections of the world’s food industry with food plants that are designed to function only with the application of certain other patented herbicidal and insecticidal compounds. Meaning that if this is allowed to occur on a large enough scale, ultimately there could be food items that can only exist if serviced with a specific patented chemical substance owned by one specific company. Again: another bad effing idea.
3) At this point in time, the world does NOT technically require GMO foodstuffs to feed the world population. GMOs increase profitability, and in some cases intervene between cash crops and destruction by natural processes (disease, insects). But they aren’t required. Not yet.
4) At this point in time there is almost no extant hard evidence that GMO crops are overtly dangerous or have potentially hideous side effects when introduced into the human diet. I mean: there’s essentially NOTHING. Except for a few scientifically-disproven attack studies and a lot of hyperbolic anecdotal evidence that doesn’t medically check out— the evidence simply isn’t there. There’s definitely a lot of anger and disinformation out there, much of which is pushed by the pro-Organic movement and its own industry pundits— but there’s a whole lot more independently-generated scientific data that proves it’s wrong.
Do we KNOW for certain that GMOs will never evolve into mutant devil spores and rain cancer down upon the unsuspecting children of Mother Earth? Nope. But there’s almost zero scientific evidence that anything like that is close to happening.
Sorry, activists— but those are the facts.
The same “worldwide scientific consensus” that supports the existence of human-influenced climate change due to a mountain of scientific data ALSO supports the relative safety of GMOs due to a similar mountain of scientific data. So… you either ignore or refuse to accept what science has to say on the topic, or you accept what the actual evidence says. There are science-deniers on both ends of the political spectrum.
I oppose the unchecked proliferation of GMOs— based on economic factors and potential corporate malfeasance— unless these areas are carefully studied and regulated for the good of all. It is an area rife for abuse if left unregulated. But I need to see some real, actual independently-scientifically-vetted evidence before I spout off any more on this site about the biological dangers of GMOs. Just saying.
The GMO-industry is already a seriously nasty business. It represents a HUGE financial battleground, wherein all manners of gawd-awful future genetic modification might get snuck past regulation to poison us— there is absolutely that much money to be made, and there are serious safety concerns riding on the outcome. If the FDA were a shining bastion of pure, non-infuenced, unadulterated public interest, I’d say there isn’t anything to worry about. Too bad it’s not.
As with all corporate ventures, the potential to earn huge amounts of money will always engender a higher probability that someone will do something criminally stupid. But spreading invented scary stories doesn’t do anything but cloud the actual issues at stake.
Meanwhile, on a related note: what the hell happened? Didn’t this blog used to be funny?