# Are gen. mod. foods more risky than a newly discovered natural edible?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-gen-mod-foods-more-risky-than-a-newly-discovered-natural-edible/126811>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 3, 2002, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-gen-mod-foods-more-risky-than-a-newly-discovered-natural-edible/126811 "2002-09-03T14:52:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-gen-mod-foods-more-risky-than-a-newly-discovered-natural-edible/126811/21 "2002-09-05T21:27:38Z")

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**Squink**

Ok…perhaps not a red herring. More like a poor choice of an example which upon reflection does not really support your argument. Granted, the problem arose from the use of a genetically modified bacterium, which probably looked pretty slick at the time. However, this scenario plays out time after time whenever a tried and true manufacturing process is changed.

Remember thalidomide? People didn’t wring their hands and say “Jeez, look what happened!!! We better stop making medicines!!!” What happened was a heightened sense of awareness that, if you’re gonna make something that people are going to ingest, you better make damn good and sure you know exactly what you’re selling, down to 0.1% or less. (The FDA sets the 0.1% criteria. With modern analytical equipment and techniques, that’s still enough material to characterize, and most pharmaceutical companies set lower thresholds for impurities).

> [@](#):
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> would only have caught it if the people who wrote the protocols were already aware of the potential problem

They should[/] have caught this problem very early in the process. The only way to prevent (well, minimize) this is to follow good laboratory practices and regulations. Unfortunately, the manufacture of nutritional supplements are not bound by these regulations.

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> …or had placed what would likely be economically suicidal purity requirements on the manufacturing process

HPLC: $35,000  
Mass Spectrometer: $250,000  
Chemist: $70,000  
Lawsuits filed on behalf of survivors: \>$2,000,000,000  
my contention is that while a GMO was involved, the “Tryptophan Incident” was a cock-up due to process issues, and in no way demonstrates the dangers of modified bacteria.

You want an example of dangerous GMOs? How about the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (such as TB) due to over-prescription of antibiotics?

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**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-gen-mod-foods-more-risky-than-a-newly-discovered-natural-edible/126811/22 "2002-09-05T21:30:34Z")

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Wow…I am soooo sorry about that…

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**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2002, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-gen-mod-foods-more-risky-than-a-newly-discovered-natural-edible/126811/23 "2002-09-05T23:53:01Z")

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> [@](#):
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> You want an example of dangerous GMOs? How about the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

But the OP was specifically about food. Thalidomide, DES, amphetamines, cyclamates, phen-phen, are all examples of the difficulties of “testing in” safety, but they have precious little to do with either GM or the safety of the food supply.

> [@](#):
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> HPLC: $35,000  
> Mass Spectrometer: $250,000  
> Chemist: $70,000  
> Lawsuits filed on behalf of survivors: \>$2,000,000,000

You forgot the most important factor:  
**Time needed to figure out the potential toxicity of every little blip and bump on a chromatogram:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;priceless**

Even after they knew there was a problem with the tryptophan, it still took years to figure out what had actually caused the toxic effect. Had the manufacturer invested in that research _before_ selling his tryptophan he might have avoided the deaths and lawsuits, but that’s only because he’d never have survived in a competitive marketplace.  
If you wish to claim that the supplement industry is fundamentally more prone to problems than the food or drug industries, you have only to look at the Starlink corn story to see the same logic at work among corn producers.

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