Genetically Altered Food Hysteria?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Can someone out there please explain to me the current public hysteria over genetically altered food? I do not yet see the harm in creating plant material that is either more nutritious, or more resistant to drought or pests and disease. It certainly sounds like a better scenario that misting our food with chemicals like DDT and turning farmland into selenium and salt deserts.

Isn’t common corn a genetically altered grain? It does not occur in the wild, and it’s closest grassy cousins are far less adaptable to cultivation and are less nutritious. Left to it’s own devices, corn cannot reproduce becasue the fertile kernals rot inside the over-developed husk, it needs humans to release the seeds back to the soil. The ancient Central American cililizations got it right, why cant we do the same?

What about livestock, aren’t they genetically altered from their wild relatives as the process of domestication (un-natural selection) carries on?

Thanks!

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Yep… you’d think it’s a beter solution, wouldn’t you? Most thinking people do. However, we must take into account two things:

  1. The average member of the populace doesn’t think unless forced to;

  2. Scientists aren’t great at PR.

It comes down to risk, and risk/benefit analysis. Any scientist who works with genetically engineered foods has to admit that there is a risk involved–of creating a potentially harmful new virus, for instance, or of overwhelming other species of plants if a GE plant’s genes get out into the wild (which they almost certainly will). The former has an almost infinitesimal chance of occurring, but potentially a lot of problems; the latter has a very high chance of occurring, and effectively no problems invovled–we already deal with that from domesticated plants and livestock.

The benefits outweigh the risks immensely. But people don’t think about the benefits–they think about the risks, and NIMBY. This is why nuclear power still hasn’t caught on as well as it should, and so forth. There is a tiny risk of somethign bad happeneing, and people focus on that, without thinking about the benefits. They think short-term, not long-term. It’s human nature, unfortunately.

Both of those cases are a bit different from actual genetic modifications… but in a sense you’re correct. They have much lower risks involved… but also, people didn’t even realize the risk was there before they started performing those selections, some six thousand years ago. We just discovered rudimentary genetics a couple hundred years ago. We keep doing it without public hysteria because, as far as people are concerned, there’s no risk, and 6000 years of human civilization shows that, to them… even though there are risks.

(OK… I’ve used the word ‘risk’ enough for one post :slight_smile:

Hope that helps.

LL

[Edited by TubaDiva on 08-11-2000 at 04:58 PM]

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Ugh… that looks awful, and I can’t get in to edit it. My apologies… I will edit it as soon as I can get it to allow that.

LL

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You can’t, LL42. The edit function has been disabled. All the more reason to use “preview reply.”

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Oh.

Well… damn.

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Since Arnold Winkelreid’s on his honeymoon, I’ll jump in here to welcome harrmill to the board and thank him for his comment, and note that the column in question can be found online at What’s the story on genetically engineered foods?, from April 9, 1999, and is not yet published in any of the Straight Dope books.

You can make a link in your post either by just typing out the URL, leaving a space before and after it, or by using the vBulletin [[sup][/sup]url] tag. For instance, to produce the above link, I typed
[[sup][/sup]url=“http://www.straightdope.com/columns/990409.html”]What’s the story on genetically engineered foods?[[sup][/sup]/url]

By the way, LazarusLong42 (great name, btw), speaking of Arnold, he’s the moderator of this forum, and thus he can edit posts. If it’s still important to you when he gets back, you can drop him an e-mail and ask him to fix the quotes.

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Nope, it’s not that important. It may look tacky, but I’m kind of a tacky person <G>. Thx for the compliment.

LL

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FTR, I’m all in favor of the stuff. But if you’re wondering what the possible risks are, here’s a short list:
New allergens appearing unexpectedly in foods
Increased human and animal exposure to pesticides
Greatly increased rate of evolution of pesticide resistance
Bioengineering firms exercising monopolistic powers over strains they develop
Artifically inserted genes escaping into wild populations through inadvertent cross-breeding, thereby altering “natural” evolution in the area.
And of course, the good old “Don’t play God” argument.

Some of these concerns are more valid than others.

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Well, FWIW, the whole issue may be dying down. Here in Illinois, I just saw a factoid in the newspaper to the effect that Illinois farmers planted something like 20% less acreage to GM seeds this spring, as a backlash against negative public opinion. Also, a number of grain elevators have refused to handle GM corn, mainly just because it makes extra work, having to keep them separate.

If it doesn’t pay, farmers won’t do it. They’re not stupid, and neither are the big corn hybridizers and seed corn producers, who aren’t going to produce GM seed corn if the farmers won’t plant it.

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I understand, Smeghead, that you don’t neccesarily hold these opinions, but these do seem to be the biggest arguments against GMO’s-there are a few more that I have seen that are even less valid. Although this does seem to be a bit unfair, sort of a Strawman exercise, I can’t help but put my thoughts into writing.

And this doesn’t happen with traditional breeding? I think I remember a few cases where “traditional” crossbreeding (the word traditional is kind of misleading since it has only been around for 1-200 years) has produced inedible crops. That is why most states have a land grant university that specializes in agriculture. Who do you think does the unbiased tests and compiles info for farmers to get through the ag extension office? Additionally, GMO’s have even more hoops to jump through than hybrids with respect to regulatory agencies. They have to show substantial equivalence to “normal” hybrids.

What does this mean? I am not sure why we would necessarily need to use more pesticides. Bt corn is designed to allow for Less reliance on pesticide measures, right. In addition, if a variety of crop can be designed that would give us the choice of which pesticides we will be exposed to in greater amounts, wouldn’t that be a net positive?

In the case of herbicides, isn’t it good that we can make a Round-Up Ready variety that will allow the use of a pesticide that has a very good safety profile instead of something more harsh?

Has this been demonstrated? Is this really a problem? Potentially using less pesticide is worse now? I think that this is brought up because organic farmers are afraid of Bt corn making one of the few “organic” pesticides, Bt, less effective. I do think it is funny that somehow Bt corn will kill all the monarch butterflies, but organic farmers using it won’t because they are somehow a more “sustainable” operation.

(I don’t think this argument gets much sympathy in the U.S.)

And this is somehow different from other industries that rely on intellectual property rights (pharmaceuticals come to mind)? Will they be forcing people to use their stuff at the point of a gun? IMHO, it seems that farmers know when something works and when it doesn’t. If the GMO works well in the farmers specific application, and is cheaper, then the farmer will use it, if it doesn’t, then they will move on.

This is the one argument that kills me-As if companies are supposed to spend Mio’s of $$$ and then just put it out in the public domain for anyone to exploit. This is the job of the academic (although, universities are trying to get in on the intellectual property game, more and more).

Unfortunately this is probably the most valid of all the points and could have been avoided except for the fear mongering of anti-GM groups concerning the “terminator” technology. This would have ensured that the plant would be “sterile” and no crossbred variety would survive. Unfortunately Monsanto didn’t have the balls to stand up to the attacks on this useful trick and they dropped plans to eventually use it to protect their intellectual property.

Otherwise, I do think that this issue isn’t probably as big of a problem as it is made out to be. Why hasn’t this been a problem with Hybrids already? Also, farmland isn’t really a hot bed of genetic diversity to start with. How many stalks of corn do you see growing in the forest? How about soybeans?

Ah, the party line of the Natural Law Party, right? I am sure glad that scientists didn’t listen to this line of reasoning when developing vaccines, penicillin, organ transplants and other lifesaving measures that have tripled our lifespan since the 1700’s and almost doubled it since the 1800’s. Of course, no one really knew every pitfall or problem with each new advance, but they had a pretty good idea that it would be better than what was currently available to scientists and doctors. Same thing goes for GMO’s. It seems that as every argument against GMO’s is addressed, a new one pops up in its place that makes the argument that the world as we know it will be annihilated if we continue on present course. It seems to me that those most against GMO’s have a deep seeded fear of the future and are desperately trying to keep society static. Additionally, even though there are a few scientists highly critical of GMO’s, the most vociferous of the bunch always seem to have a shaky background in science or some sort of “science-light” degree such as a degree in “Environmental Studies” where the student is required to take only one year of “baby biology” and one of “baby chemistry” as their hard science requirement
Jon

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Jon, while I’m always glad to see someone making a levelheaded response to ignorance and overreaction, I’m not sure you’re characterizing the views of your opponents completely fairly. You say:

*the fear mongering of anti-GM groups concerning the “terminator” technology. This would have ensured that the plant would be “sterile” and no crossbred variety would survive. *

As I understood it, many anti-GM people objected to “terminator genes”, especially in their proposed role in Third World agriculture, on two counts: 1) that such species might get into the wild and survive in a crossbred form long enough to crowd out non-GM species, and then die off, making agriculture much less sustainable; 2) that promoting such species would deliberately reduce sustainability, by making it impossible for farmers to follow the traditional practice of getting seed for the next year’s crop out of the current year’s, and thus leaving them more economically vulnerable to the people who are selling the seed.

I am certainly no agricultural scientist, but neither of those scenarios sounds fantastically improbable to me; could you explain why those arguments against “terminator genes” are without merit?

*Also, farmland isn’t really a hot bed of genetic diversity to start with. How many stalks of corn do you see growing in the forest? How about soybeans? *

As I understand it, that in itself is a concern to many organic-agriculture types: i.e., the lack of genetic diversity in food crops, which is already quite pronounced. The chief objection to it seems to be that if a food crop relies on just one or two species, the emergence of a new disease could pretty much wipe that crop out, a disaster that could probably be mitigated if there were lots of other varieties with varying degrees of vulnerability. Many farmers, gardeners, and botanists actively collect and preserve “heritage varieties” partly for this reason.

*I am sure glad that scientists didn’t listen to this [“don’t play God”] line of reasoning when developing vaccines, penicillin, organ transplants and other lifesaving measures *

Me too. On the other hand, I could wish that the scientists who developed DDT, the one-way disc plow, and CFCs had listened to it a little bit more. Without arguing in favor of ignorant hysteria, surely you agree that relying implicitly on the soundness of the decisions of developers who are trying to make money out of agricultural and other improvements has not always been a good thing?

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FYI, I wrote a big hairy 20+ page research paper on this subject last year, using the most current research I could find. Like I said, personally I’m in favor of the stuff, but I had to research both sides. I’ll just answer some of the questions jkeller brought up.

Re: allergens. I think this is actually one of the more valid concerns. New allergens may pop up occasionally in “traditional” breeding, but it is, of course, slower. The concern here is that someone may be allergic to peanuts, let’s say. They know this and have spend their lives avoiding peanut products. Then let’s say someone takes that peanut gene and sticks in in wheat. The person allergic to peanuts gets a loaf of bread that says nothing about having used peanut genes in its wheat, and breaks out in a rash or far worse. I think this is the best reason for labelling GM foods. Unfortunately, the public would see these labels as a tacit admission that these foods are bad for you. I don’t know the answer to that one. And, yes, testing is very rigorous, but not perfect.

Re: increased exposure. The idea here is that GM foods always express pesticides, rather than being periodically sprayed. In addition, there is a worry that processing methods are designed to remove pesticides from the surface of the plant, not from within it. I think this is an issue that will be quickly solved. Work is going on right now to link pesticide genes to promoters that are activated upon attack, which is pretty damn amazing, if you ask me. Think about it - a beetle bites into a plant, stimulating it to release a poison that kills it. Cool. And I would imagine new processing methods will be along shortly, if they’re not already here.
Critics fail to point out that keeping the pesticide within the plant eliminates runoff into the environment and human deaths and injuries caused by improper use of these chemicals. The WHO estimates these deaths at 20,000 per year, mostly in third world countries.

Re: increased evolution of resistance. Again, this is a major concern. It’s an axiom in biology that any method of control selects for its own failure. Bugs will be exposed to the pesticide more, supposedly. Selection for resistance will be much higher. I think this is an issue, but it remains to be seen how much of an issue. It can be argued that since the pesticide is being delivered more precisely, there will actually be less exposure. More important, I think, is the lack of flexability. Currently, if a pest arises that is resistant to one pesticide, we can switch to another. That’s harder to do when it’s hardwired into the plant.

Re: Monopolies. I’m kind of ambivalent on this one. It’s more dependant on the attitude of the companies involved than the nature of the modification.

Re: escape. There’s been a LOT of research on this, with lots of different results. It has to be taken on a crop-by-crop, region-by-region, and almost a field-by-field basis. Many domesticated plants do in fact grow side by side with their wild cousins. No, you don’t see a lot of wild corn in the forest, but you don’t see domesticated corn there, either. It shouldn’t be too surprising to find that if an area is good for growing a domesticated crop, it’s good for growing the wild version, too. OTOH, you have cases like potatoes in England. They’re not native to that area, so there are no related plants on the whole island. Escape in that case is a non-issue. The risk of escape depends on lots of factors - the reproductive habits of the plant, the abundance of wild relatives, even climate. That means legislating ways to control this risk is almost impossible, because there are so many different situations.
Of course, there’s still the question of whether escape would necessarily be a bad thing. Again, the answer to that varies widely, but in many cases, is no. It has been shown that pesticide resistance (for instance) carries penalties - slightly slower growth, etc. In the wild, where pesticides provide less of an advantage, it’s probable that the gene would be selected out of the population.

Re: The “Don’t Play God” argument. I generally ignore that altogether, but it does affect public opinion, so I thought I’d mention it.

Re: DDG’s comment. GM foods don’t have to be economically unfavorable. Current regulations and attitudes make it that way right now, but it’s not due to bad science.

Holy CRAP that was long. Sorry. I just got a little too into it.

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Duck Duck Goose wrote:

It’s definitely dying down, but in the other direction. Anti-GM hysteria in Europe was largely a result of the mad cow scare they’ve had over there in recent years. They’ve tried to get Americans riled up about it, with almost no success. Scientists have now become more organized to battle the luddites. And new generations of GM foods that are just around the corner will offer benefits to the consumer, not just to the planters. Then what resistance is left will die down.

And Kimstu, what’s so improbable about the situation you describe is that it’s two improbable events multiplied together. It’s unlikely that any terminator plant would crossbreed with another, and then to have the terminator characteristic somehow get repressed for a few years to spread across the landscape, only to re-emerge as dominant and cause a mass die-off. Well, maybe not unlikely, more like “fantastic.”

And if Monsanto were to offer the terminator technology, it wouldn’t make it impossible for farmers to plant with the previous season’s seeds. If a farmer wanted to do this, he would just use his traditional seeds this year.

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While I do plan on responding to smeghead’s post, I don’t have the time right now, this minute. But, I do have some comments regarding Kimstu’s post:
While the issue of crossbreeding and genes "skipping"generations was addressed by CurtC, the next objection about making Third world farmers has me wondering a few thoughts which I will express in writing here. 1) Didn’t the computer make typwriters “more economically vulnerable”, was that necessarily bad for the “traditional” secretary? 2) Why are we assuming that third world substinance farmers would be a market that agribusiness giants would want to target? I have a feeling that the MBA that has the idea to take over that “market” will be shown the door in short order. Not exactly efficient allocation of resources. 3) Why do Westerners have this inborn urge to think that every “traditional” culture is filled with a bunch of people that have to be protected by Westerners. Is this a sort of Neo-Colonialism?

WRT DDT and CFC’s (I don’t know much about the plow), I think you would be hard pressed to build a convincing argument that we humans are worse off because of DDT and CFC’s. Lifespans have increased vastly over the last century and there is little doubt that these chemicals had a lot to do with it. It seems as if we all forget that these things had a positive use and still do. Malaria is still an issue in the world-Maybe the biggest infectious disease issue facing us, and yet we have high and mighty Environmentalists sitting in bug-free, air conditioned TV studios telling us that banning DDT everywhere is the wisest choice available to us today. The phase out of CFC’s may not seem quite as hurtful, in human costs, but as a chemist, I can tell you that there are quite a few useful reactions/transformations that I will no longer be able to do because of this shortsighted zero-tolerance policy. In fact, we gave up on the synthesis of a useful product because we were unsure of the future availability of CCl4 and could not identify a way around the problem. Additionally, we are replacing a well-studied chemical with well-known properties with something relatively unknown and some of these chemicals have turned out to not be as great as advertised. Sorry about the topic drift there…
Jon

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Quick note regarding third-world subsistence farmers. The idea is that America is exporting grain to these countries, along with farming practices and the like, as part of aid packages to increase the local productivity and fight famine. Thus the concern that we will export to them the terminator grain, requiring them to become dependent on buying new grain every year, rather than getting a grain donation one year that can lead to a continuable process.