Were it not, the FDA, which really does know what it’s doing most of the time, would not have allowed it on the market.
Oh boy.
The FDA is far from perfect, but the evidence is overwhelming that foods that have been modified by selective genetic technology (as opposed to random manipulation through cross-breeding) are safe to eat.
On the other hand, there’s a guy in California who says his raccoons won’t touch the stuff, so maybe not. :eek:
OK. Where’s the debate? Many of us here on the Dope do agree that it’s safe to eat.
There’s a lot of anti-GMO feeling among self-ID’d environmentalists.
I have this funny feeling that a lot of people that are anti-GMO are confusing GMOs with organic food. At my store we sell food and I’ll bet that half the time someone asks if something or another is GMO and I say that it very well could be (since it’s not labeled as non-GMO) they’ll reply with ‘ok, I don’t want it then, I don’t like all those chemicals in my food’. Depending on how the conversation feels at that point, I’ll try to explain that something labeled as non-GMO doesn’t say anything about the use of fertilizers or pesticides and that they’re likely looking for organic.
Similarly, people will mention something about the products we carry from a local ‘gluten free’ bakery. On more than once occasion, when I explain that the bakery isn’t gluten free it’s vegan, they ask me what the difference is.
That, to me, says a lot. That tells me that people aren’t actually comprehending (or even really reading) all these things, they’re just blindly buying them because they’re told they’re better for you.
I always like Bill Nye’s response to “If something is a GMO, should it be labeled as such”, to which he says “Yes, they should be labeled, they should say ‘Proudly GMO’”
Let’s go further:
[ul]
[li]GMOs are safe.[/li][li]Vaccines are effective.[/li][li]Global warming is real (and largely caused by humans).[/li][li]Humans are related to apes.[/li][li]Nuclear power is safer (by kilowatt) than all other power sources.[/li][li]We landed on the moon.[/li][/ul]
GMOs generate feelings of outrage and contagion. They’re safe, but we live in a society where people avoid gluten for unnecessary reasons (most people on gluten-free diets don’t have celiac disease), where people who aren’t eating enough go on water fasts or juice cleanses, and so forth. We live in a society where more than a third of the population (in the US and Canada) use homeopathy (and 3-4% use this as their primary form of “health care”). We live in a society where people are afraid that vaccines, that are designed to prevent disease, cause them.
Unfortunately it’s not possible to convince those who fear GMOs that GMOs are safe. You would have to fix viral misinformation first.
“Environmentalists,” again . . .
ISTM the only way to fix viral misinformation is with contrary viral misinformation. “Did you know that GMO foods prevent cancer?!”
clever
Virtually everything we eat (wild caught fish being the major exception) is genetically modified. The difference is that the modern GM foods were modified by people who knew exactly what they were doing rather than by trial and error.
There is a point on the other side though. So-called Roundup Ready crops have been modified to make them tolerant of glycophosphate herbicides. But are we tolerant of it? That is the only cogent objection to GM foods that I am aware of.
You should also ask them if they’re okay with organic fertilizers, pesticides & fungicides being used to grow the organic food, just to be fair. Might be tricky if they’re not, though, as then they’re going to have to find food grown without any chemicals at all, which is real tricky these days.
I’ve tried addressing this confusion with the SIZE=3 font, and with the SIZE=4 font. At this point, I’m going to ask you to use your Browser’s Zoom function and focus in on the following sentence! 
Intelligent environmentalists aren’t concerned about direct safety; the concern is about ecological damage.
hth
I’m not trying to start an argument with anyone, just trying to educate them a little bit. Or more specifically, clear up a misunderstanding they appear to have. If they don’t know the difference between vegan and gluten-free or think GMOs don’t have any chemicals on them (and they seem to be thinking of organic). And, I’m trying to convey it all in just a sentence or two. IOW, if they want the produce that “isn’t sprayed with all those nasty chemicals”, they want organic corn, not the corn that’s genetically modified to be resistant to Round Up.
That appears to be a clever pun conflating “lead” as in “leadership” with the name of the toxic heavy metal. Yeah, trust major industries with your health and welfare. Tetraethyl lead was the most poisonous substance ever introduced in a mass scale into the environment.
GMOs today are safe to eat, but serious public oversight is necessary to make sure that it remains so, because the potential of genetic modification in the future is unbounded and the future risks are unknown.
When I see people arguing that we should beware of vaccines because Big Pharma produced Vioxx, I ask if they would also recommend that diabetics avoid insulin, victims of incipient strokes stay away from clot-busting drugs and those suffering from sepsis refuse antibiotics, because, y’know, Big Pharma Bad.
The typical response is dead silence, or an attempt to change the subject.
Same goes for the theory that Big Agriculture is untrustworthy because of whatever, so be very very apprehensive about genetically modified foods. As my dentist once told me when I asked her if it was safe to chew gum with my new dental work, “You gotta eat.” 
Of course new GM varieties will continue to receive close scrutiny. Given that we’ve had decades of GM food products being consumed and none of the dire warnings issued by anti-GMOers have come to pass, I am encouraged rather than frightened by the possibilities.* Preservation of the coffee and orange juice supply through varieties modified to resist disease? More nutritious vegetables? Bring 'em on.
*I’m concerned about bacterial and other contamination in the supply chain, less so about new genetic combinations (i.e. the ones that occur in random and untested fashion through ‘‘conventional’’ hybridization, and which have (rarely) caused illness).
Can’t you just wash the food before bringing it to market?
How do GMO crops damage the environment? ISTM they lessen the damage, if they don’t require pesticides.
Many GMO crops do not damage the environment directly. (There’s always some hybridization and drift into adjacent fields, but let’s call that “indirect.”) However, the “RoundUp-Ready®” GMO crops create a situation wherein glyphosate is dumped all higgledy-piggledy all over this planet, and some folks (including myself) think this is maybe not such a great idea given that the WHO calls it “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Also probably not optimal is the use of glyphosate as a drying agent after harvest for some grain crops.
I’ll gladly eat any* GMO food that isn’t drenched in carcinogenic herbicide. But I’m not super pleased about RoundUp® use, and I sure don’t want it sprayed on the wheat that goes into my raisin bran.
Genetic modification is a tool, and like any tool can be used for good or ill. IMHO, it’s mostly been used for good thus far, and I think GMO foods are necessary to feed the increasingly-crowded planet. But no love lost here for RoundUp-Ready® crops.
*ETA: or at least, I won’t turn down a food I would normally eat just because it’s a GMO. There are things I won’t eat, period, GMO or not.
GM is fundamentally ethically and security neutral. It is ridiculous, inherently, to make and blanket statement or broad statements about the nature of GMO in any respect other than technically. GMOs cannot in principle be either evil or safe, they just can’t.
Both of the simplistic memes, “it’s unnatural so it’s bad” and “it’s science so it’s safe” are deeply deeply flawed and dangerous and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.