I just explained exactly what my position is, and now you’re complaining that I’m not answering irrelevant questions about electric cars?
If you have a question about the position I just clearly stated to you, please ask, I would be happy to answer.
Ok, normally the topic of GM foods and safety refers to the safety of the process in general, including current and future foods, not just the ones already introduced.
But even with that qualification, your statement still exceeds our knowledge. For example, there is still investigation into Cry1ab, studies have found it in water near fields growing modified corn but it’s unknown whether the levels are dangerous. More study is required on many of these topics.
Maybe nothing comes of it, but nobody here has a crystal ball and can just claim that kind of knowledge in advance of the science.
I understand what you are saying, but I don’t entirely agree.
With non-gm foods we have a long history and we call them safe even though that isn’t always perfectly accurate.
With gm foods, our history is much shorter and there are clear economic constraints on testing and understanding side-effects.
I think the best we can say at this point is something like “they seem safe so far, but there is still much that we don’t know”.
And this is what people have been trying to tell you for basically the entire thread: your fears are unwarranted. You’re holding GM foods to an impossibly high, unfair standard - a standard which virtually nothing else in your life would pass. And if you are not, then you are not paying attention, because the research that shows that they’re safe is not only present but plentiful. In the thousands of documents talking about safety in livestock, humans, for the environment, both from within and outside the biotech industry. The comparisons with the electric car were slightly overdrawn, but that’s the type of thing we’re approaching here.
What a relief it must be, then, that NOBODY HAS EVER DONE THAT.
Not really.
Vastly oversimplifying, evolution consists of two aspects- the actual genetic changes, and then the process of changing genetic frequencies through natural selection, drift, etc… Natural selection is usually (not always) fairly slow, but the actual change in the function of a protein can happen very quickly, with one or a couple of mutation (though they often build on other changes that have happened previously).
Natural selection is entirely irrelevant to how fast crop plants change, becuase they are mostly not under natural selection, they’re under artificial selection. Artificial selection is directed and designed, so it can move very fast and efficiently. GM plants operate exactly the same way, all that’s different is the process by which the novel protein is introduced into the plant. In both cases, you have a plant doing something it hasn’t done before, and then selecting for the desirable trait.
What? Why?
Almonds have been gradually selected for lower and lower amounts of cyanogenic compounds, through their history of selection. It’s not inconceivable that you could have a mutation that results in a lot more amygdalin production, and then those almonds might be poisonous. I don’t see why you consider the introduction of a new protein from an alga or a bacterium, is more of a ‘new’ and ‘untested’ thing than a new protein that arises through mutation.
Then what are you saying? What is your position on GM foods? Don’t approve new ones? Re-test existing ones lots more extensively? Do nothing except wave our hands in the air over the possibility that a health problem will materialize years in the future?
This makes little sense. Are you actually convinced that humanitarian zeal as a motivator makes it far less likely that mistakes or unintended consequences will occur? Some pretty nasty examples of pseudoscience have ensued because through the activities of zealots (see the eugenics movement for examples).
This dichotomy between science driven in part by hopes of making money and science driven by ideology strikes me as misguided.
Here it is (point #2 is what got me going in this thread due to a post that read “anything available to consumers is safe”):
1 - I have no evidence there are any current problems with GM and I don’t even have an opinion that there are current problems.
2 - I have a strong opinion that due to economic constraints (limited testing) nobody can rightfully claim that anything that makes it onto the shelves is safe.
3 - I also guarantee (that’s pure opinion, of course) there will be some problem that is discovered down the road. Meaning that either a food gets through with some side-effect that is big enough to yank the product - or - some long term side effect will be discovered, possibly a toxin interacting with a fetus.
Why do I think #3? Because this is only the beginning, companies will push the envelope as they always do, and they are constrained by the time and dollars available from the company for testing of their product.
Note: I’m a firm believer in capitalism and free markets, have owned my own business multiple times, etc., don’t think this is the ranting of someone that is perpetually anti-business, I’m just a realist.
So, my primary position is really related to knowledge and classification of safety levels, I disagree with people that overstate our understanding of complex issues.
Do I think GM foods should be banned?
Not currently.
Do I think there should be more testing?
Absolutely.
Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical possibilities made extreme on purpose to illustrate the point:
1 - A company makes a change that benefits nobody else, only their profits
2 - A company makes a change that will save millions of lives annually (due to creating a key crop that can grow in areas with limited food and high starvation)
As a society, there is very little motivation to assume risk in scenario #1. Why would we if it gains us nothing? Any other product we buy gains us something and we are willing to takes risks on that basis. We might get hurt in a car but it provides a valuable capability.
On the other hand, scenario #2 provides an actual benefit to people and the level of risk most would be willing to accept is greater than the level of risk for scenario #1.
Can you explain why you would be willing to accept the exact same level of risk in both scenarios?
I think a counter to this would be “but we make revisions to car parts all the time that only benefit the mfg and that could be dangerous”. I think this is a somewhat valid comparison and worth further exploration, but it seems genetic engineering has many more open questions and can result in unintended tangential effects compared to changing the attributes of a mechanical part, for example.
Hybrids/cross breeding relies on sexually compatible partners, gene mods don’t.
Gene mods have a larger set of possibilities that can be introduced.
Trying to get unambiguous answers from RaftPeople is like pulling impacted molars.
What does “not currently” mean? If, for example, a decade from now an allergic reaction to a GM food product occurred in a small percentage of the population, should that result in a ban on GM foods? At what point does the ban go into effect?
And what does “more testing” mean? At what level of testing are GM foods to be considered acceptably safe?
Antivaxers commonly obsess about known side effects of vaccines and demand more testing/more research, on top of the voluminous research already conducted (which they dismiss on various grounds). People have asked them: since no medical intervention has ever been known to be 100% safe, what degree of safety would you find acceptable?
None of them seem to want to address that question.
Since people are known to have digestion problems and/or allergies to certain conventionally bred foods, it is within the realm of possibility that somewhere, sometime, certain people might react badly to a component in a GM variety, though we haven’t seen this in the 20 years or so since such foods entered general use. So again I must ask: what level of safety would RaftPeople find acceptable? Or is absolute 100% absence of any problems the only acceptable outcome?
You think “Not currently” and “Absolutely” are ambiguous?
It means, as I’ve posted multiple times already:
I have no evidence or opinion that current gm foods are a problem, so I can’t exactly support a pretty invasive economic change based on no data.
You’re asking me to enumerate all of the possible outcomes and what the policy should look like, but I don’t have that much time or information.
But, so you have something more concrete, I can easily set the following parameters:
If it’s found that some method or specific type of change causes a significant problem like cancer, or defects in babies, then that method or type of change should be eliminated.
If it’s found that some food has a mild allergic reaction to some portion of the population, then it should be labeled as such.
Again, I can’t enumerate a complex policy here, but one thing we know for sure is that a 90 day test doesn’t expose long term problems.
So part of “more testing” would involve long term studies of things that scientists think are possible problem areas (for example, cry1ab).
It’s a never ending process, you can’t say you ever arrived.
“GM foods” doesn’t represent one thing that can be tested and confirmed, it’s new events all the time.
Great, I’m a firm believer in vaccines.
Not sure why you think that applies to anything I posted in this thread.
I can’t give you a percentage, there is no way any person can accurately sum up such a complex situation into a percentage.
My beef is with people minimizing the unknowns in this case.
People just making that claim over and over is hardly data that supports that position.
This is complex stuff and if you read up on what the scientists say surrounding this stuff, you will find studies that conclude “more study warranted”, meaning there are still open questions.
I’ve read some of the research. Some of the things studied show no issue. Some of the things studied concluded “more study required”.
Let me ask you an important question, kind of the crux of the debate, in my opinion:
If a new crop is modified in a new way with the goal of insect and herbicide resistance, why are you so sure that the current testing framework will spot any significant problems?
Nah. I asked you a simple question - whether a future allergic reaction to a GM food product should result in a GM ban. You are unable or unwilling to give a straight answer. Nothing new there. Props for the my-time-is-valuable evasion.
Translation - “I am unwilling to recognize that any human endeavor (including food production) can ever be 100% safe, and refuse to indicate what level of safety I would find acceptable”.
Once more, an evasion.
Speculating about GM foods causing cancer or birth defects places you in the ranks of true science deniers and hacks like Seralini.
Except that it’s been pointed out to you that testing isn’t limited to 90 days (the golden rice project has been many years in development) and that GM foods have been on the market for approximately 20 years without any demonstrated health problems. But keep repeating “90 days” if you like.
Your beef seems to be with GMOs themselves. You can’t cite any actual harms occurring, so you have to fall back on gee-we-don’t-know-ooh-something-bad-might-happen-someday.
It is not a compelling argument.
Evasion?
1 - I answered your exact question.
By stating that mild allergic reaction shouldn’t necessarily result in the ban of even that one product, any freaking 3rd grader can infer that means that an allergic reaction doesn’t necessarily cause GM foods to be banned.
2 - I provided boundaries around my position at the two extreme ends just to make sure it was clear.
An example of a mild problem and what should happen
An example of a serious problem and what should happen
And your response is that it’s an evasion?
Seriously?
Imagine if peanuts were a GM food? “We’ve discovered this new legume that tastes great, unfortunately, it’s grievously fatal to a small percentage of people”. There’s no way, not in a million years that peanuts would have passed any GM regulatory process. Yet, because peanuts are “natural”, we somehow have no problem that they kill about 200 people every year.
Or look at gluten. Bread is literally one of the oldest foods in the world yet it wasn’t until the 1940s or so that we figured out gluten was what triggered celiac’s disease. If wheat were a GM plant, we would be wailing and gnashing our teeth about how we played God and did not understand the consequences of our actions and that our ambitions exceeded our grasp of the science. Again, because it’s a “natural” food, our inclination is to shrug and say too bad for anyone with gluten intolerance.
Or look at nitrites. There’s increasing evidence coming in that nitrite consumption may be linked to increases in colon cancer. By all rights, we should put an immediate ban on nitrites until further study comes in, “just to be safe”, right? That’s exactly the kind of worst case scenario harm you envision GM foods might have, right? Again, because it’s “nautral”, there isn’t even a movement towards regulation of nitrites, I can walk into any grocery store and buy all the bacon and hot dogs I want.
And that’s not even getting into fats, sugars, red meat, grilled items, mercury, alcohol & nicotene of which we know there are negative health effects towards consuming.
How do we know that tomorrow, we won’t find that celery or chicken livers turn out to be dangerous? The answer is we don’t. Either you adopt a standard of safety that precludes you from eating anything or you adopt a reasonable standard under which GM foods both pass the bar today and which current testing standards will ensure it passes in the future.
Peanuts might well kill more people than that. Beyond the fact that some people are actually allergic to peanuts, peanuts are a preferred food source for certain fungi that produce powerful liver carcinogens.
I would like to see your explanation to #1 Jackmannii.
How is it you were unable to perform that almost trivial inference?
Novel proteins and functions can still arise by mutation, and be spread by sexual reproduction (or clonal, as the case might be).
In either case, when you introduce a new trait, the new line should be tested. I’m not sure why having a greater diversity of possible traits that you could introduce, means that any of those new traits is more likely to be dangerous. Or why new lines developed through GM should be tested more rigorously than new lines developed through conventional breeding or hybridization.
So you think we should lock our “reasonable safety standards” in today?
Some questions:
1 - Why would we disqualify future learning from our safety standards?
2 - Why do you think our current standards will cover us from anything a company dreams up?
I think a more intelligent approach would be to revise those safety standards as we gain new knowledge in the future.
Understood.
Diversity
With a greater diversity of genetic material, in new combinations, it would seem the resulting set of proteins is possibly increased which in turn increases the testing landscape.
GM
1 - If there are more changes due to an event, or those changes are larger in magnitude (introduction of antifreeze, etc.) then increased testing is warranted
2 - Some company in the future is going to make changes to their method of inserting DNA - that will need to be monitored and tested