You know, this is an entirely separate issue from vaccines. You don’t strengthen your argument by pointing out that people who are suspicious of some other technology are suspicious of this one.
Strictly speaking, we don’t need carrots that come in different colors, or blue potatoes, but they have a niche and actually sell pretty decently.
If you’ve never had it why do you assume that? It’s just the addition of beta-carotene to the rice kernel, that’s all. Lots of food will come in varieties with different pigments but little or no difference in flavor. I’m a bit baffled why you think this would affect the “texture and cooking properties”.
See, this is where a lot of misunderstanding comes in - the difference between golden rice and regular rice is actually very, very small - one to three genes (there is actually more than one version of golden rice). That’s all.
A lot of food on wealthy tables is not so much needed as desired - by making something like golden rice popular in wealthy areas you not only have a crop that helps the poor, it’s also potentially and income-generator as well.
Genetic modification is a separate issue - but the foolish arguments and disreputable tactics used to condemn it and its evidence-based supporters are the same as those used by antivaxers*. The reason for bringing it up is not merely to embarrass anti-GMOers (who deserve it), but to open the eyes of those they’re trying to influence.
This is not meant as a personal critique, since your posts have been reasonable and generally fact-based.
*regarding the statement made at the bottom of the linked chart: you can be pro-immunization and also question certain aspects/implications of GM technology. But you can’t use the same playbook as antivaxers and expect to be taken seriously.
You may think you are embarrassing people by comparing them to anti-vaxers, but I think it comes off as a simple ad hominem, and weakens your position. “No one can question the one true God of scientific progress, if they do, in any way, they are a heathen.”
There are plenty of arguments in favor of taking advantage of GMO technology.
[QUOTE=puzzlegal]
You may think you are embarrassing people by comparing them to anti-vaxers, but I think it comes off as a simple ad hominem, and weakens your position. “No one can question the one true God of scientific progress, if they do, in any way, they are a heathen.”
[/QUOTE]
He seems to be pointing out that they use the same tactics and even arguments, which SHOULD be embarrassing to people who are doing it. I don’t see it as “No one can question the one true God of scientific progress, if they do, in any way, they are a heathen.”…ironically, THAT seems like both a strawman and an ad hominem.
Okay. That’s how I read his posts, but perhaps I lack context.
For context, read posts #52 and 83 (for brevity, the last lines in each post will do). Or comments in this and other GMO threads.
It is wearying to painstakingly present evidence on the value and safety of foods/medicines created with the aid of biotechnology, only to be met with the same old nonsense by those who lack evidence and feel they must instead utilize threadbare tactics to demonize the opposition.
By the way, I apparently missed this comment earlier.
I know of no GMO product that have been found unsafe on any evidence-based standard. Can you describe your rationale for deeming any of them unsafe to consume?
“Are GMO foods safe?” Is like asking “are cooked foods safe.” Being GMO didn’t make it safe. Neither does being cooked. It’s the wrong question. I don’t know of any GMO foods currently on the market that are unsafe. That doesn’t mean there won’t be.
I read one guy’s recipe for “do it yourself sous vide” which was pretty much “leave it in warm water for a few hours, without any temperature control.” You know what, that’s not safe to eat.
GMO has the potential to make all sorts of changes to food. Most will likely add value. But just because it’s “GMO” doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Sure, you could genetically modify food to make it more dangerous, but why would you? This isn’t like cooking: An idiot amateur can throw together an unsafe sous vide cooker in his garage, but you’re not going to get idiot amateur gene-splicing, at least not for a long while yet.
There was certainly pressure from the industry for GMOs to be entirely unregulated (or entirely industry-self-regulated, if you prefer). I believe that new GMOs, especially ones that make significant changes, ought to be subject to some regulation and testing.
The other post I made above that no one responded to was a question as to the regulatory environment today. DOES anyone other than the developer test these things? Are there any guidelines for the sorts of tests the developer ought to put them through? That’s an honest question, I don’t know the answer to it.
We have safety rules for commercially prepared food. There ought to be some safety rules for commercially created GMO crops, as well, IMO. I don’t think they need to be extremely onerous, and I don’t expect they will prevent new crops from being developed. Just like restaurant safety rules don’t prevent new foods from being served. But if they are VERY different (say, the introduction of sous vide cooking) there probably ought to be some research around what the safe parameters are.
While CRISPR suffers from the usual science journalism hype, you can mailorder Cas9 and your gRNA of choice. It’s not idiot-proof for sure, but the kits don’t exactly require a PhD. At least plants are harder than bacteria or yeast.
Of course.
Regulatory agencies in the U.S*. do not do pre-release testing of any food products**, whether or not they’re GMO, using the standard that safety reflects the nature of the product, not the process by which it’s produced (a view supported by the recent report by a National Academy of Sciences panel). As has been noted previously, GM food testing (encompassing a vast number of studies by independent scientists) dwarfs that done for “conventional” food products, including those made using varieties created through irradiation and random crosses. *"…the claim that GMOs are ‘understudied…has become a staple of anti-GMO critics, especially activist journalists. In response to what they believed was an information gap, a team of Italian scientists cataloged and analyzed 1783 studies about the safety and environmental impacts of GMO foods—a staggering number.
The researchers couldn’t find a single credible example demonstrating that GM foods pose any harm to humans or animals. “The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops,” the scientists concluded.
The research review, published in Critical Reviews in Biotechnology in September, spanned only the last decade—from 2002 to 2012—which represents only about a third of the lifetime of GM technology."*
One example: the genetically modified papaya, which has saved the Hawaiian papaya industry. This article details the its development, misrepresentations about its safety, denial by anti-GMO activists that relevant testing had occurred and its vindication.
I could mention what other type of activism commonly employs bogus claims that testing is inadequate or nonexistent, but best not to go there again. 
*the three main agencies with oversight of GM foods in the U.S. are the FDA, EPA and USDA.
**there is also no pre-release testing by federal agencies of new drugs, regardless of whether they’re produced through genetic modification or not. That is hardly an indication that drugs are not tested.
FYI, the National Institute of Standard and Technologies is working on genome editing standards. They hosted a workshop last year [pdf]:
Talk titles included:
[ul]
[li]Beyond Reproducibility in Biomedical Measurements[/li][li]Defining and Improving the Specificities of Genome-Editing Nucleases[/li][li]Regulatory Perspective (speaker from the FDA)[/li][li]Perspective from industry on measurement needs[/li][li]Measurement Assurance Needs for Genome Editing[/li][/ul]
- Needs for confidence in off-target measurements
- Needs for confidence in genome editing pipeline assessment and comparability
- Data/Informatics Standards Considerations
I’m not sure who or what this is specifically in reference to, but I dropped out of this discussion a dozen or two posts ago when it simply became a series of ad hominems and false equivalences like this which brought it down to the level of pointless bickering. However the sum total of this statement is such complete misleading garbage that it requires a response.
First and foremost, who in this discussion so far has been “anti-GMO”? Name them, and provide the cite. Otherwise, why even bring up “anti-GMOers” if no one here has such a position, let alone draw some crazy analogy with anti-vaxers?
It seems to me that it’s impossible for anyone to voice the slightest concern about the future of GMOs or the precautionary principle without you appearing instantly, as you did right after my first post, in all-out defensive mode, accusing such critics of “the shill gambit” and claiming an exact equivalence with anti-vax lunacy despite the fact that reputable sources like the Royal Society of Canada report on GMOs I’ve cited several times (a) endorses the precautionary principle, and (b) cites the extraordinary influence of corporate lobbyists as a factor potentially undermining the public interest.
The corporate lobbying influence is a fact of life, well documented in the context of things like the failure of public policy to support the public interest in health insurance, in a broad spectrum of other areas, with many specific examples. Indeed, the climate change “debate” is currently being largely orchestrated by industrial interests and particularly the fossil fuel interests, which is generally well known but recently documented in a peer-reviewed study.
So please stop accusing anyone bringing up these concerns of being “anti-GMO” and equivalent to an anti-vaxer, or of playing “the shill gambit”. The health insurance lobby and the fossil fuel lobby are using the exact same tactics as the tobacco lobby before them, except with newer and more powerful tactics including a plethora of fake grassroots organizations all over the Internet.
None of this says GMOs are not safe and it’s disingenuous and misleading to engage in knee-jerk arguments and create some straw man to knock down when no one has ever made such an argument here. It’s an argument for responsible public oversight and regulation.
Here’s a specific example of all the things I’ve been saying. Here are the key points that the Center for Science in the Public Interest makes about GMOs:
- Foods and ingredients made from currently grown GE crops are safe to eat.
- GE crops grown in the U.S. and around the world provide tremendous benefits to farmers and the environment.
**3. The U.S. regulatory system for GE crops and animals needs improvement. - Sustainable practices are essential to achieving long-term benefits from GE crops. **
- GE crops can play a positive role in the agriculture of developing countries.
Biotechnology | Center for Science in the Public Interest
If we’re genuinely interested, as you claim, to have people “open their eyes”, the first thing to note here is that points 1, 2, and 5 can be true simultaneously with points 3 and 4 (and especially point 3) also being true. They are not contradictory, and there is no “anti-vaxing” or “shill gambit” going on. What the CSPI states is pretty much exactly my position.
The second thing to note is that CSPI has been around for nearly half a century and seems to have pretty good credibility. Well, unless you Google a bit and find that it’s apparently being condemned by certain sites, like a pro-alcohol site and some site that claims to track and discredit “activists”. And lo and behold, all those sites trashing CSPI seem to have a common origin – The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), initially set up with money from the Philip Morris tobacco company to fight smoking limitations in restaurants, and later expanded to lobby “on behalf of the fast food, meat, alcohol and tobacco industries”.
As with climate change, it’s industry fighting for its interests and to hell with the public. Monsanto is already a ferocious advertiser and lobbyist. Unlike climate change, so far the science is largely aligned with the GMO interests. What do you think would happen if that ever changes, and GMO interests and science were on opposite sides? You have only to look at the climate change “debate” to see the disastrous answer. What would happen, indeed, if the industry wanted to introduce merely a food product or additive of questionable safety under the present regulatory regime, whether GMO or not? You have only to look at the sordid history of additives like Olestra, BVO (brominated vegetable oil), azodicarbonamide, and synthetic hormones (rBGH and rBST), which have generally had an easier time getting by the US FDA than they have in other countries.
It would help your credibility if you acknowledge these realities instead of engaging in a knee-jerk defense of an industry and ad hominem attacks against those arguing for the long-term public interest. That’s all I have to say on the matter.
I cited your use of the shill gambit not after your first post, but following a later one in which you referred to me as a “Monsanto stockholder”. Or did you forget that “zinger”?
…which however does not permit us to ignore science in favor of waving our arms about Corporate Meanies. Nor do anti-GMOers get to ignore science while comparing every company that produces GM foods and medicines (from the smallest firms on up) with tobacco companies, Big Oil, and whoever March Against Monsanto has in its sights.
Ah, the threadbare “Astroturfing” accusation appears, in which legitimate reporting and advocacy can be dismissed as “fake”, in classic shill gambit mode. Do explain which of the 280+ scientific organizations who’ve expressed support for GMO crop safety are “fake grassroots organizations” - or do you prefer to continue ignoring them in favor of cherrypicking decades-old “precautionary” statements from a couple of sources (including Nature Biotechnology, whose 2000 view has changed markedly (a turnabout you continue to ignore).
Your newfound acceptance of current GMO food safety would be more impressive if you weren’t intent on dire warnings about “the sordid history of additives” (what that has to do with, say, Innate potatoes is a mystery) and of dangers just around the corner if we don’t implement unspecified new regulation of unspecified products (I asked you before about what regulations you want, and which products in the pipeline (including life and vision-saving golden rice) you would delay until unspecified regulations have been satisfied. But I haven’t gotten an answer and sadly do not expect to.
Climate change is a good example of an issue where opponents are heavily 1) dependent on a limited amount of badly conducted and dubiously relevant studies, 2) are overwhelmingly not experts in the field, though they may have advanced degrees in unrelated subjects, and 3) love to paint their opponents as having nefarious ulterior motives.
It sounds drearily familiar. As do cries of “I’m not anti-GMO” from someone who keeps regurgitating anti-GMO talking points.*
speaking of which, the person cited here, who says gosh no* she’s not an anti, is intent on slamming all existing examples of a beneficial technology, while claiming to support a future Nirvana version of it. - On the other hand you say you accept the current technology but warn that the future holds horrific dangers unless we act something something or other. So you’re sort of her mirror image twin, tactically speaking.
**she actually prefers somewhat earthier expletives.
It’d be swell if we could have posts along the lines of “X technological innovation has the capacity to cause unexpected deleterious consequences because of Y (which the following research/experience have documented ___), so Z regulation would be prudent.”
Instead we have cries of “Monsanto!”, shill-hunting and selected vague and moldy quotes from a few sources, which are less than helpful in creating understanding.
Excellent evidence for exactly what I’m saying! I ask the reader interested in an evidence based-discussion to follow along here. Here are the evidence-based statements I listed in the earlier post, with documentation available at the link:
Here are the key points that the Center for Science in the Public Interest makes about GMOs:
1. Foods and ingredients made from currently grown GE crops are safe to eat.
2. GE crops grown in the U.S. and around the world provide tremendous benefits to farmers and the environment.
3. The U.S. regulatory system for GE crops and animals needs improvement.
4. Sustainable practices are essential to achieving long-term benefits from GE crops.
5. GE crops can play a positive role in the agriculture of developing countries.
https://cspinet.org/protecting-our-health/biotechnology
… What the CSPI states is pretty much exactly my position.
And the response to that? None whatsoever. Instead, I am equated with the anti-vax idiot Jenny McCarthy! 
This doesn’t even remotely reflect any reality but is just pure invective that does nothing to move the discussion forward.
I’ve merged these quotes from two consecutive posts because they say essentially the same thing.
No, that’s not how it works. The basis of prudent precautionary regulation is not premised on requiring defenders of public safety to document specific hazards, it’s based on developing reasonable standards and requiring product developers to document safety in accordance with those standards. Your position, naturally, places the onus on the public instead of the industry, which is exactly ass-backwards, and this is precisely one of the deficiencies in GE approval protocols in the US today. The process is based on entirely voluntary “consultation” with the FDA with no pre-market approval requirements, under the general guidelines of a principle called “Generally Regarded As Safe”, and at no point does the FDA even have to grant a formal approval, only to indicate no specific objections. Essentially the burden of proof is on the FDA to prove lack of safety, instead of on the developer to legally have to prove safety.
There are also issues with sustainable GE farming. Overuse of Roundup (glyphosate) has not only resulted in glyphosate-tolerant crops but more than a dozen glyphosate-tolerant weeds requiring additional herbicide spraying. Improper use of some Bt corn varieties has resulted in resistant corn rootworms. And several varieties of corn approved only for feed purposes (like Starlink) have found their way into human food products.
Those are just a few examples of where regulatory frameworks should be strengthened, and where in many ways the US regulatory regime lags behind the rest of the world, as it does in many other areas including climate change. And speaking of which, GE crops may well be an important blessing in radically changed regional climates, but at the same time the encroachment of newly migrated pests due to climate change and losses of biodiversity pose potentially serious risks that may exacerbate GE crop issues, all of which require prudent oversight based on sound science and not carefree and profit-based relegation to the “free market”.
It’s not “newfound” but again, this attempt at personal attacks does nothing to advance the discussion. And why is it a “mystery”, when you consistently claim that GE substances are no different than any others? The point is that those additives are representative of substances that were explicitly approved by the FDA, often under industry pressure, despite having known or potential harmful side effects that got them banned in other countries. If you don’t see the point or find that disturbing I don’t know what else to say.
Again, dead silence about what products currently under development/in the research pipeline supposedly pose threats, and specifically zero comment on golden rice, which has been bitterly fought by anti-GMOers.
And nothing concrete about what new regulations are required to counter alleged new GMO food dangers, other than to say those who develop such products should evaluate safety, which is already being done (unless wolfpup wants industry to create new regulations for itself, which sounds farcical).
And it’s not “generally recognized as safe” which largely governs federal oversight of new GMO food products, it’s substantial equivalence, which is basically what the National Academy of Sciences panel has long recognized (since 1987 in fact, and recently restated) - it’s not the process we should be hyperventilating about, it’s the product that counts, whether GMO or non-GMO. If you want to come up with a regulation that (for instance) utilizes genomics testing to evaluate the DNA of new crop varieties (again, GMO or non-GMO) and determines that alteration beyond a specific point should make additional safety testing mandatory (and good luck determining what that point should be), then propose it, don’t mumble about industry-should-prove-it-safe.
I encourage wolfpup to study the use of pesticides pre-GMO, at which point (s)he will discover that the problem of resistance in agriculture long predates biotech. As does the use of pesticides whose toxicity dwarfs that of the the anti-GMO bogeyman, Roundup.
They-banned-GMOs-in-other-countries tells us nothing since those bans are not based on science. Russia is one of those nations - does Putin have a handle on evidence-based objections to GMOs that he hasn’t revealed to us?
Good news from the campaign to save vision and lives through enhanced vitamin A crop varieties - a new genetically modified banana has been successfully tested in Uganda:
It’ll take awhile for this new variety to come into routine use, which should give anti-GMOers plenty of time to delay and otherwise sabotage the project, as they have for vitamin-A enriched golden rice. Oh wait, they’ve already gone bananas over it. Vandana Shiva, goddess of the anti-GMO movement has proclaimed that it represents “piracy of indigenous biodiversity”:
Most suspiciously, the GM banana project is being financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and we know what those people have been up to. 
:dubious::eek:
Here is the oft-cited corn pesticide decrease: