That chart indicates that the most unpredictable category is “Mutation breeding, chemical mutagenesis, ionizing radiation”. Those techniques fall under conventional breeding techniques. In other words, it indicates that GMOs are, if anything, less prone to having unintended side effects than some types of conventionally produced crops.
Why single out GMOs for labeling, but not bat an eye at food varieties created via chemical mutagenesis?
Well, first of all, not everyone is failing to bat an eye …
In Canada crops generated by mutation breeding face the same regulations and testing as crops obtained by genetic engineering.
But yes, it’s true that in much of the world including the US, mutation breeding and chemical and radiation mutagenesis are largely unregulated, and that’s absurd. The National Academy of Sciences agrees and has blasted this state of affairs at least twice, most recently in its 2004 report on GMOs where that chart is from, where it called these mutational techniques “the most genetically disruptive and, consequently, most likely to display unintended effects from the widest potential range of phenotypic effects”.
In Canada, all plants with novel traits (PNTs) undergo the same regulations and testing, regardless of how the PNT got its novel traits. It doesn’t matter if it was because of a mutagen, or from genes inserted by a binary vector (making the PNT what we’re calling a GMO), or if it was just something that some guy found in in his backyard garden. The regulatory system does not single out plants developed using mutagenesis or, for that matter, GMOs.
If you’d actually read his remarks, you’d have seen that he was citing Academy members who were concerned about low expertise among those appearing before the panel. His concern was that the panel was predominantly hearing from anti-GMO activists, at least in the early stages.
Nope. It’s part of trying to understand why you’ve focused so obsessively on the NAS (to the virtual exclusion of any other scientific body), when the NAS been supportive of genetically modified foods. Maybe word has gotten out on anti-GMO websites and forums that some panel members are more receptive now to their pseudoscientific message?
Correct. To which you decided that such a study would not be about something like a possible allergic response to a GM food, but that people would suddenly be dropping like flies and dying from GM food consumption and that I’d be aloof to such an event.
This just demonstrates the extent to which you’ve descended into bizarre fearmongering and willingness to demonize opponents.
In the real world an outbreak of serious illness or death linked to any food product (GMO or non-GMO) prompts immediate action (such as a recall) and not just a research study
Maybe anti-GMOers need their own version of VAERS (the system where anyone can report untoward health events occurring in some proximity to vaccination). Antivaxers have milked those reports to trumpet any death occurring around the time of vaccination as being an unassailable correlation (my favorite is a “Gardasil death” where the young woman in question fell down a well a couple of weeks after getting her shot).
You still have the option of leaving in a huff while saying “I have better things to do”. That will allow you to complete your Woo Bingo card. 
*in other words, “disagrees with me”.
How absurd is it then to have essentially no regulation of the vast number of crosses involved in conventional plant breeding, which shift large numbers of genes in unpredictable ways, and commonly transfer undesirable traits along with good ones? Should we demand much more extensive and lengthy testing to assure that such crosses pose no risk whatsoever, theoretically avoiding rare circumstances where human harm has resulted (such as with the Lenape potato and the New Zealand organic zucchini found to contain toxic levels of cucurbitan)?
How do we define “acceptable” safety testing? Something that reduces level of risk to zero? At what point does “more safety testing!” become equivalent to “Never!”?
Sixteen years ago golden rice (high in beta-carotene) was on the horizon as a GM crop with great potential to prevent many of the 2 million deaths occurring in the developing world every year due to vitamin A deficiency. Largely due to vehement opposition of Greenpeace and other anti-GMO groups (including destruction of test fields by “activists”) and strangling overregulation, golden rice is still unavailable for planting.
"Right from the first Golden Rice Humanitarian Board meeting in August 2000, and at every subsequent step, scientific progress of research has been shaped and impeded by the regulatory requirements for GMO-crops. Gradually the restraining hand of these regulations developed by country signatories to comply with the hugely overcautious Cartagena Protocol, reduced the commercial attractiveness of the project for industrialised countries. Syngenta renounced commercial interest in 2004. The ability of the international co-operators to share Golden Rice seed and pool their seed breeding resources, initially in 2001 accomplished almost as easily for Golden Rice to IRRI as for wheat seed varieties by Norma(n) Borlaugh in the 1960’s, was increasingly restricted as the malevolence of the Cartagena Protocol took root in increasingly bureaucratic obligations.
Political activism in the guise of health and environmental concerns took advantage of the suspicion of GMO-crop technology as a proxy for much of the activists discontent with globalisation. The pure vision of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Project became a ‘must win’ battle for the activists, for their ideology to prevail. As the debate became more intense, some institutional participants became frightened of ‘potential liability issues’, further eroding willingness to share research materials and further impeding collaborative research and increasingly communication. Most international organisations quietly avoided any funding or association with ‘GMO-crops’ even those which had clearly huge potential for good, such as Golden Rice.
This impact of the Cartagena Protocol, and it’s adoption as the basis of regulation by its many country signatories, is unfortunate:“The [precautionary] principle has long been a major impediment to good sense in public policy. It is either so obvious as to be otiose (“if there is cause for concern, be careful”), or so vague as to be meaningless. But in its most common application—“where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically”—it has been an invaluable tool for those who want to stop any new scientific development that they dislike”.
Correct, but the PNT assessment equally captures both GMOs and induced and natural mutations. It’s additionally my understanding that although PNT is a product-based and not a process-based standard, as of 2009 the Canada Food Inspection Agency does request information about the process used to develop the novel traits in question and may subject induced mutations to additional requirements of confined research field trials.
I’m aware of that since it was right in the quote. It’s still marvelously amusing since Entine is precisely the kind of low-information non-scientist pushing an activist agenda that is wasting the panel’s time. I’d throw both the pro-GMO and anti-GMO activists out on their rear ends and focus on the science. I suppose as a publicly funded institution the Academy feels they have to give these guys a chance to vent. But I do love the way you’re hedging your bets against a possible NAS report that isn’t a total GMO whitewash.
First of all because the NAS is not equivalent to “any other scientific body” – they exist for the precise purpose of providing trusted, thorough, and objective public guidance. You may claim that there are dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of “scientific bodies” that all clamor about the safety of GMOs, yet none have issued reports that rise to that standard. The AAAS, for instance, is a fine organization, but all I’ve seen from them is a “survey” of all their members, whether or not they necessarily know anything about biotech, saying more or less that “GMOs are good”. Yes, we know that. That isn’t science.
Demonize? I asked a simple question about what sort of new information would cause you to alter your position, such as a revised position from the NAS. You’ve answered it, thank you – it appears practically nothing would shift your position. And speaking of demonizing, tell us again about anti-vaxers and climate change deniers and how they’re exactly like anyone urging caution about biotechnology, such as the journal Nature Biotechnology.
That’s quite the strawman you’ve created, since I haven’t disputed the fact that there are many beneficial GMOs and the world is full of crazy activists of all stripes. I’m just surprised you didn’t throw in yet another anti-vax anecdote. :rolleyes:
He was there as the executive director of the Genetic Literacy Project, which includes dozens of scientist contributors and advisors, including many with expertise in genetics and other areas of biology and agriculture. It is peculiar that you insist on ignoring them. Meanwhile, anti-GMO groups that got face time before the NRC panel can boast of considerably less expertise. In the end it is not the number of board members/advisers with letters after their names that counts, but the veracity of what they’re saying. In the case of (for example) Consumers Union, truth has a way of getting mangled.
I cited approximately 270 such organizations, as you know. The only thing unique about the NAS “standard” is that you hope it will eventually confirm to your FUD-slinging about GM foods.
I don’t recall your having cited any.
Yes, and we certainly know where the crazy lies on the subject of GM foods. This does not however answer the question of what degree of safety testing would ultimately satisfy you (as regards golden rice, for example). Do you support finally allowing Third World farmers and consumers to take advantage of this life-saving technology, or is it a case of “needs more study, 'cause something bad could happen!”?
Well, the long-awaited update on GMO foods from the National Academy of Sciences (that paragon of “trusted, thorough and objective public guidance” (as a GMO-suspicious poster previously put it) has been released.
After hearing from anti- and pro-GMO advocates alike, and poring through the lengthy research to date, the NAS’ conclusion remains as it has in previous analysis, and in line with conclusions from other major scientific bodies and the vast majority of researchers. “…the (NAS) committee concluded that no differences have been found that implicate a higher risk to human health safety from these GE foods than from their non-GE counterparts.”
*"The report says that foods made from such crops do not appear to pose health risks, based on chemical analyses of the foods and on animal feeding studies, though it says many animal studies are too small to provide firm conclusions. Several other regulatory, scientific and health organizations have previously also concluded that the foods are safe.
The committee also looked at the incidence of certain diseases, in some cases comparing rates in North America, where genetically modified crops have been part of the diet since 1996, and Western Europe, where food from biotech crops is not eaten much. It said it found no evidence that the crops had contributed to an increase in the incidence of cancer, obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, autism, celiac disease or food allergies.
The document also says the regulatory system should be tiered, with potentially riskier products receiving greater scrutiny before they can be marketed, whether those products are made using genetic engineering or not."*
In other words, the NAS thinks it’s time to stop focusing on what breeding techniques were used to create a plant variety/agricultural product, but on potential risk independent of technique.
Already, attempts are being made to spin the NAS committee findings to suit ideology on the issue, with a Consumer Reports’ spokesman focusing on the report’s doubts about whether GMO varieties have increased crop yields (this has not been a major emphasis of plant breeders thus far, who have focused primarily on defeating pests that either threatened entire crops (such as the Hawaiian papapa), overcoming weeds with fewer and/or less toxic herbicides, and increasingly on developing varieties with attributes that make them more appealing or nutritious (the new non-browning apple, golden rice etc.).
Other anti-GMO spin will no doubt center on cautious statements in the report about limits to the size/scope of some existing research (“we’ve got to do more research*…science has been wrong before!”) or simply fall back on the naturalistic fallacy, anecdotes (“animals won’t eat GMO corn!” “my mom’s asthma disappeared after she adopted a GMO-free diet!”) and shill arguments that have pervaded the movement.
Even though the “debate” has not been settled by any means, it’s good to see rational voices get a hearing.
*of course we do. And we will, not that conclusions of safety and value will be accepted by the closed-minded.
It might have been an idea to link tothe actual new NAS report instead of a New York Times article.
I think those reading it with an open mind will see that it doesn’t say anything revolutionary and essentially corroborates earlier findings and recommendations like those made in the earlier NAS report and in the Royal Society of Canada GMO report that I linked here. The basic conclusions are for a policy of prudence,much as the NAS and other authorities have previously stated, and as I described here, encompassing a regulatory regime with appropriate requirements for thorough safety testing.
Your assertion that testing requirements should be determined by the characteristic of the product rather than the process that produced it is basically a reasonable one and is largely how the CFIA regulates food products in Canada, but it has to be mitigated by the recognition that certain processes are intrinsically higher risk. It might gratify the GMO crowd that their poster child isn’t subject to special scrutiny, but that’s not what this is about. The idea of identifying higher-risk processes is fundamentally sensible and it actually excludes most current GMOs, but it should include GMOs with distantly related genes and non-GMO processes involving radiation or chemical mutation.
Things like this that I’ve been advocating are all eminently reasonable precautionary principles. One statement that strikes me from the new NAS report is that “sweeping statements about GE crops are problematic because issues related to them are multidimensional”. Indeed. And nothing I’ve said is a “sweeping statement”. Whereas from you and your side we get things like …
Anyone doubting the absolute and unquestionable safety of all GMOs, always, is just like the anti-vaxers and climate change deniers.
Advocating prudence is a form of “deception”.
There is no science whatsoever behind the precautionary principle – GMOs are totally harmless, guaranteed, now and forever, apparently regardless of how many foreign genes are injected – Anyone else got “science” demonstrating GMO health hazards that they’d like to discuss?
Any reference to the discussion being distorted by commercial interests is immediately ridiculed as “the granddaddy of all dishonest pseudoscience tactics - the shill gambit”. Despite the fact that the risk of skewing the public dialog is such a clear and present danger that the Royal Society of Canada report on GMO safety strongly urged “that the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Commission (CBAC) undertake a review of the problems related to the increasing domination of the public research agenda by private, commercial interests, and make recommendations for public policies that promote and protect fully independent research on the health and environmental risks of agricultural biotechnology.”
It might help if some folks were less strident and accepted the balanced view of institutions like the National Academy of Sciences for the responsible evolution and governance of promising biotechnologies without compromising either their benefits or our health and long-term well-being.
Looks like the report confirms what we already all knew. Mandatory labeling of foods with GE content is not justified to protect public health. All technologies for improving plant genetics, including conventional breeding, have the potential to change foods in ways that raise safety issues. But the process by which a food is made or a crop is bred is a poor indicator of risk.
And the spin and setting up of strawmen commences.
After repeatedly ignoring/dismissing what “other authorities” have repeatedly said about the safety of genetically modified foods and telling us how much you were looking forward to the NAS’ reexamination of the issue, now it’s ho-hum, the NAS is for prudence like everyone else?
What’s noteworthy here is that after all the alarums and fear-mongering on this issue, we have another solid affirmation of GMO safety from a scientific body (contrary to the devout hopes of anti-GMOers). “Prudent” testing has never been an issue, as previously discussed.
Thank you, but it’s not my assertion - it comes from the National Academy of Sciences. It’s another blow to claims that targeted genetic modification is so inherently dangerous that it automatically requires special intensive testing (or should be banned altogether).
Excuse me why I try to salvage my irony meter. Alright, go ahead.
Massive strawman. Factually-based arguments are treated with respect. Using tactics like the shill gambit and equating independent researchers with Monsanto execs earns anti-GMOers comparisons with antivaxers and climate change deniers.
That quote has nothing to do with advocating “prudence”, but again is a response to reprehensible tactics.
If you can show where anyone in this debate has made such a statement, I will give you a kewpie doll.
I’m reminded of your declaring that a change in one gene and a promoter sequence made a genetically modified salmon “a whole freaking new species”.
As previously stated, you are welcome to bring up any research study as an example of what you think is “commercial distortion”. I have yet to see you analyze any such study, including the ones beloved of anti-GMOers that I’ve mentioned, which were arguably distorted by bias and/or commercial interests, but most importantly were sunk by extremely poor experimental design (Seralini’s notorious rat publication, the “pig inflammation” study etc.).
Yes. Yes, it would.
It would also help if you acknowledged that the National Academy of Sciences report was not what you’d hoped, in that it (once again) reinforced the abundant evidence to date that GMO food products are as safe as their non-GMO counterparts.
They look a LOT like anti-science hysteria.
Pretty much any time Dr. Mercola says something different than scientists, I am going to side with the scientists. Whether it is organic food, vaccines, Splenda or GMO, Dr. Mercola is selling anti-science hysteria.
Most of us are not entirely certain that the non-GMO salsa at Chipotle is safe. The risk of GMO foods is now demonstrably lower than a shit ton of other food related risks. Labeling GMO foods is an attempt to pin a scarlet letter on GMO foods.
Who said that things would be safe now and forever no matter what developments arise? Is there ANYTHING that you can say that about?
No shit.
But how much tolerance should we have for anti-science conspiracy theories?
I missed the part where the NAS said ANYTHING that would justify labeling GMO foods.
Steve Novella on the NAS report*:
"They argue, and I agree, that it is not rational to base requirements for testing on the process but rather on the outcome. They write:
Emerging genetic technologies have blurred the distinction between genetic engineering and conventional plant breeding to the point where regulatory systems based on process are technically difficult to defend. The committee recommends that new varieties—whether genetically engineered or conventionally bred—be subjected to safety testing if they have novel intended or unintended characteristics with potential hazards.
This makes a great deal of sense. Conventional breeding, use of forced hybridization, or mutation farming, is not inherently safer than using any of the increasing number of technologies for more directly altering the genetic makeup of a crop. What matters is if there are novel traits of unknown safety, in which case they should be tested.
This blurring of the lines should also frustrate labeling efforts, since the entire notion behind labeling is based on the false dichotomy that the NAS report just demolished."
Earlier, Novella had this to say about calls for mandatory labeling:
"We also have to remember that the GMO labeling movement is not just based in misguided fear of GMOs, it is a dedicated anti-GMO plan. The Genetic Literacy Project has gathered some telling quotes, and we should take anti-GMO advocates at their word. Here are a few examples:
“We are going to force them to label this food. If we have it labeled, then we can organize people not to buy it.” – Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director, Center for Food Safety
“With labeling it (GMOs) will become 0%… For you the label issues is vital, if you get labeling then GMOs are dead-end.” – Vandana Shiva, environmental activist
“The burning question for us all then becomes how—and how quickly—can we move healthy, organic products from a 4.2% market niche, to the dominant force in American food and farming? The first step is to change our labeling laws.” – Ronnie Cummins, Director, Organic Consumers Association
They have spent two decades demonizing GMOs as Frankenfood. They have GMOs on the ropes of public opinion, now mandatory labeling is the knockout punch."
GMO opponents are probably delusional if they think forced labeling would destroy genetic modification technology. What it would likely accomplish is delaying and halting some highly useful and lifesaving efforts, like the golden rice project and efforts to drastically reduce the population of non-native Zika virus-carrying mosquitoes (currently being resisted by GMO opponents in Florida).
*the anti-GMO group Food & Water Watch is attacking the NAS committee as being biased by industry ties. The Shill Gambit lives.
What do you think I “hoped” for? I was very clear about it here:
My position is already supportive of biotech and GM with the important caveat that we need unceasing vigilance over testing and safety. I am prepared to modify my position toward greater or lesser concern if and when a new scientific consensus emerges in this or future reports.
If what you got out of that is that I was hoping for some vicious indictment of GMOs then your interpretation of my comments has been nothing short of delusional.
They actually look a lot like the statements from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, Nature Biotechnology, and the Journal of Toxicological Sciences, all of which I quoted.
They didn’t. I’ll acknowledge that a good potential reason for NOT requiring GMO labeling is that there’s so much of it now in our North American food supply that it may no longer serve a useful purpose, in which case labeling the absence may be more expedient. However the argument that it shouldn’t be labeled because certain evil lobbyists are going to misuse the information for goals that you don’t agree with is a very poor argument for any suppression of information.
I presume the last paragraph is yours – it’s not clear where the Novella quote ends and your commentary begins. In any case, the sentiments are the same. I think the “blurring the distinction” bit of handwaving is hiding an important issue. It’s fine to say that focusing on novel traits should be the basis of regulation, but we also need to recognize that certain processes are most likely to produce such novel traits. Namely rDNA transfers from distantly related species and mutation breeding through chemical mutagenesis and the use of ionizing radiation. I have certainly not argued that the latter is “inherently safer” than “directly altering the genetic makeup of a crop”, in fact it’s more likely to result in unintended consequences than DNA transfers from closely related species. So it’s not even a GMO question at all, although the potential for increasing use of distantly related DNA as biotech advances makes it relevant to a GMO discussion. But it’s fundamentally just the recognized precautionary principle in all forms of regulation that sources of higher systematic risk should get more scrutiny. In foods, risks increase with modifications that are either random and uncontrolled, as in mutagenesis, or that have unintended effects from the introduction of DNA from distant species.
I regret that you are having difficulty recognizing quotation marks. It’s clear where the NAS committee’s comments end and Novella’s (not mine) begin.
So, the National Academy of Sciences’ committee is engaging in “handwaving”? I am shocked, SHOCKED, to see you sneering at a conclusion by an organization which you’ve repeatedly told us is the go-to source when it comes to evaluating GMOs.
Or maybe you got careless reading that line and didn’t realize Steve Novella was quoting the NAS report. Gotta watch those quotes.
The NAS report does not cite “novel traits” as bogeymen, but rather notes that the outcomes of both conventional plant breeding and genetic modification are what need to be scrutinized - not the particular technique that produced a crop.
The NAS committee also pointed out that GM technology may help us cope with climate change.*
“Currently, most of the genetically modified crops commercially available have added traits that protect plants from pests and make them resistant to herbicides. But in the future, the technology could be used more to address crop vulnerabilities to climate change, by incorporating traits for drought resistance and for heat and cold tolerance, according to the report.”
*For some ideologically hidebound folks, the conflict between clinging to anti-GMO sentiments and embracing a means of coping with climate change must be difficult. Heads could asplode.
You might note that the words “Emerging genetic technologies have blurred the distinction …” came immediately after the sentence “They write:” so it’s pretty damn clear that this self-evident truism came from the NAS report. This is just saying that “genetic modification” can describe the kinds of breeding practices that have been going on for centuries, so the dividing line between conventional and GE practices is not a distinct one.
The “handwaving” I’m referring to is how this truism is immediately extended to a supposed axiomatic principle by pundits like Novella, who loses no time in declaring that “This blurring of the lines should also frustrate labeling efforts, since the entire notion behind labeling is based on the false dichotomy that the NAS report just demolished.” The NAS report hasn’t “demolished” anything. More on this below.
But maybe you should just admit that you botched the quote, because in the original article the NAS quote is separated from Novella’s punditry by a huge indent highlighted with a big stylized quotation mark, whereas in your version the NAS statement and Novella’s proselytizing are all run together in one quote, making it seem as if the NAS is in fact proselytizing for your side.
And I agree. What I object to is how this is insidiously used to push the idea that genetic engineering should be given a free pass in regulatory terms because process doesn’t matter. Process does matter because certain biotechnology processes are more likely than others – and more likely than conventional breeding techniques – to produce those novel traits with unintended consequences. Biolistic DNA transfers are riskier than those using agrobacterium methods, any DNA transfers from distantly related species are riskier than those from closely related species, and so forth. This is not the same as saying that regulation should be based on process, but it is saying that we should recognize that the open-ended nature of biotech has the greatest potential for producing more extreme novel traits in the future with potential for both good and for harm.
It’s noteworthy that despite the dismissive comments of some posters that my mention of the precautionary principle is “anti-science hysteria”, the new NAS report devotes an entire discussion sidebar to it (BOX 9-2 The Precautionary Principle, in Chapter 9 on recommendations for regulation) and it’s central to numerous other reports like the one I mentioned from the Royal Society of Canada.
It’s also noteworthy that the NAS finds that “the diverse regulatory processes for products of genetic engineering mirror the broader social, political, legal, and cultural differences among countries”. It finds that the EU “has taken a more precautionary approach [than the US] to approving the commercialization of GE crops” and that “unlike the United States, Canada passed new laws to revise its regulatory system to address concerns being raised about GE crops and foods.” The question one might ask here is which is more likely:
[ul]
[li]That the US regulatory system is being unduly influenced by commercial interests – a hypothesis for which there is abundant evidence in virtually every industry and their massive retinues of overt and covert lobbyists, OR[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]That the US regulatory system is actually extraordinarily enlightened and that for some inexplicable reason the residents of Europe and Canada and most other countries are all a bunch of “anti-science” idiots, as some here have snarkily suggested.[/li][/ul]
If the latter is true, it’s hard to explain why Europe has been the most proactive on climate change with the most progressive regulations, and the US the least proactive and least progressive, for what I would venture to suggest are much the same reasons of commercial influence.
I note that you’re ignoring my response in #174 to your snark about what I was “hoping for” from the new report. You appear to be so invested in this issue that you misread a conservatively cautious approach to the long-term safety of biotech as some kind of anti-science crusade. As I implied, what I was hoping for was more information, and I’ve been reading the report with interest.
Now that I’ve read the report more thoroughly, I see that I missed it the first time, too. The report correctly observes that there are others issues involved than just product safety, like simply the right to know. The NAS clearly states that “in deciding what information to exclude from public disclosure as confidential business information or on other legal grounds, regulating authorities should bear in mind the importance of transparency, access to information, and public participation and should ensure that exemptions are as narrow as possible.” They extend this principle to labeling requirements. While making it clear that they do not believe that across-the-board GMO labeling is justified by considerations of public safety, they state that:
… product labeling serves purposes that go beyond food safety. As with coexistence, U.S. policy-makers and the private sector have the ability to address the broader social and economic issues and to balance the competing interests involved. The marketplace is also responding to consumer interest in avoiding GE foods: the number of products voluntarily labeled as “non-GMO” has increased dramatically in the last 10 years.
It’s interesting that they quote a study (Runge et. al, 2015) finding that the number of Americans wanting to see GMO labeling rose from 86% in 2000 to 93% in 2013. I refer back to my previous paragraph about the undue influence of commercial interests on the US regulatory system. If virtually all Americans want information about GMOs on their food labels, and all of Europe and many other countries like Japan and Taiwan already require it, then why aren’t they getting it?
I find myself actually much less concerned about absence of GMO labeling than about the reasons for it. Industry resistance to it isn’t science-based, even if the science is on their side this time. It’s not any more science-based than blanket assurances about the safety of tobacco, tetraethyl lead in the environment, hexavalent chromium in the drinking water in Hinkley or lead in the drinking water in Flint, Thalidomide, cyclamates, and countless food additives. There is a real and valid concern about a very powerful new emerging technology in the hands of an industry that overwhelmingly dominates the legislative and regulatory processes, and which has the potential to introduce more and more elaborate forms of transgenetically engineered foods into the marketplace without adequate oversight.
The process by which a food is made or a crop is bred is a poor indicator of risk. Labeling of foods with GE content is not justified to protect public health.
wolfpup, you should admit that in your rush to attack the “blurring of distinction” comment as “handwaving”, you failed to notice that it was the National Academy of Sciences committee that made that point about comparisons of GM and conventionally bred crop varieties. And now it’s youu engaging in handwaving to cover up your error. Embarrassing - but let’s move on.
Except no one here, or the GM advocates quoted here has argued that genetically modified crops should be exempt from regulation and testing. Creating such strawmen does not bolster your views.
Beyond frantic attempts at spinning the NAS committee report, why not look at what the committee itself thought was important?
*"Gregory Jaffe, Director of Biotechnology at the group, in a public statement, said,
“One of the report’s most significant findings is that there are no food safety or human health impacts from eating foods and ingredients made from currently engineered crops. That should give consumers confidence about the safety of eating foods that have those ingredients.”*
The study authors issued a consensus opinion on the environmental issues with GMO crops:
“Overall, the committee found no conclusive evidence of cause-and-effect relationships between GE crops and environmental problems. However, the complex nature of assessing long-term environmental changes often made it difficult to reach definitive conclusion.”
This is typical of science. The evidence today points to the conclusion that there is no causal relationship between genetically engineered crops and environmental issues. However, as the statement suggests, if evidence does appear then maybe it should be revisited. Don’t fall for the fallacies of the the precautionary principle – just because we haven’t uncovered data, doesn’t mean there is going to be data."*
I think that’s a good point about the “precautionary principle”. The principle itself has merit, but ignoring a strong scientific consensus of safety while disguising one’s baseless fears, biases and preconceptions as reasonable precautions is fundamentally dishonest.
*I added italics and bolding as a precaution against your jumping to laughably false conclusions.
Misuse of the “precautionary principle” applies not only to anti-GMOers, but to other anti-science/pseudoscience advocates, who use it in an attempt to block or roll back policies and technologies they dislike.
Here’s an example of the precautionary principle being used to denounce vaccination (genetic modification is also cited). Note the use of other familiar tropes as well (science was wrong before, corporate interests stand to make billions etc.):
http://rense.com/general86/our.htm
Water fluoridation has also been attacked as supposedly violating the precautionary principle.
Bottom line - the principle itself may have validity, but not when it’s misused to justify assaults on a beneficial application that has a strong scientific consensus backing its safety and usefulness.
And again: when one finds oneself employing tactics commonly used by anti-science/pseudoscience advocates, it’s time to think about whether using them is counterproductive, and possibly even to reassess one’s fundamental convictions.
Really? You’re going to keep insisting that the phrase immediately following Novella saying “They write: …” was not understood by me to mean “they wrote this”? That’s even more hilarious than your insistence that I was “hoping for” a report that denounces GMOs when I clearly showed you an earlier statement expressing my flexibility on the issue and was hoping for new information, as any rational person would be doing! And the obvious change in tone beginning with the paragraph “This makes a great deal of sense …” clearly marks the end of the NAS commentary and the beginning of proselytizing. The only mistake I made, because I missed the final quote mark, was in not recognizing whether this was back to Steve Novella’s commentary or whether it was your own proselytizing.
Your closed-mindedness on the issue is astounding. Why don’t you address the things I actually say?
Yet everything you state after that is a strawman created by you. No one here (at least, not I) has challenged the statement about food safety and health impacts of current GMO food products which is the one thing that all reports seem to agree on. And the environmental issue isn’t something I’ve ever even brought up!
The fallacy here is treating the GMO issue and biotechnology in general as some fixed monolithic thing, about which definitive statements can be made and the issue settled once and for all. It most certainly is not. The concerns, as I keep saying, are with how biotech is evolving and with the future risks it may present with the introduction of more and more distantly related genetic material, a problem hugely exacerbated by the historical propensity of industry, especially in the US, to skew the legislative and regulatory agenda and the public dialog consistently in its favor. The following is worth repeating – it’s from the Royal Society of Canada GMO safety report discussed previously:
"The risks in biotechnology are undeniable, and they stem from the unknowable in science and commerce. It is prudent to recognize and address those risks, not compound them by overly optimistic or foolhardy behaviour.”
– Editors - Nature Biotechnology (October 2000)