see my letters to the editor on this:
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/5436874-123/letter-modified-foods-safe-beneficial
http://theadvocate.com/news/opinion/5436874-123/letter-modified-foods-safe-beneficial
Whole Foods is doing this for profit Apparently labeling foods as nonGMO yields a sales spike between 15-30 percent. Whole Foods did not say why they are doing it except for “we stood up for the consumer’s right to know”. They do NOT say that they are doing it with regard to any actual PRINCIPLE; they just say it’s for the information. I would posit it is for PROFITS! Although they claim the information is for everyone, the target customers are people who are opposed to GMOs.
Ignorance of biology The public’s rejection of genetically modified foods and organisms is short-sighted and the result of ignorance. Ignorance in the sense of lack of information. Ignorance of basic biology. A brief biology lesson relevant to GMOs: Every living thing on earth is a genetically modified organism. Mutation is the naturally-occurring way of genetic modification (there are others, but it’s too complicated to describe here.) Life, in the form of cells, emerged 2.5 to 3.8 billion years ago. All cells contain the genetic material of DNA. Since the first cell, cellular DNA mutates every time a cell divides, usually just a little bit. Mutation is the tool of evolution: if there were no mutation, there would be no evolution. If there was no evolution or mutation, we would all still be in the primordial soup. If there were no evolution, neither us nor the foods we eat would be here at all. (Most of our food is from living things also.) Moreover, for millennia, agriculturalists have genetically modified organisms in the form of selective breeding to improve crops and livestock. Cruciform vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale are all derived by selective breeding of wild mustard. Domestic dogs are human-selected mutants of wild canines. This is even mentioned in the bible (in a primitive way), when Jacob keeps the spotted and speckled goats, to his advantage. Darwin mentioned “artificial selection” (crop and animal breeding) as his first argument for natural selection. Since the 1970s, with the advent of molecular biology, scientists have intentionally modified organisms genetically, through development of transgenic organisms. Many lifesaving products are the result of GMOs, such as insulin, TPA . GMO foodcrops have properties such as faster growth, resistance to pathogens, production of extra nutrients.
Blanket distrust of technology The involvement of a major CEO (of Whole Foods) in perpetrating this ignorance for profit is shameful and blocks progress. I do not understand why the anti-technology people are against humans controlling their own destiny, if possible. Scientific manipulation of DNA essentially uses the same processes as nature. The only difference is that people control it. I am completely for saving the planet, but the public wholesale distrust of technology does not help. To object to GMOS blindly is to be unknowledgeable about basic facts of biology. There are people who are unilaterally opposed to technology. Yet they use computers and take vaccines or medicine if they are sick. The case of “Golden Rice” is also instructive, in which many countries outright rejected free GMO rice which could save millions of cases of blindness and death in children. Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund are opposed to GMOs and Golden Rice. I used to support Greenpeace. Here is a quote from the green peace site “To protect the environment and human health from the risks of GMOs, Greenpeace has campaigned to stop their release into our environment since 1995. We scored a big win in 2000 when the Biosafety Protocol was adopted in Montreal, Canada. This agreement mandates that countries take precautionary measures to prevent GMOs from causing harm to biodiversity and human health.”
GMOs are safe Many high-level scientific studies have shown that there are no intrinsic, biochemical differences between GMOs and nonGMOs: DNA is DNA, protein is protein, etc. From Wikipedia: “There is broad scientific consensus that food on the market derived from GM crops pose no greater risk than conventional food.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] No reports of ill effects have been documented in the human population from GM food.[7][74][75] From: AAAAS, WHO, NRC, Council on Science and Public Health There are some anti-GMO web sites. I don’t see them giving a rational reason for being against GMO foods http://www.greenamerica.org/pubs/greenamerican/articles/AprilMay2012/
GMOs, like anything else should be regulated and consumers should be informed I agree that information is good. I don’t think information should be withheld. However, a balanced view of GMOs should be presented, if all the trouble to label will be added. There are agribusiness issues regarding companies that use GMO, but that doesn’t mean that GMOs are intrinsically dangerous. I think there is a danger of GMOs in the problem of monoculture, but that is not relevant to the intrinsic GMO issue. I agree that should be regulated, but they are not intrinsically dangerous.
I tend to be more skeptical of the big corporate behind the big science that makes GMO crops. In principle, I too have no problem with specific useful genetic changes, whether naturally bred or engineered. However, the two most commercially successful GMO traits, BT toxin genes in crops and Round-Up resistance, the environmental and health consequences are significant. Adding genes that make crops toxic to insects might seem like a good idea until you realize that all of a sudden the new molecules these genes are making are now part of the American diet. Round-up Ready genes have generated green deserts out of much of the farm belt, likely contributing to the demise of monarch butterflies among many the many species that can no longer find native habitat in the farm belt.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with GMOs is that it is too easy to make big mistakes. Traditional breeding tends to make changes that take years and decades of effort to propagate a new gene into a crop. Fast paced, global scale mistakes are the hallmark of our time.
If we have to choose between no GMOs and GMOs produced by global corporate profit-driven entities, the choice is easy.