Genetically Modified Organisms, Corn that can take a bite out of you! Options

[leee]

Demonstrable evidence that liberals are also susceptible to fallacious pseudo-science (see also: anti-vaxxers, truthers), though at the same time, they're capable of being reasoned with via science itself, as in the case of one of the original anti-GMOers (who went as far as trespassing onto GM-crop fields and pulling them out):

• I’d assumed that it would increase the use of chemicals. It turned out that pest-resistant cotton and maize needed less insecticide.

• I’d assumed that g.m. benefited only the big companies. It turned out that billions of dollars of benefits were accruing to farmers needing fewer inputs.

[ButterflyEffect]

Not much to say about the article itself, but I hate when people use the term "chemical". There is no such thing as "chemical-free" anything. Water is a chemical. Get over it.

Anyway, that's my off-topic rant.

[adamsmo]

I'm a liberal, and I'm fine with GM, and I am pretty anti-organic, as well.

[RWG]

I don't have much of an opinion either way about GMOs themselves--I guess because I personally don't put much of a premium on health or longevity. But in the interest of those who do, I think it should be a right of consumers to know what they're buying and a responsibility of the government to make sure such transparency exists. Western culture has a tendency to objectify health and wellness, so the idea that "GMOs=good, transparency non-negotiable" undermines our right to make our own choices.

[totes4totes]

I don't have much of an opinion either way about GMOs themselves--I guess because I personally don't put much of a premium on health or longevity. But in the interest of those who do, I think it should be a right of consumers to know what they're buying and a responsibility of the government to make sure such transparency exists. Western culture has a tendency to objectify health and wellness, so the idea that "GMOs=good, transparency non-negotiable" undermines our right to make our own choices.

I think that it is a good idea in concept to let people have complete transparency in their food. But I feel that the actual employment of such a policy would be a little bit disastrous at the current time. Especially when you consider that there has been essentially no literature really proving that GMOs cause any adverse health effects. In fact, there have been over 100 articles that confirm the safety of GMOs. So I think that the current aims of policies right now are essentially for enacting propaganda, which is something that I don't agree with.

One day, I believe that it would be nice to know all the cool stuff that goes into creating your food, but for a majority of the people it doesn't matter anyway. Like how is saying "in this bell pepper there is included a A. thaliana rna element" really going to affect anyone? I think it is cool, but for the general public I think it would cause unnecessary freakouts and just general indifference.

[ButterflyEffect]

I'll add more about my thoughts

If we can genetically modify organisms for our benefit, why not? There really isn't any known dangers to controlled genetic modification, just have to make sure you do it right.

I'll just let this be known: I work with GMO's at my new job. Our E. Coli bacteria have been genetically modified to express a new coding to produce a metabolite that we're using in drug development. The drug is about to become VERY big in the next few weeks (you'll hear about it in the news in the USA for sure ) but I'm sure that no one will ever know or question that the drug is produced by GMO's, which can definitely be used for good.

This post has been edited by ButterflyEffect: Feb 11th 2013, 8:16 PM

[adamsmo]

I'll just let this be known: I work with GMO's at my new job. Our E. Coli bacteria have been genetically modified to express a new coding to produce a metabolite that we're using in drug development.

e. coli is an important thing to recognize in this area. Just a couple of years ago, hundreds of people were affected by it, in every Western country (collectively) just because of one single organic farm.

How many were caused any harm due to non-organic farming? Literally zero.

[leee]

I don't have much of an opinion either way about GMOs themselves--I guess because I personally don't put much of a premium on health or longevity. But in the interest of those who do, I think it should be a right of consumers to know what they're buying and a responsibility of the government to make sure such transparency exists. Western culture has a tendency to objectify health and wellness, so the idea that "GMOs=good, transparency non-negotiable" undermines our right to make our own choices.

Megan (totes) lays out the issue as well as it's going to be stated, I just want to add that consumers are IMO stupid and easily persuadable (hence the huge markets in everything from vitamin supplements, flavored water, energy drinks, etc., that have few proven benefits -- yes, vitamin supplements too, which are the equivalent of expensive piss if you're a reasonably healthy individual) and also easily scared (e.g. mad cow, swine flu). Popular discourse about science in the US at the moment is dire, and from the negative attention against GMOs that's taken root as the basis of most people's awareness of the issue, any effort at highlighting a product as genetically modified is going to be a de facto label that scares people away. (And if you're wondering, yes, I have very paternalistic attitudes when it comes to consumers and consumer rights ("rights"), i.e. right on, soda bans.)

[RWG]

I agree consumers are stupid, but I doubt labelling products, for instance, is going to come between Americans and the way they eat. Eating organic is expensive and requires more effort than most are willing to expend when they shop. A comparable case would be smoking, which actually is bad for you, and everyone knows it, yet tobacco warning labels have proved largely ineffective to the extent that most smokers shrug them off as government propaganda. By the same token, I doubt many McDonald's customers were really that horrified when they learned about pink slime. I'm sure you'd agree with me that most consumers probably don't even know what a GMO is.

It does look like there exists a good amount of anti-GMO hyperbole, but where I'd take issue with the sentiments in this thread is that just because something has been villainized by pseudoscience doesn't mean the industry in question should be allowed to go completely unregulated. As long as the official position of government officials and the people pay for their campaigns is that Ambien is the best way to get eight hours of sleep, I'd rather not have them scoping health policy unsupervised.

This post has been edited by RWG: Feb 18th 2013, 1:04 AM

[Dianafanz]

I'm a liberal, and I'm fine with GM, and I am pretty anti-organic, as well.

Same.

Its not practical. The worlds population is getting so huge that the only way we will be able to feed it is with chemicals and GMO's. While they need to be HEAVILY regulated for safety they are the future.