Why I’m quitting GMO research
massivesci.com
massivesci.com
The only real answer to fears about GMOs is to point people towards longitudinal studies that show that the specific modification in question isn't causing any problems. Sadly, this really isn't possible in our current system, as I have no idea which changes were made to the organisms that get put in the consumer products I buy. In an ideal world, I could read NGK-028181 off the tin of baked beans in my pantry and realize that I needed to throw it out because they discovered something wrong with that one specific genome (or because I know I'm allergic).
As a consumer, if I ever get suspicious about one specific change made to one specific breed, my only option is to buy non-GMO everything. That doesn't make any sense!
Unless you're paying $3/# for carrots, herbicides are in the mix one way or the other. GMOs allow us to be pickier about which herbicides we're exposed to.
Regarding IPR issues: you're referring to Monsanto lawsuits. Monsanto enforced its IPR against people who not only planted Roundup-ready crops, but then used Roundup on them --- in other words, people who took advantage of the IPR itself, not merely people who happened to plant Roundup-ready seeds unknowingly. Farmers don't accidentally spray their crops with Glyphosate.
15.1 billion bushels of corn... wasted.
Maybe its not directly toxic like agent orange, but these chemicals are still dangerous.
[1] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-20...
To say that IARC 2A classification is controversial would be understating.
I’m inclined to agree with the WHO because I can’t see how they could profit from having the results be the way they are, if you believe the conspiracy theories. The old adage, “follow the money” still holds true; so if there is a conspiracy where is the money for calling RoundUp harmful?
That Reuters article is loaded with conspiracy. No actual evidence of wrongdoing, unless I just missed it.
Honest question: If glycosate is safe couldn’t you drink it? Why then did this Monsanto lobbyist refuse to drink it? Honest question. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
1. That's a dude who was asked by Canal+ to give an interview about Golden Rice, a product that has nothing to do with herbicides, and is at the end of the interview asked to drink a glass of herbicide.
2. That dude doesn't work for Monsanto, isn't a "Monsanto lobbyist", and has never taken a dollar from Monsanto.
3. I don't need to watch Canal+ stunt interviews to know how dangerous glyphosate is, because there's something called "the medical literature", which documents people having drunk a half liter of the stuff with no effect.
4. But drinking a half liter of glyphosate-based herbicide is an extremely bad plan, because glyphosate isn't the only thing in glyphosate herbicide. Lots of routinely-used fungicides are extremely toxic to humans and found commonly in households.
5. Even if drinking a half liter of random herbicide was completely safe, I'd be upset if you demanded I drink it, for the same reason I'd be upset if you asked me to drink a glass of grapeseed oil or of human urine.
6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
Regarding points 1-5, did you miss that I said it was an honest question? I clearly did not say that it was an argument. I asked precisely because I knew there might be facts I am not aware of. Thank you for filling me in.
> 6. All of this drastically misses the point of glyphosate, which is that it's a very simple, broad-spectrum herbicide that is better understood than the selective herbicides farmers use for non-GMO crops. Glyphosate targets a metabolic pathway present in plants and fungus that isn't present in animals. That's not true of selective (grass- or broadleaf- targeting) herbicides. "Conventional" weed control programs are known to be dangerous to humans, rather than the targets of FUD campaigns.
And this addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
> 7. If you're "inclined to agree with IARC" about glyphosate, unlike a significant number of scientists, I have bad news for you about cooking food --- meat or vegetables --- which is also 2A-carcinogenic.
And that also is not an argument for rejecting 2A carcinogenic labeling on glyphosate.
So I ask again: This addresses the concern that it may be a carcinogen... how?
Well, I ask rhetorically. Apparently an answer will not be given, only misdirection.
Sorry but I don't have the energy to debate with people who won't read carefully or provide answers that are not misdirecting. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
P.S., "a significant number of scientists" is a fallacious appeal to authority. A significant number of scientists is not the same as having a majority of consensus.
IARC works under WHO, but WHO itself doesn't think glyphosate poses a cancer threat:
Huh, didn't know--thank you. Plants have apparently been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o...
GMO crops can be engineered to be pest resistant, requiring far less use of pesticides, without harming the crop's suitability for human consumption.
Ignorance on this issue is destroying ecosystems in agricultural areas.
Meanwhile, pesticides are killing off 75% of all flying insects.
I like monarchs, but if I had to choose between a world with no monarchs, and a world with no monarchs and also just 25% of the flying insect biomass we had 30 years ago and also fewer birds and everything else that consumes insects and all of the beneficial pollination that those 75% of insects would have accounted for ... well, that seems like a pretty easy choice to me.
Gene editing would also provide an avenue for a different approach here, where the crop could be made resistant to its costliest pests without harming monarchs. Good luck doing that through cross-breeding.
That would be the result of getting rid of pesticides and insecticides...
I think you're referring to Round-up Ready? Wasn't the point of that program to reduce pesticide use?
Programs like Bt-corn reduce pesticide use... by making the plant produce the herbicide in the fruit. So, instead of being able to peel or rinse fruit (with varying results), you're eating corn kernels that have pesticide on the inside.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_soybean
We eat lots of pesticides. Capsaicin (in chilis) [1] and piperine (in peppers) [2] are two examples.
The endotoxin used in Bt corn is also 100% natural [1].
I'm not arguing for (or against) Bt corn. I'm trying to show that the language we used to describe GMOs is misleading. Something we think of as natural isn't inherently healthy or unhealthy compared with something we think of as artificial. The same applies to GMO.
https://www.amazon.com/Bonide-Products-803-Thuricide-16-Ounc...
"Engineered chemicals" shouldn't be used when you mean "harmful". It sounds ignorant.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/07/02/gmo-crop...
http://weedcontrolfreaks.com/2017/04/gmos-and-herbicides-its...
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600850
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/01/492091546/ho...
It seems rational to me that the operation is on its head. If I want to grow GMO soy I just buy it, plant it, and spray it. But if I want to certify Organic I must go through a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
I’d like to see it exactly the opposite: If you use proven, centuries-old methods it’s easy, but if you want to spray and use weird stuff it requires a rigorous and expensive authorization process.
Don’t we do that in other industries? Why not with our own food?
Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods are anything but centuries old. Heavy use of Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, copper compounds, compost tea, etc. etc. are all quite new. That's not to say they aren't safe; there are a few practices which warrant more scrutiny, but for the most part they're alright. But the point is that many people are terribly mischaracterizing actual farming practices.
Yes you can grow as you like but it seems backwards to me that you have to prove you are /not/ doing unusual things. If any regulation should occur it ought to be in doing the /unusual/ things.
> Furthermore, many modern 'organic' methods
I'm not speaking of newer methods. I would have any new method more strictly regulated until proven.
There’s lies, there’s damned lies, and then there’s studies. Monsanto’s maize study was only done for 90 days and then got approved. When the same study was replicated for two years, significant health issues were discovered.[1]
And by the way, Monsanto was the only one required to confirm that the study showed positive results. Safety testing is not done by the FDA, only required by the company, who may or may not be telling the truth about the results.[2]
Lies, damned lies, and studies.
So the question remains: Why should I if I were farming have to spend a lot of time, effort, and money to prove what I am not doing? Shouldn't it be the other way 'round?
[1] https://www.gmoseralini.org/faq-items/why-this-study-now/
Then welcome the next potato blight...
But then I live in the United States where we do quite a number of backwards things.
I don’t have all day to sit around debating so take my thoughts as they are. You may have the last word. Good day and God bless.
Hybridization of plants swaps thousands of genes at random, in an uncontrolled manner. We've been doing that for a thousand years, and just breeding stuff out in fields to see what sticks.
Geneticaly modifying rice to produce more vitamin A required changing only 2 genes, instead of thousands, but somehow people find that scarier because it seems "new".
But classic methods have been used and proven for centuries. It seems riskier and frankly, backwards, to me to require stricter regulation on what has been proven but easily permit that which is new and still being tried out.
What has the FDA really "rigorously thought" about if they aren't testing?
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Health/eating-gmo-produce/story?id=300...
A viable option actually.
We've come up with a definition for "GMO" which is about as arbitrary as "plants grown on the north side of a mountain."
Look at a wild carrot [1]. There is no good reason for plants to stuff their roots with beta carotene. But nutrient-rich roots are tastier and healthier, so we bred them. It blows my mind that someone might consider a mutation bred [2] vegetable healthier or safer than one where the desired gene is precisely injected.
The economics of GMO produce are compelling. They will be produced. All anti-GMO consumers guarantee is having their views, tastes and concerns ignored as agriculture develops. That lack of consumer input is, in my opinion, unhealthy for us all.
It seems likely (intuitively, which is why this is a question) that a naturally-occurring mutation which is artificially selected-for by a grower actually is very different from a transgenic insertion. The former arises within the complex regulatory/inhibitory genetic environment of the natural plant, so it sort of feels less risky, less likely to be disruptive or to renovate the biochemistry. Transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial, activated by default, and not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites -- this is where they get their power. An ecosystem analogy comes to mind, natural mutations are like species evolving in an ecosystem, and transgenic insertions are like invasive species, potentially throwing the ecosystem seriously out of whack.
Is this just a sort of romantic fallacy, supported by a bad analogy?
I think it's tangential to the safety question -- actually-existing commercial GMO crops have been tested and demonstrated to be safe, that seems to be clear. But I think the space for unsafe combinations is much larger than it is for natural mutations, and the analogy to selective breeding understates the danger (and the power)?
Actually plant breeders use radioactive radiation, and certain mutagenic poisons, to increase to mutation rate way above normal, in order to get more mutated offspring to work with.
What you write about "transgenically-inserted genes are mitochondrial" and "not part of a regulatory chain, and may produce arbitrary metabolites" is total bollocks and I have no idea where you got that particular misinformation from.
In particular:
> The acute oral lethal dose of cyanide for adult humans is reported to be 0.5–3.5 mg/kg (0.2–1.6 mg/lb) of body weight (approximately 50 bitter almonds), whereas for children, consuming 5–10 bitter almonds may be fatal.
The mutation that makes the bitter almonds produce cyanide is very old, totally natural and dangerous. It was mutated at least 300 million yeas ago, before the almond became a different plant than peach and cherry and other similar plants. Probably to make the animals avoid the plant and kernels.
The idea I have (again, perhaps wrongly) is approximately that harmful-to-humans mutations make up a smaller fraction of the space of viable (i.e. allows the organism to survive at all) natural mutations, and a larger fraction of the space of viable transgenic mutations. A secondary point is that this is because the space of viable transgenic mutations is not constrained by the prior state of the genome, the same thing that makes transgenic mutations powerful also makes them risky.
So, I am (or I was, anyways) positing _fewer_ dangerous natural mutations, not necessarily zero.
I'm certainly less convinced that there's an important difference than I was yesterday, though, but mostly because the _accessible_ space of transgenic behaviors is evidently limited by investigator effort, which does not scale, so even if the _theoretical_ space is larger, it doesn't matter, we're not going to sample it.
I don't know, the whole group of flowering plants is about 300 million years old (says Wikipedia). Perhaps you mean 30 million years.
Apparently is a very very old feature (even older than what I though).
Note that for instance the heavily-selection-bred Cavendish banana is currently facing possible extinction due to its susceptibility to a fungus. So on the one hand here you have exactly the problem you're worried about with gene-edited crops, and meanwhile gene editing is a possible solution to the problem.
I regret that I'm not well-enough versed in the science of this subject to communicate it better.
Actually, it's not that clear. They have been proven to not be unsafe, which arguably is a lot easier. But a lot of countries still ban them specifically because the "safe" part wasn't proven. Obviously this depends on the crop, as GMO means a lot of different things.
So, "north side of the mountain" is non-GMO right off the bat.
Plants have been patentable since 1930 [1]. In 1970, the Congress gave breeders "up to 25 years of exclusive control over new, distinct, uniform, and stable sexually reproduced or tuber propagated plant varieties" [2]. IP concerns and GMO are orthogonal issues, as non-GMO varieties have been patented.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Patent_Act_of_1930
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Variety_Protection_Act_o...
That's that gathering of political representatives from all corners of the planet, to make decisions for humanity.
You may think the only issue the ethical problem of enforcing genetic IPR, but casual consumers do not give a shit about IPR ethics. They assume "genetically modified" is in approximately the same category as "contains toxic herbicides".
Ironically, the most commercially viable way to produce non-GMO crops are toxic herbicides.
What would be the point of it? In both cases we're seeking genetic modifications. In one case, it is targeted and precise, in another - random and probabilistic, i.e. we don't know whether the modification we want (sweeter apple, nicer carrot, etc.) didn't also bring along something we don't. Or at least we don't without analyzing the genome and selecting only those with genome we want - in which case it's just a very convoluted way of producing GMO.
It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding" - surely, you could do that, but what exactly is the point?
If you say "but those genetic modifications have been tested by centuries of time" - also not really, many cultivars we're eating today are relatively recent, late 19th to 20th century. E.g. Fuji apples one sees everywhere were introduced to US marked in 1980s. And for many cultivars, there was no serious studies about their safety. Of course, if people start dropping dead in place from eating certain kind of apple, it would be noticed. But otherwise - we have little data, and nobody is too worried about it.
Simply to try to define "GMO"; do you have a better idea?
Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification. To be useful, the definition probably has to carve some subset in the M space.
> It's like typing code by throwing rock at the keyboard until they hit necessary character and calling it "natural Organic coding"
That may be so, but I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
Yes. "GMO" is a scare term, devoid of any real content, used by tiny number of overly cautions ecologists and vast number of charlatans to trick gullible people into fearing modern technology.
> Since everything is "modified", the definition is meaningless if M refers to all modification
That's where you realize "GMO" is meaningless, and stop using that term.
> I like being a human rather than some organic molecules on the surface of a rock from which I evolved by this ineffective, dangerous process.
You are both. One does not contradict the other, and being made of organic molecules in no way diminishes your humanity. And being made of other organic molecules, some of which were purposedly put there to make it better (for varying definitions of "better") does not diminish the quality of your food. Which is not just declared by me, some guy on the internet typing some bullshit into the browser, but was actually verified by scientists.
It's not meaningless at all. GMO could be used maliciously. A tomato could be produced which deliberately make a protein such that a fraction of a milligram can kills. That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
"GMO" is just as meaningful as "infected executable".
> You are both.
Completely besides the point; which wasn't about human versus molecules, but rather that random evolution did a pretty good job there.
Anything can be used maliciously.
> That is not likely to happen with random evolution.
That is happening all the time with evolution. Hundreds of types of plants produce poisons. In fact, producing various poisons is the plant's main weapon in the struggle for survivial - it has no claws and can not run, so it's either making itself completely indigestible (like trees) or making itself unfit or at least hard for eating. Like tomatoes, which were, like all nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, etc.) originally highly toxic. Only we humans convinced tomatoes and potatoes not to kill us, by genetically modifying them since at least 500BC. Of course, we could develop ones that kill too. Or we could worry about grocers to just shooting you - if they'd be willing to kill you with tomatoes, why not with rifles? Of course, in reality nobody tries to kill anyone, so worrying about weaponized GMO is pointless - if you wanted to kill people, nobody would bother with GMO, there are much cheaper ways.
That's a strange claim to make about a member of the nightshade family.
> Currently, up to 92% of U.S. corn is genetically engineered (GE), as are 94% of soybeans and 94% of cotton (cottonseed oil is often used in food products). It has been estimated that upwards of 75% of processed foods on supermarket shelves – from soda to soup, crackers to condiments – contain genetically engineered ingredients. [1]
[1] https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/311/ge-foods/abou...
Cottonseed oil is not food, it is a waste product of the cotton industry that should only be used for biodiesel.
I suppose there is some overlap, but I would think that as a first step people with dietary health concerns would cut out things like white flour and high fructose corn syrup.
Guess what? GMO food saves millions of people from malnutrition in the 3rd world. But yet it's just not good enough for the cocky American consumers, despite that scientists agree it's perfectly safe and despite that GMO food is everywhere (without you realizing). I happily by GMO food, I proudly support GMOs because it saves lives, and I can't believe ignorant people would rather these people starve.
Kindly provide evidence for such assertions.
Also, a lot of the signatories are those who received the Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Economics, and Peace awards.[4] I'm not sure which Nobel award would be given for agricultural scientists, so many of those receiving the award could indeed be specialists in that field. But I could only find one agricultural scientist who received an award for anything, and he is dead now, so he couldn't have signed this, and indeed he did not.[5]
Best I can tell, this open letter was signed by people who aren't specialists in this field, who gave as their evidence for support a crop whose value (or even safety?) has not yet been proven. A lot of smart people to be sure, but not experts on this topic. I welcome evidence to the contrary.
[1] http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-le...
[2] https://source.wustl.edu/2016/06/genetically-modified-golden...
[3] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/gmo-food_b_91496...
[4] http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/view-signatures_rjr.h...
[5] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1970...
But if you ask from the scientists from those fields, you are going to get the same answer.
"the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between currently commercialized genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops."
Ask them what, about the many lives that are saved from malnutrition as the commenter asserted? You answered about safety. Neither of us are discussing safety. (Well, I did as an aside. It was not the main point.) That is a separate subject.
Are millions of lives really saved from malnutrition? Kindly provide evidence for such assertions. I’m interested.
As another aside, while looking for evidence that GMOs saved lives through nutrition I was reminded that the economic engine seed producers profit from has brought poverty to farmers in India. 200,000 have committed suicide over increased farming debts. Seeds are far more expensive now, and cannot be saved.[1]
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
Where is the _actual_ evidence of GMO’s salvation of millions?
So unless you somehow solve the problem of mass producing food in pesticide free agriculture, please do not ask for impossible studies.
But the control group — wouldn’t it be non-GMO crops of any kind, organic or non? The assertion, yet to be provided evidence for, is that with gene editing many more millions are no longer suffering malnutrition. That seems to me to be easy evidence to provide if it’s true. If it’s true, evidence should be able to be shown that nutrition content has increased by X percent leading to X thousand lives not perishing. “Since the introduction of high vitamin C rice in Zambezia, the rates of scurvy have dropped by 32%. Vitamin C is difficult to obtain in Zambezia by any other means.” I don’t see how a discussion of pesticides enters into it.
By the way, Nobel laureates can be wrong. The prize was awarded in 1948 for the invention of DDT.[1]
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1...
The article points to an open letter signed by a number of scientists (are they all food/agricultural/health-related scientists?) who evidence Golden Rice, which in my opinion is thin evidence. But I am definitely not a food/agricultural/health-related scientist, so my opinion counts for a hill of non-GMO beans.
Better to investigate, report, regulate, so all society can benefit from the benefits of targeted engineering without fear.
It seems unnatural to eat a big sweet apple. Nature provided small bitter apples.
Second, I have got the feeling that many people who experiment with genetic manipulation don't know what they are actually doing. Yes, they might know it on a high-level perspective and for experiments that is fine, but as long as we can't simulate even single cells its is hard to tell that we know what we are doing.
As a computer scientist it feels to me like someone is patching the binaries of 'grep' and 'cp' together and hopes to use the resulting binaries to build autonomous drones. It is just irresponsible to use the results are long as the have only one petri dish which is actually the one we are living in.
So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories. There might be exceptions to that rule when it comes to 'specific modification' as you call it, but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
This is frankly ridiculous. You describe yourself as a computer scientist and presumably have no expertise in the field and then use your gut feeling about how well people understand the consequences of their efforts? I know plenty of people who think that I'm just typing words and random until my code compiles.
Demanding that we are able to model living organisms in computers before we can productionize gmo tech is like saying that we can't deploy any web app until it has been formally verified in Coq.
So if we would live within the web, I would certainly demand to formally verify every web app before it would be deployed.
Conventional agricultural practices are already causing massive ecological devastation. Gene editing is a very good solution to that problem.
If you are pro research, maybe you should understand what you are talking about before you make ignorant claims that are completely backward, disconnected, and unfavored by the majority of scientists. You ignorance in this comment is incredible. The large majority of scientists support GMO research and confirm it's safety, while ignorant civilians (like you) fail to understand, fail to listen, and fail to learn.
The problem I have, is that nobody really knows what happens when you place those products in our ecosystem. We might have some theories and observations but in the end nobody knows enough about the whole system to understand all its processes and sometimes small changes have much larger effects.
And as long as we have only one system and no backup, I don't want to risk changing the ecosystem on this planet in ways we can't predict.
It's all "unknown unknowns" territory here. There are no known threat scenarios. But if you're into being concerned of unknown unknowns, you have thousands of other things to be concerned of, too.
I know that unknown threats are everywhere and there are a lots of other things I am concerned of too, but in the end I am used to live with that and it doesn't change my view on the topic.
No, it's like applying a patch to a code base, compiling it, testing it and expecting it to work. Which is literally what millions of software engineers do every day.
> So don't get me wrong, I am completely pro research, but also completely against usage outside of laboratories.
What's the point in that research than? Idle curiosity?
> but for me it ends where you could not achieve the same result with a handful of normal breeding cycles.
That's like saying it's ok to run binaries, but only if we compile them by hand on paper without using a compiler. If the result is the same, as even you admit, what's the point of taking the hard route?
Of course they are, they are human beings, not computers. When have we ever seen such delicate reasoning survive at a mass scale? We call it scientific illiteracy, as if all those people promised to behave in a scientifically literate fashion at some earlier point, and are now behaving defectively.
No such agreements were made.
This tendency to "spread" the Evil label (and the Good one) across categories and into related but distinctly different domains is a biological rather than digital approach to threat. As the elite of a culture that aspires to the digital, we get outraged.
It's not going to make any difference, y'all know that, right?
When we breed plants through selection, the changes are slow and the plants do not acquire capabilities from outside their species.
When we change fast growing species like grasses, and give them capabilities they do not have in nature, do we really understand what those species do when they enter a natural ecosystem? Ecosystems have a delicate balance.
I really wonder how comprehensive GMO testing really is.
Having said that, I have no problems eating GMO crops. I don’t think the risks are to humans directly. I think the issue is environmental.
The main issues I have with GMO is the patenting of crops, specifically those that are introduced to third world countries which are typically sterile, causing the farmers to have an ongoing dependence/obligation to the patent holders. Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases. In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
Incidentally, this is also the solution to one of the major criticisms of GMO plants: in the event of significant cross-pollination, the GMO plants won't be viable.
> Probably an even greater problem is crop resilience - yes, many crops will give far greater yield when given ideal conditions, but by reducing diversity within the same species makes them more vulnerable to specific diseases.
We already massively reduce diversity in agricultural crops. This is not a problem specific to, or even exacerbated by, GMO crops.
> In nature, there is always some % of a crop that's resistant to a disease, that diversity is removed when all the crops are essentially identical.
Diversity is doing exactly piss-all for the hundreds of millions of conifers in California that have been killed by bark beetles.
Duh. That's the case of almost every very high professional job on this planet. Almost nobody cares. Almost everybody stays in their own little belief. Few try to learn. Even less will admit they were once wrong.
Tell people humanity has been modifying all kinds of life forms for thousands of years and they are flabbergasted. When you tell them it's about selecting plants and breeding dogs or cattle they tell you 'it's not the same', because it was a slower process.
They're scared we are going to mess up evolution and then tell us to stop playing god. Kinda paradoxal.
If you'd try eating real pure non-gmo'd banana you'd break your teeth because of all the seeds, but that thing hasn't existed for millenia. Apples would be disgusting too by today's standards.
The slow change in dogs or crops over many decades or generations is tolerable. But rapid change can kill, or at least it excites danger signals in the affected organisms (people).
A car that creeps towards you slowly is fine. One that moves too fast might kill you.
I think rate is the central question in this problem, but it always gets elided in discussion with the word "just," as if rate was a minor concern.
Compared to that widespread action, GMO is safe as it is thoroughly tested. Though diversity is not being increased with it either.
There's a very good concern, which is seldom raised clearly -- if Monsanto patents the genomes that we need to feed the planet, then that is likely to be very harmful for the development of the poorer half of the world.
But there's simply no credible concern at this point about "genes escaping from one plant to another". There are mechanisms by which gene transfer can occur between bacteria and viruses, but there is no mechanism by which a gene could get from maize to a weed.
I hear complaints mostly about the latter, and seldom about the former -- but note that the former concern could be ameliorated by having governments or other public institutions do the research, and either hold the patents or just make them available for all.
I'm not sure why you say that; this has been unremarkable for a while and is often seen in the wild. Insects play a role too, though this article from Nature specifically discusses cross-pollination.
https://www.nature.com/news/genetically-modified-crops-pass-...
> that a weedy form of the common rice crop, Oryza sativa, gets a significant fitness boost from glyphosate resistance
which I believe is a much narrower claim. If the anti-GMO claim was that "GMO crops can share their genes with wild/weedy/non-GMO versions of those crops", I don't think anyone would be freaking out in the same way.
But my specific claim was about gene transfer to unrelated species, which (to my understanding) is not likely. (There's also horizontal gene transfer to worry about, but this is very unlikely in eukaryotes, e.g. see https://www.ebr-journal.org/articles/ebr/pdf/2008/03/ebr0742...)
The trouble is the anti-GMO-on-principle stance badly undermines the political case for taking such concerns seriously, by a sort of unintended divide-and-conquer.
It's much easier for legislators to ignore corporate power over food production systems when so many of the objections come from obvious crazies. And it's hard for those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world but are otherwise pro-knowledge to make common political cause with people who think GMOs are 'evil' (due to their Manichaeanism they'll reject anyone who isn't anti-GMO on principle as political allies).
There is the Cultural Cognition Project (http://www.culturalcognition.net/kahan/), and if I understand the research they did correctly, you really should not expect explanations of science to be effective at changing people's minds like that. In the past, and in psychology experiments, this technique has been shown to be ineffective even though it seems really intuitive that it should work.
Do any folks working at social media or adtech firms feel the same way, out of interest? Curious if the recent CA scandals have caused an uptick in confrontational behavior.
...Monsanto lawsuits...
...created by Monsanto (which is Evil)...
...Monsanto patents...
...those of us who are suspicious of the Monsantos of this world...
I would be funny to be a software engineer if every discussion with friends and family about your work would involve suspicious mentions like "Facebook lawsuits..." , "...created by Facebook (which is Evil)...", "Facebook patents...", "...those of us who are suspicious of the Facebooks of this world..."
Or the same for s/Facebook/Google/g.
It’s often stated that GMOs are needed to feed the growing population, but I get the sense that the most of the benefits go to just increasing population and not lowering the raw number of people who are actually undernourished.
In a world without GMOs would there be fewer total people and would that be better than the alternative?
If they had done then as you propose, half of the people today in Third World, or having Third World grandparents, would not exist today. How many of your friends and family would not exist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution#Malthusian_cr...
GMO are currently being deployed to fix the pesticide problem without breaking the economics...
If you want fewer people in the world, help them live longer.
None of this is about the FUD on GMO and health. Its the economics of IPR, and the effect on emotional feelings about GMO. I think the science is fantastic. The commercialization is awful.
The author is leaving his primary research specialization after spending literally years studying it. It's not uncommon for people to change their research focus, but he is moving to a different subfield and specialization altogether. More importantly, his decision is precipitated by unceasing vitriol for something he was passionate enough about to spend the best years of his life working on.
I'm not sure what else to say. I can't imagine what it's like to give something like that up just to avoid having research decisions litigated by other people. It must have been so exhausting and disheartening for him.
I think we are brought up to believe we can pursue whatever we want to pursue, and of course this is true, but there is a cost. If that pursuit falls out of alignment with the community of which you are a part, life can lose it's joy. This isn't fair, it just is. We need to feel in a relationship of give and take with our community.
My own thought here is that the research itself is a good thing, and the act of pursuit deepens your character and experience in a way that makes you more valuable to your community. But people don't like the stories they hear about "patented" crops, about DRM in farmers fields. It's not the research that's a problem, it's the use to which it's put (at least in the eye of the public). GMOs seem to become a lever corporations use to monetize activities that we aren't sure should be monetized.
[I recognize that my "story" above is likely tainted with outrageous misconceptions. I don't disagree! I'm just playing back the image in my head around GMOs, mostly built by passive listening to the conversation in our culture over some years. You can argue with that story, but it's exhausting.]
I think you are caught in the gears of the working out of this vast cultural argument.
well, those are good questions. As frustrating as it is, scientists should be well aware that science doesn't happen in a political, juridical or economical vacuum.
This social sensibility should be part of the soft skills of the modern scientist. Same goes for engineers (let’s think about the Facebook crisis), or any profession, really.
Ideas have consequences.
Edit: Also that's is quite infuriating: "How am I supposed to explain the consequences of abandoning a technology that can help feed millions to Swiss students who enjoy the world's highest standard of living?" - if you think that the problem of malnutrition is mainly a technological/agrological problem, that's very disingenuous.
This is true right now. But a sane world has to plan ahead. Our existing agricultural system can easily feed the world today without GMOs. But if the world population really does grow as anticipated this century (I have my doubts), with a fast-changing climate, high levels of topsoil loss & degradation, there is zero chance without every technological trick we can muster.
I do not think malnutrition is a technological problem, but it does have a technological solution, or rather, technology is a part of the solution.
"There is another reason gene editing is causing excitement in industry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has concluded that the new plants are not “regulated articles.” The reason is a legal loophole: its regulations apply only to GMOs constructed using plant pathogens like bacteria, or their DNA."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609230/these-are-not-your...
From section X.B:
"GMOs have the propensity to spread uncontrollably, and thus their risks cannot be localized. The crossbreeding of wild-type plants with genetically modified ones prevents their disentangling, leading to irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides."
Now, the very reason crop plants (GMO or not) cannot spread uncontrollably is tightly coupled to why they are crop plants. They are not poisonous, they are easy to eat, and they produce a good yield. A dream come true for every plant-eating animal. That's why they are crop plants. But they wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell in the wild nature, animals and insects would eat them quickly. Wild plants invest a lot of effort to not being eaten (unless they want to, for seed spreading purposes).
There are no cases of crop plants having invaded back to wild nature. Perhaps there is an odd canola plant that escaped a field and grows on a roadside or by an abandoned gas station somewhere, but these are also situations where humans first cleared the wild plants and bared the soil before the canola was able to set roots.
Crop plants don't spread outside of the farmers' fields, and GMO breeding is not trying to change that. (If they wanted to breed competitive wild plants, they'd use wild plants as the starting stock.)
I still think that a fear of "irreversible system-wide effects with unknown downsides" will persist, despite the good sense of your argument.
Also, as a technologist, I know that we move from solving easier problems to more complex ones. Who is to say that GMO tech isn't just beginning in farmers' fields, and that flush with success in that space, all those engineers, technology and know-how will happily move on to the Next Big Problem. This might be in wild-plant space.
Those are the true systemic effects wee should be looking into - there is no way back to 1700s farming now. (Organic farming is not there either.)
I'll probably anger both side of the debate because I'm not 100% on one side or the other.
Also indoor farming/hydroponics is great for crops that are mainly water (think tomato or lettuce) but much less so for staple calorie crops like corn or wheat.
Put in that light it's immediately obvious the first argument will be 'big industry.' People don't trust big industry, so therefore if they are the largest supporters/drivers of GE it will wholly be placed in the 'bad' basket.
'Big Industry' players time and time again do act poorly, fund outcomes, corrupt policies etc so you concerns can't be dismissed easily and will be conflated either way.
So the question out of this is: how do we increase the integrity of actors involved: science, media, government, business? What would it take to be able to identify and understand which GE is 'honest' vs not?
Until that can be done in any meaningful way, it will continually just be an argument between those saying all GMO/GE can't be trusted and those saying it can. Not to mention the different points being that the distrust is in those engineering/producing GMO vs the actual products/processes themselves...
And, like anti-vaxxers, this has a real negative impact on human and ecological health.
I wish there was some kind of "yay, science!" political movement that would advocate for applying science in ways intended to improve human health and happiness in both the short and long term (which would include funding further GMO research).
Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.
If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.
EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.
If so, when was this? AFAIK, health and safety have been trending positively in a significant way for well over a century, with nation-state conflict causing the most significant regressions, not profit-motivated corporations.
The overall positive trend is slowing down, with life expectancy in the USA dropping, mostly due to the opioid epidemic.
Overall the picture is pretty grim. Long term stability of civilisation is under threat due to fertility rates not falling fast enough to offset longevity. Food production is consuming limited non-renewable resources.
Noam Chomsky makes the following point: Slave societies also exhibited improvements over time. It wasn't an argument for slavery.
Do you have some examples of societies that radically increased their overall health and safety without adopting liberal economic policies? Cuba, maybe?
One problem is consumers have segmented into two mutually exclusive groups. One likes healthy food and hates GMO. The other cares much less about both health and GMO. Since the first group has self-selected out of the market for GMO, sellers optimize for a health-indifferent population.
Side note: is the plural of one GMO two GMO? Two GMOs?
Consumers are voters, so it's both. The number of voters one can productively engage about thoughtful GMO regulation is basically zero. People are against it or don't care.
I can understand why someone would argue it's a meaningless distinction. I don't agree with the idea that a consumer has no right to be informed. Let the consumer know, make the case that your product (any product) is safe, and let the consumer decide.