Comment by SlowBro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SlowBro | Hacker News Reader

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So I read the open letter linked to in the article.[1] The only evidence given there that GMOs could (potentially) save millions of lives is centered around 'Golden Rice', a crop whose beta carotene has not yet been proven to be usable by the human body[2], and which is not even available for sale yet because an effective crop has not yet been produced.[2] Also it is believed (if gut absorption could ever be evidenced) that a child would need to eat 27 bowls of the stuff per day to satisfy his minimum requirement for vitamin A.[3]

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...

You are correct that there is no Nobel prize in agriculture, and the Nobel prize winners are not subject specialists in crop science, plant breeding, nutrition and plant biotechnology.

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."

http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/2016/05/16/report-in-brief/

http://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/category/committee/

> But if you ask from the scientists from those fields

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]

[1] http://www.voltairenet.org/article159305.html

This study is much narrower in scope than what you are asking for, but it is something.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

Again this is not about millions of lives saved, but about potential millions of lives saved.

Where is the _actual_ evidence of GMO’s salvation of millions?

The problem is lack of control group. The control group is heavily pesticide laden non-GMO... (Green Revolution. Heh.) Those practices were invented some 60 years ago. It is not just artificial fertilizers.

So unless you somehow solve the problem of mass producing food in pesticide free agriculture, please do not ask for impossible studies.

If evidence cannot be provided, then I kindly ask that impossible-to-prove assertions not be made.

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...

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