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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

I really really hate that the science behind GMO’s gets clouded by the business practices of some of these companies.

You can separate the 2. Being anti gmo is being anti science. Decrying all GMO as bad, unhealthy, or whatever is as illogical as trying to make any blanket statement about any food. It just so happens that this one gets headlines.

We should be concerned about the businesses like Monsanto. But that is completely different.

Personally I have been trying to avoid any product that goes out of its way to claim “non gmo” because it just signals to me that they don’t care about sustainability and science.

It’s almost as bad (and sometimes worse) than the “organic” crap.

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"Being anti gmo is being anti science"

No, it isn't. As scientists we know how little we know of complex biological systems. This is bio-engineering based on rickety models.

Especially in times where the US is all about 'trade balances' , would it not suite them to take onboard some of the precautionary principles adopted in other parts of the world when it comes to health and safety?

From the other side of the pond, when your chieftain wonders aloud again why the Europeans don't buy your beef, or your chicken, or now your pork: This here, is the reason.

We like our beef clean, our chickens unchlorinated, and our pigs without heavily experimental GMO modification, thank you very much.

Not because we are anti-science. Because the US has a horrible track record when it comes to how far you can go with caveat emptor.

So in other words there is nothing wrong with the GMO as an abstract principle, it is merely the actual GMOs on the market today that are bad in almost every instance.

No… that is not what I said at all.

I have yet to see a single instance of any actual health concerns raised from eating GMO food.

It has turned into marketing bullshit.

Again there has to be a clear separation between the science behind GMO and the business practices. They are very different discussions that need to happen but instead we are painting all of it with a negative light.

>I have yet to see a single instance

OK, here is a single instance: lots of people are concerned about glyphosate residues in food, and GMO technology is the only thing that allows those food plants to even survive the amount of glyphosate being sprayed on them.

That is not a problem with the act of making GMO's in the first place, which again is the point that I am trying to make here.

If the product that had these modifications is perfectly safe without being sprayed with it, the science behind the creation of that GMO is still sound. The problem is what is being done to it after the fact.

Meaning, it being GMO itself is irrelevant and goes back to the business practices. Grouping that into an "Anti GMO" crusade just continues to further an anti-science narrative.

We should be genetically modifying the pest species, not the crops. We should stick to going after the species that specialize in eating domesticated plants, like the corn borer or the Colorado potato beetle. Keep a small population “safe” on some remote island or a lab somewhere if they ever need to be reintroduced for some reason, but use knockout drive to eliminate them elsewhere.

I, for one, welcome our new mutant prionic insectoid overlords.

> Again there has to be a clear separation between the science behind GMO and the business practices.

Discussing the science is worthless until you can solve the business practices.

Then why require GMO labeling on food?

We don't require labeling for basically any other concerns about business practices and yet everyone seems to care about this one. When I buy chicken it doesn't have a sticker on it sayin "this chicken was probably kicked a few times". or slave labor was used on this chocolate. There are other voluntarily done labeling against both of those, but not a requirement to say it.

The problem is, the narrative is grouping them together. The general narrate is "concern over what it going into our bodies" which has nothing to do with business practices.

> We don't require labeling for basically any other concerns about business practices

Maybe we should. Then again, pretty sure both of those are completely illegal anyway. (Not that that stops it entirely, but somehow I'm not convinced lying about it would be the thing to stop those actors.)

Right I mean the chocolate one is illegal. The chicken one, honestly not fully sure since Purdue keeps getting exposed but idk if they actually have had legal issues? But my point with both of those is, as bad as those would be they don't have an impact on your health eating the product.

Regardless, I don't disagree that we should have some labeling on business practices behind the food that we eat as long as it is actually communicating what needs to be communicated instead of just fear mongering.

"GMO Free" (or requiring it to say it has GMO) tells the consumer absolutely nothing. Its meaningless. All it does is try to sow fear about a thing that its existence itself is not the problem.

"Forbids farmers from using last years seeds", "Uses increased herbicide" like the example the other person mentioned, or whatever that actually communicates what the business concern is to the consumer would be great.

But that is not what we are doing here with labeling GMO.

"But my point with both of those is, as bad as those would be they don't have an impact on your health eating the product"

Depends. Stressed animals produce food with stress hormons included.

Not sure where you are from but in Switzerland you can very well choose these things from a product.

It's very unlikely a chocolate without a fairtrade label to be slavery free. Kinda easy to avoid that. So easy to pick to slavery one

We have a few relevant labels you find on ever meat. It's not as easy for meat as there are local variants without labels and high standards but in a supermarket in Switzerland you can literally pick by colour. To get the kicked chicken that never seen a grass halm you just buy the yellow or red package.

We've never had labeling for any of the food plant varieties produced by radiation exposure, including red grapefruit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening

And yet there are plenty of reputable papers showing clear health benefits of organic food.

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