Slate on the fraud activists use against GMOs
William Saletan writes at Slate:
The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all declared that there’s no good evidence GMOs are unsafe. Hundreds of studies back up that conclusion. But many of us don’t trust these assurances. We’re drawn to skeptics who say that there’s more to the story, that some studies have foundrisks associated with GMOs, and that Monsanto is covering it up.
I’ve spent much of the past year digging into the evidence. Here’s what I’ve learned. First, it’s true that the issue is complicated. But the deeper you dig, the more fraud you find in the case against GMOs. It’s full of errors, fallacies, misconceptions, misrepresentations, and lies. The people who tell you that Monsanto is hiding the truth are themselves hiding evidence that their own allegations about GMOs are false. They’re counting on you to feel overwhelmed by the science and to accept, as a gut presumption, their message of distrust.
Step up Greenpeace and the NZ Greens.
Second, the central argument of the anti-GMO movement—that prudence and caution are reasons to avoid genetically engineered, or GE, food—is a sham. Activists who tell you to play it safe around GMOs take no such care in evaluating the alternatives. They denounce proteins in GE crops as toxic, even as they defend drugs, pesticides, and non-GMO crops that are loaded with the same proteins. They portray genetic engineering as chaotic and unpredictable, even when studies indicate that other crop improvement methods, including those favored by the same activists, are more disruptive to plant genomes.
The reality is that in 25 or more years of GMOs there has been no adverse impact on a single human. To the contrary there has been huge benefits.
Hawaiian papaya farmers were in trouble. Ringspot virus, transmitted by insects, was destroying the crop. Farmers tried everything to stop the virus: selective breeding, crop rotation, quarantine. Nothing worked. But one scientist had a different idea. What if he could transfer a gene from a harmless part of the virus, known as the coat protein, to the papaya’s DNA? Would the GE papaya be immune to the virus?
The scientist, Dennis Gonsalves of Cornell University, got the idea, in part, from Monsanto. But Monsantowasn’t interested in papaya. Although papaya is an important staple in the developing world, it isn’t a big moneymaker like soybeans or cotton. So Monsanto and two other companies licensed the technology to an association of Hawaiian farmers. The licenses were free but restricted to Hawaii. The association provided the seeds to farmers for free, and later at cost.
Today the GE papaya is a triumph. It saved the industry. But it’s also a cautionary tale. The papaya, having defeated the virus, barely survived a campaign to purge GE crops from Hawaii. The story of that campaign teaches a hard lesson: No matter how long a GMO is eaten without harming anyone, and no matter how many studies are done to demonstrate its safety, there will always be skeptics who warn of unknown risks.
Here’s my challenge to the NZ Greens. How many decades of safe GMOs do they need to change their view?
Years passed, people ate papayas, and nothing bad happened. But the activists wouldn’t relent. In 2004, Greenpeace vandals tore up a GE papaya orchard in Thailand, calling the plant a “time bomb” and claiming that it had devastated farmers in Hawaii. In 2006, Greenpeace issued another report condemning the fruit. In reality, the source of farmers’ troubles was Greenpeace itself. The organization was working to blockregulatory approval and sales of the GE papaya—and then blaming the papaya for farmers’ financial woes.
Lovely.
I really encourage people to read the full article. It has scores of references and by the end of it you’ll be angry at the lies and deceptions put out by these people.