General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStop Bashing GMO Food, Say 109 Nobel Laureates
The New York Times reports:
More than 100 Nobel laureates have a message for Greenpeace: Quit the G.M.O.-bashing. Genetically modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C...
"Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production," the group of laureates wrote. "There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."
https://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/07/02/1347206/stop-bashing-gmo-food-say-109-nobel-laureates
People get tunnel vision. Maybe it's time for Greenpeace to take another look at who they could be harming. Is there never a case for GMO food, or perhaps we have passed the point where there can even be a discussion, since we can't live without it?
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The issue -
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/us/stop-bashing-gmo-foods-more-than-100-nobel-laureates-say.html?_r=0
"Greenpeace has spearheaded opposition to Golden Rice, which has the potential to reduce or eliminate much of the death and disease caused by a vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which has the greatest impact on the poorest people in Africa and Southeast Asia, the laureates wrote in the letter.
Proponents of genetically modified foods such as Golden Rice, which contains genes from corn and a bacterium, argue that they are efficient vehicles for needed nutrients. Opponents fear that foods whose genes are manipulated in ways that do not naturally occur might contaminate existing crops. And, they say, the debate distracts from the only guaranteed solution to malnutrition: promoting diverse, healthy diets.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)There's no question that GMO could have negative effects, but we are eating damn few "heirloom" things as it is, and no one has proven harm from most of what we have now.
Given a choice, and we are given one, I'd rather have GMO than many additives.
Blues Heron
(5,898 posts)Glyphosate sales are driving this, not altruistic vitamin crusades.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Glyphosate was around long before GMOs, and it has led to the diminished use of far more toxic products.
BTW, what does glyphosate have to do with Bt corn, Bt soybeans, GMO potatoes, GMO apples, GMO papayas, and on and on...?
Why do you think it's ok to push baseless fear mongering upon others?
Scientific
(314 posts)- and it's in close keeping with the kind of strategies employed by the Trump-Republican Machine, Inc. The Biotech Corporations and their so-called "non-profit" "interest group" blocked legitimate critics from participation, or the opportunity to have a voice.
The list of scientists who want people to stop critiquing the biotech industry includes dead scientists. Huh? This kind of horseshit raises Big Questions.
No doubt Corporate Media will fall to it's knees slobbering all over this PR stunt. But then that's to be expected, since the MSM surrendered to the Corporate Borg long ago.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/107-nobel-laureate-attack-on-greenpeace-traced-back-to-biotech-pr-operators/
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)"...
But the new survey suggests that most Americans dont have a solid understanding of the science behind GMOs at all. Conducted as part of the Annenberg Science Knowledge survey project, the survey included more than 1,000 participants throughout the country. Surveys were conducted by telephone and included six questions on GMO labeling and the safety of genetically modified crops.
Altogether, 88 percent of participants said they thought products containing GMOs should be labeled, and 91 percent said they thought people had a right to know if they were buying or eating products containing GMOs. This is in keeping with multiple surveys conducted by other organizations that have indicated wide support for GMO labeling.
However, in the new survey, 58 percent of respondents also said they had only a fair or poor understanding of GMOs, compared with 40 percent of respondents who thought they had a good or excellent understanding.
Additionally, 48 percent of resp
ondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the idea that scientists have not found any risks to human health from eating genetically modified foods, as opposed to just 22 percent who agreed or strongly agreed (and 29 percent who neither agreed nor disagreed or just didnt know). These results not only suggest a large proportion of Americans hold factually incorrect beliefs about GMOs but were also somewhat at odds with responses to the next question, in which 39 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that GMOs are safe to eat, while only 27 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed.
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Yikes. On many levels.