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Are we unfairly bashing foods that contain genetically modified organisms (G.M.O. foods)?

1246

Replies

  • alisonadame
    alisonadame Posts: 8 Member
    How do you explain the astronomical rise in deadly food allergies? We are seeing numbers now that were unheard of before the proliferation of GMO foods. So the lunches that we were raised on (PB&J) are virtually outlawed in my children's schools.

    Genetic modification is NOT the same as cross-breeding within species! A labradoodle is still a dog. Taking fish genes and splicing them with tomato genes is creating a new life form that Nature did not intend. To assume that that is a safe practice is incredibly careless. Why do you think so many countries have outlawed GMO foods? It's because is has not yet been proven to be safe. So why do Americans think they can take chances with their health?
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  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    Yes, I think the technology is unfairly bashed. It has the potential to save many, many lives, more lives perhaps than any technology except vaccination.
  • sunnybeaches105
    sunnybeaches105 Posts: 2,831 Member
    edited September 2016
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    sunnybeaches105 wrote: »
    The thing I most enjoy about MFP is that people without a relevant degree, experience, or expertise have absolutely no problem telling those who do that they should "do their research" and "learn." It would be pure comedy gold if they weren't so serious. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but it's something I think we see more often because of social media, and it's dangerous in that people vote for and support candidates who are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and generally anti-science. I suppose this is our generation's Scopes Trial.

    It is the death of expertise and it's worrysome. If you dismiss expertise as bias and embrace the "common sense" of the general public instead that is going to cause our society issues. "Education is important" is not just some buzzword phrase to throw out no and again it has meaning. Learning biochemistry or law or farming techniques takes study, learning and practice and to scoff at those who have it and proffer your opinion as equal is a problem. I don't talk about farming, agriculture or law because I'm not a farmer or a lawyer. There seems to be this over entitled "I'm an expert in everything" vibe in our society today I do not understand.

    People are entitled to their own opinions but they aren't entitled to their own facts and reading things online and watching television or movies or youtube is not research.

    Agreed. The question then becomes one of how to arm people with accurate information from which to draw when they are faced with false or misleading arguments and information. Your Forbes article was a huge step there. There seems to be a good number of well educated people on MFP and I'd love to see more discussion and debate by them at the margins where there is legitimate disagreement. Personally, I've found myself posting mostly against absurd statements and often resorting to silly gifs and memes out of frustration from the 4 years I've been here, and I know that's ultimately counterproductive. The problem is that many of these people refuse to look at good evidence and give it the proper weight.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    sunnybeaches105 wrote: »
    The thing I most enjoy about MFP is that people without a relevant degree, experience, or expertise have absolutely no problem telling those who do that they should "do their research" and "learn." It would be pure comedy gold if they weren't so serious. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but it's something I think we see more often because of social media, and it's dangerous in that people vote for and support candidates who are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and generally anti-science. I suppose this is our generation's Scopes Trial.

    It is the death of expertise and it's worrysome. If you dismiss expertise as bias and embrace the "common sense" of the general public instead that is going to cause our society issues. "Education is important" is not just some buzzword phrase to throw out no and again it has meaning. Learning biochemistry or law or farming techniques takes study, learning and practice and to scoff at those who have it and proffer your opinion as equal is a problem. I don't talk about farming, agriculture or law because I'm not a farmer or a lawyer. There seems to be this over entitled "I'm an expert in everything" vibe in our society today I do not understand.

    People are entitled to their own opinions but they aren't entitled to their own facts and reading things online and watching television or movies or youtube is not research.

    Couldn't agree more. It's really depressing.
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  • sunnybeaches105
    sunnybeaches105 Posts: 2,831 Member
    edited September 2016
    VegetaSKJ wrote: »
    sunnybeaches105 wrote: »
    The thing I most enjoy about MFP is that people without a relevant degree, experience, or expertise have absolutely no problem telling those who do that they should "do their research" and "learn." It would be pure comedy gold if they weren't so serious. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but it's something I think we see more often because of social media, and it's dangerous in that people vote for and support candidates who are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and generally anti-science. I suppose this is our generation's Scopes Trial.

    Scopes social media accounts.

    I know Wakefield is still promoting his agenda, has spoken locally here, and has sought donations from colleagues. That's just one example, and at least he lost his medical license.
  • AndyCool22
    AndyCool22 Posts: 131 Member
    I think there's probably a big public confusion between GMOs in the sense of modifying crops in order to use less pesticides/herbicides/etc, (GOOD) and things like partially hydrogenating oils and then revealing years later that the fat created is highly toxic to humans (BAD). And then it all gets lumped together.
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  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    stealthq wrote: »
    clicketykeys wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Um...honestly not sure what you are asking.
    Also, I'm not just pulling this out of my butt. A lot of people learn that a specific GMO food is safe, and think that means all GMO is safe. That's the bad thing I'm talking about; we learn that some GMOs are safe and we let our guard down, fail to test new ones adequately.

    Couldn't you say the same for any other process, though? We learn that some pasteurized products are safe and fail to test the new ones.

    How much research should it take on a process before we stop requiring testing? Or should all new products have required testing anyway?

    But we aren't talking about testing the process, we're talking about testing the product. And yes, the new product needs to be tested because it may not do what it was designed to do.

    Contrary to popular belief, one does not simply pick out a gene from one organism, insert it into another and voila - you are 100% guaranteed that it is properly regulated, transcribed, translated, the protein folds correctly and is post-translationally modified in the way one expected. Even with the precision of CRISPR-CAS, the resulting correctly modified organism may not perform as expected because we don't have perfect understanding of the target system as a whole*. Of course, the more thoroughly the source and target organisms are known, and the more simple and targeted the modification, the more likely a modification will be successful and have only the effect we intend.

    Mind you, the usual result of a modification failing is simply that whatever you trait you wanted just doesn't get expressed, or it turns out that your modification interferes with another process in the target organism and you get sub-standard performance.

    What you'd test for is the possibility that your modification might have had an unintended effect. For example, say you were modifying a potato and as an unintended consequence your modification increased solanine production to toxic levels across the board. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that happens occasionally even with standard breeding practices. It still warrants testing.

    *If anyone is interested in an example, see: HuMouse development, history of. It's a whole series of modifications with unexpected consequences to the target organism. The current HuMouse immune system still does not function exactly like a human's - but it is a lot closer.

    Agree with all of this. Are you in the biological sciences? You sound like you know your stuff.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2016
    Your Forbes article was a huge step there.

    Thanks but it got like 4000 views so "huge step" might be a slight exaggeration. Public science communication is frustrating because if you do it honestly then your piece is rather dry and ho-hum and non-sensationalistic so basically no one cares.

  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    sunnybeaches105 wrote: »
    The thing I most enjoy about MFP is that people without a relevant degree, experience, or expertise have absolutely no problem telling those who do that they should "do their research" and "learn." It would be pure comedy gold if they weren't so serious. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but it's something I think we see more often because of social media, and it's dangerous in that people vote for and support candidates who are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and generally anti-science. I suppose this is our generation's Scopes Trial.

    I did not know what the Scopes trial was.
    Wow.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    stevencloser wrote: »
    sunnybeaches105 wrote: »
    The thing I most enjoy about MFP is that people without a relevant degree, experience, or expertise have absolutely no problem telling those who do that they should "do their research" and "learn." It would be pure comedy gold if they weren't so serious. I know this isn't a new phenomenon, but it's something I think we see more often because of social media, and it's dangerous in that people vote for and support candidates who are anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and generally anti-science. I suppose this is our generation's Scopes Trial.

    I did not know what the Scopes trial was.
    Wow.

    Really? Never seen Inherient the Wind? Good film. Very interesting part of our history and a turning point where things could have gone very differently.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Not a big movie goer. Also not American.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    stevencloser wrote: »
    Not a big movie goer. Also not American.

    fair enough, was being a bit culturally myopic there.
  • sunnybeaches105
    sunnybeaches105 Posts: 2,831 Member
    edited September 2016
    stevencloser wrote: »
    Not a big movie goer. Also not American.

    Ok, now I understand. Then you would have missed this in our history classes. I don't think the U.S. is unique in this because I've seen it in other places I've lived and visited, but we have a rather vocal anti-authority/anti-intellectual crowd and they have a long history. It has often been a religious (and right leaning) crowd, but what we are seeing now includes a sliver of the secular left attacking vaccines and GMOs. I guess it's somewhat similar to what some of the Greens are doing in Europe. Basically, science is getting it from both sides, and moderates are often the least vocal. Not to get political here, but it seems it does become necessary at some point (though I really don't want to go there so much as point out where some of this is coming from).
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    edited September 2016
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    clicketykeys wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Um...honestly not sure what you are asking.
    Also, I'm not just pulling this out of my butt. A lot of people learn that a specific GMO food is safe, and think that means all GMO is safe. That's the bad thing I'm talking about; we learn that some GMOs are safe and we let our guard down, fail to test new ones adequately.

    Couldn't you say the same for any other process, though? We learn that some pasteurized products are safe and fail to test the new ones.

    How much research should it take on a process before we stop requiring testing? Or should all new products have required testing anyway?

    But we aren't talking about testing the process, we're talking about testing the product. And yes, the new product needs to be tested because it may not do what it was designed to do.

    Contrary to popular belief, one does not simply pick out a gene from one organism, insert it into another and voila - you are 100% guaranteed that it is properly regulated, transcribed, translated, the protein folds correctly and is post-translationally modified in the way one expected. Even with the precision of CRISPR-CAS, the resulting correctly modified organism may not perform as expected because we don't have perfect understanding of the target system as a whole*. Of course, the more thoroughly the source and target organisms are known, and the more simple and targeted the modification, the more likely a modification will be successful and have only the effect we intend.

    Mind you, the usual result of a modification failing is simply that whatever you trait you wanted just doesn't get expressed, or it turns out that your modification interferes with another process in the target organism and you get sub-standard performance.

    What you'd test for is the possibility that your modification might have had an unintended effect. For example, say you were modifying a potato and as an unintended consequence your modification increased solanine production to toxic levels across the board. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that happens occasionally even with standard breeding practices. It still warrants testing.

    *If anyone is interested in an example, see: HuMouse development, history of. It's a whole series of modifications with unexpected consequences to the target organism. The current HuMouse immune system still does not function exactly like a human's - but it is a lot closer.

    Agree with all of this. Are you in the biological sciences? You sound like you know your stuff.

    Yes. I'm a computational biologist.

    I started with the PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics and later got an MS in computer science. Been a long time since I worked in a lab*, but my thesis project included months of nothing but round after round of cloning and characterizing 'randomly' generated point mutations targeted to a particular region of a protein.

    *To give you an idea, my 2nd rotation was working with anthrax when labs that did still had problems getting funding.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2016
    stealthq wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    clicketykeys wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Um...honestly not sure what you are asking.
    Also, I'm not just pulling this out of my butt. A lot of people learn that a specific GMO food is safe, and think that means all GMO is safe. That's the bad thing I'm talking about; we learn that some GMOs are safe and we let our guard down, fail to test new ones adequately.

    Couldn't you say the same for any other process, though? We learn that some pasteurized products are safe and fail to test the new ones.

    How much research should it take on a process before we stop requiring testing? Or should all new products have required testing anyway?

    But we aren't talking about testing the process, we're talking about testing the product. And yes, the new product needs to be tested because it may not do what it was designed to do.

    Contrary to popular belief, one does not simply pick out a gene from one organism, insert it into another and voila - you are 100% guaranteed that it is properly regulated, transcribed, translated, the protein folds correctly and is post-translationally modified in the way one expected. Even with the precision of CRISPR-CAS, the resulting correctly modified organism may not perform as expected because we don't have perfect understanding of the target system as a whole*. Of course, the more thoroughly the source and target organisms are known, and the more simple and targeted the modification, the more likely a modification will be successful and have only the effect we intend.

    Mind you, the usual result of a modification failing is simply that whatever you trait you wanted just doesn't get expressed, or it turns out that your modification interferes with another process in the target organism and you get sub-standard performance.

    What you'd test for is the possibility that your modification might have had an unintended effect. For example, say you were modifying a potato and as an unintended consequence your modification increased solanine production to toxic levels across the board. Frankly, this is the kind of thing that happens occasionally even with standard breeding practices. It still warrants testing.

    *If anyone is interested in an example, see: HuMouse development, history of. It's a whole series of modifications with unexpected consequences to the target organism. The current HuMouse immune system still does not function exactly like a human's - but it is a lot closer.

    Agree with all of this. Are you in the biological sciences? You sound like you know your stuff.

    Yes. I'm a computational biologist.

    I started with the PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics and later got an MS in computer science. Been a long time since I worked in a lab*, but my thesis project included months of nothing but round after round of cloning and characterizing 'randomly' generated point mutations targeted to a particular region of a protein.

    *To give you an idea, my 2nd rotation was working with anthrax when labs that did still had problems getting funding.

    Very cool. The advent of high throughput sequencing and proteomics has really given bioinformations and computational biology a bit of a boom time. My PhD is in molecular biology with graduate work focused on protein engineering. Currently I work as a microbiologist in a non-profit focused on drug discovery and development. I am technically a lab scientist but as my career has progressed I've moved more and more away from the bench and into a more desk/management type of role. I get into the lab now and again but not as much as I used to.

    My graduate work was a bit similar to what your lab work was from the sounds of it, I used a computational rational design approach to predict thermostabilizing mutations in proteins. My work was the first time such an approach was used to successfully thermostablize an enzyme without negatively affecting its function. After publishing the enzyme I created was picked up by a company and developed into a gene therapy for glioblastoma that is currently in clinical trials.
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