GMOs Scary or not?

I just want superpowers.

If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-‘90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations’ selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Thanks to the efforts of Lynas and people like him, governments around the world—especially in Western Europe, Asia, and Africa—have hobbled GM research, and NGOs like Greenpeace have spurned donations of genetically modified foods.

But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong. According to the version of his remarks posted online (as yet, there’s no video or transcript of the actual delivery), he opened with a bang:

I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.



http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/03/mark_lynas_environmentalist_who_opposed_gmos_admits_he_was_wrong.html

You would think reading this would be eye opening to people. Seeing that the very person who helped start the Anti-GMO movement regrets ever doing it. Seeing that when you look at the facts you realize not only should you not be scared, but a lot of great and important work is being done.

Nope. The next two comments are still, "I don't fully understand it, therefore bad."

I guess if they want to label they can but I don't think they should. All it will do is scare the uneducated and then raise the price of food that is already getting to expensive.

What the anti GMO crowd does not get is that if it wasn't for GMO corn and such there would be a lot more starvation in the world. First because there wouldn't be as much product available. Secondly because if you think price of corn and meat is high now, if it wasn't for GMO it would be double what it is now. A lot of people wouldn't be able to afford what they could now thanks to GMO corn.

Most corn consumed by humans is not GMO. There is only one sweet corn available that is GMO. Most GMO corn is feed corn, and most feel corn is GMO. So, sweet corn prices have nothing to do with GMO, and if feed corn is overly expensive, then clearly GMO is not the answer.

SUCH a logic fail.

Again, tell starving people that being able to provide more food at cheaper cost is bad for them, because...something.

Tell farmers that being able to plant crops more resistant to disease and insects without the use of pesticides is bad because... there's science behind it that you don't understand, so it must be bad.

The people at work making GMO foods are smarter than we are. That makes some people feel insecure, so they label it as bad. Working to make the best crops possible, some capable of saving lives of those in poorer countries, is noble work.

It's attacked in this country by rich people who want to shove their poorly thought out beliefs on others who are suffering.

I have a feeling that people in the first world, who have never gone hungry, are the only ones who are screaming about how scary GMOs are.

So?

Labeling implies there's something wrong with it. We don't force organic products to be labeled as such.