I mean, the whole argument seems to be, “Look, this 14 year old girl took down some talking head from Monsanto!” In BoingBoing land, there’s no way to say anything negative about what she said without it looking reeeeally bad.
I understand her sentiment and understand where she’s coming from, but I also happen to know an actual scientist who does this work at Monsanto, and if they’d let her talk, she’d do a brilliant takedown of every talking point. Unfortunately, I’m sure Monsanto, like most big corporations, won’t want their employees out there talking about what they do, so instead you end up with some asshat being taken down by an articulate 14-year-old idealist.
I think it’s good theater to have a pretty young lady as the mouthpiece, and if I were scheduled to sit opposite her I would say “Oh hell no!” What are you going to do, beat up a little girl?
The questions for any anti-GMO activist should be “Ever been on a farm? Can you name the top 3 pests of corn? etc”
Whatever you feel about GMO food, one thing is certain: we now have an excellent video example for the concept “concern troll” if you know anyone who doesn’t know what that means.
Indeed. But on itself is not an argument against GMOs, that is an argument against the Bayh Dole Act, and against the way things are done these days. In IT, the closest analogy I can think is to reject computers because I don’t like Windows, even if there are perfectly good Free (as in libre, and as in gratis) alternatives for the OS. So, we would be refusing to use computers because we don’t like some programs. To extend further the analogy: Think of computers in the 60s, what were they good for? First real use of the tech was not lady Ada programming weaving machines, its first real use was tracking punched with data about Jews and use that info to take them to concentration camps. Then, it was all about simulation of nuclear tests and more war stuff. They were incredibly big and expensive, only govts could afford them, they were arcane and hard to use. Oh sure, the techno utopians keep all starry eyed talk about computers releasing us from mechanical tasks and entertaining us, but we cannot see any hint of that in reality. We should forbid computers, as they increase the power of the state over us, and they do not allow us to fight back… Based on fact only, there were great arguments about a moratorium on computing on the 60s. We are in a similar stage in biotech.
I fart in their general direction.
“As for loss of biodiversity, GM crops basically ensure that reduction in biodiversity will occur unless farmers can save seed and cross with what they please.”
My vision of agriculture and biotech encompasses giving these tools to farmers and scientists already working with these varieties, creating new hybrids that breed true and are better adapted to specific local conditions, or experimenting with a lot of traits already existing in some varieties, but that we cannot grow in more resilient/productive varieties. I want GM to increase our options a hundredfold. And in my vision of the future of agriculture, also urban farmers would play a role obtaining new varieties and growing them. Sounds crazy, I know. A billion dollar company started in garage sounded crazy in the 50’s too.
It can be done, I swear it will be easy, even if my company fails, others will do it. We need to perfect that tech.
Yikes. Indeed. Pharming is a completely different animal.
There are risks, and I honestly believe that the benefits overweight them. Sure, fire is terrible, it can maim you in very cruel ways, still, we use it every day, it’s the base of our technical progress, we cook our meals with it. We learned to live with it and manage the risk.
I apologize if I came as comparing people supporting labeling to antivaccinist. However, some anti GMO activists do lie. I have witnessed in person all sort of nasty lies about GM, told with a very straight face. From the old legends about McDonald’s meat being made with vat meat that gave you cancer to claims that GM papaya had “rat genes that will give you bubonic plague”. The Seralini studies seem to me like deliberate fraud too. I have read stories about BT cotton making sheep vomit a black substance that corroded their insides… There is an extremely nasty propaganda about GM, way too much FUD and hearsay, that’s used to fuel the fear and provide cues to more rational sounding fear mongers.
This talk about people being used as Guinea pigs, for instance, is why I compare these people to the people opposing the first vaccines.
Yes, but what’s your point? Of course they do, and so do some pro GMO corporations, but that doesn’t mean everyone who supports GMO does as well, does it?
Like I said here, my biggest problem with the research is the lack of transparency and preponderance of industry sponsored studies. The evaluation and approval process does not require the disclosure of proprietary research which is bullshit. The fact that the USDA doesn’t require companies to release results of trials that have negative outcomes is also rancid bullshit.
There needs to be more disclosure especially considering that many of the so-called “independent” studies end up being linked to industry funding. For example, I’ve found many university studies and researchers that are labeled as “independent” are funded directly or indirectly by industry… but that conflict of interest is often ignored by many pro GMO pundits and media. Once we stop these misrepresentations and finally see more disclosure, I’ll feel far more comfortable with the GMO industry when it acts more like an industry with nothing to hide.
Until then, I want labels. If that makes me a wackjob, then so be it.
It’s not GMO in itself I distrust, it’s many of the corporations that utilize the technology. These same corporations that have a dark history of lying to the public for their own profits. But as I’ve said earlier, I don’t have much of an issue with GMOs for the most part. I think if there was horrible, obvious problems with it, far more scientists and even whistleblowers would have come forward by now. But, I still fall on the side of caution for the reasons I discussed here and in a previous post.
I have never claimed that all anti GM activists lie, but, given the lies of those who do, it’s not absurd to compare them to the first anti vaccinists making up absurd claims to oppose vaccines.
Agreed. We need more information. However, I am also hesitant about this, because I have seen the trick of asking for more disclosure, then saying it is needed because GMO are extremely dangerous.
Agreed, I am not against that, quite the opposite, and there should be more public funds in this kind of resaearch, but it would be deeply unpopular.
After then too! People should have the right to be crazy and paranoid and avoid GM for obscure reasons if they wish so.
FIne, that’s perfectly understandable. But that’s not the majority position of anti GM activists, and that’s not what most of us pro GM are fighting against. I dislike Monsanto a lot,and those of us supporting GM tech will be better once we have other actors playing this game, instead of Monsanto being the main producer of GM seeds.
correct. old fashioned hybridization can also create toxic products. its just like the typewriter and the word processor. both of them can create nice poetry as well as a hateful letter. the word processor is neutral, its what you do with it that counts
BT corn only produces one thing new - the same natural insectdicide produced by the BT organism. Since its the same then BT corn should have - microgram per microgram - similar safety/toxicity as corn dusted or sprayed with the whole BT organism. And BT has been used this way by organic farmers (oh the irony!) for over 50 years and all research says there is no significant health risk from whole BT organism sprayed on crops
Actually it might be even safer in principle because no other products of the BT bacteria are included. Analogous to cereal + milk versus walking cows on top of a large shipment of cereal then milking them and letting the milk drip down to the cereal. You also get cow urine, cow crap, mud from the feet and cow sweat in your cereal
given the lies of those who do, it’s not absurd to compare them to the first anti vaccinists making up absurd claims to oppose vaccines.
I would compare any chronic, extremist liar to other ridiculous people. For example, I would compare pro-GMO people that tell obtuse lies, practice pedantry, discount facts, exaggerate other’s positions, etc. to industry shills and other mindless jackasses, etc. – but, I still don’t really get your overall point of bringing it up the first place.
Agreed. We need more information. However, I am also hesitant about this, because I have seen the trick of asking for more disclosure, then saying it is needed because GMO are extremely dangerous.
Why would that make you hesitant at all? If anything, more disclosure and transparency could finally allay many of the potentially unfounded worries people have about GMO. Why hesitate?
Or, if you mean that you’re hesitant to concede that more disclosure is needed because you’re worried it’ll be used against you; Then don’t worry about it. Who cares? Let’s just be honest about things and let the chips fall where they may. People with pre-determined mindsets should not be a part of this equation anyway.
Agreed, I am not against that, quite the opposite, and there should be more public funds in this kind of resaearch, but it would be deeply unpopular.
By industry, maybe. But, if there’s nothing to hide, then they should embrace it. It could finally get the ball rolling for them for more public acceptance of GMO products.
People should have the right to be crazy and paranoid and avoid GM for obscure reasons if they wish so.
See, there you go again. Like I said before, being dickish and harsh doesn’t really help things. If anything, it just sets the adoption of GMO back even further. Calling people “crazy”, “paranoid”, “hysterical”, etc. because they choose to avoid GMO products only reinforces for many people that pro-GMO people are acting like dicks because they’re wrong and have something to hide.
It’s not GMO in itself I distrust, it’s many of the corporations that utilize the technology.
FIne, that’s perfectly understandable. But that’s not the majority position of anti GM activists
Do you have evidence of this? A poll perhaps? I haven’t found that to be the case myself, but I haven’t checked any polls lately. Also, maybe focus less on “activists” and more on the majority of average people that simply want to know more about GMO before accepting it.
I’m going to simply ignore the obvious fact that the labelling drive is simply a marketing tool pushed by the anti-GM crowd so that they can scare naive consumers and treat this topic like an actual discussion.
So how about this - label every product that has GM plants in. Give the trade name, along with the gene/s introduced or modified, the process used and the accession number for the insert location.
Then do the same for every other type of plant produced: classical breeds, hybrids, mutagenesis lines, marker-assisted breeding lines and so on.
This, along with a publicly-available database, would give customers all the information they need to make informed decisions about the origin of the foods they eat.
We see lie repeated time after time, manipulative language, overt generalizations and destroyed GM crops, and you don’t see why I compare certain GM activists to anti vaccinists? Hell, this very same article talks about yields not being better, when in some documented cases it is better.
In my personal experience, any admission of potential risk and caution is used by some dishonest people to claim that there is real, proven danger. Pretty much like me admitting in theory that I could kill somebody would mean that I have to go to jail.
That’s why I am in favor of labeling and more transparence, even if I am hesitant.
My point is that publicly funded research in GM would be vulnerable to political pressure, so it might be difficult to achieve relevant results with scarce funds.
Whatever. Some people are paranoid and delusional, deeply ignorant of these issues. For fuck’s sake, these people are being sold “GMO free salt” and they buy it. I am really tired of being nice to nutjobs and liars. Yes, label them, disclose as much info as possible, but at the end of the day lot of what’s going on here is delusion, paranoia. Not for everybody of course, but let’s not deny that these people exist.
Only my personal experience of 13 years debating, writing and talking about the subject. Even if I am a biologist by training, GMOs are not my field. But, in most online debates people argues as if GMOs are a monolithic tech irreversibly linked to Monsanto, and in this particular case of Ms. Parent, she does that kind of blunt generalization. Usually all I get is MONSANTO IS EVIL!!! GENE PATENTS!!! and that’s it.
Well, due to the nature of the Internet debates, most of them are silently reading as we exchange opinions. I try to write about the subject, and I am currently trying to make biotech a little bit more accessible and less mysterious, but it’s a longshot.
he’s not a bully. he’s making some very valid points that she spends her whole time trying to skirt and avoid answering. she’s got a future in politics, that’s for sure. but she’s misguided if she think she’s right. the issue is not simply black and white.
GMO technology is quite a bit less brute force than conventional methods so that seems like a really odd objection to raise primarily it and not against conventional agriculture.
It would probably be more accurate to say that it produces one of several closely related bt toxins; I think Monsanto has identified and evaluated at least seven cry1 proteins, and other companies have found others. Which probably doesn’t matter, and yet is not totally irrelevant, since some of those variants are not in fact identical to the ones that have been in use for fifty years. And in fact some varieties of bt corn were not sold for human consumption specifically because of uncertainty about possible reactions to some of these proteins (StarLink corn).
The bigger flaw in your argument, however, is that toxins produced internally by a plant may end up being present in far larger concentrations in the final food product than those that are applied externally by dusting with bacteria. Since the dose makes the poison, this is an important distinction.
Sure. But organic labeling requires avoiding quite a number of other modern technologies, like synthetic fertilizer, which few people care about; and the result is that organic food is expensive. GMO labeling would allow people to split the difference if they wanted to, and buy GMO-free food that wasn’t organic in other respects.
IMO, the girl is wrong because of the arguments made at the end by the female host. Pretty much all food might contain GMO (especially in America) and it’s very hard to show that something definitely contains none. So you end up with ‘nuts’ labelling where 99% of all food has a mandatory “product may contain nuts” because it’s not possible to categorically rule out the fact that some stray nut-dust entered from another product in the factory.
Instead of mandatory and generally incorrect labelling (most ‘may contain nuts’ products don’t actually contain nuts at a level that could result in allergic reactions), it would be better to have companies respond to (assumed) consumer demand and put voluntary labels saying “GMO-free” in the same way that people put “organic” on a label.
As with organic, there are various NGO’s who could set up a labelling scheme that is suitable and that has public brand-recognition (e.g. the UK soil association’s organic stamp).
As with organic, you would have to put up with a few false negatives, where there has been contamination with synthetic chemicals/GMO at some point in the supply chain.
None of the above detracts from the fact that the Monsanto douchebag was using some heinous trolling tactics. The girl was campaigning for labelling, so trying to troll her with “but what about golden rice, do you want to kill thousands of indian kids?” is despicable. I’ll forgive the girl for being wrong in her golden rice counterargument (early strains didn’t work well but newer ones almost certainly contain plenty of Vit A), since it wasn’t relevant to her point about labelling.
Because Monsanto tells them it would raise food prices. And that, despite the lack of long-term studies on GMO foods, there’s nothing to worry about. And Monsanto does all that because it doesn’t think it’s making enough money yet.
Producers are free to produce GMO-free products and label them as such (and seek the services of 3rd party certifiers to validate those claims) and consumers are free to select only products so labeled. This line of argument doesn’t get to a mandatory labelling scheme, as far as I can tell.
