Watch any anti-GMO video and you’ll see fruit injected with syringes, slyly conjuring parallels with hard drug use.
With GMO, scientists alter the genetics of a species to express beneficial traits. Early forms of genetic modification include farmer selection: I choose this wolf with the shorter nose and over many generations of breeding you get a pug.
Whilst that may be a bad example of improvement, nowadays it may be performed much quicker. However it’s the same macroscopic process since we domesticated crops at the dawn of civilisation.
One anti-GMO clip states:
“Pesticide made from scorpion poison has been injected into cabbages, reportedly safe for humans it paralyses insects that eat the vegetable.”
Scientists identified that scorpion venom has useful insect killing properties and engineered a virus that allows this compound to sit in the crop’s cells. Insects eat the crop, become paralysed and die.
So this kills insects and we eat it. Will we die?
Look at an insect, now at me, now back to the insect. Sadly the insect isn’t me. I won’t die from ingesting poison that has evolved to kill insects. In the same way, I could rip a bong-load of catnip without effect. Alongside me however, Cheshire cat is plummeting through the fractal looking glass.
Different animals have different physiologies: cows have four stomachs, fish breathe underwater; theobromine from chocolate causes toxicosis in dogs. What we are looking at is a substance effective at killing insects but not humans.
One concern stems from research linking it to cancer in rats. Let’s have a look into the flawed 2012 paper which studied 200 rats.
Firstly, trying to connect GMOs and cancer is not ideally conducted by using lab rats known for high rates of spontaneous cancer. Especially when the control is too small for any valid contrast. Additionally when both the author and co-author are anti-GMO lobbyists, one even being a homeopath, the mind screams of iffy science.
The rats demonstrated no increase in mortality in proportion to the dose of GMO food, which is in direct contrast to the hypothesis. This cherry picking of data thereafter meant the paper was retracted.
Of course YouTuber’s and Tumblr’s jumping on the results won’t see that retraction. Revealing social media’s flaw: information circulates virally even after proven false.
Despite overwhelmingly positive results and meta-analysis proving safety, anti-GMO information spreads freely and virally. Yes GM implies artificial, but scientific ignorance prevents people making a valid judgement especially with subtle phrasing.
So enough science and let’s talk about Monsanto – a multinational giant. Possibly the most hated company of all time. Having monopolised America’s seed industry, profiting immensely, they are notorious for the production of GM seeds and a herbicide called Roundup. Both immensely successful at increasing agricultural yield, they’ve become synonymous with anti-GMO propaganda. Purely due to scientific illiteracy and hatred of multinationals.
Many organic businesses maintain their USPs by promoting anti-GMO. It’s good business to be vocal against these unnatural foods and convince politicians to ban it.
In reality Monsanto is like the shark in Jaws. Despite the film’s human viewpoint the shark wasn’t inherently bad. It was just acting within its nature. The same way that Amazon has grown and dominates the market. The same way that any organic business would, given the chance.
Let’s just consider how GMO increases crop yield and reduces insect damage. GM is what the world needs. It is vastly more efficient than organic. Death by malnutrition is a more urgent concern than getting “poisoned” by a chemical that only kills insects, or getting cancer from a non-carcinogen.
It’s also useful for biofuels: 90% of GM crops are destined for industrial applications, Gasohol especially. This is essential as fossil fuels continue to diminish.
So go on, hate on the big companies. Banning a solution to world hunger and optimising agriculture is inherently wrong. With all the hate on “Big-Pharma” pushing loaded information for profit, maybe we need to notice “Big-Organic”. After all, they will profit from selling the GMO alternatives.
Feature photo credit: Flickr user Chiot’s Run
