In Defense of Genetic Modification

Bird's Eye
By Jon Entine

Let Them Eat Precaution

On cue, at last fall's World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, self anointed "Green" activists showed up to protest the use of gene modification (G.M.) technology in agriculture. A bevy of teenagers outfitted as monarch butterflies flitted through what resembled a Halloween riot. Dotted amongst the chanting demonstrators was an assortment of human side dishes including walking "killer" tomatoes, a man dressed as a cluster of drippy purple grapes, and a woman in a strawberry costume topped with a fish head peddling T-shirts that warned of the weird and horrid mutants that will be created if "Corporate America" and the "multinationals" get their way.



It would all be so very entertaining—if there weren't so much at stake, largely for the very people in Africa and Asia for whom these protestors purport to speak. As Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, who split with environmental fundamentalists over their didactic rejection of genetic modification, writes in his piece beginning on page 24, "I cannot comprehend that anyone, let alone someone who fancies himself as progressive, would argue against pursuing research on putting a daffodil gene in rice that could boost its Vitamin A content and prevent a half million children from going blind each year. Yet, that's just what they're doing. They even oppose basic research."

Complete text at http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17876/article_detail.asp

 

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This, unfortunately, is partly the United States reaping the rewards of their own endemic poor education. The media line on genetic engineering, cloning, stem cell research, and many other such fields is that they are "Playing God", and that making changes to living beings is an affront to nature and morality.

It is rare that people are able to argue with this position in any way that is heard. Patrick Moore, whose education is probably more broadly based than those of the protestors, will probably have a clearer impression of the issue.

The sad part is, the longer the protesters spend chasing the fake monsters, the less attention will be paid to the actual problems attendant upon the development of these sciences, which are largely ignored.

 

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The genetic modification of food organisms is proceeding with the goal to make some monster companies money. The bottom line is not the health and welfare of human beings or their environment. The significance of the Monarch butterflies is lost on many folks as they think the situation is a trade off between the welfare of some flitting little insects or the welfare of humans. The significance is that where the companies and their defending so-called scientists claimed there would be no harm, harm was done. The significance is that though laws were passed to prevent the mixture of the modified DNA strands with existing strands they could not be adhered to due to mistake and design. Human intelligence, teleological design, is not up to the task. Modifying DNA is messing with something that is extremely complex with repercussions that are difficult to either foresee of forestall. THAT IS THE LESSON THAT HAS NOT BEEN LEARNED OR APPLIED. What needs to be done is for humanity to gain some measure of civilization whereby the welfare of our livelihoods is dependent on the altruistic repercussions of our efforts rather than being tied to the amassing of tokens. Human science development has not and is not first and foremost for human benefit. We need such a state before we go about messing wholeheartedly with the very basis of our own lives and the life of our biosphere.

Many, MaNy, MANY different strategies and methods exist to feed more people, to produce more food, more healthy food, to facilitate changing people's diets and behaviors to more healthy living that are not being pursued because these strategies and methods do not favor the concentration of monetary wealth into a few hands. Monoculture farms are stupid, hear me, GROSSLY INADEQUATE! The general health of ecosystems is dependent on what is known as the diversity index. When this index is high then one species can die, can be totally obliterated from a niche, and the ecosystem does not collapse because other species exist to fulfill the trophic requirements, the complex needs of the biosphere. Monoculture farms are touted as fantastic feats of engineering only with ignoring the plight of most people who are being driven to living in cities, to no longer have their farms, to being far from understanding the importance and value of preserving the integrity and the complexity of mutually coexisting life forms. To become alienated from the value of life and its many forms.

Rachel Carson spoke a warning with her (1962?) book, "Silent Spring," and the chemical companies threatened to sue her, scientists laughed and made parodies and chemical company organizations conducted letters to editors campaigns to scoff at her warnings then, as if by cue, thalidomide repercussions were graphically put into the public's eyes. A big study was conducted by the USDA that confirmed the predictions of Rachel Carson and many persistent pesticides and herbicides were outlawed in this country, BASICALLY ONLY IN THIS COUNTRY! THEY ARE STILL BEING USED IN MOST OTHERS! At that time only about 32,000 tons of chemicals were applied in the agriculture industry in North America. Now the amount is about 650,000 tons per year (as detailed in a recent Smithsonian magazine article) and very little testing has been done and some of these are persistent sorts that biomagnify through trophic levels.

Be flippant, go ahead, speak fast and furious of the great and almighty Monsanto like organizations and their saintly desires, how we or others couldn't possibly survive without these armchair investor controlled enterprises. I say look deeper. Look at how the complexity of the situation is driving people to be more ignorant and farther from understanding or being able to feed themselves or care for their environment. Look at how the little diverstiy based farm is being replaced by mechanized water and soil wasting "bigger hammers."

I seriously doubt if any citations to my claims will change anybody's mind but I will gather a few and post some here shortly. So far, Isaac and BigBlue, you are demonstrating a degree of ignorance and arrogance about the issues that is all too common.

 

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GM foods are evil and the Africans should be allowed to starve in their absence.

It is the only prudent moral decision.

 

That's right, the poor and ignorant should be made dependent on the big corporations for seed that, if it grows, renders the crop land the property of the corporations as the people will be using patented materials for their own profit and can be held liable (as is happening in Canada right now, see http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ ).

According to some there is plenty of other food stuffs available only the corporations with USAID as their sales force, want the poor and depraved to become dependent on food that only the megabusinesses can supply. There's a slew of data out there on the web but see this exchange between the UN head of the Commission of Human Rights, Jean Ziegler, and the US UN ambassador's inanities here: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/service38.htm

Stokes, you and lots of other folks shoot from the hip in this issue. Seems so cut and dry and simple. I say that it only seems that way to some people who have a tough time questioning so-called authority and who also have a tough time weeding fact from fiction as you have demonstrated to me in another thread. TRY CITING SOME DATA TO SUPPORT YOUR MURMURING OF GARBAGE, NEXT TIME.

 

It isn't that there is not enough food to feed them already, it is that with GM strains, impoverished nations would have an easier time bootstrapping themselves into autonomy.

Why people oppose even fundamental research in this area is something I will never understand.

 

So you know for a fact that these impoverished nations will get autonomy through taking the GM corn or the rice with the beta carotene? Why not show some supporting evidence? I'm sure the corporations that are and have developed these materials have got some "sooth" sayers out there with the message. Myself, I'm not sure. I question the motives of the industry. I question the findings of their tests and the findings of the tests that they have bascially done for them by their lackeys in the so-called governments on the planet. So far they have not kept their promises of not spreading or not having deleterious effects. How many times must they not meet their own predictions for you to question their integrity?

It has taken billions of years of experimentation, complex huge numbers of interactive parameters of experimentation to get the basic stuff we have today that we know can work well together as long as we don't try to get it to grow like it was in a factory rather than in a biosphere.

Human spoilage and wastage of arable land continues and accelerates and a lot of the blame can be placed on the doorstep of monoculturing. Should we destroy the kit and kaboodle so that a few can make profits on the needs of the many and then give them some palliative hope of redemption from the wasting of the land by offering them to be guinea pigs?

Who said that fundamental research should be opposed? I'm all for it though I think some should wait until we have space colonies other than the mother ship so we can be quite certain of keeping it contained. Is this a straw man?

 

So your entire argument boils down to a simple hatred of capitalism and corporations then? Pretty petty reason to deprive humanity of a powerful tool, don't you think?

Sideline your vitriol toward conglomerates for a moment. Assume they'll make trillions, if that's what tickles you. That is irrelevant. The salient fact is that GM foodstuffs offer a higher yield to impoverished nations (as well as a tertiary benefit of potential indigenous production in the future) that other means do not.

So why the kneejerk opposition to them?

 

Why the straw man approach again? Capitalism is both a necessity and unavoidable as I define it which is in trying to keep my terminology in consistency with general systems theory which is to keep it from having too many inconsistencies and contradicitons to adhere to logic or intelligence. The term "corporations" is another misleader. I know the idea of "might makes right" is absolutely one hundred percent fallacious. When by "corporation" we are meaning an entity that is more force than intelligence, than compassion, more dependent on propaganda and weapons and dirty tricks for its existence rather than honest attempts at improving human and biosphere conditions, then yes, I am against this concept of "corporation" but not any other idea of the concept of incorporating policy or organization as a means to an end rather than an end to means.

Why must you put words in my mouth? Got nothing of substance to offer other wise? Well it sure looks that way as you continue to mouth your platitudes with no reference, no citation that we or I can study and weigh on apparent and researchable integrity. NO. Your approach is not one of communication. You want to come off as the high end all knowing defeater of the enemies of the state only you got one big problem, THERE IS NO STATE. You can't begin to understand this. The cognitive dissonance is too great. The propaganda has been laid thick and heavy for most of the lives of perhaps most of the population and now we come to this point in time and space where the institutions come to mean more than the real stuff, you and me, our family humanity, the entire biosphere that gave us and sustains our life.

This is no kneejerk opposition. You keep making straw men. I don't think you have any thing of substance to offer. Why don't you try using your brain rather than just the line of the "powers that be." We happen to be on the same side, whether or not you are capable of seeing this truth.

 

It seems obvious that problems such as 'feeding the world' could easily be solved today without any GM food. It is all political.

That said, I don't really think GM is very dangerous. It is possible that we completely fuck something up. But what else is new.

 

spuriousmonkey, just look around a bit, http://www.netlink.de/gen/home.html There is a great deal of data out there. I read a recent article in Discover magazine that was citing the amount of money dedicated to the testing of GM food stuffs as drying up. Some major companies want to sell the stuff, develop some real monopolies with forced dependence and they don't want to do much testing at all that might get in the way. Hard to claim it is safe without extensive testing. There are many factors to consider.

 

We have been modifying organisms since the 70s. Nothing really bad seems to have happened in all this time. I'm just a big fan of wishful thinking, that's all.

 

Each crop is different. Here are a couple of negative results:

# Beet: Based on the evidence provided by the FSE results published in October 2003, if GMHT beet were to be grown and managed as in the FSEs this would result in adverse effects on arable weed populations, as defined and assessed by criteria specified in Directive 2001/18/EC, compared with conventionally managed beet. The effects on arable weeds would be likely to result in adverse effects on organisms at higher trophic levels (e.g. farmland birds), compared with conventionally managed beet.

# Spring-sown oilseed rape: Based on the evidence provided by the FSE results published in October 2003, if spring-sown GMHT oilseed rape were to be grown and managed as in the FSEs this would result in adverse effects on arable weed populations, as defined and assessed by criteria specified in Directive 2001/18/EC, compared with conventionally managed spring-sown oilseed rape. The effects on arable weeds would be likely to result in adverse effects on organisms at higher trophic levels (e.g. farmland birds), compared with conventionally managed oilseed rape.


There's actually a positive result on the same article. Not everything comes out wrong.
http://www.naturalworldtours.co.uk/articles2004/january/january1704i.htm

 

Of course, they are bound by a slavish Judeo-Christian perspective.

Why is feeding an impoverished nation in the interest of any country?

 

This is your way of agreeing with me

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It's actually in the interest of the GM company that holds the patent of the food. All that aid money goes into its pockets, which is in the interest of the country where that company is based.

 

It isn't obviously, but it could be if we have the political will to do so. We could easily feed the world with current production. Hence the question isn't really that we need GM food. There is enough food. It is not distributed 'in a fair manner'.

Now the question is does anyone care about this? Obviously not, otherwise we would do something about it.

 

You have a point, but it's typical of the pity-mentallity. Many of these African nations don't have any natural land that can sustain agirculture. These desert landscapes could be modified in some way to accomodate growth by genetic alterations. Sounds like a plan, but lets concentrate on overpopulation and our the problems in our OWN country first.

 

Many of them have other resources. But corruption and current trade conditions make sure that the common man will never see any money from them.

 

I think David Suzuki said it best: "Either these scientists are crazy or just plain stupid." Something to do with DNA; genetically modified foods have a DNA string in a horizontal inheritance instead of a verticle inheritance. Genomes are functioning, integrated units. Introduce foreign genes, and you disrupt those genomes.

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