
How I Got Converted to G.M.O. Food - mortenjorck
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/opinion/sunday/how-i-got-converted-to-gmo-food.html
======
ScottBurson
The point I think needs making about GMOs is that they aren't really a
category. That is, there aren't any true, important statements one can make
about all GMOs, except for the obvious one that they are produced by genetic
manipulation. But as far as their benefits and their dangers, they have to be
evaluated individually.

So on the one hand I'm very concerned about Roundup Ready crops, not
specifically because they're GMOs, but because I'm concerned about long-term
glyphosate toxicity. On the other, as far as I can tell from a small amount of
reading, Bt corn, "golden rice" (rice that makes its own beta-carotene), the
non-browning apple, and now this Bt eggplant are all probably okay.

I think that failure to understand this point, that each GMO is _sui generis_
and has to be approached individually, has two dangers. On the one hand, there
is a tendency to oppose all of them indiscriminately, and of course we're
already seeing this. But there's also a real possibility that once that blows
over and GMOs get more accepted, we might get complacent and not check out new
GMOs as carefully. I do think some safety testing is in order, though in many
cases the modification certainly _sounds_ safe. Beta-carotene is certainly a
valuable nutrient, and AFAIK is hard to overdose on. The non-browning apple
gets that way by having one of its enzymes (polyphenol oxidase) turned off --
what could be dangerous about _removing_ an enzyme? The Bt mods deserve a
little closer examination, as they are producing a new protein, and there
seems to be the potential for allergic reactions in some small fraction of the
population; but Bt is considered an acceptable pesticide for organic crops (it
is a protein, after all, not some chlorinated petrochemical) so it could well
be pretty safe.

(All that said, I do still support GMO labelling laws. People should be able
to know what they're eating, even if they overreact to that information.)

~~~
tptacek
I have a generally very high opinion of the Science Based Medicine blog, and
the SBM editors have a very low opinion of glyphosate alarmism:

[https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-
boge...](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/glyphosate-the-new-bogeyman/)

The short version of this post: there is a wealth of evidence to analyze from
significant human exposure to glyphosate (from farmers, for instance) and none
of it supports significant toxicity. Because glyphosate is so precisely
targeted to the metabolism of plants and not animals, it is among the least
toxic herbicides in use.

~~~
ScottBurson
The debate is ongoing. For example: [http://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-
herbicide-linked-to-c...](http://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-
linked-to-cancer-1.17181)

For the time being, I plan to do my best to avoid the stuff.

~~~
sampo
> For the time being, I plan to do my best to avoid the stuff.

How do you actually go on about avoiding glyphosate? If you buy organic, your
food crop may have been treated with e.g. rotenone, which is a notably nastier
poison than anyone has claimed glyphosate to be.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone)

~~~
ScottBurson
The erosion of organic standards under political pressure from agribusiness is
a very valid area of concern. But that's another conversation.

And anyway I'm not sure rotenone is an example of that. Yes, it's quite toxic,
but it degrades pretty rapidly [0]. And it's a carbohydrate, with none of the
chlorine-carbon bonds that tend to be biochemically problematic in many
synthetic pesticides (though glyphosate is an exception here).

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone#Toxicity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone#Toxicity)

~~~
tptacek
Retenone is also carcinogenic in mouse models. If I had to choose exposure to
retenone or glyphosate, I guess I'd go with glyphosate, which at least isn't
neurotoxic.

------
thirsteh
Chipotle's "No more GMO food" announcement was the worst "great news" I'd
heard in a long time. It was clearly just for PR and nothing else. It's good
to see some sanity--this obsession with "clean/pristine nature" which has no
rational basis has to stop.

Related TED talk:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_ronald_the_case_for_enginee...](https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_ronald_the_case_for_engineering_our_food?language=en)

~~~
gnud
It has a very rational basis - the 'clean nature' fad is a reaction to various
food manufacturers deliberately producing cheap but bad food, for a long time.

Now, that doesn't mean it's always the correct reaction. But it's a simpler
proposition than 'you must thoughorly research each individual ingredient in
everything you eat'.

------
jcoffland
I live in Sonoma County California and I'm so sick of all the people around me
just assuming that GMOs are obviously bad. It seems people here, a lot of them
farmers, are not at all interested in facts. They are attracted to the anti-
science, anti-corporation, anti-establishment aspects of the anti-GMO
movement. Facts take a backseat. Granted, these are also people who believe in
Biodynamics and its horns full of crystals which channel cosimic power.
Perhaps an expectation of basic reasioning is too much.

~~~
mturmon
Regarding this irrationality, my pet theory is that the arena of "food" is an
attractor for superstition.

Maybe it has something to do with the mysterious process by which you are
built from the stuff you eat.

From fad diets, to religious diet restrictions, to diet-based "studies have
shown" trends (antioxidants!), to made up allergies. It's no accident that
most established religions have dietary rules. (Yes, I know some of these
allergies are real. And some of the diets have merit.)

Diet attracts all kinds of attention, and only a small part of it is based in
reality. It's like a projector screen where other anxieties play out.

~~~
jcoffland
Wow, well said. I also feel that many people use their diet choices as a way
to excercise control in their lives.

------
sickpig
Strange nobody mentioned Nassim Taleb and his work on that matter: The
Precautionary Principle - www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf

Quoting the first paragraph of the paper:

 _The precautionary principle (PP) states that if an action or policy has a
suspected risk of causing severe harm to the public domain (affecting general
health or the environment globally), the action should not be taken in the
absence of scientific near-certainty about its safety. Under these conditions,
the burden of proof about absence of harm falls on those proposing an action,
not those opposing it. PP is intended to deal with uncertainty and risk in
cases where the absence of evidence and the incompleteness of scientific
knowledge carries profound implications and in the presence of risks of "black
swans", unforeseen and unforeseable events of extreme consequence._

~~~
sampo
The act of publishing a book or an article (edit: or a cartoon), has
occasionally led to far-reaching, sometimes violent, unforeseen and
unpredictable systemic consequences, sometimes bringing down governments.

Yet Taleb has published several, apparently with no concern whatsoever about
his own precautionary principle.

~~~
KingMob
Not at all. The point of his book is to educate people and reframe how they
think about risk, so he achieved exactly what he intended. If one of those is
to bring a more risk-based understanding of GMOs, which in turns makes people
more cautious _from a scientific perspective_ , then mission accomplished.

The fundamental problem with loosing GMOs into the environment is that there's
no plan B for screwing up the earth or your health, so we have to be extra,
extra conservative. Even if only 1 in a million GMOs turn out to have
disastrous consequences, given enough development and use, eventually we will
create something with unforeseen consequences that passes whatever standards
for safety we have. But given the replicable nature of biology, it will be
everyone's problem instead of a localized disaster.

The people claiming we have _sufficient_ scientific evidence for GMOs don't
understand this key point: __our usual standards for evidence of safety must
be orders of magnitude higher to risk the planet __.

~~~
tptacek
This is a point of view that seems to rest on the idea that "conventional"
human agriculture isn't a disaster for the planet. But it manifestly is.

------
PythonicAlpha
There is one big reason, I oppose G.M.O. Food: They are "patented life". Big
corporations take life forms and make them patent-able and this way they make
that that once belonged to all their "intellectual property".

And don't forget one thing: GMO might help to stop hunger in some regions, but
in the current state of it, it does not. Many farmers in poor regions where
lured into the GMO trap, just to find out one or two years later, that the
proposed additional productivity of the crops did not make up for the
additional costs of the fact that they had to buy the crops (and in case of
Roundup, the glyphosate) from big corporations, which before they could take
from their own harvest.

~~~
BurningFrog
Patents and GMO are entirely separate issues, and far from all GMOs are
patented.

I agree that the patent system is seriously flawed, but that doesn't mean we
should ban the internet because of software patents.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
In theory you are right, but in practice most of the GMOs are created by big
corporations and they patent the stuff.

------
russellspitzer
I'm always amazed how many people who would balk at a single corporation
controlling their operating systems are amazingly complacent when it comes to
corporations copyrighting and controlling their food supply.

~~~
georgemcbay
I don't think this piece does that...?

The problem is there are two separate issues related to GMOs.

One is that the companies who are behind them are mostly evil from a business
practice/IP sense (yes, I am talking primarily of Monsanto). The other is that
there are a lot of people who think GMOs are inherently "toxins" that are
going to give us all cancer or whatever.

It tends to be difficult to have a rational conversation with people on GMOs
when you take the (IMO rational) views that yes, Monsanto is kinda evil, but
no, GMO foods are not inherently evil or bad for you and are, in fact, the
best way forward in feeding all these people we have.

This NY Times piece is rightfully on the side of GMOs as a safe food source.
All the terrible patent-related stuff is a wholly different issue.

~~~
sampo
There are also patented non-GMO varieties, so the patent argument is not
really relevant in GMO discussion.

------
hyperion2010
One of the most rage inducing wikipedia articles you will ever read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice).
People who block this stuff are nothing less than murderers in my opinion.

~~~
DanBC
That's a bit hyperbolic when there are some reasonable concerns about golden
rice. From the article you link:

> In 2008 WHO malnutrition expert Francesco Branca cited the lack of real-
> world studies and uncertainty about how many people will use golden rice,
> concluding "giving out supplements, fortifying existing foods with vitamin
> A, and teaching people to grow carrots or certain leafy vegetables are, for
> now, more promising ways to fight the problem"

Branca isn't some hippy idiot opposed to GMO for some stupid non-reason.

> In that respect, it is significant that vitamin A deficiency is rarely an
> isolated phenomenon, but usually coupled to a general lack of a balanced
> diet

So these children still need additional micronutrient fortification? Where are
they getting iron, zinc and iodine?

[http://whqlibdoc.who.int/bulletin/2000/Number%2010/78(10)new...](http://whqlibdoc.who.int/bulletin/2000/Number%2010/78\(10\)news.pdf)

> Dr Jorgen Schlundt, Coordinator for the Food Safety Programme at the World
> Health Organization, commented: ‘‘Before genetically modified rice can be
> widely introduced, scientific evidence will need to be provided to assure
> that the rice is safe and nutritionally adequate, does not pose unacceptable
> risks to the environment, and will provide the human health benefits
> suggested.’’ He added: ‘‘WHO, along with the Food and Agriculture
> Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the jointly sponsored FAO/WHO
> Codex Alimentarius Commission are developing the methods and criteria to be
> used for the international assessment and management of genetically modified
> foods, including requirements for the labelling of such foods and their
> products. WHO is studying possible human health hazards from the release of
> genetically modified organisms into the environment and, as a first step,
> the WHO Regional Office for Europe has organized a seminar on this topic for
> September 2000.’’

At the time (fifteen years ago) this was a calm rational statement made in the
face of over 30 companies holding over 70 patents who were campaigning heavily
to be able to sell this product to the developing world. After being
challenged by WHO some of the patent owners gave reassurances such as free
licensing for farmers making less than $10,000; and the ability to save and
resow grain.

~~~
thaumasiotes
It doesn't sound particularly calm and rational to me. We already know that
rice isn't nutritionally adequate (that's why it's usually combined with
beans). Why should a new variety of rice need to be more nutritionally
adequate than older varieties?

~~~
DanBC
Because it's being sold as a solution to malnutrition. Part of that money will
come from poor farmers and part of it will come from the budgets of aid
organisations. But it's not a solution to malnutrition. It is a solution to
only a single aspect of malnutrition, leaving the children affected with
unknown but probably sufficient amounts of Vit A but still probably inadaquate
amounts of iron, iodine, and zinc which need to be supplemented. Since you're
supplementing iron zinc and iodine, and others, why not also supplement with a
known dose of vit A instead of allowing companies to target poor people in the
developing world. And, yes, poor people in the developing world do need
protecting. The companies selling multivitamins as cures for AIDS, or Nestlé
aggressively pushing formula milk, sometimes as better than breast milk, show
that there are some companies who put profit above human lives.

[http://irinnews.org/Report/73039/SOUTH-AFRICA-Quackery-
hinde...](http://irinnews.org/Report/73039/SOUTH-AFRICA-Quackery-hinders-AIDS-
treatment-efforts#.VU8lsVuCPTo)

[http://www.badscience.net/category/matthias-
rath/](http://www.badscience.net/category/matthias-rath/)

[http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-
baby-...](http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nestle-baby-milk-
scandal-food-industry-standards)

~~~
thaumasiotes
"We've got a new variety of rice. It solves a problem we have right now."

"We can't allow it to replace any of our normal rice crop, because it doesn't
also solve several other problems."

There's no protection here.

~~~
DanBC
It doesn't solve the problem. It partially solved a problem, but introduced
significant risk.

It partially solves vitamin A deficiency, but we didn't know how well until
better tests had been done.

It also carries risks.

* Monsanto were including terminator genes or prosecuting farmers for re-using seed that didn't have terminator genes. After intervention by orgs like WFP and WHO Monsanto agreed not to use terminator genes and agreed to allow farmers to collect and reuse seed. This one rice product has 70 patents from 30 different organisations. At the time the WHO and WFP were objecting the licencing situation was unclear.

* Vitamin A is toxic in overdose. So, if people are getting vitamin A from rice you need to re-formulate your micronutrient supplement products to lower the vitamin A content. That means you now have two versions (one with and one without vitamin A) (because the rice can't be used everywhere) which complicates the entire chain from manufacture to end user supply.

~~~
OrwellianChild
Do you reformulate your micronutrient supplement to compensate for your varied
intake of Vitamin A/B/X/Y every day?

------
jrkelly
If you would like to get deeply into the weeds on most important facets of the
debate on GMO crops, this is the best set of articles:
[http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/](http://grist.org/series/panic-free-
gmos/)

~~~
BurningFrog
It really is. Nathaniel Johnson also writes the most informed articles about
the California Water mess.

[http://grist.org/author/nathanael-
johnson/](http://grist.org/author/nathanael-johnson/)

------
widowlark
To me, it seems that there are two sides to the GMO coin. On one, we have a
technology and a science that can clearly benefit everyone, especially helping
combat malnutrition and disease in developing countries. On the other, we have
3 or 4 major companies controlling the distribution, creation, and production
of GMO's both physically and legally. If we want GMO's to be effective with
their intended purpose, we have to figure out how to dethrone Monsanto and
Syngenta. This whole system seems eerily analogous to Computer Software and
Hardware monopolization in the early 70's. IIRC, we solved that monopolization
with the Open Sourced movement...

~~~
frostmatthew
> we solved that monopolization with the Open Sourced movement

There is an _Open Source Seed Initiative_ [1][2]

[1] [http://osseeds.org/](http://osseeds.org/)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/seed-
monopol...](http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/seed-monopoly-
free-seeds-farm-monsanto-dupont)

------
memracom
The problem with GMO is that growers want to keep it secret. They are not
proud of what they are doing and do not want to label their products as GMO.
They believe that we, the consumers, are stupid and need to be protected by
big brother (Communist party central planning committee) because we are not
capable of making our own decisions.

But we do not want that. We believe in honesty, openness and freedom of
choice. And if this means that it takes 10 generations to weed out the good
parts of GMO from the bad, then so be it.

Nobody has to guarantee anybody else obscene profits from some clever idea.
Most clever ideas are not that beneficial to the market, and therefore they
either fade away or they fill some obscure niche which is less lucrative and
glamorous than the founders had expected. So be it!

That is actually true capitalism and true market forces. Recently Elon Musk
announced a home battery product that could actually cause the end of nuclear
and the dominance of solar power generation. It came about, not through some
central committee deciding what is good for us, but through pure capitalism
and entrepreneurial spirit. And that is good.

So put a prominent label on any products containing GMO, and explain what you
have in there and why it is good. The people will decide because that is their
right. The right to make informed decisions is more important than any other
right, because there is no liberty when your decisions are manipulated or when
the rich and powerful keep you in ignorance and confusion.

------
breatheoften
the anti-gmo labeling advocates express the concern that requiring gmo
labeling will undermine the market price for gmo products due to consumer fear
and that this is bad because gmo products have $benefits. A commonly cited
$benefit is that gmo crops can require fewer harmful pesticides.

A good compromise: require food be labeled as gmo or not -- and also require
that food be labelled with all pesticides used.

~~~
jweir
Don't forget herbicides. A GMO plant might require no pesticide but use more
herbicide.

[http://www.gmo-
compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/breeding_a...](http://www.gmo-
compass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/breeding_aims/146.herbicide_resistant_crops.html)

------
pbreit
You wouldn't know it from the article but I thought the anti-GMO argument went
something like: sorta different from natural breeding; long term effects
unknown; moving anecdotes notwhitstanding, necessity is modest; crates some
unappealing situations due to the scope and dynamics of food production.

~~~
tptacek
Can you fill in some of the blanks on why the necessity of GMOs is modest?
Apart from things like "supporting the Ugandan cassava crop that would
otherwise be devastated by diseases cured by GMO", don't most GMO strategies
also drastically reduce other harmful chemical inputs to farming?

I'm not sure I understand the last argument.

Just curious; I know you're just explaining the argument, not making it.

~~~
pbreit
Those anecdotes are powerful but I think they are mitigated by the fact that
we can easily produce enough non-GMO food to feed the planet.

The last point was a weak attempt to note the problems you hear of, for
example, proprietary strains infesting non-customer farms. Not strictly a GMO
problem, tho.

I'm not reflexively anti-GMO but don't think the case is quite closed (for or
against).

~~~
tptacek
This is a little like the nuclear-vs-coal debate. We can generate more than
enough power for the country with coal, and because we've been using coal for
centuries, we're blinded to the costs (for instance, the annual death toll) of
coal. The same may be true of the environmental costs of large-scale farming
of genetically inferior crops.

------
jqm
Like many things, I suspect many people are against the idea of GMO food _in
principal_.

In practice, most of the people who are against in principal will have no
problem eating a Twinkie that has GMO wheat in it so long as everyone else is
eating one too.

------
selimthegrim
I thought a good reason to oppose them was the monocultures that often result
from their use, knocking out species like bees that depend on a diverse array
of pollen sources (hence the almond industry's woes with bee pollination)

------
nodata
Looking at the comments, the pro-GMOers are just as blindsided as the anti-
GMOers. Shame on us all.

One of the anti-GMO arguments is that you don't want to get a knock on your
door (and a lawsuit) from Monsanto for accidentally having a field next to
your Monsanto-loving neighbour.

~~~
sampo
> knock on your door (and a lawsuit) from Monsanto for accidentally having a
> field next to your Monsanto-loving neighbour

This is pure FUD and has never happened. If you are ready to stop spreading
false propaganda, you can go to Wikipedia and read what really happened in
those cases:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases)

~~~
fragmede
From that Wikipedia page:

 _In 2002, Monsanto mistakenly sued Gary Rinehart of Eagleville, Missouri for
patent violation. Rinehart was not a farmer or seed dealer_

which seems to contradict your claim that it has "never happened".

~~~
sampo
Oh, you even stopped quoting in mid-sentence. Isn't that a bit dirty?

Let me quote a bit more:

"In 2002, Monsanto mistakenly sued Gary Rinehart of Eagleville, Missouri for
patent violation. Rinehart was not a farmer or seed dealer, _but sharecropped
land with his brother and nephew, who were violating the patent. Monsanto
dropped the lawsuit against him when it discovered the mistake._ "

------
Meai
The single issue is whether it is safe or not. Articles telling me how great
it would be for poor, despserate farmers in third world countries as a last
resort choice is really a fringe issue that is - I suspect - cloaking the
point on purpose.

~~~
sampo
> it is safe or not

Most of the major scientific and medical organizations have issued a statement
that GMO food is safe (in the sense of being as safe as non-GMO food). This is
just an image, but in most cases you can verify the statements back to the
organizations' websites by googling.

[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9gJwulXnO_o/Ue8hgkh4YkI/AAAAAAABCT...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9gJwulXnO_o/Ue8hgkh4YkI/AAAAAAABCT8/1o4qQ40IjHQ/s1600/GMAuthoritiesnew1.jpg)

You can of course choose the same road as climate change deniers, and cry for
global scientists' conspiracy.

~~~
UweSchmidt
Ah yes, science says it's safe and who wants to be a climate change denier?
Case closed!

Here in Germany rabbits are dying a gruesome death by overeating genetically
modified rape. Supposedy the bitter taste that told them to "stop" was removed
and now they eat until the die.

[http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13522441.html](http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13522441.html)
(Article in German)

So the food is of course "safe" as in you can eat it without any direct harm;
examining complex biological interactions however is far beyond the scope of
lobbyists and companies that want to bring products to the market.

So now we already have fruits that look "fresh" even if they are already a bit
old, tomatoes that are just huge bags of water without any taste (eating
someone's homegrown variants are a huge revelation), stuff genererally
optimized for size, looks, and a superficial taste. To me that is not progress
at all.

~~~
icebraining
You posted a link to a 30-year-old event, and for which there was an
_hypothesis_ that it could be linked to the genetic modifications of a
rapeseed.

As far as counter-examples go, that doesn't seem particularly strong.

EDIT: Actually, the "new" seed they are talking about is 00 rapeseed (AKA
Canola), which is _not_ a GMO, since it was bred naturally:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola)

The GMO versions of Canola only appeared years after that event.

~~~
UweSchmidt
Oops, heard that story last week so I assumed that was more recent. I'll
reconsider my concern about any imminent risks.

Overbred fruit are still crap though.

~~~
sampo
> _Overbred fruit are still crap though._

"The wild banana is filled with seeds and cannot be eaten."

[http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/bananas-are-clones-from-the-
st...](http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/bananas-are-clones-from-the-stone-age/)

------
song
I blame monsanto for the G.M.O. hysteria, they gave G.M.Os a bad name and now
people who call themselves environmentalists behave irrationally because they
can't be bothered to look past the name and actually look at the facts... In a
lot of cases G.M.Os are safe and are actually better for the environment
because they can reduce the amount of pesticides used (or reduce deficiencies
in the target populations).

G.M.Os should be studied on a case by case basis.

It's the same with nuclear power. Banning nuclear power and all research on
nuclear power (e.g. Thorium) is short-sighted.

~~~
rhino369
As far as I can tell Monstanto got a bad name because of GMO.

~~~
song
Well yes but it's also what they did that's a bit of an issue. The roundup
ready crops are crops that are engineered to be resistant to the Roundup
herbicide which is a bit more iffy than the example given in the article of a
eggplant with a gene transferred from Bacillus thuringiensi which is allowed
to use in organic farming.

On Monsanto side, the controversy was originally about the use of Roundup
(which the G.M.O. permitted) and the potential toxicity of glyphosate.

------
kerny
Monsanto - the creator and producer of Agent Orange is responsible for
suffering and deaths of millions of people. In China and Vietnam, hundreds of
people are born with serious health issues even to these days.

GMO are created with barbaric methods with unknown long term effects on human
or environment. AFAIK, GMO are created by infecting DNA with a virus and
mixing 'terminator' genes to be sure, that species won't have offspring.

Now, please somebody tell me, why should I trust the very same company, that
was manufacturing Agent Orange, with my food. Monsanto officially stated that:
"reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of
serious long-term health effects". Now, they are saying that GMO poses no risk
to health or environment. Thanks, no but thanks.

~~~
coroutines
I'm very skeptical of Monsanto being the only reason "hundreds of people" are
born with serious health issues in China and Vietnam.

Anyway, the reason I don't take anti-GMO people very seriously is I get the
same vibes from the anti-vaccination sort. Refusing to ingest GMO food is
perfectly acceptable if you're worried about the health concerns, I would
happily welcome more study - I just have trouble believing these crops pose a
direct risks to humans. We don't worry about blood-borne diseases from plants.
As I understand it, plant DNA is incompatible with our own. I'm not a
scientist but I'm pretty sure what they modify can't modify us. I would worry
about environmental impact - how these crops affect soil acidity or something
else.

I want to stand with the anti-GMO people but it just comes off as blind fear.
I'll support study of long-term effects but not much else ~

