LogFAQs > #927423632

Mead posted...

Some of it is fear that the crops are somehow bad since theyve been modified, but people have been modifying produce for as long as people have been farming. Were just better at it now.

I mostly agree - but to be fair to the other side, there's kind of a difference between deliberately cross-breeding two crops with features you like in the hopes of creating a hybrid that have the best of both, versus being able to directly modify something at the genetic level by injecting entirely new DNA into a strand.

There's also the question of whether or not the people doing the splicing have considered all of the possible negative side-effects of the changes they're making, thus introducing hidden risks into the food that wouldn't have been present via more natural breeding methods.

Which ties into this:

Lokarin posted...

The other concern is that when people ask for a long-term study they never set a time limit... 10 years? 40 years?

This is one of the major problems. They can test, retest, and guarantee that something is completely safe, but they're studying it in the short-term and looking for dramatic immediate reactions. What they can't tell you is if you're doing damage that is going to result in consequences 20-30 years from now. Certain negative side-effects would never show in the short term (like increased risk of certain cancers, Alzheimer's, etc), because they do damage incrementally. What we'd essentially need is long-term longitudinal and cohort studies, but we'd never, ever do those because they'd cost way too much and prevent corporations from profiting from their research for decades.

And unfortunately, "Is this something that is going to prove to be really, really bad over the long term?" becomes an even more important question to ask when modified plants can effectively crossbreed with other plants in nature, spreading their modified DNA far beyond anyone planting the initial crop. As Mead mentioned, Monsanto was notorious for trying to sue farmers who wound up growing Monsanto's "intellectual property" crops entirely by accident (because Monsanto-approved crops cross-pollinated with their existing crops), and that highlights just how easy it can be for that to happen by accident.

When it comes to unforeseen consequences, consider the "Africanized bee" - an attempt to hybridize different species to create a breed that would generate more honey, where the end result wound up being a far more aggressive breed that spread across thousands of miles and displaced existing colonies to the point of becoming dominant in many areas. If a GMO crop winds up spreading as effectively but also has unforeseen negative side-effects that weren't detected during testing, it can potentially hurt a LOT of people.



Mead posted...

Another reason is that some corporations like Monsanto are very controversial for their habit of putting patents on specific modified versions of crops, and then they do things like sue farmers or landowners if that crop is discovered to be growing on their land, even if they didnt plant it.

It's worse than that. They also engineered certain crops to specifically not reproduce naturally, where the seeds all come out sterile, so that farmers can't just harvest their own crops and replant, but have to buy seeds directly from Monsanto every year.

Monsanto is the largest supplier of seeds in the world - which is why they tend to come up in these sorts of conversations. They're a HUGE force in the marketplace, and have influence over almost every aspect of the subject.
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