GMOs: Safe?

[Dragon Master Mike]

What are your opinions on GMOs, particularly GM crops? The safety of GM crops have been debated for a while now, and many people are pushing for them to be labelled. People in favor of them say that they are the same as normal crops, but many people say that they can cause cancer and other health complications. What do you think?

Personally, if you asked me, I'd say I'm against them, but I don't actually have much evidence supporting my opinion. I really just don't know what studies to trust and what studies not to trust.

[[Desolate Divine]]

Personally, I don't see the issue with GM food, as long as it has been scrutinized tremendously, put under every type of test possible, and looked at from every angle. The theory of GM is simple enough (from what I know at least), but, for lack of better words, ***** happens. Once it has been proven to be safe in 99.9999999% of circumstances, then I see no objection to it.
@Pokemon Trainer Sarah your opinion would be highly valued here!

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

First let me say I have no issue with GMOs at all. Anything made available to the public is going to have to have gone through SO many trials that it's gonna be just as safe as any other food (that is, as safe as we can make it, but of course there are still risks with everything).

Now. Every food we currently eat from tomatoes through to wheat look, taste and behave NOTHING LIKE their wild ancestors. All these foods were selected for by humans to be bigger, have more fruit/grain, grow in certain areas etc. etc. They will have different DNA to their wild/original counterparts. So technically, all the foods we eat are genetically modified from what they were originally. Did you know original corn was purple? Humans selected and grew the "mutant" yellow corn, which we now all eat. This is genetically different to wild, original corn. And we eat it. It's fine.

Here is an image of tomatoes we eat today (left), compared with wild/original tomatoes (right).

Over time, humans have picked tomatoes with new mutations which made them bigger. By continually selecting the biggest tomatoes with new mutations and breeding those plants, we have created a plant that looks entirely different and has thousands of genetic changes compared with the original plant.

Genetic modification therefore isn't really the right term, since it also applies to basically every food we eat these days.

When genetically modifying things in a laboratory, we are basically doing the same thing that humans have done for thousands of years, but instead of having to grow thousands of generations of tomatoes, we can directly put in the gene that makes them bigger, which we have already discovered by studying and comparing ancient and current foods. It's not making new crazy experiments that no one has ever tried, but putting in genes (or even just more copies of genes) that are already there.

There is a lot of panic about this sort of thing because people don't understand what's actually being done. As soon as they hear "genetic" and "modified" they start thinking of weird mutant cancers. The media makes GMOs sound scary even though there's nothing to fear. So everyday people automatically associate it with bad things without giving it a chance and without understanding what's happening.

With an increasing population, the only way we can continue to survive into the future is to use the space and resources available to us more efficiently, and modifying our food to survive in harsher environments or to have resistance against diseases and bugs (which are the two things that are generally modified in GMOs) are some of the ways we can accomplish this.

[[Desolate Divine]]

You seen this Sarah? Square tomatoes that are easier to stack!

[Corey]

Humans have been selective breeding (artificial selection if you want to Google it) organisms, plant and animal, for thousands of years, so technically all/most foods are GMOs. But I know what you meant. ;P

Genetically engineered organisms are things that have inserted genes from an entirely separate organism. As a general example, a lot of crops are modified to be disease-resistant, weather-resistant, more nutritional, and/or to have increased yields. A lot of the reason that foods are modified is due to the danger of losing crops to drought, disease, etc, and due to the need to feed more people.

Mostly, people are concerned with GMOs because of that study and Monsanto. And let it be said that many pro-GMO people, including myself, are against Monsanto because their practices raise ethical questions and studies they have conducted are flawed (Google it if you'd like). But, Monsanto does not represent all GMO companies, and hate towards Monsanto should be directed at Monsanto and not GMOs as a whole.

The problem people seem to have with GMOs is that altering the genome of an organism can have unknown consequences. One famous (or infamous, rather) study linked GMOs to causing tumors in rats. The fact of the matter is, the conductor of the study was notoriously anti-GMO. He chose to use a breed of rats that are known to spontaneously develop tumors, and he only used ten rats for each group of study (the recommendation is 65+ rats for each sex). These problems and more led to the retraction of the study, while numerous other studies, such as one that tested 100 billion animals (that lasted 10 years and resulted in nearly 2,000 papers on the matter), determined that GMOs posed no health issues.

So yes, GMOs are scientifically classified as safe. I personally think it's silly that people want GMOs to be labeled, because most people wouldn't buy them because of their ignorance concerning GMOs. The general public is, mostly, scientifically illiterate. For example, 80% of Americans support that foods with DNA should be labeled, but ALL living things and some viruses (and therefore nearly all foods) contain DNA...So that should tell you all about science in America. :p

EDIT: Sarah sniped me on a lot of this, but still!

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Yes unfortunately scientists are notoriously bad at communicating research to the general public and it is not well taught in schools, so there is this fear and uncertainty surrounding a lot of science which really holds us back as a society. You can't blame people for being cautious, but we really need to get better at teaching the general public more about it.

[Braixen]

Yes unfortunately scientists are notoriously bad at communicating research to the general public and it is not well taught in schools, so there is this fear and uncertainty surrounding a lot of science which really holds us back as a society. You can't blame people for being cautious, but we really need to get better at teaching the general public more about it.

I find it interesting that you think scientists don't like to communicate. Science itself is a public idea, it should not be privatized. The scientific method itself relies on communicating to others in order to ensure science is operating at its maximum potential and people are debating, discussing, and trying to find ways to give evidence for or against what others are presenting. I can imagine that, in context to this discussion on GMOs, you believe that the public isn't being given enough information on GMO research? I can understand that for sure! GMOs are mostly a corporate venture, so inherently the science related to them is hushed up a bit when money is involved. To me this really isn't the scientists failing to communicate, but being unable to communicate based on their employers and where their funding comes from.

This leads me to my thoughts on GMOs. When money is involved then research is delegated as opposed to being universal! This means that GMO scientists take a reductionist approach, they attempt to "fix a crop" (maybe make them disease tolerant, or temperature tolerant) but they don't look at the "big picture" or take a holistic approach with other scientists. This means that they do well in integrating the GMO aspect and improving the plant in a agricultural view BUT they mess up other areas. They may fail to ensure the rest of the environment is safe. For example in isolated areas (such as islands) where fruits are grown farmers cannot consider their crops GMO free if GMO crops are spreading their pollen in close proximity. This means their fruits are "infected" with the GMO genetics. Unless GMO crops are severely isolated then this will occur! You can always make it so the plant aborts seed production early on to make the seeds unable to produce offspring but there are a ton other factors to replace this issue with to make GMOs a bit worrisome. You cannot control everything in your environment and GMOs need to rely on very very careful work that is almost impossible to isolate completely, especially when the science doesn't have access to other experts as easily due to the nature of GMOs as a business.

GMOs are not natural and have the capability to knock out other species of plants or cultivars. There's a lot of potential but it's dangerous in my opinion. GMOs also represent moving forward with massive crops, factory farming, etc. We need to be moving away from that and going to a more local food source as much as possible - although it's impossible to revert everything back. There will always be people wanting their "fresh bananas" everyday regardless of their location in the world. Myself included.
@Corey
There's actually a true difference between selective breeding and GMOs! A GMO has genetic information from one organism inserted into another organism artificially. Selective breeding with crops to produce bigger yields, or breeding dogs to produce specific characteristics is not the same as a GMO. For example one attempt at a GMO involved a gene from a freeze tolerant fish being inserted into a tomatoes to make it more freeze tolerant! This GMO failed but you can see how this genetic insert would be impossible without human hands. I think you understand this based on your post but because organisms have selective breeding that doesn't make them a GMO crop/organism.
@Pokemon Trainer Sarah
Things made available to the public aren't always "safe" in a holistic sense. They may be safe to eat but there often is not safe farming practices involved! For example, there was a GMO made that made a crop release its own "pesticide" to kill off a pest that was causing the crop a major financial issue. The pests became immune to the "pesticide" over time and then a LOT of spray had to be given to these crops. Workers were hurt by this, the surrounding population was hurt by this, and their drinking water was contaminated with the pollutants and also the pesticide that the tree gave off, killing fish, etc. So when you call something safe it may be safe and you may experience no immediate consequences but the toxins may have an effect on your body years down the road and there may also be devastating effects to the area where the crop came from. Science isn't perfect so even when a product is approved as safe they're approving it as "safe as they know", this means long term effects may be unclear. I won't tell you that all GMOs are evil and may hurt you, but you cannot always assume that if a product is on the shelves it is safe/healthy in the long term.

Tl;DR This is a huge post but at the end of the day it's important to recognize that GMOs can be useful BUT the real money is in making something very unnatural and potentially dangerous in the long term. We cannot predict the effects these innovations will have on us, nor the quality of the food. A huge tomatoes full of water might provide more food in terms of weight, but does it provide more nutrition, does it taste better? It might not kill me in the long term or other people (some GMOs do~) but it might not be the quality we require as humans. This isn't exclusive to GMOs though, selective breeding is included. It's important to note the differences between the two and not think about them completely interchangeably.

[Homura]

In general, the opponents of GMOs is more against transgenic modifications, which is not covered by traditional means of "wholesale" genetic modifications. But in general most people who are against GMOs are against any genetic modification, which is derived from ignorance.

In terms of whether or not it's safe, the prospective cohort studies have yet to show any long term health issues.

That isn't to say GMOs have no use, because our current output, under what one would call "organic methods", would not be enough to feed everybody, and the price of foods would skyrocket from a lack of supply vs demand, mainly because we generally live above our carrying capacity.

I find it interesting that you think scientists don't like to communicate. Science itself is a public idea, it should not be privatized. The scientific method itself relies on communicating to others in order to ensure science is operating at its maximum potential and people are debating, discussing, and trying to find ways to give evidence for or against what others are presenting. I can imagine that, in context to this discussion on GMOs, you believe that the public isn't being given enough information on GMO research? I can understand that for sure! GMOs are mostly a corporate venture, so inherently the science related to them is hushed up a bit when money is involved. To me this really isn't the scientists failing to communicate, but being unable to communicate based on their employers and where their funding comes from.

No, Sarah speaks of this in terms of science in general. Scientists are notoriously bad at communicating with others. The problem isn't that scientists can't communicate with others, it's that the discipline of scientific journalism is underdeveloped. Scientists need more journalists who are literate in science and can communicate those ideas to the general public. Sci Show helps, but it's like Bill Nye you know, they're just one small group.

If you want to talk about how journals and what not aren't accessible, then ya I agree with you. Subscriptions to Nature, Science, JCB, NEJM, etc. cost a lot of money, and just aren't accessible unless you're affiliated with a large institution like a university or a large hospital.

A lot of GMO information isn't communicated to the public, and often the public doesn't have access from the issues I say above, and their paranoia of the unknown drives them to wacko websites that share their sentiment. That's what's dangerous about not communicating science well. In addition, science literacy is horrendous because of the lack of science education in schools, especially in the US...

This leads me to my thoughts on GMOs. When money is involved then research is delegated as opposed to being universal! This means that GMO scientists take a reductionist approach, they attempt to "fix a crop" (maybe make them disease tolerant, or temperature tolerant) but they don't look at the "big picture" or take a holistic approach with other scientists. This means that they do well in integrating the GMO aspect and improving the plant in a agricultural view BUT they mess up other areas. They may fail to ensure the rest of the environment is safe. For example in isolated areas (such as islands) where fruits are grown farmers cannot consider their crops GMO free if GMO crops are spreading their pollen in close proximity. This means their fruits are "infected" with the GMO genetics. Unless GMO crops are severely isolated then this will occur! You can always make it so the plant aborts seed production early on to make the seeds unable to produce offspring but there are a ton other factors to replace this issue with to make GMOs a bit worrisome. You cannot control everything in your environment and GMOs need to rely on very very careful work that is almost impossible to isolate completely, especially when the science doesn't have access to other experts as easily due to the nature of GMOs as a business.

It's not a geneticist's job to "look at things holistically". That's a job for ecologists. I'll use an analogy here: take construction of a building. It's not an electrician's job to figure out how the architecture of the building works. Their job is to make sure the electric lines work in absolute detail. The architect's job, in reverse, should not be to know the nitty gritty of an electrician's job, but to look at the "holistic" aspect of the building.

Now as for the comment on corporate GMOs. I agree. Industry tends to be secretive, which is why we need strong regulatory bodies like the FDA to keep them in check.

GMOs are not natural and have the capability to knock out other species of plants or cultivars. There's a lot of potential but it's dangerous in my opinion. GMOs also represent moving forward with massive crops, factory farming, etc. We need to be moving away from that and going to a more local food source as much as possible - although it's impossible to revert everything back. There will always be people wanting their "fresh bananas" everyday regardless of their location in the world. Myself included.

We're living above our carrying capacity as well, so that isn't just the only reason why something like organic farming only on a local level is impossible. However, I do agree that it is nice to have local produce mainly because it'll save us on other things such as decrease in the use of fossil fuels in the transport of such goods, which has a lot of environmental impact.

@Corey
There's actually a true difference between selective breeding and GMOs! A GMO has genetic information from one organism inserted into another organism artificially. Selective breeding with crops to produce bigger yields, or breeding dogs to produce specific characteristics is not the same as a GMO. For example one attempt at a GMO involved a gene from a freeze tolerant fish being inserted into a tomatoes to make it more freeze tolerant! This GMO failed but you can see how this genetic insert would be impossible without human hands. I think you understand this based on your post but because organisms have selective breeding that doesn't make them a GMO crop/organism.

That only pertains of transgenic GMOs, cisgenic GMOs also exist, which is selectively changing genes from within the same/similar species. In addition, fish genes are...you know stuff we eat still, technically speaking. :P

@Pokemon Trainer Sarah
Things made available to the public aren't always "safe" in a holistic sense. They may be safe to eat but there often is not safe farming practices involved! For example, there was a GMO made that made a crop release its own "pesticide" to kill off a pest that was causing the crop a major financial issue. The pests became immune to the "pesticide" over time and then a LOT of spray had to be given to these crops. Workers were hurt by this, the surrounding population was hurt by this, and their drinking water was contaminated with the pollutants and also the pesticide that the tree gave off, killing fish, etc. So when you call something safe it may be safe and you may experience no immediate consequences but the toxins may have an effect on your body years down the road and there may also be devastating effects to the area where the crop came from. Science isn't perfect so even when a product is approved as safe they're approving it as "safe as they know", this means long term effects may be unclear. I won't tell you that all GMOs are evil and may hurt you, but you cannot always assume that if a product is on the shelves it is safe/healthy in the long term.

So far the cohort studies haven't found any "long term" effects of GMOs, but it can change in the future. I do think that ecology will be an important discipline in the near future as well. I think it's tough to strike a good balance between paranoia and complete trust in the companies as well.

The good thing about science is that they are aware they aren't perfect, and are subject to change when evidence demands it. FDA approval is actually very strict, so often times only the rarest of the adverse effects are the ones that aren't picked up from the FDA approval.

[Braixen]

In general, the opponents of GMOs is more against transgenic modifications, which is not covered by traditional means of "wholesale" genetic modifications. But in general most people who are against GMOs are against any genetic modification, which is derived from ignorance.

In terms of whether or not it's safe, the prospective cohort studies have yet to show any long term health issues.

That isn't to say GMOs have no use, because our current output, under what one would call "organic methods", would not be enough to feed everybody, and the price of foods would skyrocket from a lack of supply vs demand, mainly because we generally live above our carrying capacity.



No, Sarah speaks of this in terms of science in general. Scientists are notoriously bad at communicating with others. The problem isn't that scientists can't communicate with others, it's that the discipline of scientific journalism is underdeveloped. Scientists need more journalists who are literate in science and can communicate those ideas to the general public. Sci Show helps, but it's like Bill Nye you know, they're just one small group.

If you want to talk about how journals and what not aren't accessible, then ya I agree with you. Subscriptions to Nature, Science, JCB, NEJM, etc. cost a lot of money, and just aren't accessible unless you're affiliated with a large institution like a university or a large hospital.

A lot of GMO information isn't communicated to the public, and often the public doesn't have access from the issues I say above, and their paranoia of the unknown drives them to wacko websites that share their sentiment. That's what's dangerous about not communicating science well. In addition, science literacy is horrendous because of the lack of science education in schools, especially in the US...



It's not a geneticist's job to "look at things holistically". That's a job for ecologists. I'll use an analogy here: take construction of a building. It's not an electrician's job to figure out how the architecture of the building works. Their job is to make sure the electric lines work in absolute detail. The architect's job, in reverse, should not be to know the nitty gritty of an electrician's job, but to look at the "holistic" aspect of the building.

Now as for the comment on corporate GMOs. I agree. Industry tends to be secretive, which is why we need strong regulatory bodies like the FDA to keep them in check.



We're living above our carrying capacity as well, so that isn't just the only reason why something like organic farming only on a local level is impossible. However, I do agree that it is nice to have local produce mainly because it'll save us on other things such as decrease in the use of fossil fuels in the transport of such goods, which has a lot of environmental impact.



That only pertains of transgenic GMOs, cisgenic GMOs also exist, which is selectively changing genes from within the same/similar species. In addition, fish genes are...you know stuff we eat still, technically speaking. :P



So far the cohort studies haven't found any "long term" effects of GMOs, but it can change in the future. I do think that ecology will be an important discipline in the near future as well. I think it's tough to strike a good balance between paranoia and complete trust in the companies as well.

The good thing about science is that they are aware they aren't perfect, and are subject to change when evidence demands it. FDA approval is actually very strict, so often times only the rarest of the adverse effects are the ones that aren't picked up from the FDA approval.

I truly believe that the issue with scientific communication is not with the scientists still, it's that the general public doesn't have interest in science unless it's applicable to them. For example we know every intimate detail about celebrities lives (as much they their PR and branding teams tells us) but because there isn't as much interest in science then it's not sought out. In addition the general public cannot understand science. This isn't because of terminology but because of lack of knowledge. In order for my to explain my research I am required to explain the mechanics behind my science in the most simplistic way. The general population only has interest in what effects them, and what they have emotional ties to (excitement, stress, etc).

There are several document cases where health of people have deteriorated as a result of GMOs. GMOs and their effect on the population are not only what you buy and eat but also what happened to the farmers, the workers, the local populations, environment, etc. I have never said that it is a geneticists job to work as an ecology but it is a research teams job to investigate the entire picture. You don't have electricians building a house by themselves, you have many different people (carpenters, contractors, etc) contributing. GMOs is not genetics alone, you can at least appreciate that you need some agricultural specialists at least. It is true that genes from one species can be inserted into the same species, but these aren't the GMOs I am discussing. We may eat fish, and we may eat a tomato, but that doesn't mean we should put their genes together and assume it's safe? GMO work is tampering with evolution. We cannot predict what will come with doing that, and GMOs have already had devastating consequences.

I won't say I am against GMOs, but I will say that we shouldn't be messing with evolution without understanding the consequences and being rigorous. Sadly, even if a GMO is safe by your standards (edible without known consequences) it still could be having devastating consequences elsewhere in the world. Just like everything else, GMOs are not isolated "events".

Also local doesn't always mean better, or even organic. But our wants/consumerism drives things like GMOs and thereby drives this very messy science that we had witnessed from GMO research. The quest for money in GMOs has even resulted in ignoring basic evolution, it's actually pretty horrifying to witness. The FDA has no idea of the consequences of all current and future GMOs, that is impossible to predict. No one can say all or none of GMOs are safe. As with most things in science you need funding, and that means money. GMOs are being research for fun or even interest, they're being research for profit. When it comes to our food that means profit from bigger outputs, tastier foods, etc (think more "appealing" to a consumer), and reducing the need for workers, pesticides etc.

People seem to either romanticize GMOs or fear them. I think it's best if people see the realities of them, what they can do to help, and what they can do to hurt.