Slashdot Mirror
Anti-GMO Activist Recants
Freddybear writes "Former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas, who opposed genetically modified food in the 1990s, said recently, at the Oxford Farming Conference: 'I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment. As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely. So I guess you'll be wondering — what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.' To vilify GMOs is to be as anti-science as climate-change deniers, he says. To feed a growing world population (with an exploding middle class demanding more and better-quality food), we must take advantage of all the technology available to us, including GMOs. To insist on 'natural' agriculture and livestock is to doom people to starvation, and there’s no logical reason to prefer the old ways, either. Moreover, the reason why big companies dominate the industry is that anti-GMO activists and policymakers have made it too difficult for small startups to enter the field."
research has shown some GMO's are harmful.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
GMO crops aren't universally good, and they have a lack of oversight to the same degree drugs do. For something that can affect the human body just as much, this is irresponsible. Montsano recently created a variety of cucumber that results in genital baldness. We're not used to thinking of our food as drugs, or causing side effects, but given the sharp rise in the prevalence of food allergies and stuff like this, the obvious conclusion is that this is a technology we don't fully understand and has the potential to kill if misused.
More oversight is required, and blaming activists for the startup costs is stupid -- it's the patent law system that's broken, and the activists have a point regarding the safety of GMO products, even if they have been focusing on the wrong reasons.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If they're provably safe, and for all intends and purposes identical to the original, why on earth should we label them?
I see more value in not labeling them (greater adoption because people aren't scared off by voodoo non-science) than in labeling them (honestly can't see any benefit to doing so if all else is, in fact, equal).
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
No.