Genetically Modified Crops Are Safe, Report Says (nbcnews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Genetically modified crops on the market are not only safe, but appear to be good for people and the environment, experts determined in a report released Tuesday. "The committee delved into the relevant literature, heard from 80 diverse speakers, and read more than 700 comments from members of the public to broaden its understanding of issues surrounding GE crops," the report reads. Panel members read more than 900 reports. A lot of concern centered on health effects. The committee determined the following: there is no evidence of large-scale health effects on people from genetically modified foods; there is some evidence that crops genetically engineered to resist bugs have benefited people by reducing cases of insecticide poisoning; genetically engineered crops to benefit human health, such as those altered to produce more vitamin A, can reduce blindness and deaths due to vitamin A deficiency; using insect-resistant or herbicide-resistant crops did not damage plant or insect diversity and in some cases increased the diversity of insects; sometimes the added genes do leak out to nearby plants -- a process called gene flow -- but there is no evidence it has caused harm; in general, farmers who use GM soybean, cotton, and corn make more money but it does depend on how bad pests are and farming practices; GM crops do reduce losses to pests, and if farmers use insect-resistant crops but don't take enough care, sometimes pest insects develop resistance. The National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have put the evidence up on a website for skeptics of the report. The report also includes a 'Summarized Comments Received from Members of the Public' section for people to look up the facts to answer their concerns.

Comments

Re:And this will change nobody's minds..

[Pharmboy]

Actually, that isn't really so extreme. If you use these seeds, you can't keep back seeds from your crops for next year's crops, a practice that is as old as agriculture itself. This might sound like it isn't a big deal "Just don't use GMO seeds", but it is getting so the variety of seeds that aren't GMO is diminishing, leaving few choices. I'm not claiming it is evil, but there are some ramifications that haven't been worked out.

This is why some 3rd world countries won't use it, not fear of GMO itself, but they don't want to be beholden to an American company for their seeds. I really don't blame them. I'm a USAF vet, all American guy, but I wouldn't trust US companies (or our govt) strong enough for the food supply of another nation. We have a bad history of using shit like that to our advantage.

Re:Brace for shill accusations in

[TheRaven64]

Safety is a red herring. I have two objections to GM crops: biodiversity and lock-in (though they don't both apply to the same crops).

A lot of GM crops are significantly more hardy than the original variants. This means that, if they breed true, then they are going to displace all of the originals and you will end up with a homogeneous group, which is then vulnerable to a single parasite/bacterium. Humans already have a dangerous lack of diversity in our food crops (go and look up the WHO's projections on how many millions would starve to death if wheat production were threatened globally) and GM crops are likely to decrease diversity even more.

The second problem is that many of them don't breed true or, indeed, at all. You must keep buying new seeds from the same company, you can't collect your own seed stock. This means that your food supply becomes entirely dependent on a small number of companies. This is less of a problem for the USA, but the EU spends a lot of money subsidising farmers to ensure that we have an independent food supply and making it dependent on seeds bought from the US seems to counter this quite effectively.