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Stop Bashing GMO Food, Say 109 Nobel Laureates (nytimes.com)
The New York Times reports:
More than 100 Nobel laureates have a message for Greenpeace: Quit the G.M.O.-bashing. Genetically modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C...
"Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production," the group of laureates wrote. "There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."
Slashdot reader ArmoredDragon writes: As an echo to that comment, one of the key benefits of GMO is increased crop yield, which means a reduced need for deforestation to make way for farmland. GMO food such as Golden Rice, which improves the micronutrient content of rice, and Low Acrylamide Spuds, which are potatoes engineered to have reduced carcinogen content compared to their natural counterparts, can possibly solve many health problems that are inherent with consuming non-GMO produce. And for those concerned about patent-related issues, many of these patents have recently expired, which means anybody can freely grow them and sell the seeds without the need to pay any royalties.
"Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production," the group of laureates wrote. "There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."
Slashdot reader ArmoredDragon writes: As an echo to that comment, one of the key benefits of GMO is increased crop yield, which means a reduced need for deforestation to make way for farmland. GMO food such as Golden Rice, which improves the micronutrient content of rice, and Low Acrylamide Spuds, which are potatoes engineered to have reduced carcinogen content compared to their natural counterparts, can possibly solve many health problems that are inherent with consuming non-GMO produce. And for those concerned about patent-related issues, many of these patents have recently expired, which means anybody can freely grow them and sell the seeds without the need to pay any royalties.
Assume all modifications are safe.
Are all humans working with them perfect and not malevolent? (No.)
Can we ensure no cross contamination or impact to other species (plants, insects, whatever) is ever possible? (No.)
Further:
A select few individuals on the planet control the vast majority of the food supply. They control the direction its going, the cost to buy seeds, and the seeds themselves because they've been engineered not to germinate or produce viable offspring past the first generation.
The food supply becomes increasingly monoculturistic and susceptible to infestation, plague, or other failure, at a global scale.
The crops are sprayed with increasingly potent pesticides which end up in the soil, in the water, in the plant (not just on it), and in our bodies. These chemicals are known to fuck you up.
The logical argument against GMOs is not that there is anything wrong with modifying genomes
No, it is and always has been exactly that. Where do you think the whole "frankenfood" argument comes from? Stop being so naive.
which is to be raised in soils heavily laden with chemicals
If chemicals are bad, then quite honestly, you should just stop eating period. Every plant that exists is made up of thousands of chemicals. In fact you should stop drinking and breathing too for the same reason. You should probably stop existing too, because your body has thousands of chemicals within it as well.
This has caused a massive increase of such chemicals in our diet. They have been linked to cancer, autism, and a slew of gastrointestinal problems.
No, they haven't. Glyphosate in particular has only been found dangerous to those who handle massive quantities of it at a time, just like many other chemicals, including ones that reside within your body and are supposed to be there. And autism? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you have any idea what autism even is? No, of course you don't; you listen to whatever bro science you find on AlexJones.com and believe it's fact without bothering to cross check it. And besides, your claim is complete bullshit:
http://www.snopes.com/medical/...
People like you are the reason so many hipster douches are horribly wrong on this issue. You are seriously exactly the type of person who would have followed Hitler just because he made a bunch of populist (yet very incorrect) arguments about why Jews are ruining the world. Think as an individual for once in your life. If a bunch of your friends or some "really cool dude" you know makes an incredible claim, view it with a critical eye until you've done your own research. Pamphlets handed around and random "nature is best" blogs don't count as research, in case you had to ask.
And my own skepticism. Genetically modifying food on the molecular level is not the same as breeding. You will never see in nature where mechanical and chemical means are used to cross species like it's done in the lab.
Actually this is 100% false. Not only do genes cross from species to species in nature, but it actually happens all the time. In fact the human genome -- your genome -- has some 100,000 gene fragments from some other species inserted into it. Three of those genes spliced into you are actually complete gene sequences, one of which is responsible for the human placenta.
http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/f...
It's amazing how much misunderstanding of the U.S. patent system (and its history) you've packed into a single sentence.
Drop them back to the original term of 14 years
Sounds enticing on the surface, but keep in mind that was 14 years from issue. The U.S. didn't start measuring term from filing until 1995. Before that, people like Jerome Lemelson could manipulate the system by keeping applications tied up in the Patent Office literally for decades, all the while massaging the claims to cover wherever the market happened to be going in the meantime, and still get 17 years of fresh term when each patent finally was issued. I doubt you really want to go back to that kind of a system. And given that it can often take 3+ years for the Patent Office to examine a patent, the current term of 20 years from the filing date isn't effectively that much longer than the scheme you're proposing going back to.
close the "change one minor thing and re-patent" loophole
No such "loophole" exists. Right now today, advances over the prior art are only patentable if they would not have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. 35 U.S.C. 103. If your real quibble is that the Patent Office issues too many patents with claims that actually would have been obvious, I won't disagree, but the solution is to more consistently enforce the rules that currently exist, not change them. The new procedures put in place by the America Invents Act (such as inter partes review) are helping with this a great deal.
and make damn sure they STAY at 14 years and don't let them ever become renewable or extended and grow out of control like copyright has.
Nobody is suggesting doing any of these things, so there's nothing to "reform."
Yes, there has always been a tendency for large corporations to overshadow culinary diversity. That is not an excuse to embrace something that's not just a monoculture but a monoculture that's owned lock stock and barrel by some megacorp.
I turn my nose up at GMO food for the same snooty reasons I would turn my nose up at boring varieties of produce in general.
Concerns about safety and patent abuse don't even have to enter the picture.
That is why this whole big fat appeal to authority is just such big fat nonsense.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Says who? Just go buy some.