Clearly, we should also apply the same safety standard to non-GMO crops as well.

Nature is out there randomly mutating genes without any oversight. We need to test each plant for 100 years to make sure it didn't have any dangerous mutations.

A somewhat specious argument, as many foods have undergone the ultimate trial of sustaining people for millennia.

The species in general have. I think you'll find most modern strains have not been double-blind tested for a century.

Modern dwarf wheat strains, for instance, date from the 70s or so.

An excellent argument for being dubious of modern cultivars.

If people are willing to apply the same standards uniformly, I'm OK with it. I suspect that's not actually the case for most people, though. GMOs are seen by many as a special case deserving of infinite scrutiny.

For those downvoting:

Is it because you think "enough" data would take longer to gather? Or, as I am assuming is the case, you think it would take less time but are unable to articulate it.

Personally I think 100 years is more than enough, and for most crops I would take 25 years of a double blind as great data.

Because it appears that 100 years is proposed because of some sort of vague "we don't know what we don't know." It's as if people assume there is some magical property that we are as-yet unaware of and will only be able to be sure of the not-existence-of after 100 years.

Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it? Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA.

Also, 100 years is just an answer to effectively shut down all GMO products. Permanently, for 100 years. That is not a solution, it's fear-mongering.

> Also, 100 years effectively makes it "untestable" within a human time-frame. You really think any company is going to spend money to continually monitor and administer a large-scale double-blind test of a product before being allowed to sell it?

The world isn't responsible for maintaining your business model. If you can't be profitable without slavery, if you're forced to pay taxes, without pervasive monitoring of all human communication, or without walling off the state of Nevada, you can't be profitable.

> Even 10 years is ridiculous at this point for drug-products, and we already cry-foul about the cost that "big-pharma" is charging as if it costs nothing to prove that they are safe to the levels that we demand through the FDA.

The prices of drugs have little or nothing to do with R&D or testing.

> The prices of drugs have little or nothing to do with R&D or testing.

Now you're just trolling..