The entire argument frustrates me, because the two sides appear to be "GMOs are safe!" and "GMOs are inherently harmful!" I can't take either position, I want a way to assert "GMOs represent rapid and potent change with limited oversight, regulation, and trial periods!"
There's no reason at all to oppose GMOs inherently. If you use CRISPR to turn one strain of well-established corn into another strain of established corn, no one is going to get hurt. But that's not what's happening; the point of concern is that these changes are going into national consumption with minimal testing.
GMO-by-year makes more sense to me than any other position going, and yet somehow your comment is the first time I've seen it proposed.
I think publicly defined testing protocols could go a long way to assuage anti-GMO fears, but my main concern is monopolization of the food supply and an overuse of monocultures.
It is also no true that it tells you very very little. It tells you that there are transgenic modifications to the product's genes. That's not "very very little".
In anecdotal terms, suppose I'm mildly allergic to a particular cultivar of apples, but some apples are okay. Saying that a product contains apples doesn't help me know whether it's safe for me to eat. This hypothetically allergic me would need to know that it contains red delicious apples, or granny smith apples.
Some GMOs simply add vitamins. Those are likely to be safer than GMOs that increase herbicidal resistance, which are in turn likely to be safer than GMOs that introduce pesticides. If a subset of the population is sensitive to Bt toxin, they need to know what kind of GMO is in a product, not just that something has GMO (as Bt, according to other comments in the thread, can be used even on organic-labeled foods).
Are you saying there are genetic modifications that do _absolutely nothing_ but add vitamins to food? I not an expert, but that's not my understanding of how DNA works.
Lots of genes only seem to do one thing. HERC2 seems to only affect eye color. If you're asking if it's possible that maybe we don't have a 100% perfect understanding of genetics, then of course it's possible. It's always possible there's something we don't know. Science does not deal in perfect certainties.
Would I be correct is following your logic to the implication that there's a significant possibility for effects we didn't anticipate and don't understand in genetic engineering? Of course that's possible. That's why GMOs are tested.
Is it possible that there's some obscure, subtle side-effect we won't notice for a long time to come? Yes. Is it likely? As near as we can tell, no. Can this doubt ever be fully assuaged by science? Not reasonably on anything more complex than the simplest of yeasts.
Is this a special threat, uniquely applicable only to GMOs? No. The same potential is present - even greater, due to number of mutations - in selective breeding.
How do you counter the very obvious profit motive here? "Gee Beta Carotene I Understand That's Good For Your Health, I'll Pay A Premium For That". How do you prevent that profit motive from minimizing unprofitable research into long-term health impacts? Face it, there will NEVER be a money motive to really figure this stuff out, that's why we're only finding out about BPAs now: there's just zero money in doing anything but the minimum due-diligence, as forced on you by the FDA, which is already bought out anyway!
It's like the nuke argument. Sure GMOs are potentially fantastic but as a race, or at least this capitalist version of a race, humans seem to be incapable of managing technology this fearsome.
These additions are a concern to the gmo free vitamin consumers. Both https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/05/03/vitamins-n... and http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/oct08/vitamins_gmo_cha... make this claim - both sides. I'll accept it as true.
That is where the disagreement lies. It is not clear to everyone that all current and future GMOs are safe. To patronize and label skeptics as unscientific is intellectually dishonest and a form of orwellian groupthink. There are plenty of people in the industry that claim that GMOs are not very well tested. There is no scientific reason to believe that a dangerous GMO could not be inadvertently created. A degenerate case would be to insert pufferfish toxin genes into a tomato. Obviously no one would do that intentionally, but a much more subtle issue could be carried over in a more seemingly benign gene transfer. To claim that we understand everything that genes do is a utter lie. They are orders of magnitude more complex than software, and yet we introduce bugs into software all the time.
There is also lot of money and political interest behind making GMO critics look bad. There is nothing unscientific about questioning the safety of a complex engineered product that we ingest. Just look at the recent Soylent fiasco, which is a much simpler to understand product than GMOs.
We are not talking about flat earth or reptilian overlords here. This is a totally legitimate thing to question, and decide to opt-out on until there is more time and data available.
There is excellent reason to be skeptical of everything here. GMOs are not special. Given that we know the worst has occurred with non-GMOs, one would expect intense skepticism of non-GMO breeding.
How much data would satisfy you?
And of course I won't claim they're the same thing. They're two different ways to the same goal, though.
How much time and data would convince you? You say you want to opt out until there is more. How much more?
IMO anti-GMO advocates should be pushing for more specific strain/cultivar labels on food, not just a useless label that says "produced with genetic engineering." Then pro-GMO, tentatively accepting, and anti-GMO groups can all be satisfied.
I think you're right that the intended purpose of generic GMO labels is to muddy the issue and spread uncertainty, which is exactly what they do. I am arguing that this strategy is counterproductive in the long-term, both to the anti-GMO cause and to society's health and informational well-being.
What they don't do is continue adding on the risks from the process of selective breeding itself. I don't expect that direct genetic engineering is clean, simple, and interaction-free. I just expect that it has a somewhat easier time targeting specific changes than barnyard breeding by light of Uranium.
In your opinion, who are the "reasonable middle" in the questions of (1) is evolution true, (2) are vaccines safe and (3) is climate change true? And are they small?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-entine/post_8915_b_6572130...
That article in no way addresses my point, and I'm not in the camp who believes that GMO's are currently unsafe. If you've been reading the comment chain, you'd be aware that the discussion is about the largely unregulated nature of the beast, not to mention economic implications.
As for a consensus on AGW, IIRC wasn't that more like 97%? I mean, unless you pad out the numbers by looking at people outside of the relevant fields of course.
And it seems to me that we're more likely to see that black swan event when we're just rolling the dice as we used to, compared to today's much more directed and precise manipulations.
Honestly, there is a tiny but real risk however the benefit for upper middle class westerners is basically non existent. Eventually, someone is going to make a major mistake that harms millions.
PS: It's really not about existing GMO, it's the next change someone makes. IMO, labeling GMO by most recent year would make me feel better. After 10 years it's far more likely to be safe than eating the first major batch.