If so, when was this? AFAIK, health and safety have been trending positively in a significant way for well over a century, with nation-state conflict causing the most significant regressions, not profit-motivated corporations.
The overall positive trend is slowing down, with life expectancy in the USA dropping, mostly due to the opioid epidemic.
Overall the picture is pretty grim. Long term stability of civilisation is under threat due to fertility rates not falling fast enough to offset longevity. Food production is consuming limited non-renewable resources.
Noam Chomsky makes the following point: Slave societies also exhibited improvements over time. It wasn't an argument for slavery.
Do you have some examples of societies that radically increased their overall health and safety without adopting liberal economic policies? Cuba, maybe?
One problem is consumers have segmented into two mutually exclusive groups. One likes healthy food and hates GMO. The other cares much less about both health and GMO. Since the first group has self-selected out of the market for GMO, sellers optimize for a health-indifferent population.
Side note: is the plural of one GMO two GMO? Two GMOs?
Consumers are voters, so it's both. The number of voters one can productively engage about thoughtful GMO regulation is basically zero. People are against it or don't care.
I can understand why someone would argue it's a meaningless distinction. I don't agree with the idea that a consumer has no right to be informed. Let the consumer know, make the case that your product (any product) is safe, and let the consumer decide.
Thus, when new techniques are introduced to agriculture, people become immediately suspicious that they are going to be poisoned so that someone can make a few extra bucks. The difference here is that most of the tweaks GMO scientists are making have well understood results as they produce well studied biological components. However, the protestors are not wrong that the same techniques can be used for good or ill. Science suffers as a result of the incentives of our economic system that prioritize profit over health and safety. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the world wide poor over the middle class of the rich world.
If a different system of research and production was instituted that focused on non-profit incentives, I imagine the reaction would be different. The criticism these scientists are facing is not necessarily scientifically grounded, but it is rationally based on a long history of consumers being exploited.
EDIT: A point was made in another comment that malnutrition is not primarily a technological problem these days, it's one of distribution. However, I don't see anything wrong with increasing yields from existing agriculture. Under a non-capitalist system, it would allow us to reclaim part of the environment for nature. Under a capitalist system, it means additional overproduction.