Food for(e)Thought: The Best Simple Anti-GMO Argument I Have Yet Heard

(Dietary changes should be discussed with a health care provider.)

(Thinking harder about something we do three times a day could keep the doctor away.)

People on both sides of the GMO argument can be convicted of some unfair play when it comes to fighting for their team -- whether it’s sharing true facts on one positive aspect while ignoring the 9 negative arguments that outweigh it, whether it’s exaggerating the facts about scary details in order to turn the argument emotional (i.e. anti-GMO groups discussing the “Monsanto Protection Act”) or whether it’s just plain out and out lying (i.e. Monsanto claiming increased crop yield, drought resistance and GMOs being necessary to combat world hunger).

The problem is it’s a long argument that can be proven, but only if your listeners have the time to follow along multiple intertwining paths as you discuss it from the side of people’s health, then the environment’s health, then the economy’s health, then sustainability, then people’s right to information & safety, then corporate responsibility to the public, then the imperfect understanding of scientific alteration of a cell at the nuclear level, then providing for the study of long term effects to the macro-biology and finally returning to how each area also affects the health of the environment and people.

You then have to discuss not just what effect the genetic modifications have, but what effects the actions that become available, indeed expected and accepted, as a result of the modifications have.

Here is a simple, effective train of thought, which I stole from Andrew Kimbrell, that touches the heart (or lack their of) of the argument:

Which companies are paving the way for GMO use?  Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta & Bayer.  What do these companies mainly sell?  Strong chemicals.  Do you think chemical companies have an interest in fighting for products that decrease the sale and use of their chemicals?

One thing we have been told about GMO crops is that SOME have been made PEST RESISTANT, decreasing the use of poisonous pesticides.  Well ALMOST ALL GMO crops, including those same crops that are pest resistant due to GMO modification, have also been modified to be HERBICIDE RESISTANT -- as opposed to weed resistant – so herbicides strong enough to kill all vegetation are sprayed (through the air we breathe) onto the things we eat, but only immediately kill the weeds.  The modification to pair a crop with a chemical herbicide (so that the herbicide can be used with less pesky precision) is the most common modification made.

This has not only increased the use of poisonous weed killer 300%, it has also led to the development of super-weeds (much like antibiotic overuse led to super bugs) and to the use of more varied and stronger weed killers (as round-up is failing much like penicillin).  Our government has already increased the allowable limits of herbicides due to GMO use, and now the chemical companies want to re-legalize previously banned substances in order to continue to market new GMO seeds that are resistant to the likes of 2, 4-D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) and Diacamba (an even more dangerous chemical).  The crops -- and now the weeds -- are resistant to these herbicides, but our bodies (and our non-GMO vegetables) are not.

So, while it is true that in a few cases a change in a gene in our food may not be dangerous to us, what is done as a result of that change most certainly is!

QUOTE of the MOMENT:  (Sadly, this quote may lose its grain of truth.)

Plant a radish get a radish, never any doubt.  That's why I love vegetables, you know what they're about!

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt