Hey guys, what’s up, it’s me again with another episode of Biomed. Today’s topic: GMOs.

Now, you’ve probably heard a lot about GMOs, both good and bad. They’ve both been flaunted as the key to future human survival, and also denounced as evil “artificial” foods that are somehow lacking in that magical nature spirit energy that organics fans lust after. My personal favorites were a few posts on the Chinese internet about how GMOs were a Japanese plot to destroy the entire population. As for the sources cited, there were none. How utterly surprising.

I’m sure you at least have some knowledge of what GMOs are. At their very heart, they’re simply ordinary organisms that have been genetically modified to be better at what humans need them to be good at, like fruits with more berries, for instance.

So, why do people think they’re bad? Let’s break down the reasons and debunk them one by one, ranging from most sensible to least.

#1: GMOs could give genes to weeds and give them superpowers.

This is definitely a valid concern for traits like pesticide resistance and hardiness, but there’s not much we can do about it for the moment. There are potential solutions, however, like making GMO crops only male/female (I know what you’re going to say, Jurrasic Park fans. DON’T SAY IT.)

#2: GMOs aren’t 100% safe.

Complaints of these types are mainly over concerns about new allergens that may be created. And while that’s a valid concern, the idea that we shouldn’t use GMOs because there’s some danger is complete bullshit. Trains are dangerous. Agriculture is dangerous. Hell, surgery and medicine is dangerous. Did our ancestors stop using any of those things just because of the danger? If anything, GMOs are safer that conventional methods of producing new types of crops because we can easily contain them and control them. And even if there are allergens, they can still be identified through rigorous testing, which all GMOs are subject to. If you’re going to make the case that corporations could ignore regulations and produce harmul GMOs… well, they basically do that for everything else now, does that make technology inherently bad?

#3: GMOs aren’t natural so therefore they are bad.

Fat is natural, poison is often natural, sugar is natural. Does it make any of these things bad? Quite the contrary, GMOs can make us healthier by controlling what goes into our diet. Not like corporations would care, but…

#4: GMOs will somehow poison us and make the population die.

Stop watching so many scifi horror movies.

And there you have it. I hope I’ve dispelled some myths, and I also hope you all learned something today. Do make sure to read more, since I’m going off memory here.

  • Prologue7642
    4·
    1 year ago

    only one complete regulatory failure comes to mind, though I’m sure there are more

    There are definitely many more, but usually they are things like this. Things leaking into water and things being incorrectly disposed of etc. Which obviously is bad, but it is not the same as food we sell will kill you bad. And it is most often not that the regulations are incorrect or insufficient, but that they are not properly enforced.

    Here’s an instance of corporate “free speech” winning out over public health by a front group for the Amerikan telecom industry, wherein the “Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association” disallowed the city of San Francisco to warn people about potentially hazardous levels of radiation emitted from mobile phones.

    Obviously that is bad, although for reasons of corporate silencing public safety warning. Personally I am always extremely skeptical about any claims of phones being dangerous, every single time I see it, it uses extremely unscientific sources. But that is beside the point.

    Overall I agree, we should be skeptical, but I think there needs to be some nuance.