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.
In the U.S. all regulatory bodies are in an incestuous polycule with one another, with a revolving door policy connecting them all. FDA (Food & Drug) is subservient to the meat industry, the FCC (Federal Communications) is subservient to Verizon, AT&T, et al., the EPA (Environmental Protection) is subservient to all sorts of planet pillaging corpos like the oil industry and mining conglomerates.
Who regulates the regulators? In the U.S., corporations. Who regulates the corporations? Corporations. Fascism, “corporatism”, bourgeoisie-state collaborationism - whatever, it has been honed and perfected in the U.S.
WRT vaccines and medicine generally we need more civilian oversight, and by “civilians” I mean workers and not playboy pharma bro m/billionaires. The same is true for any rapidly advancing technology, I think.
Trust the science, of course! Too bad Amerikan science is payrolled and contained by corporations who hid climate change from the public for over 50 years (let alone the way the state has literally weaponized vaccines not once but multiple times) and on the off chance you find scientists discussing something or offering transparency, I hope you’ve got the money to shell out for their articles.
I agree in principle with your idea. We should not retreat to Ludditism and technophobia. Even the most beneficial seeming technologies have been weaponized by the corpostate, though, and we should remain vigilant.
I am not convinced that placing cellular towers, for instance, all over the fucking country without rhyme or reason when nearly every other nation has enshrined limitations to the amount of EMF /etc. exposure a community can be subjected to at any given time. There exist no such limits in the U.S. and it’s because Verizon et al. own the FCC. Pointing this out often generates accusations against me of Qanon brainwashing.
I do not apologize if it makes me a conspiracist to not trust the U.S. state whatsoever or its corporate arms. Or its “scientific” arms, for that matter. I am a conspiracist, then, and I think we all should strive to remain ruthlessly critical of all that exists, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Fair enough, and I am in no way arguing about not remaining vigilant or just blindly trusting companies. But my issue is that your argument is basically just about US handling of these issues. Which certainly is important, but it does not paint the entire picture.
I think my main problem with your argument is, that if I try to simplify it, it says GMOs/Vaccines/… bad, when in reality what you are saying is these things in US potentially bad. EU regulatory organs are certainly not perfect, but at least in regard to safety they are pretty decent. And I am not knowledgeable enough about such organs in other parts of the world, but I would guess that there are many where the situation is similar.
So I think there is a certain nuance that is missing. But sorry if I misrepresented your point.
Interesting that there are no limits, from what I’ve tried to find, it seems like US is basically the only country with no such limits. But again from what I’ve seen (although to be fair I just read two papers on it, not really thorough research) even the US handling of communication towers doesn’t seem to be dangerous in any way.
I most certainly agree, just wanted to offer some insight to Amerikan “regulation”! I hope and believe they are usually better in EU nations (only one complete regulatory failure comes to mind, though I’m sure there are more). Info on the FCC being a captured agency.
Yet! There are conflicting reports. That’s what science is for, yeah?
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.
The truth matters, of course. It may all be perfectly safe and alarmists are just freaking out over nothing. When you add the shady history up, it paints a rather disturbed picture, though.
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.
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.