GMOs

I know this blog has been entirely neglected as of late. I apologize for that and appreciate any readers who have bared with me and continue to view this blog. Here I've kicked things off again with a topic that's become pretty important to me.

I used to think the genetically modified organism (GMO) "scare" I hear and read about was just a bunch of people paranoid about innovation. I've since realized I was falling for BigAgra's marketing campaigns and there is actually quite a bit to be scared of. GMOs are incredibly scary and shockingly evil in really every way. I hope to touch on these issues separately more in depth but just to run through some of them here, the issues come down to secrecy, health, environment, corporate dominance, laws, and third world countries. I'll talk briefly about secrecy, health and the environment here, and cover the rest later this week.

Before I go through them, them, I wanted to note that an amazing but scary movie that runs through the issues of GMOs is "The Future of Food" -- as recently recommended by a friend of mine and available off Netflix. This film touches on the scariest aspects of GMOs. I highly recommend it.

Let's start with secrecy -- genetically modified foods are all over the place. You probably had no idea. Soybeans, which have increased their presence both prominantly in foods that try to capitalize on the belief that soy is healthy (partly true) and as a cheap protein filler in everything from animal feed, to processed packaged foods to Arby's roast beef. Reports from articles a few years ago claimed that US soy production was 80% dominated by GMOs. Now reports put it at more like 95%. At least 1/4 of U.S. corn is genetically engineered, as well as most of our cotton. What makes the U.S. so crazy, though, even more then the dominance of GMOs in some of our major crops, is that we don't require disclosure. You can find products that actively disclose they are "GMO-free" but the government does not require any disclosure of GMO in ingredients. Most developed countries either ban GMOs or require disclosure.

Health -- this is a big one and I'll only touch on it briefly here. The health implications of GMOs are massive. Altering the genes requires companies to essentially insert bacteria and/or viruses into other organisms. We are only beginning to understand the implications of this, and the possible negative effects of random, out of place genes (such as a flounder gene in a tomato). Studies are few and far between as they are opposed with massive funding from BigAgra, but they have shown incredible mortality rates from bugs eating such crops (studies with Monarch butterflies showed massive mortality rates), very disturbing health issues on rats fed genetically modified produce, and so forth. To ensure that the genetic modification "takes," companies will insert an "antibiotic resistance marker" into the food. Some scientists have been incredibly concerned of the implications this has on already troubling antibiotic resistance in our lives. Further, genetically modified foods have been shown to cause allergic reactions in some people -- sometimes as severe as potential death. One theory of why companies like to keep the presence of GMOs secret in food is so that it becomes very difficult to track allergic reactions and so forth back to GMOs. Pretty scary stuff.

Environment -- crops grown from GMO seeds have some serious issues not fully tested and publicized by the companies that market them. Some of these include shorter root systems that can cause flooding issues and other problems. But more importantly, our environment benefits from diversity. We already -- as I have blogged about before -- seen a terrible reduction in diversity, with most fruits and vegetables being grown from one or two varieties. GMOs threaten to further destroy biodiversity and turn every corn seed in the world, for instance, into the one marketed by Monsanto, for instance. This can lead to the development of so called superweeds that destroy such crops with efficiency, and no fallback. Ireland's potato famine is an interesting example of what happens with less biodiversity. A further problem for the environment (and certainly our health) is pesticides. The companies who make the pesticides, are now the main companies that market GMO seeds. These are marketed to go hand in hand. The most famous being the "Round Up Ready" seeds, that are designed so as not to die when sprayed with Round Up. This is a chemical that kills everything living. But now it won't kill your GMO plant. Sound healthy to you? Companies are even developing seeds that won't germinate unless they come in contact with a certain external agent -- so for instance a soybean seed would be worthless unless sprayed with Round Up. We need less pesticide, not more.