But in all seriousness, we have to take a minute to discuss just what is so frightening about GMOs. A food is considered a GMO when its genetic material has been modified, usually in a laboratory setting. The thing is, animal husbandry and selective breeding has been going on for thousands of years and it hasn’t caused a fuss. So is everyone concerned about the feelings of the bulls and stallion who have had the right to pass on genetic material taken out of their… er… hands? I will concede that the pace of modern technology can be bewildering at times. So maybe people are afraid of GMOs because the technology for creating them is moving so quickly. But this means that we should have a conversation about oversight and transparency rather than crazy people running saying that GMOs are going to give us all cancer....
This group of scientists in France just published a study in a peer-reviewed journal (so you know it’s legit) that says that rats who ate GMO corn developed tumors and died. Therefore, they said, if we humans eat GMO corn we, too, will develop tumors and die.
After its publication, it took less than 24 hours for the scientific community at large to debunk this article as nothing more than anti-GMO fearmongering. Even writers sympathetic to the anti-GMO crusade, such as Tom Philpott, agreed. “No one has ever dropped dead from drinking, say, a Coke sweetened with high-fructose syrup from GMO corn," Philpott said. He worries about "'chronic' effects, ones that come on gradually and can't be easily tied to any one thing. Here we are eating in the dark."
So who are we to believe about GMOs? Scientists? The media? At this point GMOs have been around for 14 years and there have been no immediate health or environmental problems. As to long-term troubles, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
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