[eadz]

Being Anti-GMO doesn't make someone on the wrong side of science.

The dangers of GMO from a economic perspective are worthy of worry on their own. If you haven't seen Food Inc, then I would recommend that as a starting point to learn how dangerous the monopolisation of the food industry can be to society. The farmers in Peru want to protect their existing biodiversity, something North America has lost thanks to Monsanto, where you cannot legally grow a heirloom corn crop without paying patent fees to monsanto because of the inevitable wind-born cross pollination, thereby violating monsanto patent rights.

[lemevi]

Like the other commentator, the stated problems in your comment have nothing to do with GMO, they are a problem with a specific company and patent politics. I don't like software patents but I don't go around telling people software is dangerous and that they shouldn't use software.

[eadz]

If the software was a virus that infected other software you might.

Unfortunately the biggest GMO companies in the world have given GMO foods a bad name.

While GM technology does have hope for the future, like AI, it also poses risks. We need to take those risks seriously, and dismissing people anti-GM as being anti-science is FUD on your part.

There are dangers of eating GM food, but that doesn't mean the dangers come from the genes themselves. GM food such as roundup ready crops can have increased herbicide residue compared to non-GM crops.

We live in a world of corporate funded "science", so being skeptical of claims of 100% safety for GM organisms released into the wild isn't anti-science, it's just using the Precautionary Principle.

The Precautionary Principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action.

I think that is the correct approach to GM. The potential risks if things go wrong are huge and irreversible, wheres the need for GM food (if any) doesn't justify that risk until we have better scientific consensus.

[lemevi]

What you're saying sounds like that in the absence of evidence that GMO causes harm you're just going believe whatever you want. There's no scientific basis to suspect GMO of causing harm to anything. Your suspicions are based on a big company being involved and oh my god it's made by people. Nature good, people bad. I don't share this sentiment. Aflotoxin is made by nature, it is bad for you. Very very bad. It occurs in everyday food. GMO has been shown by research to mitigate the presence of aflotoxin. GMO is a product of people. If they put GMO labels on stuff, I will be happy, because I will eat the GMO stuff. You can have your organic local peanut butter with its aflotoxins.

Also nobody forced farmers to by the GMO crops, they're buying it for a reason. They're buying it because it's good.

[stevenstremciuc]

Can you please go into further detail and provide evidence (preferably not an emotionally written wordpress blog post) for your claim regarding the wind-born (blown) cross pollination resulting in patent fees? This is something I have heard again and again but googling for "Monsanto wind blown seeds" [1] seems to return a fair amount of articles/research not supporting your statement.

[1] - https://www.google.com/search?q=monsanto%20wind%20blown%20se...

[eadz]

Corn seeds are not wind blown, the pollen is. It is a fact that GMO <> Non-GMO corn cross pollination happens, and when that does your seeds become tainted. To collect and replant those seeds is patent infringement. Wikipedia has a lot of information about Monsanto court cases.

Monsanto actually has a page "busting" the myth, but I'm going to link to it because it clearly states that monsanto has the right to enforce patent fees in this case.

http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally...

Here is the quote: Monsanto has a long-standing public commitment that “it has never been, nor will it be, Monsanto’s policy to exercise its patent rights where trace amounts of our patented seeds or traits are present in a farmer’s fields as a result of inadvertent means.”

So they are saying that, yes they own those patent rights, but no they won't enforce them. It's pretty clear cut that one has a legal obligation to pay monsanto, but they're being nice by not enforcing their rights. ( If you watch Food Inc, you'll see how nice they are about non-enforcement in reality ).