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by azernik 2964 days ago
Our information about the benefits of GMO is pretty thorough and persuasive, so in this case, we don't need to care about motivations.
1 comments

A lot of this information comes from studies affiliated with industry:

A 2011 analysis by Diels et al., reviewed 94 peer-reviewed studies pertaining to GMO safety to assess whether conflicts of interest correlated with outcomes that cast GMOs in a favorable light. They found that financial conflict of interest was not associated with study outcome (p = 0.631) while author affiliation to industry (i.e., a professional conflict of interest) was strongly associated with study outcome (p < 0.001).[129] Of the 94 studies that were analyzed, 52% did not declare funding. 10% of the studies were categorized as "undetermined" with regard to professional conflict of interest. Of the 43 studies with financial or professional conflicts of interest, 28 studies were compositional studies. According to Marc Brazeau, an association between professional conflict of interest and positive study outcomes can be skewed because companies typically contract with independent researchers to perform follow-up studies only after in-house research uncovers favorable results. In-house research that uncovers negative or unfavorable results for a novel GMO is generally not further pursued.[130]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_cont...

This is one very good reason why the motivation of industry should be examined carefully. If their motivation is profit and they are allowed to optimise for that alone without any oversight or regulation AND on top of that they are the keepers and dispensers of information about their product, what chance does the general public have to make an accurate assessment of their product's safety?