Originally Posted by
CenturionIM
Oh please. Tell me about it. So, people don't starve because we use herbicide/pesticide? people don't starve because, oh, we produce enough food for the entire global population with GMO technology? Oh please. Just read some news. Take a look around you. Here in US, the richest country in the world, 15 million children are food insecure. They starve because they cannot "afford" it.
More than anything what this huge surplus of soy and corn, Monsanto's favourite children, did was to add fructose syrup to EVERYTHING and add alcohol to gasoline. Otherwise they will all go to waste. For some reason huge subsidies was given to these farms that causes worse health for everyone in America.
And please, do not even talk about how people "genetically modified" plants from way back. Yes they bred plants. Yes, they saw a desirable trait (like banana with less seeds) that OCCURRED NATURALLY and tried to select the trait and bred more banana trees with less seeds. It is a long process, taking centuries and we are working WITH what nature gave us.
Now GMO technology is very different. Scientist specifically CREATED and INSERTED genes into these plants. For example Monsanto inserted a antibiotic producing gene from a bacteria to corn plants to resist diseases. The problem is we do not understand fully what inserted gene will do beside that. We do not have that full understanding of how a changed genome can work. And this human modification is WAY TOO FAST if you compare it to natural selection and mutation. We are playing god and it's our ecosystem on the line. These plants become super plants and kills off they "less evovled" cousin.
Best of all, FDA recognized GMO food as GRAS( generally regard as safe) without ANY testing because, oh, DNA and genes have always existed in plants. It doesn't matter to them if Monsanto just add "a little extra". This enrages me to no ends. To the FDA, putting antibiotic producing gene belonging to bacterias into corn plants is just fine and require no testing. Just splendid. How marvelous.
Well said...
... It MIGHT be fine. It MIGHT be safe. But the odds are against it. And, even if it is safe today, where does it end up tomorrow? Monsanto (and the their cousins) have been given authority to do whatever they want -- and, because they have blocked all efforts in the U.S. to even label their stuff, we probably won't even know it.