A challenge to all GMO supporters.

[jeff47]

81. Problem is we've done such a poor job with education

that people don't really understand the subject.

For example, there isn't a difference between hybridization/selective breeding or GMOs. You can tell because of the results. Monsanto made GMO crops resistant to glyphosate. It killed weeds around those crops.....until those weeds developed glyphosate resistance via selective breeding - the only weeds that survived were able to resist glyphosate.

GMOs allow finer control and shorter time to get the result. But you get the same result. In that case, resistance to an herbicide.

Also, pesticides and herbicides are different things. Very toxic pesticides can be sprayed on any plant. Monsanto's been pushing herbicides, where genetic modification makes the crop resistant to the herbicide. There are some GMO crops where the plant produces a pesticide, but those pesticides are not toxic to humans. And we know this because we used to spray the pesticide on the field before we had the plant make it instead.

There are some very passionate people who fear that GMOs could be dangerous. So they are working very hard to be heard. What is lacking is a mechanism by which GMOs are dangerous, much less any evidence that the GMO itself is the problem (problems caused by glyphosate are caused by glyphosate, not a plant engineered to resist it).

These people have a very convenient villain in Monsanto, a particularly despicable corporation. But not all GMOs are made by Monsanto, and not all GMOs are about spraying herbicides and pesticides. For example, golden rice was engineered to be high in vitamin A in order to combat malnutrition in the very poor parts of the world.

So how can one make a good decision without understanding the subject? There were many people claiming margarine was healthier than butter. Turns out the exact opposite is true. But if all you heard was the "margarine good" side, you'd make the wrong decision. You'd have to understand why margarine was supposed to be better, and be able to understand the evidence (there wasn't any).

A label doesn't help when you don't know what the label actually means.