Now if the companies producing the "GM modified food" pay the research companies to do the studies, does not take a genius to guess the results.

Remember the tobacco (smokes) studies they new they were harmful but covered it up, took years till it finally became common knowledge how harmful they were.

Sometimes it takes a while for truth to come out, asbestos - DDT - roundup - tholydemite (spelling wrong but it was bad) just to name 4.

As a scientific sceptic, I have been watching this debate closely for some years now and the pseudoscience that has spread throughout the net with regards to this topic is mind-blowing.

There's a phenomenon known as "crank magnetism" which basically says that if one falls for one form of junk science, then they're likely to fall for another. This is why so many of those who are against GMO products are also against vaccinations and are also all for organic foods - which are a colossal waste of money and actually more environmentally unfriendly and potentially harmful than non-organic foods.

It's interesting that mhaze makes this a Left/Right issue, though. Because those at the forefront of the fight against such anti-science nonsense consider themselves to be predominantly Left-of-centre and are also at the forefront of the fight against climate change denialism. Just check out the podcast and Facebook page of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe to see an example of this.

Yuyutsu,

The whole gene splicing concern is a non-issue. We already share 50% of our DNA with tomatoes and most fish are more closely related to algae than they are to sharks. If you die of starvation, then it will be due to your own scientific ignorance and nothing more.

AJ Philips,
I have issue with GMO foods, Vaccines, and Climate Change; Yes I'm one of THEM.
But I reject your premise of 'crankmagnestism' and that I must've 'fallen' for some crazy pseudoscience.

I'm going to quickly run through all these issues and outline my concerns with them, in the hope that maybe in future you wont be so quick to think of us all as nutcases and actually understand the concerns of people like myself who have issue with these things.

Firstly there is a corporate agenda behind all of these things.
In the case of GMO's, Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta have a financial interests.
For Vaccines Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have financial interests, and for Climate Change we have a push for carbon pricing.

Big business has a financial interest in selling us on the merits of these things as they make a lot of money from them.

From a "Is GMO good for me" perspective I've heard that the human body does have trouble breaking down certain GMO proteins.
I'm no scientist though and all I hope for is that they test the stuff properly and be honest in their findings.
Its not really reliable when the companies themselves do the testing and pronounce them safe whilst having a financial interest.
This is also valid in the case of vaccines.

In the case of GMO's I support GMO labelling.
I shouldn't be considered a crazy person just for wanting to be informed and decide for myself as a consumer.

For Vaccines, there are plenty of reports of side effects from vaccines as well as some instances where the cause of an outbreak was the vaccine itself.
Then there's the argument for mandatory vaccinations.
If your kid has been vaccinated then they should be immune.
They shouldn't be able to become infected if they are immune.
Therefore these things indicate that vaccines are neither safe or effective.
As a consumer or parent, what I want is 'informed consent'.
I want the doctor to inform me of any known side effects related to that vaccine, and the ultimate decision to choose what I put in mine or my childs body is up to me.

Why do you think so many people have peanut allergies these days?
Could in not be because they use it as an adjuvant in the vaccines?

As things stand there's no liability on the side of these big companies if my child becomes retarded from some vaccine.
In fact they just make more money as my child would need care and treatment for life.

Next Climate Change.
Its not that I don't care about the planet.
It's that I think we are being taken for a ride by some used car salesmen with a financial agenda.

There's reasons to think climate models are wrong.
Reasons to think the process of homogenising data is skewing the findings (purposely) and reasons to think its done partly for profit and to have control over nations economies and as part of a depopulation agenda.

My concerns aren't irrational.
But my wishes stand in the way of big businesses profits.

To those who naively buy the fiction that the resistance to GMO is/was about corporate involvement. As I said this is going to be the excuse trotted out by the left/environmentalists over the next few years and many will fall for it - some already have.

So the story of Golden Rice.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) kills about 1 million people per year and causes a further 500000 (mainly kids) to go blind. In 2000, Swiss researchers worked out how to put a gene in rice that caused it to produce beta-carotene. A bowl of this rice provides the daily requirement for Vitamin A.

The developers weren't interested in profit and gave FREE licences to developing countries and subsistence farmers. Monsanto got involved in crossing it with local strains and they also gave it away free.

BUT the environmentalists were opposed to GMO no matter. Saving 1 million lives is neither here nor there to Greenpeace et al so they've done all they can, including ripping up trial fields, to stop the use of this life-saver. And so today Golden Rice is still barely available and people are still dying.

And the opposition is not due to commercial interests but due to anti-scientific mumbo-jumbo from these people. Golden Rice was a problem for them because it was about profit but about saving lives. But they opposed it anyway and get away with still convincing many that they have the moral high ground.


I get so bloody angry about this and especially when I then see people blithely claiming that they are just opposed to the profit-makers. Its so pathetic.

Well of course you would, Armchair Critic.

<<But I reject your premise of 'crankmagnestism' and that I must've 'fallen' for some crazy pseudoscience.>>

But it is a little more than a co-incidence that those who believe in one form of junk science, believe in most others. What about chemtrails? Do you believe that conspiracy too? That’s another common one.

<<Firstly there is a corporate agenda behind all of these things.>>

Yes, I’ve heard it all before. Big Pharma, Big Agra (which is actually dwarfed by ‘Big Organic’, but that’s another story) “Follow the money”, they tell me. The problem with this logic is that it doesn’t matter what happens, or how good or bad it is, someone somewhere is going to make money as a result of it.

<<From a "Is GMO good for me" perspective I've heard that the human body does have trouble breaking down certain GMO proteins.>>

No, that’s nonsense (http://skepdic.com/gmo.html). Do you realise that we’ve been genetically modifying food since the agricultural revolution? Just take a look at what bananas or grain used to look like. Selective breeding is just a slower form of genetic modification.

When the anti-GMO mob need to rely on emotive terms such as “frankenfood”, you know they’ve got nothing.

<<Its not really reliable when the companies themselves do the testing and pronounce them safe whilst having a financial interest.>>

That’s the beauty of independent studies.

Let’s just look at a premise of conspiracy theorists for a second: Big Pharma has allegedly managed to buy off every politician and every doctor, and yet somehow no-one blows the whistle. Big Pharma is allegedly so powerful and yet it can’t pull down a YouTube video from some crank?

Yeah right.

<<In the case of GMO's I support GMO labelling.>>

Speaking of which, it’s funny how when GMO products weren’t labelled, the anti-GMO mob were saying, “Well, if they’re so safe, then why don’t you label them?” Now that they’re usually labelled, it’s a case of, “Well, if they’re so safe, then why do you have to label them?”

Continued…