The Washington Post has debuted Tamar Haspel’s new food column, “Unearthed”. In her first effort, Haspel dives right in to the GMO debate, examining which side–supporters of crop biotechnology or the critics–are being fair with the facts. Are GMOs safe?
So let me suggest a simple impartiality test: Does the person or organization you trust admit to both risks and benefits? If not, chances are good that your source has a dog — financial or ideological — in the fight. Read through Earth Open Source’s “evidence-based” position on genetically modified crops, “GMO Myths and Truths,” and you’ll find 123 pages of “no.” Go to GMO Answers, a Web site run by the biotech industry, and it’s hard to find any suggestion that there have been, or could be, disadvantages to genetic modification.
The organizations I found that pass, though, form a compelling coalition. The National Academies, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the Royal Society and the European Commission are all on the same side. Although it’s impossible to prove anything absolutely safe, and all of those groups warn that vigilance on GMOs and health is vital, they all agree that there’s no evidence that it’s dangerous to eat genetically modified foods. Even the Center for Science in the Public Interest is on board, and it has never been accused of being sanguine about food risks.
[I]f you believe that GMOs are contributing to monocrops, endangering small farmers, entrenching industrial agriculture, laying waste to the environment and securing corporate admittance to the corridors of power, it’s hard to see the point of parsing the evidence on human health. Although I don’t hold with all of that, I don’t think anyone can, in good faith, dismiss it out of hand. And so I think we should talk. Here at Unearthed, I’d like to do that.
Read the full, original story here: “Genetically modified foods: What is and isn’t true”
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- “Washington Post Dons Matel of Objectivity on GMOs: The Annals of Intellectual Self-Congratulation,” Reason
- “Organics versus GMO: Why the debate?” Genetic Literacy Project
- “With 2000+ global studies confirming safety, GM foods among most analyzed subjects in science,” Genetic Literacy Project
