Viewpoint: ‘Activists are tireless’ — 30 years of global genetically modified crop use has proven they are safe and sustainable, but GMOs remain under assault

Credit: Wikimedia Commons via CC-BY-2.0
Credit: Wikimedia Commons via CC-BY-2.0

To date there have been over 3,000 studies looking at the health and environmental safety of GMO crops, without any evidence of harm or a legitimate safety issue. Based on this evidence, 280 scientific organizations around the world have declared that GMOs are just as safe as non-GMO foods and present no special risk. There is, in fact, an overwhelming scientific consensus that GMOs currently on the market are safe and pose no threat to the environment.

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This disconnect between public fears, caused by a fearmongering campaign of misinformation, and a strong scientific consensus based on decades of research is stark and very dangerous. One particularly poignant example is the fate of golden rice – a bioengineered variety of rice with enhanced beta carotene meant to reduce the burden of vitamin A deficiency, especially in developing parts of the world. There are no legitimate concerns about golden rice – the patent rights are freely licensed, there is no issue with pesticide use, and there are no safety issues. The best opponents can do is to request even more research – and endless game of shifting the goalpost, or to claim that golden rice is not that effective.

…

This gets back to the core problems – activists are tireless, while the defenders of science and common sense have countless battles on their hands and a lot of competition for their attention.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here

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