NY Times shills for GMO
The NY Times recently published an article titled "Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food"
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/science/dispute-over-labeling-of-genetically-modified-food.html?_r=4
that reads like it was partially ghostwritten by Monsanto lobbyists.
Let's see here. Genetic manipulation of the human food supply is essentially a large scale science experiment. GMOs are inherently unpredictable. It is far beyond our current scientific capabilities to predict the effects of inserting foreign genes into organisms, let alone ecosystems. GMOs were not proven safe, they were simply presumed so by the US government under pressure from industry.
So there is reasonable scientific doubt, yes? Not to the GMO groupies at the NY Times.
Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated.
Ah, there you go. GMOs have the regulators and "many" scientists on their side, whereas skepticism is only fueled by ignorance and suspicion. And since we know that American regulators are always completely impartial, and the GMO industry doesn't employ armies of scientists to produce predetermined conclusions, it's really a powerful argument that regulators support GMOs - not to mention those many scientists.
Farther down in the article, we hear though that there's been a "long-simmering debate over the merits of genetically engineered crops which many scientists and farmers believe could be useful in meeting the world’s rapidly expanding food needs."
Of course, there are also many scientists and farmers who believe that GMOs may cause serious and irreparable harm to human health and the Earth's ecosystem. But I suppose it wouldn't be responsible journalism to include both sides of the story here.
The next paragraph does mention that "supporters of labeling" (among them, possibly farmers and scientists) argue that modifying crops with genes from another species "is fundamentally different from the selective breeding process used in nearly all crops". However, that's absolutely nothing to worry about since the infallible and incorruptible F.D.A., which has never been accused of having revolving doors between itself and the biotech industry, says that "genetic modification does not materially change the food."
So we get the message. All the Very Serious People are on the side of GMOs.
But just in case the reader is a little slow:
"Farmers, food and biotech companies and scientists [no longer some, now it's apparently all of them] say that labels might lead consumers to reject genetically modified food - and the technology that created it - without understanding its environmental and economic benefits. A national science advisory organization in 2010 termed those benefits “substantial" noting that existing biotech crops have for years let farmers spray fewer or less harmful chemicals, though the emergence of resistant weeds and insects threatens to blunt that effect."
Nice spin- a different report found that due to resistance, from 1996 to 2008, "the switch to GM crops has led to an extra 318 million pounds of pesticides being used by farmers." That report also found that the rate of increase was itself increasing.
In other words, those "substantial" benefits of biotech crops are unsustainable and we're already underwater as far as environmental net benefit is concerned.
The good news is - or maybe bad news, in the eyes of the biotech lobbyists posing as science journalists at the NY Times - that
"When asked if they wanted genetically engineered foods to be labeled, about 9 in 10 Americans said that they did, according to a 2010 Thomson Reuters-NPR poll. "
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/science/dispute-over-labeling-of-genetically-modified-food.html?_r=4
that reads like it was partially ghostwritten by Monsanto lobbyists.
Let's see here. Genetic manipulation of the human food supply is essentially a large scale science experiment. GMOs are inherently unpredictable. It is far beyond our current scientific capabilities to predict the effects of inserting foreign genes into organisms, let alone ecosystems. GMOs were not proven safe, they were simply presumed so by the US government under pressure from industry.
So there is reasonable scientific doubt, yes? Not to the GMO groupies at the NY Times.
Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated.
Ah, there you go. GMOs have the regulators and "many" scientists on their side, whereas skepticism is only fueled by ignorance and suspicion. And since we know that American regulators are always completely impartial, and the GMO industry doesn't employ armies of scientists to produce predetermined conclusions, it's really a powerful argument that regulators support GMOs - not to mention those many scientists.
Farther down in the article, we hear though that there's been a "long-simmering debate over the merits of genetically engineered crops which many scientists and farmers believe could be useful in meeting the world’s rapidly expanding food needs."
Of course, there are also many scientists and farmers who believe that GMOs may cause serious and irreparable harm to human health and the Earth's ecosystem. But I suppose it wouldn't be responsible journalism to include both sides of the story here.
The next paragraph does mention that "supporters of labeling" (among them, possibly farmers and scientists) argue that modifying crops with genes from another species "is fundamentally different from the selective breeding process used in nearly all crops". However, that's absolutely nothing to worry about since the infallible and incorruptible F.D.A., which has never been accused of having revolving doors between itself and the biotech industry, says that "genetic modification does not materially change the food."
So we get the message. All the Very Serious People are on the side of GMOs.
But just in case the reader is a little slow:
"Farmers, food and biotech companies and scientists [no longer some, now it's apparently all of them] say that labels might lead consumers to reject genetically modified food - and the technology that created it - without understanding its environmental and economic benefits. A national science advisory organization in 2010 termed those benefits “substantial" noting that existing biotech crops have for years let farmers spray fewer or less harmful chemicals, though the emergence of resistant weeds and insects threatens to blunt that effect."
Nice spin- a different report found that due to resistance, from 1996 to 2008, "the switch to GM crops has led to an extra 318 million pounds of pesticides being used by farmers." That report also found that the rate of increase was itself increasing.
In other words, those "substantial" benefits of biotech crops are unsustainable and we're already underwater as far as environmental net benefit is concerned.
The good news is - or maybe bad news, in the eyes of the biotech lobbyists posing as science journalists at the NY Times - that
"When asked if they wanted genetically engineered foods to be labeled, about 9 in 10 Americans said that they did, according to a 2010 Thomson Reuters-NPR poll. "