Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been about a year since my last post. In that time, I’ve become quite active in trying to dispel some of the many myths surrounding the topic of Genetically Modified Organizations (GMO’s), and it’s in the spirit of that new focus that I have decided to unsubscribe from MoveOn.org’s email newsletters after they introduced a dishonest initiative to undermine GMO’s.
The petition linked to above makes several factually incorrect statements and also uses manipulative language. For instance, note the use of the word “pervasive” when describing GMO’s. “Pervasive” has obvious negative connotations, negative connotations not at all justified by the evidence. Then the petition claims the GMO’s are “largely untested, possibly harmful for humans to eat.” Every GMO currently on the market has been safety tested. Granted, since not all GMO’s are created equal, some are perhaps better tested than others, but the vague statement that GMO’s in general are “largely untested” pretty much falls into the “pants on fire” category. And of course “possibly harmful” is a nice bit of legalese that really doesn’t say anything. Anything within reason is possible; one could just as easily claim GMO’s will possibly turn you into a dragon. I’m not saying it will, but I’m just not ruling it out. But of course any reader, particularly one who knows nothing about the science and already trusts MoveOn.org’s judgment, this is sufficient to poison the well and persuade that person that GMO’s are bad. MoveOn’s evidence? They don’t provide any.
Now what’s the real harm in a labeling campaign anyway? Should consumers not be informed what’s in their food? On the surface, it’s of course a reasonable-sounding argument. The problem is there’s already so much propaganda falsely implicating GMO’s for all many of unproven ailments and labels further give people an impression that the label exists to warn them of harm. This is an old tactic. Once the labels are there, the new argument made by anti-GMO ideologues will be, “If GMO’s are so safe, why did the government put warning labels on them?” This is called the Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire Fallacy.
So when asked for a reason why, I responded thusly:
MoveOn’s campaign against GMOs is fundamentally anti-science, every bit as anti-science as Right-Wing campaigns denying the human-effects of climate change and the teaching of evolution.
To quote Pamela Ronald’s excellent recent article in MIT Technology Review:
“If Vermont had honestly assessed genetically engineered crops, the bill would have indicated that there is not a single credible report of dangerous health effects from GMOs and that there is no science-based reason to single out the resulting foods for mandatory labeling. It would have mentioned that the technology has been used safely in food and medicine for 30 years. It would have stated that farmers’ use of GMO crops has reduced by a factor of 10 the amount of insecticides sprayed on corn over the last 15 years, reduced food costs, decreased carbon dioxide emissions, and enhanced biological diversity.”
Make no mistake. Efforts to add warning labels to GM foods that have shown no indication of harm is every bit as corporate-driven as any efforts by the Koch Brothers or Big Oil, etc. Those most benefiting from it are parties marketing so-called “organic” foods, a product that, contrary to the hype, offers no health or environmental advantage over the alternative.
MoveOn’s efforts in this arena are not only wrong-headed; they fly in the face of all the available evidence, stifle human progress, increase food costs for everyone, does immense harm to third-world populations, and denies the consensus of virtually all relevant reputable international science organizations, who universally agree that the process of genetic engineering is no more risky to human health than conventional approaches to genetic modification (http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/08/27/glp-infographic-international-science-organizations-on-crop-biotechnology-safety/#.U6CqifldWTO).
Some useful links:
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/kbbe/docs/a-decade-of-eu-funded-gmo-research_en.pdf
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/10/08/with-2000-global-studies-confirming-safety-gm-foods-among-most-analyzed-subject-in-science/#.UlTteYZOPTo
http://www.biofortified.org/2013/10/20-points-of-broad-scientific-consensus-on-ge-crops/
http://dangeroustalk.net/a-team/GMO
Oh, and I also created a petition on MoveOn’s website to MoveOn Executive Director Anna Galland.
Skepacabra 
Glad you told them. I respond similarly when Greenpeace aggressively solicits me when I walk by Trader Joe’s here in Hollywood.
“GMOs are mostly untested” is a vague statement, but not without merit. Multinationals (the usual, Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont et. al.) are constantly lobbying to put products on the market before testing has actually happened.
Your argument against labelling, meanwhile, is a non-sequitur:
“Now what’s the real harm in a labeling campaign anyway? Should consumers not be informed what’s in their food? On the surface, it’s of course a reasonable-sounding argument.”
And your counter argument seems to be (I mean, it is all you talk about in your counter argument): “Because it would make Monsanto et. al. lose money, and Organic producers gain money, and Organic Producers would profit (so they have vested interests in labelling).”
Wow, way to go.
But what the hell does that have to do with the consumers, who are the ones who are going to read the labels?
You seem to say, the reason they don’t have a right to see the label on food, is because company B wants it and company A doesn’t.
The conclusion has nothing to do with the premise – it’s a non-sequitur.
On the contrary, as I elaborate on in a different article (https://skepacabra.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/whats-so-bad-about-labels/), my actual counterargument is that experts universally agree there is no added benefit to such labeling campaigns because there’s no increased risk to transgenic foods. And THEN, given that central fact, the question of who actually benefits from such campaigns is worth discussion.
And I actually don’t even understand where you got your Company A vs. Company B analogy from what I wrote. That’s not my position at all. And while I know some companies like Starbucks aren’t catering to the demands of GMO critics, I can’t name a single company that’s actively fighting against GMO labeling. No, it’s the scientific communicators and educators most familiar with the safety research who are the onces most actively opposing labels, while those on the other side are largely industry, celebrities, and unqualified health bloggers.
So I agree that your version of what I’m saying is a totally ridiculous non-sequitur.
You can’t name a single company that’s actively fighting against GMO labeling? Obviously you haven’t heard of America.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gmo-lobbying-20140729-story.html
Meanwhile: “No, it’s the scientific communicators and educators most familiar with the safety research who are the onces most actively opposing labels”
And this is where your depth of naivety is truly nearing the centre of the earth; you fail to recognise that scientists and “experts” can be *bought*. With cold hard cash.
Look at the lists of scientist penning those “100 scientists reinforce the need for GMOs” letters – they all get funding from Monsanto etc.
I’m not sure what exactly you think you do. Besides simply *swallowing* “official” advice. Which is largely governed by multinationals with the money.
Of course, none of that has the slightest bearing on the right of consumers to know what they are eating.
One is left with the rather appalling argument that the citizens do not deserve to have the information because they would not put it to good use. Does not *ANY* of that sound wrong to you?
So now America is a company? Seriously dude, how far up your own ass did you need to go to pull that one out? If I change the definitions of words, why I can pretend the person I’m trying to pick a fight with for reasons is saying whatever crazy thing I want! Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
But even if I granted your insanely liberal definition of company, you’d have to be the most ignorant person in the world to think the government has any kind of monolithic philosophy on anything other than collect more donor money.
Next, simply asserting a corruption accusation is not remotely evidence of corruption. It’s literally the easiest and laziest argument there is. Anyone can claim anyone they disagree with is in the pocket of industry. If you expect that accusation to be taken even the slightest bit seriously, you’re going to need actual evidence. And given that you appear to be accusing every single relevant reputable scientific organization, that’s quite a burden of proof you’ve tasked yourself with. Show me the receipts. Show me the paperwork proving that all the cited independent organizations have an undisclosed conflict of interest with Monsanto or any other industry source. And while you’re at it, since the researchers show all their work in their research, point out precisely where they’ve manipulated the findings?
One also wonders, if all the people doing the actual research on the stuff are part of a giant mega conspiracy the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Underpants Gnomes, where the fuck is YOUR data coming from? Where are all the published findings from the supposed experts that you’re basing your findings on? And how do you know your sources aren’t being paid off by the multi-billion dollar organics industry?
I don’t think you know a goddamn thing about how science operates. While individual scientists are certainly as capable of being bribed as anyone in any field, that can only get you so far because the scientific method is literally designed to snuff out false conclusions. And it’s the single best method for doing so that humanity has ever designed because the incentive is primarily given to disproving previously held conclusions. A scientist who just sits around conforming to some orthodoxy or maintaining the status quo won’t make it as a scientist for very long. And if you run an evil company that makes poison, and maintaining your bottom line under that model requires you to spend what would have to be upwards of many trillions of dollars bribing literally millions of individual working scientists, journalists, and educators all the way down to even all high school Chemistry teachers around the world just to maintain the lie,wouldn’t it just be a lot cheaper to sell a safer product that didn’t require bribing a sizable chunk of the human population?
And again, I’ve already answered the cost of applying labels to GMO products. And I don’t even really care that much one way or the other because nobody is suggesting labeling them would lead to the apocalypse or anything. It just makes life on this planet marginally worse, which bugs those of us who want to see things get better. But again, simply asserting things (not to mention just repeating them over and over again like a small toddler with no argument other than, “because it’s mine!”) is not an argument.
Lastly, all the information necessary to inform consumers is available on the internet for those who maybe aren’t as lazy to do the work as you. Humanity’s gone thousands of years without labels on its GM foods; it’s rather absurd to imply that in the age of the internet, simply continuing to not have the labels we’ve never had in the first place would keep consumers in any kind of perpetual information blackout concerning what’s in their food. Then again, in the world that you seem to reside where no source of information (other than those who happen to remarkably share your exact beliefs) can be trusted no matter what the actual reviewed and repeatedly demonstrated evidence shows, I guess it’s all just an information blackout anyway, labels or no labels…cause I’m sure if the labels are added, you’ll never find another Monsanto conspiracy that allegedly undermines the accuracy of the label data ever, right?
Also, it’s an interesting fantasy where handing exclusive control of a commodity over to a handful of multinational corporations will cause prices to *decrease*.
I agree. I don’t know who would believe that.