A friend of mine and I got into a conversation today about Monsanto and GMOs in general. Seeing that he considers himself to be an environmentalist and that his stance is anti-GMO, I asked him if he could explain to me how GMOs are harmful to the environment. This was his response: 1. Lack of scientific basis to support claims in either direction. For instance, its simply impossible to claim at this point in time that GMOs *arent* detrimental to human health. If from a simple standpoint of logistics. There is no way of tracking their consumption, and epidemiological studies would therefore be completely fruitless in proving the safety of GMOs. Just as they would be fruitless in proving that they are unsafe. Which is one of the problems with the system that I alluded to earlier. 2. Difficulties in obtaining information regarding ecological and epidemiological data associated not necessarily with the GMO products themselves, but with control products such as Roundup. This is essential data that relates to how glyphosate interacts with organisms outside of the direct focus of the plant itself. How does it relate to bacteria in the soil or the many organisms that reside within us? Quite simply put, there are many factors which could be quite prevalent in coming to a verdict which are simply.. Missing. We cant say that we know, or dont know, because we dont even have the infrastructure needed to track the effects in certain areas. Were missing pieces of the picture. Im certainly not against moving forward on this. The issue is that weve already begun without knowing all the rules, and that there are players who are motivated to push forwards not out of societal concern, but of self motivated means.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 04:26:29 +0000
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