Are you opposed to GMOs, but secretly wish you knew more about the details to better back up your case?
Are you OK with GMOs, but don’t know how to refute anti-GMO arguments?
Are you undecided?
GMOs Get Personal
At different times in my life, I’ve held all three of these points of view. The issue got personal last fall, though, when we Oregonians got ready to vote on Measure 92, which would have required labeling of GM foods (it failed to pass, but barely).
I realized I should educate myself, but where to start? Navigating your way around both sides’ talking points is like crossing the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride—complete with Rodents of Unusual Size (though that GMO study was later retracted).
Come along for the Ride
Luckily, I found my Westley to guide me through. Nathanael Johnson’s fantastic series of articles called Panic-free GMOs in Grist magazine (published in 2013) was exactly what I was looking for.
Grist is a left-leaning online magazine that publishes green news. They call themselves “A Beacon in the Smog.” Johnson is their food writer, and in the opening article to Panic-Free GMOs, he says he’s truly undecided on GMOs and wants to cut through the rhetoric and figure out where he stands. He invites the reader to “come along for the ride.”
I went along for the ride—all 30 posts.
Johnson follows through on his promise to be neutral, and his posts are peppered with quotes from personal interviews with dozens of researchers, spokespeople, and activists from both sides of the story. His links to documents and articles on other sites enrich the story further. The series is fair, informative, and thought-provoking, and I was surprised by a lot of what I learned.
Are GM Foods Safe to Eat?
Early on in Johnson’s series, the idea that genetically modified foods aren’t safe to eat takes a beating. I was floored to learn there’s such a strong consensus among the scientific community that GM foods are safe. While we consumers have been whipping ourselves into a frenzy over GMOs, scientists have been quietly conducting hundreds of studies on GM foods, and virtually none of the studies have indicated that we have any reason to believe genetically modified foods are any more dangerous than conventional foods. We’re talking independent studies. Peer-reviewed studies. Long-term studies.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science agrees that eating genetically modified food poses no significant risk to our health, as do the American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the British Royal Society, among others.
In the face of this evidence, there are still many who fear some danger lurking in genetically modified food that the studies somehow have not yet been able to detect. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, they refuse to change their beliefs. Sound familiar? Johnson references a common comparison between the anti-GMO crowd and climate change deniers: “It’s hard to make the case that we should trust science and act to stem global warming,” he points out, “while at the same time we are scoffing at the statements of snort scientists on genetic modification.”