The Creator of GMO Potatoes Reveals The Dangerous Truth

[swineflu]

TBH I'll never understand the culture of giving up with science.

I see so many takes that "this isn't as efficient/good as the current system, so there's no point bothering" when science should be "this isn't as efficient/good as the current system, so we should put resources into improving it to guard against the future".

Climate change: "fossil fuels are more efficient, so no subsidies or research into renewables, thanks". 20 years later: "Oh we need renewables, like, NOW and we haven't bothered working toward a solution while we could".

GMO: "This isn't as safe a process as natural food, so we should just keep shovelling resources into ~natural~ foods, nothing bad could come of that".

Like.. am I the only one who gets confused every time someone (particularly Americans) say "oh, this is too hard, we should give up" when much of human progress has come from saying nah, let's keep progressing this field?

Admittedly this is less to do with this topic and more a general whinge at the fact it happens.

Nothing better than a good whinge but not in the service of corporatism. You musn't ever take Big Ag propaganda as a basis for reality. They are motivated by profit; pure and simple. You ARE an adult aren't you? Adults do not believe what they are told.

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Come back when you have a study from a credible source.

I would genuinely be glad to serve you and your entire family GMO potatoes. One big misshapen, stunted, chlorotic, necrotic, and sterile mouthful after another.

[Trassk]

I'm just of the mind if we're the kind of species that wouid kill off bees for short time convenience without putting thought into the long term negative effects, we deserve the fallout from that hubris

[EbonBehelit-]

Adults do not believe what they are told.

*snort*

If adults don't believe what they're told, then why is religion a thing? How is Trump the president of the United States? Why are anti-vaxxers a thing? And how are politicians/corporations able to lie to the public with impunity?

[swineflu]

GMO's cause autism.

/sarcasm.

I would inject glyphosate-laden vaccines into your children's arms and look at you with a genuine heartfelt smile on my face.

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*snort*

If adults don't believe what they're told, then why is religion a thing? How is Trump the president of the United States? Why are anti-vaxxers a thing? And how are politicians/corporations able to lie to the public with impunity?

anti-vaxxers are correct btw but you don't need to know that. continue injecting them into you body.

[EbonBehelit-]

anti-vaxxers are correct btw but you don't need to know that. continue injecting them into you body.

Do you believe everything you're told? And here I thought you were an adult. Shame, really.

[swineflu]

I'm just of the mind if we're the kind of species that wouid kill off bees for short time convenience without putting thought into the long term negative effects, we deserve the fallout from that hubris

The only disagreement I would have with you friend is that those pro-Ag authoritarian jerkoff trolls actually do deserve the fallout but real people like us don't.

[Suluhu]

anti-vaxxers are correct btw but you don't need to know that. continue injecting them into you body.

And there you have it!

[Mirishka]

The Irish in me has never trusted GMO potatoes.

Potatoes are sacred.

You don't fuck with potatoes.

Ever...

Indeed. Potatoes are love, potatoes are life.

[Deleted]

GMOs are just like any other science. take nuclear sciences as an example: you can use it to make nukes or to make medicines. in the same veins GMOs have the potential to either do amazing things or cause enormous disasters.

All depends on with what intentions they are made. And a healthy dose of skepticism of big corporations intentions has never hurt anyone. food is a industry like healthcare: a companies profit driven motivation is often directly at odds with whats best for their clients.

[Trassk]

The only disagreement I would have with you friend is that those pro-Ag authoritarian jerkoff trolls actually do deserve the fallout but real people like us don't.

I just think of it that with so many people in the world it was bound to happen, resources being finite

[Tiwack]

Rape the environment for profit, most Ag ends up as animal fodder at factory farms. We're already feeding the world, it's just a problem of priority and distribution.

[Setheria]

anti-vaxxers are correct btw but you don't need to know that. continue injecting them into you body.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have it. Stupid or trolling? You decide!

[Arenis]

I couldn't imagine a more biased site even if I tried. However, US regulations on GMO food/feed/additives are indeed somewhat lacking. In the EU, there is very strict regulation, with a lengthy testing and approval process conducted by the EFSA. Imho, the US should impose a similar structure.

[Flarelaine]

I would genuinely be glad to serve you and your entire family GMO potatoes. One big misshapen, stunted, chlorotic, necrotic, and sterile mouthful after another.

You forgot the study, dude. I can see you're already good at hate.

[Barnabas]

How many years did you spend working on creating GM potatoes?

During my 26 years as a genetic engineer, I created hundreds of thousands of different GM potatoes at a direct cost of about $50 million.


Have the GM potatoes you helped create been approved by the FDA and EPA in the U.S. or indeed elsewhere in the world?

It is amazing that the USDA and FDA approved the GM potatoes by only evaluating our own data. How can the regulatory agencies assume there is no bias? The regulatory petitions for deregulation are full with meaningless data but hardly include any attempts to reveal the unintended effects. For instance, the petitions describe the insertion site of the transgene, but they don’t mention the numerous random mutations that occurred during the tissue culture manipulations. And the petitions provide data on compounds that are safe and don’t matter, such as the regular amino acids and sugars, but hardly give any measurements on the levels of potential toxins or allergens.


Will GM potatoes not lead to larger yields and bigger tubers?

I somehow managed to ignore the almost daily experience that GM potatoes were not as healthy as normal potatoes. They were often misshapen, stunted, chlorotic, necrotic, and sterile, and many GM plants often died quickly. One of the reasons for this genetic inferiority is that GM potatoes are derived from ‘somatic’ cells, which are meant to live for only one season (to support a stem or leaf structure). These cells don’t have the genetic integrity to create new plants (like pollen cells and egg cells). So, by transforming somatic cells, we created GM potatoes that contained hundreds of genetic mutations, and these mutations compromised yield. Additionally, the genetic modifications often have ‘unintended’ effects that negatively affect both the agronomic performance and nutritional quality of a crop.


GM potatoes are meant to be bruise resistant, isn’t this a big benefit to farmers and food producers?

Normal potatoes easily develop damaged tissues that are entry points for pathogens and exit points for water. I believed that the GM potatoes were bruise resistant but now understand I was wrong. The GM potatoes bruise just as easily as normal potatoes, but the bruises are concealed. They don’t develop the dark color that helps processors identify and trim them. I didn’t understand that my potatoes were incapable of depositing melanin, a protective compound, when damaged or infected. More importantly, I didn’t understand that the concealed bruises accumulate certain toxins that may compromise the nutritional quality of potato foods.


Is it possible for GM potatoes to cause gene-silencing in other potatoes or pollinating insects such as bees?

The problem with certain insects, including bees, is that they cannot degrade the small double-stranded RNAs that cause gene silencing. These double-stranded RNAs were intended to silence several potato genes in tubers, but they are likely to be expressed in pollen as well. So, when the pollen is consumed by bees, the double stranded RNAs in this pollen may silence bee genes that share inadvertent homology.

https://sustainablepulse.com/2018/10.../#.W7zSOS2ZNPv

The only danger is some worrywarts might protest gmo food again because they can't get over the fact that mankind has been modifying fruits and vegetables for tens of thousands of years.

[Noram54]

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/sustainable-pulse/

[Suluhu]

The only danger is some worrywarts might protest gmo food again because they can't get over the fact that mankind has been modifying fruits and vegetables for tens of thousands of years.

That was the point I tried to make, but unfortantely some people can't seem to grasp this simple fact:

Equating crossbreeding with transgenic mutation. Let this moronic drivel stand eternally in this forum as a shameful beacon of your ignorance.

[Calfredd]

@swineflu There's a reason most of your anti-GMO threads are locked and it's not because the audience is trolling the speaker. Here's the lock message from one of your earlier ones that fits the current situation nicely:

We've had enough of your anti-GMO conspiracy theories, most of which were proven completely wrong in the last two threads you created about this exact subject. While there is legitimate discourse to be had on the pros AND cons of GMO's, your threads are started with a biased view that we're all idiots who are being duped by every corporation that is greedily feeding us poison.

Until you can create an unbiased thread discussing GMO's without rudely attacking other posters who disagree, these threads will be locked.

[Drutt]

Anti-gmo is about caution. We’ve already made wild species of certain crops extinct in some areas. Which means any issues with the gmo down the line are basically ensured with that crop when grown in that region. It’s not something to take lightly, even though people like to make fun of the caution.

Agreed. We know that biomes and food webs are incredibly delicate, and we're messing with crops on a level we don't really understand. While it's possible we're not unknowingly causing damage, I find it incredibly unlikely given how easily disrupted things are.

We certainly haven't done enough research to know for sure either way. When dealing with someone that has potentially wide ranging and severe repercussions, caution isn't only desirable, it's sensible.

I'm all in favor of caution and oversight, but this interview has a lot of questionable points in it - the most striking being that it's plugging the interviewee's book. That he has the gall to talk about conflicts of interest in an interview promoting something he has a financial stake in is breathtakingly hypocritical.

Agreed. His experience and former role does give him some status to speak, but it doesn't mean his words are worth following wholesale. The best part was when he essentially said the regulatory bodies just take the word of the GMO developers on their research.

Any research into the potential pitfalls of GMOs should be independent and conducted without relying on the numbers/research of the GMO food's creator. And it certainly needs to go far beyond just assessing whether or not the food is safe for us to eat; if we accidentally destroy the food web in the process then the fact we can eat it safely is largely moot, and that's something we should be studying too.

And don't misunderstand me - I am not being apologist for the GMO industry or praising the infallibility of scientific progress. Far from it. I firmly believe we need strict and rigorous oversight in these matters. But it has to be done RIGHT. Facts, not "well I believe..." and "well maybe..." statements with vague implications during your personal book tour. That's how we get into these messes where nobody knows what to believe anymore, and is swayed by rhetoric that just services personal echo-chamber mentalities. This is a complicated scientific discipline, where you often cannot make simple statements or easy and accurate predictions. But ignorance is not an excuse for fear mongering.

Spot on.

FYI, you have never eaten non GMO corn in your life.

This is an example of one of the propaganda arguments put out there.

There is an absolute world of difference between the activities like the Green Revolution, where they specifically cross-bred rice strains to create HYVs (high yielding varieties) through natural techniques, and genetically modifying a crop in the lab.

By way of example, we can cross breed a poodle and labrador and create the so-called "labradoodle" which has been so fashionable. In contrast, the lab approach is akin to creating a dog and then adding on a scorpion tail, something that has no place whatsoever on the animal.

Think this doesn't happen with GMO crops? Think again. Venom is being bred into plants to kill insects. Crops are being created that essentially auto-secrete Round-Up. There are all kinds traits from bizarre sources being used, things that could never naturally occur. And that brings with it a whole ream of risks, which is why conflating deliberate cross-breeding and selection through natural methods with lab genetic modification is dangerous.

It's more than possible these lab-created Frankenstein type modifications might be completely safe to both us and the environment around us, but the point is we really don't know for sure because there's no money put into researching it and the corporations are influencing (and in some cases, essentially running) the government branches that should be investigating them. And to echo what Vegas82 said above again, this is why the need for caution is so high.

[Realitytrembles]

Anti-vaxers, anti-GMO it's the same people.

Indeed. Lot of anti-science Luddite trash ITT.