Almost All Anti-GMO Articles In The US Are 'Clickbait' Promoted By Russian Propaganda

[Gaaz]

Indeed, if most people today saw a natural Banana or Carrot they would probably assume there was something wrong with them and throw them away lol.

Natural selection and GMO modification that is done today are very different in principle. Imagine DNA as an enormously long and complicated string of numbers. This is a simplified version that contains only basic structure of a tomato, without representing the actual length and complication of each segment:

Every single abbreviation there contains a very complex structure that varies in length, up to 100000 base pairs in length. The problem is, when you try and insert moth DNA block into corn (to reduce crop damage from its caterpillars), the latter has to change in size, which in turn shifts all other parameters. It is an incredibly complex procedure to make. Right now, we are at a beginning stage of the development of that tech. We can shift certain blocks, replace them, but it is not as some would describe an exact science in a classical sense. There are no scissors to cut a DNA pair and then stitch it together. It is all done using different acids and chemicals to dissolve certain parts. Each batch we create is a little bit different. Even things that are put to mass production, like corn seeds, can be distinguished from each other according to batch number by testing their DNA. Because of that incredible complexity and the fact that we are able to modify DNA only to approximation, risks of creating new traits that were not intended are extremely high. This is not just theory. We have already seen some cases when a genetically engineered plant cross-contaminates a nearby specie and completely destroys its population for all intents and purposes (makes F1 yield sterile). A possibility of a new, unexpected chemical produced in a system that would have a dual purpose of not only rupturing caterpillar organs, but actually damaging more complex organisms is far from zero. That is the main reason I would personally stick to natural selection as opposed to direct gene manipulation.
Another reason is that GMOs are over advertised and do not particularly solve food problems. I know that some people claim that if we convert everything to a GMO, we would increase our crop yields to feed everyone and still have some left. But that is simply not true. According to UCS, GMO yields grew only by 3.5% between 1996 and 2009. That can be easily attributed to improvement in farming tech. Fact is, there is no difference in yields between GMO and non GMO crops. NY Times even made an article about it a while back.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...esticides.html
But naturally, it was largely ignored. I am not saying that GMOs are nukes in your field or anything like that. But everyone should be given a possibility to chose for themselves. I do not want to risk it for a marginal 1% better yield or price reduction.

[Ahhdurr]

There are also concerns about things like the Bt toxin gene being inserted into a plant's genome. It's one thing to spray Bt toxin on the surface of plants and then wash it off later, it's another thing entirely to have the toxin growing inside the plant. We still don't know the long term consequences on human health and the gut microbiome when we start tinkering with cross species genetic transmission.

Except that's not true. It's been used for decades and there's no evidence it has any effect on humans.

First, much of it is destroyed by cooking or processing.
Second, the dose is so small you'd need to eat truck loads of food to reach the highest levels that we know to be safe.
Third, it's broken down by stomach acid and digestive enzymes like any other protein.
Fourth, it doesn't target humans and does nothing to mammals in general.

[Deleted]

You know what I think is promoted by REAL Russian propaganda? Articles saying about things that are supposedly promoted by Russian propaganda. Thanks to them, after a while, when everything is apparently done by Russians, people will just stop caring and REAL Russian trolls and whomnot will have even easier time doing their 'job'.

[caervek]

Natural selection and GMO modification that is done today are very different in principle.

Actually GMOs produced through selective breeding and through genetic manipulation are the same in principle, it's the method that differs. In both cases the idea is to alter the food so it looks/tastes better and/or is more hardy/easier to grow on mass.

The problem is that in Victorian times when people heard scientists were manipulating the genetics of food to make it better they thought it was awesome/cool and a great example of how mankind was progressing. These days you get fools whining like it's ungodly/etc and science is going too far.

[Gaaz]

Actually GMOs produced through selective breeding and through genetic manipulation are the same in principle, it's the method that differs. In both cases the idea is to alter the food so it looks/tastes better and/or is more hardy/easier to grow on mass.

Whatever the semantics, it is the method and associated risks and effects we should be concerned with.

[Gorgodeus]

It can. One of the official names for water is Hydric acid. Google it. Also, you keep forgetting that acidity level is a proportion of hydronium and hydroxide atoms. Pure water has both. Therefore you can say that water is acidic and alkaline at the same time.

No, it can not. How hard is it to understand that a pH of 7.0 is neutral? No matter what is in it. You can take orange juice, which is acidic, use a buffer to raise its' pH to 7.0. It is no longer considered acidic even though it still has acid in it.

[Delana]

Well, can you explain why people oppose it being labeled as GMO then when asked to label it if they want to sell it?

Because people are irrational. Putting "natural" on items makes them sell better, even though the term is completely meaningless. Everything in existence is "natural".

Effectively propagandizing people to not buy perfectly good GMO goods just promotes the inefficient "organic" farming meme, and raises the cost of food for everyone.

[Shalcker]

Nope, I can't insert insecticide in my apples by selective breeding.

Often stuff that gives them flavour is already an insecticide; it still gets eaten by insects that evolved adaptations to it, but get avoided by plenty of others.

GMO tries to close adaptation gap.

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I'm curious where you read that GMO products have done any of that. I won't defend a particular company for their actions, but that's a different topic. If anything, GMO products have helped farmers. Increased yields, less pesticides/herbicides, less toxic pesticides/herbicides, etc.

Sometimes results are opposite - GMO product is engineered to not die from herbicide so that it can be drown in it to kill everything else.

[Osmeric]

Sometimes results are opposite - GMO product is engineered to not die from herbicide so that it can be drown in it to kill everything else.

And allow fewer applications, and of less toxic herbicides. Compare glyphosate to, say, atrazine.

Herbicides also allow one to reduce energy use and soil erosion by avoiding tilling in some cases. Organic weed control involves a lot of turning over of the soil.

[zenkai]

If GMOs are fucking over farmers then it's just because farming techniques are obsolete and farmers should adapt to 21st century. Not cry over things and try to hold back technological progress. If they can't then fuck them.

Bullshit. When a farmers field gets infected by GMO seeds because, you know, nature and physics, then the company sues the small farmer for stealing, that's bullshit.

[Gaaz]

No, it can not. How hard is it to understand that a pH of 7.0 is neutral? No matter what is in it. You can take orange juice, which is acidic, use a buffer to raise its' pH to 7.0. It is no longer considered acidic even though it still has acid in it.

I am not interested in what you as an individual can and can not do. Water IS also called Hydric acid, and it IS a correct term. How hard is that to understand? I am not arguing semantics here. Water has both - properties of an acid and of an alkaline substance, albeit extremely weak ones. Because it has everything that defines these two states and can interact with substances that react with hydronium and hydroxide atoms at the same time. Therefore, I will not dismiss a scientific term because YOU think that this name is incorrect according to a principle you made up. We are not talking about orange juice. We are talking about pure water being neutral, acid and alkaline at the same time. And technically, all these terms can be applied here. Water IS a Hydric acid with a pH of 7. That is not a discussion. That is a scientific fact.

Q: Is water an acid or a base?
A: Both. Contrary to what you could think, an acid and a base are not characterized by pH! Water molecules can release a H+ ion (leaving OH−), making water an acid. But water molecules can also absorb a H+ ion (forming H3O+), and this makes water a base.
- Rob Hooft, Dutch Techcentre for Life Sciences

[Gorgodeus]

I am not interested in what you as an individual can and can not do. Water IS also called Hydric acid, and it IS a correct term. How hard is that to understand? I am not arguing semantics here. Water has both - properties of an acid and of an alkaline substance, albeit extremely weak ones. Because it has everything that defines these two states and can interact with substances that react with hydronium and hydroxide atoms at the same time. Therefore, I will not dismiss a scientific term because YOU think that this name is incorrect according to a principle you made up. We are not talking about orange juice. We are talking about pure water being neutral, acid and alkaline at the same time. And technically, all these terms can be applied here. Water IS a Hydric acid with a pH of 7. That is not a discussion. That is a scientific fact.

Having properties of both does not make it both. A substance can only be one of 3 things: acidic, neutral, or base, and that is based on its' pH. Period. It does not matter what something is called.

[telygroar]

Alright, who else is qualified, then?

Read at page 7, you have the exact same counter argument (who is valid the same way for me)

You're not quoting those bullshit fake science studies funded by the organic industry, are you? That stuff is on the level of vaccines causing autism.

So, yeah, who ele is qualified, for example. Someone with a neutral point of view, aka no money partnership with either of them.

[Grapemask]

That argument is like claiming: "No need to be careful about gas explosions, humanity has burned things for cooking for thousands of years. People from today probably wouldn't even know what to do with a stove from the stone age."

This is only accurate if we're referring to the way humanity has cooked things for thousands of years as the gas explosions, and a careful burn in a stove as the new method not to be wary about.

A lot of people are mostly just afraid of science. Every single thing made through a modern "GMO" process is basically the same process humanity did for thousands of years but with surgical, informed, precision. When man chose to keep the stalks of corn that were larger and brighter than the others, he had no idea what other traits it had. It was colorful and big. With GMOs, we know exactly what we're picking up with each growth period.

But we still end up with people like the below (well, above or maybe even on another page when I post this) that wring their hands and talk about how complex DNA is and post pictures of omg huge DNA. Yes, that is terrifying to those of us who don't understand it. But to even a Sophomore Bio undergrad, that stuff is just a "meh." And it's PhDs and Masters that are making this stuff (perhaps with some BS labor at the lower levels of the design).

But more importantly, GMOs are tested extensively. To put it mildly. GMOs are one of the most tested things on the planet. What isn't regularly tested are "non-GMO" foods (as few as those are becoming). It is exponentially - and I mean that literally, exponentially - more likely that a "non-GMO" food is harmful than a GMO. An entire region's corn (I don't know why I'm obsessed with corn) could have developed some bizarre poisonous DNA mutation being bred into the stock and it would take a long time to find out. A GMO would be locked down long beforehand. Does that mean a GMO might still accidentally get to market that does something undesirable? Absolutely, just like you might get hit by a car on your way into work - shit happens. But comparatively, GMOs are you walking into work on a normally vacant street. Non-GMOs are like walking into work through 9 o'clock traffic.

An example of this is the current poultry industry. People would be begging for lab-grown meat and genetically modified meat en masse if they knew what's wrong with our chickens and that "traditional" methods are to blame. We've bred and overbred our chickens so thoroughly that 80% of our entire US chicken population has deep fat striation in the breast tissue. This tissue should have none at all; when you look at a piece of chicken breast at the store, you should see a solid pink without lines. But I guarantee no American in here can find a single chicken breast that doesn't have white lines in it, and that's just from the last couple decades. Unless "GMOs" fix chicken meat, we'll all still be alive when the meme of chicken being the staple of bodybuilders dies, because it'll be a deeply fatty product with comparatively low protein (it actually already is to a certain extent, but we're all still using generic nutrition information calculated years and years ago). That's the real end game of "natural" food.

[Gaaz]

Having properties of both does not make it both. A substance can only be one of 3 things: acidic, neutral, or base, and that is based on its' pH. Period. It does not matter what something is called.

You have literally no idea what you are talking about. Starting from "that is based on its' pH", arguing about common scientific definitions, and all the way to denying reality. Must be fun to be you. You know, you should read something about that stuff before making assumptions. Looking at a quote just one post above yours would be a good start. This part, for example, comes to mind straight away:

Contrary to what you could think, an acid and a base are not characterized by pH!

Also:

Q: Is water an acid or a base?
A: Both.

I hope that hint about your "potentially incorrect" views was not too subtle.

[Gorgodeus]

You have literally no idea what you are talking about. Starting from "that is based on its' pH", arguing about common scientific definitions, and all the way to denying reality. Must be fun to be you. You know, you should read something about that stuff before making assumptions. Looking at a quote just one post above yours would be a good start. This part, for example, comes to mind straight away:

Also:

I hope that hint about your "potentially incorrect" views was not too subtle.

Not my fault you do not understand what terms such as "acidic" mean. Look it up sometime.

The pH scale measures how acidic or basic a substance is. It ranges from 0 to 14. If a pH is lower than 7 it indicates the solution is an acid. If it is above 7 it is a base or Alkaline. If a pH is a 7 it is neutral. Strong acids have lower pHs than weak acids and strong bases have lower pHs than weak bases. A neutral solution is neither an acid or base. It has a pH of 7.

http://www.edu.pe.ca/gulfshore/Archi...AS/scipage.htm

[LMuhlen]

What does that even mean? Corporations exist to make money. If they slap a GMO label on their products, some people who are misinformed will not buy them. Thus they lose money and have nothing to gain. Making a "statement" is useless and is an economically asinine argument for GMO labeling.

This is exactly why we can't leave important decisions in the hand of corporations. They exist to make money. Governments exist to represent the interest of the people. Therefore we need governments to force corporations to do what they normally wouldn't do, in order to protect the interest of the people, their costumers. This is why some people want the government to force the corporations to tag their products regarding GMO. Is it going to damage them? Possibly. But then, once they are forced to do it, they'll see that "winning an argument" will give them money, so then they will try to sell their GMO-fish, so to speak.

The "thousands of years of GMO" argument is completely useless because people complaining about GMO are not talking about that technique, and having to use an all-inclusive term such as GMO hinders the development of the discussion enough already without trolls abusing this.

People afraid of GMOs for human health related issues may be worried about potential damage, since the technique is so powerful that it could, in the hand of greedy corporative unregulated hands, create something hazardous to our health. The fact that, so far, it seems like it hasn't happened, shouldn't be a sign for us to just let them do everything they want with food. There are heavy checks in place, and I think they need to be constantly revised and improved in order to keep our GMO safe. The anti-GMO crowd, even if for the wrong reasons, at least are a force that pushes the governments and the researchers into playing safe with GMO.

Not all GMO (transgenic) are the same, each product is a different product, one or several being safe doesn't mean they will all always be safe. What protects us are the regulations in place to prevent corporations from pushing hazardous food down our throats unknowingly.

Regarding environmental issues, GMOs are a strong and powerful ally when promising reduction in the need of aggressive chemicals for crops. But they could also be a danger to local flora and fauna when inadvertently diffused in different regions. Again, we need strong regulations in order to demand studies of environmental hazards before doing irreversible damage. We all know many places suffer from the irresponsible addition of foreign flora/fauna, and it could never be reverted.

Regarding commercial practices, I see it as a dangerous thing for the costumer that the same corporation sells the GMO and the chemicals for crops. It is very good for business, not so good for choice. Maybe one day, when these techniques become more accessible, it would be interesting to force a separation of these services.

[Noradin]

Sometimes results are opposite - GMO product is engineered to not die from herbicide so that it can be drown in it to kill everything else.

Which then avails great collateral damage, thus it is sometimes sensible to simply not allow the practise to begin with.
Like with chlorinated chickens--those aren't beanned because of the harmful effects of the chlorine, but because it is a common tool to hide hygenic malpractise and certain forms of animal cruelty. It is litterally unneccessary otherwise, and thus banning it only harms those who plan to use it to hide their bad practise.

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Bullshit. When a farmers field gets infected by GMO seeds because, you know, nature and physics, then the company sues the small farmer for stealing, that's bullshit.

The solution is simple: Ban GMOs and no fields can get infected by accident.
We do not need them to feed Europe anyway.

[Shalcker]

Which then avails great collateral damage, thus it is sometimes sensible to simply not allow the practise to begin with.

And allow fewer applications, and of less toxic herbicides. Compare glyphosate to, say, atrazine.
Herbicides also allow one to reduce energy use and soil erosion by avoiding tilling in some cases. Organic weed control involves a lot of turning over of the soil.

And then eventually you get superweeds resistant to that herbicide anyway, and have to resort to tilling again...

[Pterodactylus]

Energy input to agriculture in the US is about 1.6% of total US primary energy consumption. This is quite small, and could be made up entirely from renewable sources if needed at manageable cost. Energy requirements are not a reason to call the industrial agricultural system of the US unsustainable.

I should have done my homework. Thanks for the lesson.