Use humans as guinea pigs or de-demonize GMOs?
Here're 2 very different views on health and wellness:
"We, our society, has the responsibility of de-demonizing GMOs. If not, history will hold us responsible for avoidable death and suffering of millions – a crime against humanity."
--Professor Ingo Potrykus, BioVision
“The experiments simply haven’t been done and we now have become the guinea pigs. Anyone that says, ‘Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,’ I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying.”
--David Suzuki, Canadian geneticist, environmentalist and host of The Nature of Things
...what do you think?
Comments
I think this conversation expands beyond just GMOs. Most consumers, or at least American consumers (because that’s my reference point), are not aware of exactly is in our food. This is due to a combination of factors – lack of interest, financial restrictions, insufficient educational campaigns and quite plainly weak labeling standards.
In this sense consumers are always guinea pigs – we have no idea what are the variables and the results. How much study has been on the hormones in our food? On pesticides? This isn’t about demonizing GMOS specifically, but recognizing it’s part of a larger problem of consumer ignorance.
However with that said, it seems to me that the scientific community is quite vocal in calling for more tests and research. If the GMOS are as safe as companies like Monsanto maintain, then this research will further validate their claims. It seems to be in everybody’s best interest to keep researching!!
Yes, testing and research are vital, and the onus to prove products as harmful or safe for consumption should not fall onto the public.
Many scientists are also raising alarms as genetic engineering could create new food toxins and consumer allergies. Critics are also concerned that such new patent laws are allowing GMO inventors too much control over food sources - which could leave us all vulnerable to a food security and health-related crisis.
Here's an interesting NY Times article I found on the subject: Apparently crop scientists are saying that biotech companies are inhibiting their research because they won't sell them GMO seeds for research purposes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/20crop.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=GMO...
Really interesting and brings up the issue that research not only has to be conducted, but has to be done by credible, 3rd party research groups. Not groups that are trying to prove and agenda- whether they are for or against GMOs.
Am reacting to Elizabeths' reaction on the way helpless people are being turned over and over by multi nationals that wish to have a control over the world.
It 's very sad to have seen multinationals' directors lobbying our parliamentarians to have bills endorsed on the utilization of GMO and GMO products in a country where the poor can eat anything that comes their way!!.
Kenya has for a very long time tried to sidestep the GMO issue because we have all along known that introduction of GMOs can never be a solution to the famine and poverty that ravages the country!, This withstanding, Multinational directors used the existing gap of poor public auditing to buy the lawmakers who enjoy the top down approach to subscribe to the use of GMOs in our parliament!!. They (multinationals) camped outside parliament and could not even shy away from cameras. Lobbyist tried to fight back, demonstrated all over the country, but the money given out was alittle bit too much for anybody to go against it!!!.
Laws must be enforced to make sure all GMO products are cleary marked when in the growing farms and selling outlets BUT, what of the poor who do not care at all on what lands in his stomach???, This option will only be for the rich who can be in a position to make options!!!!!
Edward
Kenya
It's a tough situtation for sure - especially for the poorer and less influential, they always seem to get the short end of the stick. While living in Africa, I encountered many people who didn't have the luxury of contemplating environmental and long term health-related issues because they needed to focus on the "now" and their bodies demanded food... irrespective of what they may have been mulling over mentally.
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