In last week’s The New Yorker magazine, Michael Specter wrote about the work of the environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who has, for many years, led a campaign against genetically modified crops.
On the Out Loud podcast, Specter and Alan Burdick, an editor at the magazine, join Sasha Weiss to discuss Shiva’s work and the roots of the controversy over G.M.O.s. Specter contends that many of Shiva’s claims are factually unfounded and that her appeal, and the wider opposition to G.M.O.s, is driven largely by unfounded and irrational fears.
“People don’t always look at all the facts,” he says. “And many people are predisposed, not for terrible reasons, to be suspicious of this new thing that they do not understand. You know, twenty or twenty-five thousand Americans have had pig valves sutured into their hearts. I never saw a protest against that. So when people start saying that we’re altering nature in a fundamental way, it’s both, I think, wrong and a misreading of how we farm.”
Listen to full original interview: Out Loud: The Campaign against GMOs
