Frankenfood: A metaphor that has cursed GMOs

| November 7, 2014 |
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Health and safety fears have restricted the growth of genetically modified foods for decades. But is a hungry world, a new generation of consumers, and the weight of scientific evidence loosening the grip of the Frankenfoods curse?

Ian Walker, correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Company Radio National explores this issue in a radio magazine report. He talked with environmentalist and former anti-GMO activist Mark Lynas and the GLP’s Jon Entine in the course of his extended report.

According to Entine, the answer is ‘yes.’ “Every once in a while our society faces major inflection points when certain technologies come into play,” Entine told Fleming. “We saw it in the 1800s with the railroad, we’ve seen it with nuclear technology, we’ve seen it with computer technology. And I really think that we’re in this kind of inflection period with biotechnology. It is literally changing the way we can think about nature.  And I mean in a good sense. I don’t believe we’re violating God’s way, or any kind of natural order of things, but it is a profound experience, which is why it’s scary to many people.”

Hear more of Jon’s interview and listen to the full radio report here.

Read the full, original story here: “Curse of the Frankenfoods”

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  • Daniel Ros

    Maybe Lead wasn’t good. Maybe PCBs were not that wonderful. Maybe DDT is toxic. Maybe glycophosphates are toxic. Maybe your fat diabetic child is the result of your frankenscience. Maybe your going to die twenty years earlier because you have no idea what REAL SCIENCE IS!!!! I’m not against GMOs. I’m against the huge corporations that control the research and manipulate studies and lie for profit. I’m in favor of using the precautionary principle and vetting science with REAL SCIENCE!!!!!! Not 90 day studies that are designed to impress an executive. You’re a bunch of crazy crack pot fake industry manipulated mad scientists destroying the health of the people around you. I piss on your grave!!!

    • Yes, all corporations are evil…I totally forgot, thanks for reminding. Now please don’t drive, cut off your electricity, don’t use your phone, no TV or movies for you, don’t take medicine made by those terrible drug companies and otherwise retreat to your cave. Oh yes, and work for free because money is pretty disgusting stuff. All science should be done in elementary school labs so no corporations are involved. Very thoughtful.

      • Kirby Cole

        Jon, I think what Dan is getting at is the idea that our current mode of crony capitalism socializes all the risks of bad science, bad investments, the purchase of our politicians, and poisons our environment but privatizes all the profits. So, evil corporations keep all their profits while the rest of us are shut on and left caring for children with food allergies, IBS, and a host of other conditions most likely brought on by the consumption of foods that are genetically engineered to produce poison. Now if you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these toxins produced by these products ONLY ruptures the intestinal tract of the nuisance insects and is perfectly safe for consumption by every other form of life then I will definitely welcome GMOs with open arms… Except wait!!! There is no reason to accept GMOs with open arms. We produce more food than we need on this planet and even if we didn’t GMOs are responsible for reduced crop yield and excessive pesticide use. So tell me once more why GMOs are necessary. And maintaining The quarterly profit ratings at Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto doesn’t count.

        • Loren Eaton

          ‘We produce more food than we need on this planet and even if we didn’t GMOs are responsible for reduced crop yield and excessive pesticide use.’ No, no and no. There MAY be enough food, but surely its not where it needs to be. What’s the carbon footprint (or wake) of an oil tanker filled with grain? Reduced crop yields? That’s nonsense. Name one. Excessive pesticide use? Bt alone has resulted millions of pounds of insecticide NOT being sprayed over the last 15 years.

          • Good4U

            Loren & Kirby, listen up & please pay attention to what your teacher is saying, and do not continue to talk among yourselves at the back of the room. You are only two privileged, pampered, spoiled, snobby, elitist children, who are (probably) overweight and have a bloated sense of your importance to the world. After class is over, please take a trip outside the boundaries of your own protected environment and see what the world is really like. Be sure to tell the hungry, malnourished, diseased, and starving kids and their parents in countries outside of the industrialized world how much food there is where you come from. Tell them we don’t really need any more food, that’s why you don’t want them to have GMO crops, or any pesticides either. They should just get out there and farm the “organic” way by pulling weeds and picking the bugs off of their crops. Before you go, keep in mind that there are 7 billion of those other people out there that you haven’t met yet, so you should pack for a long trip. Check back with us when (if) you get home, and tell us how all about how much they liked hearing what you said.

          • Loren Eaton

            Yes, there are 7 B people out there many of whom would go hungry if we revert to “picking bugs off of plants” the organic way. Cure your own naïveté before you presume to teach your sentimental BS to anybody.

          • Good4U

            Loren: I don’t think you got my point, which is that I HAVE seen those kids myself. You obviously haven’t. They need more & better food, which their parents could give them if they had biotech (GMO) crops & animals available to them. It’s the non-caring dickbrains such as yourself that are keeping them poor & dying. Every time you say no, I say YES to GMOs. As I said, you need to take that trip…’bye.

          • Loren Eaton

            I think you misunderstand. I’ve been producing GMO plants for 30 years, around 25K at last count. I was merely responding to that other guy’s rant.

          • Good4U

            Loren: Right, I did miss your point (the punctuation surrounding your offtake from Kirby). Sorry for perceiving that you were adopting Kirby’s rant. I can see now that you were calling that out as ridiculous.

    • Loren Eaton

      Dude, take a powder. DDT is toxic (or it wouldn’t kill mosquitos), but it doesn’t cause cancer no matter Rachel Carson said. Millions have died over the years because they STOPPED spraying DDT and didn’t have any alternative. That’s called bowing at the altar of the ‘precautionary principle”, Nero.