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A 2013 documentary claiming to explore how genetically engineered food affects our health and environment, GMO OMG spouts fallacies that anti-GMO activists still love to wield in 2016. . . .
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. . . [L]et’s debunk one of the most pervasive myths his film showcases: “In plain English, there are two basic types of GMOs, pesticide producers and herbicide resisters.” The English is plain and the message is plain wrong.
Parroted by anti-GMO organizations like GMO Inside and Institute for Responsible Technology, the idea that there are only two types of GE crops–those engineered with a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium to express an insecticidal protein and those engineered to resist herbicides is a prevalent one.
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And though these traits are widespread, they’re far from the only ones on the market. Products with other traits from genetic engineering include virus-resistant papayas and squash, drought resistant maize, purple carnations, and many more that are under development, [says geneticist Dr. Karl Haro von Mogel].
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“The myth that genetic engineering is only about insect resistance and herbicide tolerance is pushed by opponents of the technology because “pesticides” are a wedge issue that can be used to scare the public,” Haro von Mogel explains.
“Many people have already formed an opinion about pesticides, so they portray the technology as being associated with poison to sway them about this technology, even though research has shown that the technology has reduced the overall environmental impact of pesticides. Genetic engineering can be used to create essentially any trait, and most of the prominent opponents of biotechnology know this – but don’t want the public to know ,” he says.
Read full, original post: Lies The Organic Industry Tells: Two Types Of GMOs
