GT Goes Rabid

(A reaction to the "Russ On Franken-Carrots" post. This needs to be read.)

"Rabid"? Hardly.

Look. If your friend believes that, say, businesses are Evil, or that the massive-but-random retroviral mediated gene transfer and cross hybridization that occurs in nature confers some sacred "purity" that purposeful genetic transfer defiles, that technological progress to increase food production and reduce pesticide use is Evil, or that unaccountable Federal bureaucracies (like the FDA) are somehow more inherently accountable or transparent than publicly owned/traded/liable companies, who am I to disavow him of his comforting, righteous delusions? Rock on, buddy.

'Sides, I wouldn't even know where to begin Fisking. As is typical with advocacy journalism, this thing is riddled with factually false premises that result in erroneous conclusions. An example? The post suggests that biotech companies are self-regulated, and that the FDA should be given even more regulatory oversight by the dastardly Bush regime. This is pure disinfotainment, as 20 seconds of googling would confirm. (try this: "Under the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology, three US governmental agencies regulate GMOs: the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)" - since the NIH setup the coordinated framework, there's at least 4 federal regulatory bodies with overlapping regulatory oversight, and as a molecular biologist I can assure you, it's a "volutary" regulatory paperwork nightmare to get any work done at all with/from the Feds. http://www.isb.vt.edu/greenhouse/green_man.section2.htm).

As for "the contamination of the food supply", what does that even mean? Genes hop around all the time randomly in nature, so it can't be that. Wouldn't contamination require, say, negative health effects to be an accurate description? And don't even DREAM about posting the retracted Berkeley (Quist and Chapela) Nature study, unless you're prepared to defend their sloppy, half assed inverse PCR methods.

Here's the latest report from the corporate tools (/sarcasm) at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) http://books.nap.edu/books/0309092094/html/8.html#pagetop Their conclusion? "To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population," concludes a new report, Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods, by the National Academy of Sciences, cited by Ms. Brody. The NAS report also notes that the European Union's regulations require that all food products enhanced by gene splicing be evaluated prior to commercialization, but exempts from similar evaluation all other foods that are more crudely genetically modified by means of mutagenesis or cross breeding. The NAS correctly concludes that "the policy to assess products based exclusively on their method of breeding is scientifically unjustified."

Brody (who covers this in a NYT article that doesn't link directly) comments: "A risk-based protocol for safety evaluations would greatly reduce the time and costs involved in developing most new gene-spliced crops, many of which could raise the standard of living worldwide and better protect the planet from chemical contamination." Oh those crazy, greed blinded right wing thugs at the NY Times, always advocating more/cheaper/cleaner food production methods for the poor (/more sarcasm).

I could go on, but really, now. Re-read both the PIRG release and the rant that follows, bearing in mind that they're factually wrong, that biotech is federally regulated and that no illnesses have arisen from GMOs after over a decade of large scale consumption (in the hundreds of millions of tons scale), that other people have access to Google as well, and that people resent being lied to. Does this enhance the credibility of other, legitimate environmental or Humanist concerns? Does it help environmentalism or the Left in general, when people realize that they're being manipulated for cynical/ignorant political reasons by the "good" guys?

Okay. Maybe a little rabid. But it pisses me off when people claim to be "Progressive", while lying to advance Luddite/reactionary policies that hinder progress and directly harm the poor. Oh, and welcome back! It's nice to see you posting again.