If you haven’t read it, you really should take the time to read through the New York Times story by Amy Harmon published this past weekend about the debate over the Big Island GMO ban (“A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops“).
It presents an extremely sympathetic profile of Hawaii County Councilmember Greggor Ilagan, and follows his attempts to sort out fact from fear and fiction amid the mountain of conflicting testimony on the GMO issue.
It also puts an unflattering spotlight on much of the anti-GMO movement, suggesting a parallel between the anti-scientific views of climate deniers and those of anti-GMO activists.
The comments on the story continue to reflect a wide range of viewpoints, from the tin hat crowd on one side to corporate apologists on the other.
I appreciate Joan Conrow’s musings on the GMO issue as it was fought out on Kauai (see her KauaiEclectic blog). I can usually trust her to be a good reporter and clear thinker.
It seems to me the idea that GMOs are necessarily bad for human health is undercut by a virtual scientific consensus to the contrary. On the other hand, criticism of the economic and social model of agriculture under the corporate GMO regime is far harder to dismiss. As Joan said in a blog post over the weekend, farmers–and not just the giant corporate agribusiness farmers–are going to have an important role to play as the debate goes forward.
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Facts on this subject are especially forthcoming during the robust 25-minute BBC radio interview this very Monday morning just aired on the BBC World Service episode of Hardtalk, featuring Mike Mack, the amply informed CEO of Syngenta, one of the world’s biggest agribusinesses – available now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nrh3j
Ian, something like 64 countries label GMOs in food. Over 20 countries ban GMOs in food. Are you certain it is “just an idea” that GMOs are harmful to human health?
I think that’s point of the NY Times article –political reality and scientific fact don’t always align, leading to governments forbidding the use of techniques like GMOs even tho there’s almost zero evidence that these techniques are harmful.
Aloha ForPeople,
If 64 countries banned same-sex marriage,
should the US do it too?
A key point of Ian’s post: It makes no sense to deal with GMO as yet-another “US vs. THEM” argument. Your comments are overly simplistic and not helpful. Evading a good discussion just leads to absolute rules that eventually cause even more problems.
To put it another way, are you so sure all GMOs must be banned immediately? If that’s the case, I say all SODAS should be banned. New York did it.
Giving consumers choice by requiring that they be informed of the presence of GMO’s does not equate to a finding that GMO’s are harmful, per se. As the social scientists and statisticians say, “correlation is not causation.”
Labeling is the direction we’re headed because food processors, who already label for use of the same equipment to process allergens (gluten, peanuts, etc.), know that it’s in their commercial interest to satisfy the demand for info about foods made with GMO’s, even tho’ consumers attach very different significance to that info.
Labeling does appear to be the path to a political solution.
i agree, labeling makes sense.
“Over 20 countries ban GMOs in food.”
this is meaningless and pointless at the same time.
My question to Ian was is it “just an idea” that GMOs (and I should have added, the practices used to grow them) are harmful to human health. I am not clear how it is simplistic or evasive to point out that countries such as Switzerland, Australia, China, India, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, and Russia ban or partially ban GMOs in food. I guess I am not willing to presume that these countries do not base policy decisions on sound evidence. Surely they have scientists and reasoned decision-makers in their countries? Even if you believe that the science demonstrating harm is lacking, on questions of human health are there strong reasons not to err on the side of safety? Lastly, are the arguments against GMO labeling so compelling that it is worth risking human health to sidestep simple steps such as disclosure? Not clear why it is unreasonable or somehow comparable to advocating the denial of civil rights to even raise a question…
” Even if you believe that the science demonstrating harm is lacking, on questions of human health are there strong reasons not to err on the side of safety?”
Fine. We are banning all abortions, effective tonight. Fetus might feel pain. Cows, goats and pigs might feel pain too.
(Wikipedia: “Most European countries have laws which stipulate that minor girls need their parents’ consent or that the parents must be informed of the abortion.”)
The story set out to make those who question gmo look like a bunch of ill informed buffoons!
The truth of the matter is we simply don’t really know enough about the safety issues but those are likely secondary to the loss of
Diversity the increased use of pesticide and the untenable power of a few corporations to control our worlds food!
We grow papayas for our own meals. & occasionally give away some excess fruits to our neighbors. Are we going to die earlier than the the anti-GMOfolks?
Are you growing the ringspot virus-resistant kind?
The anti GMO bill prohibits only Big Island farmers from using new biotech solutions. Other Hawaii farmers as well as mainland farmers will be able to use newly developed bio tech plants. Big Island farmers will become less competitive over time. And, if they use the new biotech plants that everyone else can use, they will be criminalized. The president of the Hawaii Papaya Growers Ass’n ask why only they are required to register? They feel like they are being treated like sex offenders. Farmers are telling their children not to go into farming. The anti GMO bill will make Hawaii less not more food self sufficient.
I agree with a commenter in the NYT who wrote that the article “is well-written, and extensively walks the reader through current science regarding the issue, as well as the… debunking of oft-cited yet methodologically flawed studies. I commend the times for publishing this piece, and I commend Mr. Ilagan for his brave insistence on uncovering truth amid propaganda.”
And I agree with you, Ian, that “criticism of the economic and social model of agriculture under the corporate GMO regime is far harder to dismiss.”
According to the NYT, Amy Harmon, who wrote the article about the GMO controversy on the Big Island, is “a national correspondent for the Times, covering the impact of science and technology on American life,” and she has won two Pulitzer prizes.
If GMO food were harmful, we’d be harmed already. We’ve been eating it for decades now.
The anti-GMO panic is exactly like the anti-aspartame panic. If it were harmful, I’d have been dead in the 20th century.
I have not read the story (I already know this subject backward and forward), but it shouldn’t have been hard to make the antiGMO crowd look like ill-informed buffoons, because that’s what they are.
I agree 100%. Everything humans have eaten for hundreds if not thousands of years has been genetically modified. Nothing that we eat today is in it’s original “wild” unmodified form. Apples are a good example. Wild apples are small, hard and not very sweet. All of the many varieties of apples that we have today are genetically modified through selective breeding. That’s different people say. But it is different only in technique, not in concept. There is no assurance that selective breeding will not produce some hidden bad characteristics along with the good. If all genetically modified food was inherently bad the human race would have ceased to exist long ago.
Harry, not to get all fanboy but I really enjoyed your thoughtful and lively writing for the Maui News.
Much mahalo.
I don’t write news for The Maui News, but I still do the blog there, with a mirror site (sometimes slightly more provocative, too) at restatingtheobviousmaui.blogspot.com, so I am not entirely silent though retired.
I also write a commercial blog about pawnbroking, kamaloan.com/wordpress.
I am alarmed, not by GMO, but by growing anti-science movement in my adopted state from astronomy, to travel to alternative energy and to biological research.
How we arrived here needs serious examination.
I see the new dark ages snot far behind.
ironically, Krugman just did the following on a funny Pew report:
“I’m a bit late to this party, but Pew has a new report about changing views on evolution. The big takeaway is that a plurality of self-identified Republicans now believe that no evolution whatsoever has taken place since the day of creation — let alone that evolution is driven by natural selection. The move is big: an 11-point decline since 2009.
Obviously there hasn’t been any new scientific evidence driving this rejection of Darwin. And Democrats are slightly more likely to believe in evolution than they were four years ago.
So what happened after 2009 that might be driving Republican views? The answer is obvious, of course: the election of a Democratic president…………”
The big takeaway is that a plurality of self-identified Republicans now believe that no evolution whatsoever has taken place since the day of creation — let alone that evolution is driven by natural selection. The move is big: an 11-point decline since 2009.
Do these Republicans believe that evolution did not take place, or do they really only CLAIM to believe this? Or, do they believe that they believe something, but really don’t believe it (a belief being both a statement of fact and a state of mind)?
Yesterday, I read that access to abortion in the US is being more restricted.
But I had recalled reading that the abortion rate has gone down because of birth control and sex education. Perhaps restrictions were being imposed on an activity that is already disappearing of its own accord (like Mexican immigration).
(Disclaimer: I have no opinion on the issue.)
Anyway, I went on the Internet to verify if the abortion rate has gone down in the US (it has, apparently).
The first website I visited is the following anti-abortion website:
http://www.operationrescue.org/about-abortion/abortions-in-america/
One section shows a pie chart under the heading “Abortion by Religion” with the following statistics:
Protestants: 42%
Catholics: 27%
None: 24%
Other: 7%
Apparently, 27% of the women in the US who have abortions self-identify themselves as Roman Catholic.
I immediately looked up on the Internet the percentage of Americans who are Catholic.
One out of three (33%) Americans is raised Catholic, but by the time they reach adulthood, only one out of four (25%) identify themselves as Catholic.
So the abortion rate among Catholics in the US is proportional to their numbers in the population despite the Church’s prohibition on abortion.
One obvious question is, Why does the Church proscribe abortion when, obviously, it’s just as prevalent among Catholics as others?
The original Christianity in ancient Rome did not have a priestly hierarchy or a lot of rules or a real sense of guilt. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church assumed many of the administrative duties of the fallen Empire, and took on the structure and functions of the Roman Empire. A hierarchy formed, and so did a lot of rules; subsequently, a huge guilt trip was laid down on a very uneducated population (the guilt did serve as a civilizing function).
But in the modern, secular world, the Church’s grip on the imagination waned. The rules dissolved. But the desire to impose guilt — the post-Roman mission of the Church — continued.
So the Church found one issue — abortion, which was previously a non-issue — onto which it could project an intense sense of guilt (abortion as the mass murder of infants).
And the beauty of the abortion issue for the Church is that it could whip up a frenzy of self-righteous emotion … without inconveniencing most people (at least, not men).
Imagine if the Church said that every Catholic should give 20% of their income to the poor? Or become a strict vegetarian? Or quit all cigarettes and alcohol and drugs? That’s not going to happen. It would be too difficult, disruptive and painful. So we have the abortion issue.
An analogy might be the Holocaust. The Holocaust happened, and it was taken as a matter of fact by Jews following WWII. But it was not until the 1970s that a kind of commotion among Jews developed around the Holocaust (the so-called ‘Holocaust industry’). Why is this? One guess is that Jews in the West have been rapidly assimilating since the end of WWII. Jews are disappearing via intermarriage and professional success. And so all that anxiety about extinction via assimilation in the US is projected onto the issue of the Holocaust (extinction via genocide in Europe).
(Analogously, ordinary Americans have anxiety about increasing job insecurity, so they get into ‘prepping’ for the collapse of society, or they get into all these movies and TV shows about a zombie apocalypse. It’s projection.)
So some people claim in public that they don’t believe in evolution.
In reality, sometimes they do believe in it. They flip-flop. And in their daily lives they are totally materialistic and consumer-oriented, despite their religious affiliation.
Some people have to play little games….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPmTp9up26w
my only response:
the dumber someone is,
the harder it is to read their mind.
conclusion:
don’t bother.
Hello Ian,
The NYTimes story fails to examine or discuss the impacts of this industry on the health and environment of communities in Hawaii. My research and I am happy to share it with you, shows clearly that the industrial agricultural practices and high pesticide usage by these chemical companies in Hawaii are having significant and negative impacts on Kauai and around the State. As I wrote over one year ago “It’s not about eating the corn”…as the industry always attempts to push the debate http://garyhooser.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/its-not-about-eating-the-corn/
Mr Hooser we keep hearing you and your followers claiming health problems associated with agriculture. Yet there has been no proof. Every health claim you make gets shot down with actual data. For example your movement claimed massive cancer clusters on the west side, when if fact we have the lower rates of cancer than the rest of the state and even the mainland! Stop saying the same thing over and over again and expecting us to believe it. Stop trying to tear our island apart on your quest to build a new voter base.
Here is the documentary “Food, Inc.”
http://vimeo.com/23607359
A summary is provided by PBS.
This is relevant to the question at hand, Is the problem the new technology or is it the way it is used by certain powerful economic actors?
There a number of European countries that have restricted GMOs.
But it might be a mistake to associate that policy with progressive politics.
Let’s review four or five dominant ideological perspectives to understand this better.
The first is socialism, or perhaps more specifically, social democracy. This is the predominant leftist political party in much of Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democrat
In a general way, it might be safe to say that socialists or social democrats are generally anti-market.
But the left-wing is pro-science and technology.
This is a considerably different from the center-left in the United States, which is comprised of the modern liberalism of the Democratic Party.
Conservatives often consider modern liberals to be anti-market, whereas modern liberals (e.g., FDR) — and socialist critics of modern liberalism — see modern liberalism as the savior of of the market economy. (Indeed, the earliest forms of modern liberalism increased the size and power of the government in order to destroy monopolies in order to promote market competition.)
Modern liberals are pro-science and technology, just like socialists.
Among Republicans in the US, there are a number of classical liberals.
Classical liberals are definitely pro-market and pro-science & technology.
In the Republican Party, there are also many conservatives.
Conservatives are traditionalists. They are not necessarily pro-market or pro-science & technology. In the US, the tradition politically has been classical liberalism, so conservatism in the US is generally bound with this pro-market and pro-science orientation. But not always (e.g., stem-cell research). In Europe, conservatism emerged to counter the rise of the middle-class business elites and the market (and modernity in general).
In Europe and South America, one of the most powerful parties is the Christian Democrats. Christian democracy is a complicated mix.
The new Pope from South America was asked recently if he was a Marxist, and he denied it. He’s being honest. He’s probably a South American version of a Christian Democrat, even though Europeans and Americans would expect a Christian (Democrat) to be a conservative.
Christian Democrats might be expected be kind of ambivalent on the market and science.
Americans often stereotype Europeans as ‘socialistic’. (E.g, two-thirds of the French economy is based on government spending.) But as I once read, European policy is better understood as heavily influenced by an alliance of socialists, modern liberals and (anti-market) conservatives.
More relevantly for this discussion, in a nutshell, the left is generally pro-science & technology, the far right is anti-science & technology.
That’s essential in understanding the GMO controversy in Hawaii.
It seems like a replay of the SuperFerry conflict between conservative developers and conservative rural communities (although both groups are Democrats in Hawaii).
From almost exactly a year ago in the New Yorker magazine, a post entitled “The Right-Wing Organic Farmers of Germany”.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/01/the-right-wing-organic-farmers-of-germany.html
This just in from Civil Beat.
http://hawaii.news.blogs.civilbeat.com/post/74325874786/new-bill-would-strengthen-hawaiis-right-to-farm-act
This would seem to be an attempt to halt the anti-GMO movement in Hawaii.
But it seems to be as sweeping and unspecific as the anti-GMO legislation.
One central problem regarding the debate on GMOs might be a tendency toward extremes on both sides, attracted as we humans tend to be to simple formulas for solutions. Also, there may be a reluctance to recognize the good intentions of the other side.
Discussions of how other societies have charted a more moderate course in this matter might help here.