Musings: Finger on the Pulse

It's been a rough week for anti-GMO activists.

First, the World Health Organization came out and said — contrary to a report issued by another WHO agency last year — that glyphosate (Roundup) poses no cancer risk. This Wired article does a great job of explaining the brouhaha.

Then an Oregon judge rejected GMO bans passed by two counties there, using the same pre-emption ruling that knocked out three anti-GMO ordinances in Hawaii. The judge based his decision on an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that found state law pre-empts local law when they are incompatible.

Babes Against Biotech quickly posted this meme, proving the gals — and the rest of their crowd — still fail to understand that the rule of law is the cornerstone of democracy, and laws have to be legal.

They're just worried, because it's not looking so good for the appeal of the overturned Big Island, Kauai and Maui ordinances when other states use the same legal reasoning as Hawaii. But hey, that doesn't stop them from doing what they do best: begging. In this case, it's to raise money to send Lauryn Rego to the Intermediate Court of Appeals hearing in June so she can denigrate participants and create a wild spin, just as she did with the Maui moratorium ruling and Pioneer-Waimea dust lawsuit.

It brought to mind the petition drive to get Sabra Kauka on “Oprah” so she can pitch the anti-GMO propaganda piece “Aina: That Which Feeds.” I never cease to be amazed at the PR machine behind these guys — and they way they blatantly use kanaka, keiki and kupuna to raise kala.

And just yesterday, the National Academy of Sciences issued an evidence-based report that found, among other things:

On the basis of its detailed examination of comparisons between currently commercialized GE and non-GE foods in compositional analysis, acute and chronic animal toxicity tests, long-term data on health of livestock fed GE foods, and epidemiological data, the committee concluded that no differences have been found that implicate a higher risk to human health safety from these GE foods than from their non-GE counterparts.

Before the report was even released, the antis were out in force, claiming all the scientists and the NAS were biotech shills. Sheesh. Talk about sore losers. It reminds me of Vandana Shiva's wild claim that Monsanto controls all the scientific journals in the world. Uh, if they wielded that kind of clout, do you really think they'd be in the middle of this shit storm?

Of course, the antis will never be assuaged, so no need bother with them, other than to poke fun. But the report will be very useful in helping all the reasonable folks in the middle who want to gain a scientifically-based understanding of both the technology and the controversy that surrounds it.

Because in the real American world, folks are happy with modern agriculture. A new survey found that 86 percent of registered voters polled view farmers favorably, while just 3 percent did not. Some 81 percent said that, “a strong and thriving American farm industry is critical to American national security,” with 92 percent supporting federal spending to help farms and farmers.

And in the other real world — the poor, hungry one — folks want and need biotech, even though well-fed Western elitists tell them they shouldn't have it. 

In Bangladesh, for example, Bt brinjal (eggplant) has so greatly reduced the use of insecticides that an entire village raising the crop was declared a pesticide free vegetable growing area. 

As Arif Hossain Romel, an Alliance for Science fellow from Bangladesh, noted in his Facebook post on the topic: “Surely a good development for better future.”