French researchers have published a study saying that a certain type of genetically-modified corn causes cancer. Let me quote from the Chicago Tribune:
“For more than a decade, American farmers have planted corn seed containing modified genes that resist crop disease, combat insect pests and make weedkiller more effective.
Generations of livestock have been raised on genetically modified corn. Millions of Americans have consumed it too ….
If genetically modified corn posed an urgent health threat, America would know it by now. In fact, the science behind these crops not only is safe, but transformative. Agricultural biotechnology has reduced the amount of chemical pesticides and herbicides in use. It has improved yields. It is making important contributions to the relief of global hunger ….
So imagine our surprise at the new study from the University of Caen in France claiming that genetically modified corn causes cancer. … [I]t has prompted European authorities to consider banning a certain type of bioengineered corn made by St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.
The study alleged that rats consuming Monsanto corn over a two-year period developed more tumors and other health problems than a control group of rodents fed with conventional corn. The rats also developed cancer when they consumed water spiked with the common herbicide Roundup, which the corn is modified to resist.
Roundup-Ready corn, as it's called, has been a boon. It has enabled farmers to spray weedkiller directly on their fields much more efficiently. If the substance gets on the crop, thanks to the biotech protection, no damage is done. Only the weeds die. …
The study followed the lives of 200 lab rats, and that is problem No. 1. The sample size is too small to be useful in determining food safety. By testing both the corn and the Roundup, the researchers diluted what would have been a small-scale effort even further. In addition, the research team selected a strain of rat said to be especially susceptible to tumors. …
The study was greeted with skepticism from scientists around the world for other reasons too. …
The scientific community's doubts were absent from initial accounts of the study, for a particular reason. According to published reports, journalists were given advance copies of the findings only if they agreed to keep the information confidential. So their accounts at first were published without independent input. …
No one familiar with Europe's customary aversion to this technology can be shocked at what looks to us like a misuse of science in the service of a political agenda.
… It is sad to consider that the rats in this flawed study ate better than many of the people in the world who could benefit from the crop technology that it attempts to smear.”
The most logical conclusion from this study is, of course, that a person who is especially susceptible to developing tumors should not eat as much corn, compared to their body weight, as these rats did, especially while drinking water laced with pesticides. That shouldn’t be too hard for most of us to do.
But the main point here is that a certain group of people, living in the developed world, where food is plentiful and relatively inexpensive, have developed an aversion to things like genetic modification of foods and seeds that might help make food less scarce and less expensive in less developed countries (or whatever the proper “pc” term is for such countries today). In fact, the developed world’s elites have even convinced the governing elites in some less developed countries (who personally have enough food at an acceptable price, even if their people don’t) to limit the use of genetically modified seeds in their countries.*
Actually, the elites’ aversion to genetically modified seeds fits with their attitudes in other areas. They have their homes in Vail or condos in San Francisco, so now they worry about over-development and propose zoning controls and density limits to keep others out. While they talk about maintaining the wilderness for all to enjoy, what they really want is to keep others out so it is not crowded for them.
It all brings to mind, in an ironic way, a movie I saw a couple of years ago, “Unknown.” (I particularly enjoyed the movie because it had so many scenes of Berlin in it.) The plot of the movie involves an evil organization that is trying to stop a scientist and his Saudi benefactors from disclosing to the world a new genetically-modified strain of corn that can grow in any climate. The scientist and the Saudi prince want to give the formula to all, for free, to combat world hunger. The implication is that a group of big agri-business corporations are trying to kill the scientist and steal the formula to protect their profits.
This is, of course, how Hollywood sees the world. Big business = bad. But in reality, it would be the PC green elitists who would most want to stop the genetically-modified strain of corn from being distributed around the world. They are doing it today with respect to GM crops when it is corporations who want to sell them. They would oppose it just as much if the seeds were being given away for free.
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* One wonders what these people would be saying about Norman Borlaug’s “green revolution” if he were doing it today.
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