Let’s talk about those industry funded studies. You know the ones. The ones you hear about from anti-GMO folks in the comment section of any story about GMOs. According to those folks, the whole scientific consensus on GMO safety is based on industry funded studies. They say that the only studies that show that GMOs pose no different risks than conventionally bred crops were all bought and paid for by Monsanto. That makes the consensus suspicious right? It would if there weren’t many independently funded studies with similar results.
Complaints about industry funded studies show an ignorance of the literature and may indicate a lazy desire to dismiss inconvenient evidence in order to preserve predetermined ideological commitments. It’s plain old confirmation bias and motivated reasoning run amok. Continue reading “About those industry funded GMO studies…”→
I’m all for voluntary non-GMO labels. They’re a market based solution that meets a niche demand. They provide diversity in the market without raising prices for everyone. Still, I prefer to avoid them (and thankfully in the US, I still have the choice to do so) in large part because I don’t think they’re accomplishing anything useful, especially considering that such products often cost more. That’s my personal choice, though I also don’t think these labels accomplish much for the companies that use them. I’ve got two examples that I recently noticed that don’t make sense to me – maybe you can help me untangle the issues. Continue reading “What does a non-GMO label get you?”→
Yesterday, Dr. Don Huber spoke in Maui as part of an event that kicked off a political campaign to ban genetically engineered crops from the island. The same day, a letter to the editor by Dr. Harold Keyser, a retired soil scientist from the University of Hawaii, appeared in the same paper that gave a spotlight to the Huber event.
Due to a time constraint, Huber took about 10 minutes to answer a few questions, so there was not the time for Keyser to ask a question at this event.* Dr. Keyser’s letter to the editor is republished with his permission here. Continue reading “Huber’s claims in Maui lack evidence”→
“Bring me to life, too!”
Yesterday, we asked our readers to vote on the next plush that we would make as part of our Kickstarter campaign. Votes have poured in, and a clear winner has arisen. More than 50 people have chimed in, and the tally was 3:1:1 in favor of the Hawai’ian Papaya!
We saw the same pattern whether the votes came from a backer or not – and indeed, for those who have not yet become a backer and donated to this cause, the Papaya also topped the list of plushes that would get them interested to join in! Clearly, people want to hear the story of the Papaya, and become a part of that story with their own plush to represent it.
Right now, we’ve raised more than $11,400 in our fundraiser, and we need to get to $16,000 to be able to design and manufacture 250 Papaya plushes. There are 9 days left, and I think we can make it. I will be closely monitoring the numbers, checking the costs and the pledges, and figuring out how I can bring this number down. We want to make it happen! Any plush can be exchanged for another, so our multiple-plush rewards are
The Brinjal and Orange characters won’t be gone forever, someday we’ll bring them to life, too.
Thank you for your support. Let’s do it for the Papayas!
Hi everyone! Frank N. Foode™ here. Wow, our Kickstarter has been going great, and I’m so happy to see everyone chipping in to bring me to life! We just reached our T-shirt Stretch Goal – so now anyone can get a T-shirt saying you were a part of this! (You can even get just the T-shirt by itself!) Ok, enough talkin’ about that stuff – it’s time to talk about bringing one of my friends to life. If we can raise our Kickstarter pledges to $16,000 we will make a second plush, and we want you to help us decide. I’m going to tell you a little about each of their stories, and you can vote on which is the first story we can tell in plush form.
Hawai’ian Papaya
Alberto, a papaya farmer I met in Puna whose livelihood was saved by genetically engineered papayas.
Ah, if you have heard any story about a genetically engineered crop, it should be about the papayas in Hawai’i! They were about to be wiped out by a viral disease, and there was no way that it could be stopped, except when Dr. Dennis Gonsalves and his team at Cornell University genetically engineered a papaya that was resistant to the disease. They actually used part of the virus itself to block the virus from attacking the cells of the papaya. In 1998, after papaya farms were falling apart and some about to go under, the first seeds of these new trees were approved and released to farmers. Today, more than 8 out of 10 papayas grown in Hawai’i are genetically engineered.
It has been more than 15 years since this happened, but even in Hawai’i some people don’t quite know the story. In the public debates going on lately, some even try to say that it didn’t happen that way. How can a humble papaya in the grocery store tell people about the backstory of science, precaution, and determination that made it possible for the papaya to be there? We need the help of an ambassador for the story of the Hawai’ian papaya! Continue reading “Vote on our next Kickstarter plush!”→
If Frank started a grassroots movement, he would do it with Bamboo! McBride Gardens, Kaua’i, Credit: KJHvM
One year ago, I was contacted by a journalist in Washington by the name of Marco who wanted to learn more about the messy biology and politics of genetically engineered crops so he could write about them in his local paper. Part of his challenge was as the State of Washington was gearing up for a mandatory GMO labeling battle and the political divide was already beginning to affect how people viewed the science. His resulting article on Arctic Apples was published and probably opened a few minds. Next, he wanted to write something about the Green Genes movement, including part of his interview with me, however the paper was not very receptive and would only barely publish it with a ton of edits and… a disclaimer.
Now, instead you can read his excellent piece at the GMO Skepti-Forum site! (I’m biased) Here is an excerpt: When GMOs were first introduced to the public twenty years ago they were nearly universally condemned by environmentalists. Overtime this universal condemnation has drifted farther away from the scientific consensus on GM crops. For scientists there is no debate. The GM crops currently available to the public pose no health risks, have benefited the environment, and have bestowed real benefits onto farmers. In this way, environmentalists—so united with scientists on climate change—have seen themselves part ways with science. There is a faction within the environmental movement that is trying to buck this trend. Over the last few years there has emerged a “green gene” movement—a conglomerate of scientists, farmers, and activists who believe that the power of biotechnology can be used to make food more nutritious, aid in ending world hunger, and make agriculture more sustainable. The humanitarian goals of the green gene movement are primary, but underlining these concerns is a broader cultural shift within the environmental movement. Environmentalists have tended to view science and technology with suspicion, seeing it as responsible for creating our industrial society and therefore at the source of our environmental ills. The green gene movement is working to flip this idea on its head. Science and technology are seen as essential tools for solving some of the ecological threats facing the earth, and biotechnology can be a means to move us towards a more sustainable future. At the vanguard of this movement is… You’ll have to read the article to find out the rest! Marco Rosaire Conrad-Rossi has also contributed to our blog here, and I look forward to seeing more of his thoughtful writings.
Farmed and Dangerous: How Chipotle views those who disagree with them. Over on Huffington Post’s Food for Thought Blog they have offered their bandwidth to a series of voices to expand on the epic science narrative Farmed and Dangerous. “Farmed” is a slick and cute, yet intellectually simple and unsatisfying indictment of the American farming system.
One of the guest bloggers is Robyn O’Brien. I like Robyn, I’ve spoken with her personally and we share an email now and then. We’re on precisely the same page about issues like better nutrition and healthier eating especially for kids. Where we part ways is on her less-than-scientific treatment of transgenic technology. Robyn’s 2/20/14 submission, “Nine Dirty Little Secrets About GMOs” does not disappoint, as it provides fertile misinformation to fuel the non-critical thinker’s fear of science, along with ample opportunity for me to rope in the insanity with a lasso of evidence.
Let’s look at those dirty little secrets, presented below in bold. They are neither dirty, little or secrets, and most don’t just apply to GMOs! I will address them one by one. Continue reading “Nine Dirty Little Secrets? One Inconvenient Truth”→
The Anti-GMO movement has been around since before GM technology first walked across the world stage. The mere hint of it initiated the creation of activist groups against it, and the ideology of anti-GMO began before the public really knew anything about the science. The pervasive question here is why?
It should come as no surprise that the majority of anti-GMO sentiment comes from the left portion of the political spectrum. The common thought process is that the right supports GMOs because they support big business. This may be true to some extent, but I don’t think the causation is supported. I think that the right, because they don’t automatically hold a dislike for big business simply doesn’t have a reason to buy into the fear mongering about the science in this case. Continue reading “Political Ideologies and the Anti-GMO Movement”→
Poster by DIYBio.org CC
Do it yourself biology, DIY bio for short, is the idea that DIY projects don’t have to be just about crafts, home repair, or electronics. Promoters argue that the tools needed to take apart, alter, and put back together living organisms should be as widely available as other sorts of tools. Continue reading “What do you want to know about DIY bio?”→
This is a part of the series The Promise of GMOs. Do GMOs live up to the promises of the biotech industry? In the case of decreasing herbicide use and improving the environmental impact, there is data to back up industry claims. Continue reading “The Promise of GMOs: Herbicides”→
Biofortified 