Think You Know Where You Stand on GMOs? Read This and Think Again.

Photo credit: Rosalee Yagihara

Just as with the issue of climate change, the subject of GMOs tends to be somewhat polarizing and there is a point where people stop looking at the facts (or never look at them to begin with) and just determine where they stand on the issue based on how much they like or dislike the messenger. I know many people who I like and respect who are are passionately anti-GMO but, in truth, a number of them don't seem to understand the issue with any depth or breadth. I certainly don't claim to have any expertise in this area--I don't have a science background and it's not easy for me to sift through some of the denser writing I've picked up on the subject.

But I became aware a few years ago when I attended the National Heirloom Exposition* that there are some speakers and writers who are putting out so-called "facts" about the dangers of GMOs that I know to be overstated, if not outright untruths. In the current issue of The New Yorker, Michael Specter takes on Vandana Shiva, an internationally followed anti-GMO activist who has been a featured speaker at the Heirloom Expo in the past. If you are concerned about GMOs and actually care about the science and how GMOs are being portrayed, both for and against, you owe it to yourself to read this article. By the end of the article I was truly outraged by the way this particular war is being waged and the number of people who have already starved to death or suffered malnutrition while the PR campaigns distort the facts. Please read the article and tell me if you're outraged too.

* I don't mean to impugn the National Heirloom Exposition or the majority of its speakers, many of which are honest, experienced and very well qualified to speak and write in their fields. On the other hand, the featured speaker for this year's Expo is Dr. Joseph Mercola, who has an entire page devoted to him at Quackwatch.org.