GMO's
A WebMD doctor's review of the literature shows that the safety of GMO's is unknown and there are reasons to be apprehensive.
For the record: on this issue, as in many others, proof is unnecessary for action. The point of the article is that it is reasonable to doubt the safety of all GM food. I happen to know that WebMD is extremely careful to only make medically defensible claims in their articles, because this is crucial to the market value of the WebMD brand. So until I learn more and otherwise, I'd rather play it safe, within a margin of practicality (affordability), especially with the developing bodies of my children.
For the record: on this issue, as in many others, proof is unnecessary for action. The point of the article is that it is reasonable to doubt the safety of all GM food. I happen to know that WebMD is extremely careful to only make medically defensible claims in their articles, because this is crucial to the market value of the WebMD brand. So until I learn more and otherwise, I'd rather play it safe, within a margin of practicality (affordability), especially with the developing bodies of my children.
posted by Brad Williams @ 2:08 PM
2 Comments:
At 4:52 PM ,
Realist Theorist said...
I believe your trust of WebMD is misplaced.
The institute for which Arpad Pusztai worked claimed that he had released incorrect results (at best) and doctored them (at worst). This was in their testimony provided to the U.K. parliament. The conspiracy theorists say that they fired him because Monsanto got upset. The results that he claimed are pretty easy to reproduce, and this case is more than 10 years old.
At 11:16 PM ,
Brad Williams said...
I'm glad to look at this again. One thing I regret is stating that Pizzorno "reviewed the literature", which implies conclusive and professional consideration of relevant publications, which (as he admits) he certainly did not do.
That said, Pizzorno's conclusion -- which still seems reasonable to me -- is that we don't know if all GMO's are safe because there are plausible technical arguments why some might not be, as well as studies that have given grounds to question the safety of certain GMO's (these are listed on Wikipedia). If someone rather knows that it is reasonable to assume that GMO products as such pose no extra health risk, consider this an open invitation to provide an explanation or reference here.
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