GMO Opponents Are the Climate Skeptics of the Left

Don't worry. Genetically modified corn isn't going to
give you cancer.

By Keith Kloor
Sept. 26, 2012
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html

I used to think that nothing rivaled the misinformation
spewed by climate change skeptics and spinmeisters.

Then I started paying attention to how anti-GMO
campaigners have distorted the science on genetically
modified foods. You might be surprised at how successful
they've been and who has helped them pull it off.

I've found that fears are stoked by prominent
environmental groups, supposed food-safety watchdogs,
and influential food columnists; that dodgy science is
laundered by well-respected scholars and propaganda is
treated credulously by legendary journalists; and that
progressive media outlets, which often decry the
scurrilous rhetoric that warps the climate debate, serve
up a comparable agitprop when it comes to GMOs.

In short, I've learned that the emotionally charged,
politicized discourse on GMOs is mired in the kind of
fever swamps that have polluted climate science beyond
recognition.

The latest audacious example of scientific distortion
came last week, in the form of a controversial (but peer
reviewed!) study that generated worldwide headlines. A
French research team purportedly found that GMO corn fed
to rats caused them to develop giant tumors and die
prematurely.

Within 24 hours, the study's credibility was shredded by
scores of scientists. The consensus judgment was swift
and damning: The study was riddled with errors--serious,
blatantly obvious flaws that should have been caught by
peer reviewers. Many critics pointed out that the
researchers chose a strain of rodents extremely prone to
tumors. Other key aspects of the study, such as its
sample size and statistical analysis, have also been
highly criticized. One UC-Berkley scientist suggests the
study was "designed to frighten" the public.

That's no stretch of the imagination, considering the
history of the lead author, Gilles-Eric Seralini, who,
as NPR reports, "has been campaigning against GM crops
since 1997," and whose research methods have been
"questioned before," according to the New York Times.

The circumstances surrounding Seralini's GMO rat-tumor
study range from bizarre (as a French magazine
breathlessly reports, it was conducted in clandestine
conditions) to dubious (funding was provided by an anti-
biotechnology organization whose scientific board
Seralini heads).

Another big red flag: Seralini and his co-authors
manipulated some members of the media to prevent outside
scrutiny of their study. (The strategy appears to have
worked like a charm in Europe.) Some reporters allowed
themselves to be stenographers by signing nondisclosure
agreements stipulating they not solicit independent
expert opinion before the paper was released. That has
riled up science journalists such as Carl Zimmer, who
wrote on his Discover magazine blog: "This is a rancid,
corrupt way to report about science. It speaks badly for
the scientists involved, but we journalists have to
grant that it speaks badly to our profession, too. ...
If someone hands you confidentiality agreements to sign,
so that you will have no choice but to produce a one-
sided article, WALK AWAY. Otherwise, you are being
played."

Speaking of being played, have I mentioned yet that
Seralini's book on GMOs, All Guinea Pigs! is being
published (in French) this week? Oh, and there's also a
documentary based on his book coming out simultaneously.
You can get details on both at the website of the anti-
biotech organization that sponsored his study. The site
features gross-out pictures of those GMO corn-fed rats
with ping-pong-ball-size tumors.

It's all very convenient, isn't it?

None of this seems to bother Tom Philpott, the popular
food blogger for Mother Jones, who writes that
Seralini's results "shine a harsh light on the ag-
biotech industry's mantra that GMOs have indisputably
proven safe to eat."

Philpott often trumpets the ecological and public-health
dangers posed by genetically modified crops. But such
concerns about GMOs, which are regularly echoed at other
left-leaning media outlets, have little merit. As Pamela
Ronald, a UC-Davis plant geneticist, pointed out last
year in Scientific American: "There is broad scientific
consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on
the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of
cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres
planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have
resulted from commercialization of genetically
engineered crops."

So what explains the lingering suspicions that some
people (even those who aren't Monsanto-hating, organic-
food-only eaters) still harbor? Some of these folks are
worried about new genes being introduced into plant and
animal species. But humans have been selectively
breeding plants and animals pretty much since we moved
out of caves, manipulating their genes all the while.
The process was just slower before biotechnology came
along.

Still, being uneasy about a powerful, new technology
doesn't make you a wild-eyed paranoid. The precautionary
principle is a worthy one to live by. But people should
know that GMOs are tightly regulated (some scientists
say in an overly burdensome manner).

Many environmentalists are concerned that genetically
modified animals such as "Franken-salmon" could get
loose in the wild and out-compete their nonengineered
cousins, or lead to breeding problems for the wild
members of the species. But even the scientist on whose
research the "Trojan gene" hypothesis is based says the
risk to wild salmon is "low" and that his work has been
misrepresented by GMO opponents.

Another big concern that has been widely reported is the
"rapid growth of tenacious super weeds" that now defy
Monsanto's trademark Roundup herbicide. That has led
farmers to spray their fields with an increasing amount
of the chemical weed-killer. Additionally, some research
suggests that other pests are evolving a resistance to
GMO crops. But these problems are not unique to genetic
engineering. The history of agriculture is one of a
never-ending battle between humans and pests.

On balance, the positives of GM crops seem to vastly
outweigh the negatives. A recent 20-year study published
in Nature found that GM crops helped a beneficial insect
ecosystem to thrive and migrate into surrounding fields.
For an overview of the benefits (and enduring concerns)
of GM crops, see this recent post by Pamela Ronald.

The bottom line for people worried about GMO ingredients
in their food is that there is no credible scientific
evidence that GMOs pose a health risk.

Even Philpott, in his charitable take on the Seralini
study, admits that, "no one has ever dropped dead from
drinking, say, a Coke sweetened with high-fructose syrup
from GMO corn." In the next breath, though, he wonders:
"But what about 'chronic' effects, ones that come on
gradually and can't be easily tied to any one thing?
Here we are eating in the dark." Despite the study being
a train wreck, Philpott's takeaway is that it "provides
a disturbing hint that all might not be right with our
food--and shows beyond a doubt that further study is
needed." What's beyond a doubt here is Philpott's
unwillingness to call bullshit when it's staring him in
the face.

I single out Philpott not to pick on him, but because he
represents the most reasonable, level-headed voice of
the anti-GMO brigade (whose most extreme adherents don
white hazmat suits and destroy research plots). The same
goes for Grist, which calls the French study "important"
and says "it's worth paying attention to what Seralini
has done."

Such acceptance by lefties of what everyone else in the
reality-based science community derides as patently bad
science is "just plain depressing," writes a medical
researcher who blogs under the name Orac. He compares
the misuse of science and scare tactics by GMO opponents
to the behavior of the anti-vaccine movement.

The anti-GM bias also reveals a glaring intellectual
inconsistency of the eco-concerned media. When it comes
to climate science, for example, Grist and Mother Jones
are quick to call out the denialism of pundits and
politicians. But when it comes to the science of genetic
engineering, writers at these same outlets are quick to
seize on pseudoscientific claims, based on the flimsiest
of evidence, of cancer-causing, endocrine-disrupting,
ecosystem-killing GMOs.

This brand of fear-mongering is what I've come to expect
from environmental groups, anti-GMO activists, and their
most shamelessly exploitive soul travelers. This is what
agenda-driven ideologues do. The Seralini study has
already been seized on by supporters of California's
Proposition 37, a voter initiative that, if successful
in November, would require most foods containing
genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such
in the state.

What's disconcerting is when big media outlets and
influential thought leaders legitimize pseudoscience and
perpetuate some of the most outrageous tabloid myths,
which have been given fresh currency by a slanted 2011
documentary that is taken at face value at places like
the Huffington Post.

In a recent commentary for Nature, Yale University's Dan
Kahan lamented the "polluted science communication
environment" that has deeply polarized the climate
debate. He writes: "People acquire their scientific
knowledge by consulting others who share their values
and whom they therefore trust and understand." This
means that lefties in the media and prominent scholars
and food advocates who truly care about the planet are
information brokers. So they have a choice to make: On
the GMO issue, they can be scrupulous in their analysis
of facts and risks, or they can continue to pollute the
science communication environment."

---

Keith Kloor is a journalist based in New York. You can
find him on twitter here. He is a former editor at
Audubon magazine and often writes about environmental
issues.

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