Knee-Jerk Reactions To Monsanto Hurts GMO Advocacy.

While the science supporting the safety of GMO is all but settled(no credible, reproduceable studies showing harm exist), public opinion seems to be less open to the technological process.

I blame Monsanto...

Well, let me be more specific; I blame people's knee-jerk reaction to Monsanto, and in turn, our knee-jerk reaction to people's knee-jerk reaction to Monsanto.

I'm sure that, like myself, many science communicators find it odd that the same people who support science when it comes to climate change, and support science when it comes to evolution, put their fingers in their ears and go 'la la la, not listening... la la la, Monsanto' when it comes to #GMO.

I think anti-corporatism explains this.  Many people who haven't read the literature on Climate Change are all too happy to support it because it's an indictment against 'Big' fill-in-the-blank, namely, Big Oil.

They're not pro climate change(phrasing?) so much as they're anti big oil.

While religion isn't a corporation per se, it is structured like one, and organized religion is certainly not without its series of scandals.  So while many people are against evolution because they see it as an attack on their religious beliefs, I would argue there are at least as many people who support evolution because it disrupts religion, just as climate change disrupts big oil.

For years, when arguing in favor of GMO, I would preface the argument by divorcing the issue from Monsanto.  In hindsight, I was handing the anti-GMO activists a winning debate strategy.

For years, we never bothered to challenge claims that activists would make about Monsanto: they go after small farmers, their products have lead to suicides in India, they're the ones responsible for agent orange, et cetera.

So when anti GMO activists engage in a debate, they've been able to stake unchallenged claims FOR YEARS that we ceded to them in order to get to the meat of the argument, science.

The trouble is that we never got to the science because Monsanto was the Skip, Reverse, and Draw Four of their Uno deck.

Monsanto gets worked into every counter-argument, and we couldn't do anything about it, because we tacitly accepted the premise that Monsanto was some evil, corporate monster.

If we want to reach more people, eliminate the activist driven stigma against GMO, and as a result, eliminate the labeling efforts meant to silence that technology, then we need to fight back against all the anti Monsanto nonsense, which is really just anti-corporate nonsense.

When we neutralize that argument, the activists have nothing but discredited studies from anti Monsanto activists parading as anti GMO activists...

And we can beat them, every time.

P.S.

I'm not paid by Monsanto, but I did solicit them, tongue-in-cheek, for a donation, so I could get a place to live.  Even if they give me money in the future, my views on GMO are already complimentary to theirs, so no COI would be possible.

That being said, I really am homeless, and would not turn down any donations that would help me get an apt.  I'm not trying to get a fancy downtown loft, just a decent place in a walkable neighborhood.  

I have zero savings and a new job, so it's going to take a while to save up money for an apartment.

If you would like donate, please visit the link on my Twitter profile page.

If you want to read more about my sad, strange misadventures in poverty and homelessness, check out my other blog, 

Poor Blog: http://samispoor.blogspot.com/

USRTK: Sneak Peek At How GMO Labels Will Be Used.

Hey everyone.  It's been a while, because I haven't really had much new to write about. if you are finding this blog for the 1st time, please go back and check out past posts where I discuss all the major food and ag issues.

A lot has already been written about the USRTK's Freedom Of Information Act requests aimed at 14 publicly employed academic researchers, and I'm not the news. For those not in the know, here are some links to read up on the story:

Discover Magazine - Keith Kloor
American Association for the Advancement of Science - Keith Kloor
Wired - Alan Levinovitz
Biofortified - Karl Haro von Mogel

In making these requests, the US Right To Know campaign has tipped their hand at how they would behave if #GMO labeling went into effect.  Allow me to explain...

The FOIA is widely acknowledged to be somewhat disingenuous in this case.  Despite what the USRTK claims, that researchers are doing the bidding of some corporate master, they know better.  If they had evidence strong enough to prove a direct pay off of(or veiled threat to) academic researchers by ag/food corps, then they would have blown the lid off that story long ago.

This isn't about that.

This is about guilt by association.  Food and ag scientists are employed all over the world in their area of expertise: food companies, ag companies, and public universities.  These researchers often communicate with each other about research, perhaps asking for guidance when something stretches beyond their very specific area of expertise, or to get help with experimental design, or to ask other scientists to elaborate further on recently published research findings.  If we had these methods of communication even 20 years earlier, we would be light years ahead in our understanding of food and ag science. 

Communication between scientists is a very good thing.  

Also, people doing this type of work tend to already cross pollinate the public/private divide through switching jobs.  Two scientists may have already been co-workers, students, or old advisers when the other was doing post grad work and are still keeping lines of communication open.

What USRTK will do with the information retrieved on the tax payer's dime is run a simple keyword search, then publish those emails, regardless of how innocent they are, and try to say that big food/ag is in cahoots with university researchers.  Do not expect anything to be published in context. The USRTK will exploit the highly conspiratorial mindset of the Food Hysterics that follow them. 

Let's say they find an email where Kevin Folta contacts a former student of his who now works for Monsanto about going biking, perhaps their vacation times line up or they both are participating in the same biking event.  In reality, this is nothing... just two people riding bikes, but to a suspicious and cynical food activist, this could be some sort of smoking gun they will show to everyone they are trying to turn against food and ag science.

That brings me to the issue of labeling #GMO.

Labels will be used in the same way the emails obtained through the FOIA will be abused. Watch how USRTK handles the benign, routine communications between scientists and see whether they try to make mountains out of mole hills.  My guess is that they will and this is the same type of strategy that would be employed if #GMO labeling becomes law.  It doesn't matter what the label is, it only matters that it's a label, Just like it doesn't matter what the emails say... only that there are emails.

Please keep in mind that labeling isn't the end of USRTK's strategy, only the very beginning; after which, you will see a massive and very product specific campaign aimed at strong arming companies into dropping ingredients developed using a genetic modification.  Ultimately, they want to end #GMO


p.s.

I am poor, and while nobody has paid me to write this, there is a PayPal Donate button at the top of the blog.  I currently have $50 to my name and I'm in between jobs. If anyone wishes to make a donation, it will be greatly appreciated and will go towards food/rent/utilities. I don't smoke or do drugs, so you have no need to worry about your donation being abused.  Thanks in advance to any who donate. Thanks for reading.

The single most important issue in all of food and agricultural sciences.

Credit to the internet for this meme pic. I think it may be traceable to RDFRS. Beyond that, I don't know.

I replied to a Facebook post in regards to an article posted on the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science Facebook page...  You know how the internet is...  Anyway, I spent enough time on the response that I thought I would post it.  The battle for GMO survival has become the single most important issue in all of food and agricultural sciences. Every scientifically literate person has a responsibility to read up on the arguments for, against, and all of the credible research.

Nothing else has been more closely studied, scrutinized, and validated for safety as GM foods that are approved for market.  No other foodstuff gets more criticism from unsubstantiated claims and from people thoroughly unqualified to discuss plant genomics than GMO.  

For the longest time, subject matter experts in biotech ignored the anti-gmo activists because they just assumed everyone else would see how irrationally hysterical they were being.  So we finally have SME's from both academia and industry speaking on behalf of biotech, but it's almost too late.  

Just as it is with racism, anti-semitism, and creationism, the science minded people will just have to hold on until more smart people are born and understand the scientific principal before we reach a critical mass of science literacy where these fairytale crisis dissipates quietly.  Education doesn't work if the anti side is so dug in and accuses anyone on the pro side of being a 'shill', but that doesn't mean the true SME's and the science literate public won't keep trying.  And similar to opponents of gay rights, the anti-gmo crowd will not be looked upon favorably 20 or 30 years from now.  As I would say to the anti-gay crowd, 'Don't you see where the future is heading?'.

Love it?  Hate it? Have a credible peer reviewed journal link for an article that wasn't already discredited? Post below.

Also... I'm poor.  This is a hard thing to say since most of my readers are fiercely self-reliant, 'up by the boot-straps types', but I was wondering if anyone noticed the PayPal Donate button on my blog.  I'm currently in between jobs and I'm getting behind enough to the point where I don't know how much longer I can stay in my meager apt.  

I'm not asking to be completely subsidized, I'm just asking that those who can, donate.  For my part, I will continue to look for work while posting more than I have been in the past.  I grew up on a hog farm with an outdoor toilet and a wood burning furnace, so hard work is something I grew up on. So while it's easy to grunt, 'Get a job!' and 'Get off yer ass!', please understand I am not a lazy person and I wouldn't so shamelessly promote the donate button if it wasn't getting serious. 

Hopefully, something good will come my way quickly, but until then, hope isn't paying the rent.  Thank you in advance for any donations, and to those who can't or won't donate, I still appreciate you taking the time to read this.

Sam

Be Aggressive.

Once credibility is established, and in the absence of a subject matter expert to correct the record, people will believe what they're told.

Think about that for a minute.

In the 80's and 90's, you saw this with the tobacco industry.  Tobacco lobbyist would come out against whatever scientific study came out and you really didn't hear anything from the scientists until papers started getting read in Congress that showed executive's efforts to cover up health risks.

Similarly, Activists and activist profiteers - those who latch on to activist causes for profit like Michael Pollan - have the audience's ear; an audience that serves as a blank slate and recruitment tool for the activists. Of course, the activist profiteers need those fresh faces to sell books and book speaking engagements.  So these people build the perception of credibility through the lack of other adults in the room questioning them and setting these activists and profiteers straight.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with being an activist or being a profiteer.  The problem is when the profit comes from misinformation, like in the case of the tobacco lobby or Michael Pollan.  The problem is when activists use misinformation to recruit more people.

"[Nutritional Science] is kind of where surgery was in the 1650s. Really promising, really interesting ... but, would you let them operate on you?" - Michael Pollan, Speech at Sydney's Opera House.

For science to progress, for reason to move forward alongside our debates about food, there must be an answer to that above statement.  How many times do you think that got repeated as people got into buses and cars and headed home or to dinner that evening?  How tragically ironic is it that one of the people advocating for and romanticizing subsistence level farming put down modern nutritional science as being too simple... not advanced enough?

We need to be more aggressive in promoting science.  We can't just set the facts out on the back porch like milk in a saucer in hopes that science starved kittens will lap it up.  Those kittens are on someone else's porch getting an earful about how bad your milk is, and when they do come around, it will be to make some snarky, matter-of-fact statement about how wrong you are before sauntering off with their tails wafting through the breeze.

"There's a wisdom beyond what people tell us, we have just stopped listening to our bodies."                      - Michael Pollan, Speech at Sydney's Opera House.

This is actually a variation of the God of the Gaps argument made in Creationism.  If they don't have all the answers we need right now, then we must not accept any of the answers they have and be skeptical of everything they say.

You don't see this in other areas of science. In astronomy, you had Carl Sagan, who had facts on his side and credibility.  After him, came people like Michio Koku and Neil deGrasse Tyson, who I would consider to be our generation's Carl Sagan.

For those on #agchat and #foodchat on twitter who would advocate being more diplomatic, I would like to add that Mr. Pollan's speaking engagement in Sydney was most likely a paid gig.  The people he sent out into the world with that message - either directly or indirectly - paid to hear it.  So if people will pay to hear that message, how far do you really think being diplomatic gets you on the free internet?

And it's not just Pollan, either.  We have activist organizations, who through their activism, have become profiteers.  You have Michael Jacobson and his Center for Science in the Public Interest.  You have Jeffrey Smith and his Institute for Responsible Technology.  You also have the somewhat misleading named, Union of Concerned Scientists.  I could go on and on.

We need to share resources, use our best professional groups and get out there and fight the misinformation.  We have groups like the International Food Information Council and the Institute of Food Technologists that we can network in and find people to do media appearances through.  We can appear with one of these groups when they end up on Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show, Hardball, et cetera.  We can invest a little more time to social media by posting tweets about what we do as farmers, or plant geneticists, or food scientists, or food science professionals.  We can put out blogs, youtube videos, and podcasts to broadcast the truth about science.  Hell, one or two of us may actually get booked for paid speaking engagements.

But that would be offense, and the conventional wisdom among too many is to not be argumentative, to sink to their level.  What we get with that strategy is what we currently have now, a landscape dominated by activists and their profiteering hangers on, who say whatever they feel is right, regardless of whether it's true.  Their numbers grow, and science shrinks.  Hysteria soon becomes fact.  Get off the bench. Be aggressive.

Story about Pollan's speech in Sydney.

Recap of Jon Entine's speech at IFT 2012.

A Lack of the Killer Tomatoes.

I was initially very happy when I saw this story in the New York Times.


The story talks about how plant geneticists cracked the code on why red tomatoes seemed more bland.  It was fascinating as well as exciting, because they now knew what gene was turned off because of the red ripening mutation... which means they could simply turn on the flavor producing gene, in theory.


What really bummed me out about this article was the following sentences; 'But were the genetically engineered tomatoes more flavorful? Because Department of Agriculture regulations forbid the consumption of experimental produce, no one tasted them.'


I'm all for regulation of food and ag, as I've posted about before, but at a certain point, we have to shed this pre-millennial thinking that scientists are reckless and don't know what they are doing.  At this point, I think plant geneticists and bio-engineers have the ability to make a strong hypothesis about potential gene outcomes, such that they may take a bite out of a fucking tomato.


This thinking leads into the next self defeating paragraph in the article; 'And, Dr. Giovannoni says, do not look for those genetically engineered tomatoes at the grocery store. Producers would not dare to make such a tomato for fear that consumers would reject it.'


So what, don't even bother?  Why would the public reject it?  I think the doctor is referring to the anti-science activists that have romanticized any kind of old-timey ag of yore where poor, perpetually underfed subsistence level farmers broke their ass to make a crop that we would return to the grocery store for quality reasons.


Why not educate throughout the process?  Why not put up the varying steps on YouTube with annotations on why each step is done and have links to accompanying notes for background reading?  We need much more educational outreach, because clearly the activists... the 'Anti's' are growing their numbers every day with a steady stream of misinformation.  Shying away from progress in this world for fear that we may be misunderstood is a cop-out.


Imagine if that story ended with them taking a bite out of that tomato and noting that it tasted much better...  Would it mean we would see them in the store next year without any safety validation?  No, but it would take a step towards dulling some of the anti-scientific, conspiratorial rhetoric out there.