Let the people decide on GMOs
Saw this blog entry while surfing around today. Roger Beachy of the Danforth Center was speaking to students at the University of California – Davis about the negative views associated with genetically modified organisms Beachy said many consumers have a bad opinion or GMOs because the media has portrayed them in that way. Read more about Beachy’s views below.
C.S. Prakash
Let the people decide on GMOs
The Notes from a Gene Safari blog
April 2, 2008
Roger Beachy (of the Danforth Center) came to UC Davis this week to give a seminar. The grad students had the good fortune of meeting with him over lunch. He has some very interesting perspectives on genetic engineering that I haven't heard before.
One of his most striking points was that all this hype we hear of the public being against GMOs is largely generated by the media. The consumer public has been given very few opportunities to make decisions for themselves. He gave several examples of the public enthusiastically embracing GMOs.
- Most papayas now have engineered resistance to the papaya ringspot virus (due to disastrous epidemics in Hawaii). Non-engineered, infected papayas have cosmetic blemishes and spoil quickly. Consumers prefer the engineered, virus-free fruit despite labels that declare the inclusion of recombinant DNA technology
- The Flavr Savr tomato, engineered to decrease spoilage, apparently couldn't be stocked fast enough to supply the public during its brief existence (until Calgene went out of business and ceased production)
- A study in Pennsylvania found that consumers at a farmers market presented with three types of sweet corn (engineered for insect resistance, conventional and organic) preferred organic to conventional corn and GMO corn to both organic and conventional. The GMO crop was favored because it was produced without pesticides OR the insects/insect damage that usually occur in the absence of pesticides.
Much more importantly, he described the center's humanitarian efforts in Africa. They are engineering crops with disease resistance and greatly elevated levels of vitamins and protein to fight malnutrition. They are also creating corn varieties that are resistant to a fungal disease that has been linked to devastating cancer rates in certain regions (the fungus infects corn naturally and produces a carcinogenic toxin, fumonisin).
