SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The National Academy of Sciences has released a new report [nas-sites.org] that reaffirms the safety of eating genetically modified organisms [npr.org]. Critics attacked the report before it was released, claiming pro-industry bias:

The National Academy of Sciences — probably the country's most prestigious scientific group — has reaffirmed its judgement that GMOs are safe to eat. But the group's new report struck a different tone from previous ones, with much more space devoted to concerns about genetically modified foods, including social and economic ones.

The report marks an anniversary. Twenty years ago, farmers started growing soybeans that have been genetically modified to tolerate the popular weedkiller known as Roundup and corn that contains a protein, extracted from bacteria, that kills some insect pests. But in those years, arguments about these crops have grown so contentious that the National Academy can't be sure that people will believe whatever it has to say on the topic. Even before this report came out, an anti-GMO group called Food & Water Watch attacked it. The group accused some members of the committee that prepared the report of receiving research funding from biotech companies, or having other ties to the industry.

[...] The report found that some claims about the benefits of GMOs have been exaggerated. For instance, the productivity of crops has been increasing for a century, and that didn't change when GMOs came along. "The expectation from some of the [GMO] proponents was that we need genetic engineering to feed the world, and we're going to use genetic engineering to make that increase in yield go up faster. We saw no evidence of that," Gould says. [...] The report urges regulators to look at all new crops, no matter how they're created, if they "have novelty and the possibility of some kind of risk associated with them," Gould says.

Original Submission