This is a tough topic. For example, how do you attribute the disappearance of symptoms of for instance, autism, to one source if you remove multiple potential sources and the symptoms go away. Fine, which one was the source? Was it one item or a combination? Was it a temporary problem that would have gone away on its own? Are there more cases or are we just better at diagnosing the problems?
I am not saying that it is wrong if you feel these things are a problem and decide to avoid them for yourself and your family. More power to you. I recognize that there are many problems built into our food supply that need fixing. The problem is that the kind of research to test things things is mostly off limits for any real ethical study. If you eliminate these things, will it create a bigger problem elsewhere? Are you prepared to make the decision between one child suffering autism or thousands of children dying of starvation? Remember, most of what is produced is not just consumed here in this country. Just raising the cost of production will price some people out of the market to purchase food.
If you remove all the potential risks, will the outcome be preferable? We are living in a world that hasn't seen famine in a long time. In my lifetime, there has been a reduction in food born illnesses. Salmonella, listeria, botulism, and the list goes on. If we do away with modern agriculture practices, will those problems return?
We have been genetically modifying plants and animals since the advent of agriculture. They are not even recognizable compared to the original versions. We have also long surpassed the dire predictions of Malthus. Instead of starving from limited resources, we have a greater abundance of high quality food than humanity has ever seen.
It is easy to sit here in such a rich country and be against things like Golden Rice. Of course we won't have to see all the people who don't have access to it and take care of the 500,000 people annually whose blindness that it could prevent. As Marie Antoinette said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"
That's not even considering the choice of things like risks of glycophosphates compared to the runoff of herbicides into the watershed and to the oceans.
We loved listening to this! Great interview.
This is a tough topic. For example, how do you attribute the disappearance of symptoms of for instance, autism, to one source if you remove multiple potential sources and the symptoms go away. Fine, which one was the source? Was it one item or a combination? Was it a temporary problem that would have gone away on its own? Are there more cases or are we just better at diagnosing the problems?
I am not saying that it is wrong if you feel these things are a problem and decide to avoid them for yourself and your family. More power to you. I recognize that there are many problems built into our food supply that need fixing. The problem is that the kind of research to test things things is mostly off limits for any real ethical study. If you eliminate these things, will it create a bigger problem elsewhere? Are you prepared to make the decision between one child suffering autism or thousands of children dying of starvation? Remember, most of what is produced is not just consumed here in this country. Just raising the cost of production will price some people out of the market to purchase food.
If you remove all the potential risks, will the outcome be preferable? We are living in a world that hasn't seen famine in a long time. In my lifetime, there has been a reduction in food born illnesses. Salmonella, listeria, botulism, and the list goes on. If we do away with modern agriculture practices, will those problems return?
We have been genetically modifying plants and animals since the advent of agriculture. They are not even recognizable compared to the original versions. We have also long surpassed the dire predictions of Malthus. Instead of starving from limited resources, we have a greater abundance of high quality food than humanity has ever seen.
It is easy to sit here in such a rich country and be against things like Golden Rice. Of course we won't have to see all the people who don't have access to it and take care of the 500,000 people annually whose blindness that it could prevent. As Marie Antoinette said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"
That's not even considering the choice of things like risks of glycophosphates compared to the runoff of herbicides into the watershed and to the oceans.