Dear editor,
Food has become a passionate subject.
The reality of food production is virtually all food is genetically modified by mankind. We call it agriculture.
After reading a few of the critics of GMOs in this paper, I felt it was time to write.
I have been involved with GMO researcher for over a decade. Unfortunately the Internet is full of pseudo-science designed to generate fear, not to educate. Most people are not trained in the science and are unable to differentiate the pseudo-science from the real science.
The real science says: The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than conventional plant-breeding technologies.
Now, after 25 years of field trials without evidence of harm, fears continue to trigger the Precautionary Principle. But Europeans need to abandon this knowingly one-sided stance and strike a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the technology on the basis of scientifically sound risk assessment analysis.
Moreover, the AAAS Board said, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that has examined the evidence has come to the same conclusion: Consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques. — American Association for the Advancement of Science 2012.
After 17 years of GM crops and over three trillion meals, there is not a single documented case of harm from consuming GM food.
If people are truly interested in the real science of GM crops and food my website has articles for the general public with no jargon, links to world experts and links to the critics. This allows people to read what all sides say and decide for themselves who is telling the truth.
Robert Wager,
Vancouver Island University,
Nanaimo
