You decide: Is the latest report on modified food reassuring, or a ‘400-page doorstop’
May 20, 2016, 6:41 AM | Updated: 9:17 am
This week, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report intended to reassure people who are freaked out about genetically engineered food.
“Our reports says, ‘We could not find any harmful effects,'” Dr. Fred Gould explained.
Gould is a biologist who worked on the report. He says it’s hard to look for “subtle effects.”
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“If something is going to cause you to be sick, that’s easy to look for,” Gould says. “But if something is going to take one year off your lifespan, that’s hard to know.”
And he says, yes, you have a right to know if your food has been manipulated.
“What we say in the report is there’s no reason for a health reason to label these things, but people do have a right to know.”
But he says people should also know that plenty of manipulation goes on that isn’t considered genetic engineering, and yet it is just as radical.
“I don’t know how many of your [listeners] have eaten a plumcot…”
That would be a cross between a plum and an apricot; quite tasty.
“Somehow, because it’s not genetic engineering, we say, ‘Oh, it’s probably OK,'” Gould says.
However, that kind of cross-breeding also creates whole new molecules.
Dr. Gould strikes me as genuinely eager to help people understand all this, and he’d like you to read the report.
“And if you see something wrong with the report, let us know,” he says. “We don’t want this to be a 400-page doorstop.”
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