The Cons to GMOs

The arguments driving this technology’s bad press.

Many people feel that they should be fundamentally against GMOs but do not know the specific reasons why. The technology has become associated with some vague, potentially grave danger.

This post will provide an outline of the major reasons why some choose take an anti-GMO stance.

GMO-free products are popping up all over grocery stores and shopping areas. According to Ashley S., Consumer Affairs Specialist who spoke on behalf of both Kashi and Bear Naked brand foods, all of their foods will be Non-GMO Project Verified by the summer of 2016. Ashley cited caring about “the health of people and planet” as the driving force behind such a company decision.

Despite a lack of scientific evidence of any human health threats posed directly by GMOs, many food companies and individual consumers seem to be concerned about this. Non-GMO verification is becoming equated with a promise of a more healthy food option for a consumer to buy.

The fact that Kashi and Bear Naked are expressing concerns about the health of the planet, too, is definitely not an isolated event. A big example right now is that environmental organizations including Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Center for Food Safety, and others, are suing U.S. health regulators. The lawsuit is formed because the company AquaBounty Technologies received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for their GM salmon. This salmon can grow to market size in half the time as conventional salmon! The environmentalists allege that the FDA is ignoring serious environmental risks in approving GM salmon to be farmed for human consumption. The major concern in the lawsuit, however, is not actually about the human consumption. Instead, these groups’ major fear is about the potential for the salmon to escape from the AquaBounty facilities where they are grown. There simply is not enough research to know what the ecological implications could be if GM fish begin to interact with wild fish ecosystems.

So, opponents of GMOs frequently invoke risks to health (human and environmental) in their arguments, but there exists a laundry list of other ‘con’ arguments. The other major points of contention involve labeling, terminator seeds, GM crops leading to superweeds, and horizontal gene transfer. Overall, as has been the theme throughout this blog series, the scientific evidence necessary to support or disprove either side of each of these debates is lacking.

Labeling was briefly discussed in the first blog of this series. Many people believe in their right to know what they are buying. Meanwhile, the GM seed industry and farmers find mandated labels to be an undue burden. Those fighting for the right to know may be winning this debate, though, as companies start labeling their products that include GMOs even before they are forced to do so. Campbell Soup, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, ConAgra, and other big name companies have all said that they would start labeling their packaging, saying which products contain GMOs.

Next on the list is the issue of sterile, terminator seeds. Terminator seeds refer to gene-use restriction technologies that kill off developing plant embryos so that a GM seed can be planted and harvested for food but does not produce offspring. Thus, when a farmer purchases such seeds, they are only viable for that one growing season; the next year that farmer will have to return to buy the next round of seeds. Opponents fear that these sterile seeds make farmers dependent on a company from which they buy seeds for their livelihood, putting them in a very disadvantageous position. Because of fierce opposition, the technology never became widely used. Although, either by fear of the possibility coming back, or by myth that it is currently in use, terminator seeds are still a frequently cited argument against GMOs. In an interesting twist to the line of argument, environmentalists who are concerned about the lasting ecological impact of GM seeds in the environment are realizing that using this termination technology would have alleviated some environmental concerns. That way, there would be no fear of unfettered, unmanaged mixing of GM seeds and the wild if a farm’s field is abandoned or seeds blow from the field into surrounding lands in the wind.

The next major argument stems from herbicide-resistant GMOs causing weeds to also develop a similar resistance. Examples of such GMOs that would do this are Monsanto’s Roundup Ready line of seeds, which are resistant to harm from Roundup products, as well as corn and soybeans from Dow Chemical’s Enlist Weed Control System, which can also tolerate glyphosate (a broad-spectrum herbicide, also the active ingredient in Roundup). As weeds follow GMOs in becoming more tolerant to sprayed chemicals, they are becoming more widespread. The infestation of these new superweeds doubled in area between 2009 and 2014, and thusly may be costing farmers in the United States $1 billion in lost crops. An article on the matter by CNBC quoted a Monsanto spokesperson to say that, “(Weed) resistance to herbicides existed prior to the introduction of genetically engineered seeds.” However, if GMOs are accelerating the process of transformation into superweeds, then there is a problem, regardless of whether or not it was occurring before.

Last among this list of top concerns is horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer refers to an exchange of genes between different species. Usually, genes are just passed down by parents and stay within the one species. But this seemingly unnatural occurrence has proven to be possible, since researchers have found bacterial, fungal, and viral DNA in the genome of plants and animals. Notably, horizontal gene transfer appears to have occurred in the average sweet potato. The T-DNA of Agrobacterium found in the genome of a sweet potato effectively makes the sweet potato an example of a “natural GMO.” These natural instances, however, represent a transfer that has proven to be a successful part of an ecological landscape, and may have even developed because of evolutionary co-benefits. Many people who are anti-GMO argue that no one can know the possible negative repercussions of horizontal gene transfer of GMO DNA (designed in a laboratory crossing the DNA of species larger than bacteria or fungi into the genome of a new host) into species in the wild.

The importance of each of these concerns is a personal decision, and should be weighed against the pro arguments for GMOs. In such a contentious issue, the best that any individual can do is to hear as much of both sides as possible and then make their own informed decision.