In an earlier blog I vowed to research articles in favor of GMO food crops and post a few, just to be fair. Well, after reading only two such articles – I know that I can’t honor that promise. I’m much too opinionated and emotionally wrapped up in this topic. An article written by a so-called environmental writer claimed that GMOs were highly regulated by the FDA. Well folks, I call horsepuckey on that one! And it makes me sad because people read that stuff and are being duped into thinking that what should be regulated actually is regulated. The writer? He thinks that we anti-GMO folk are all left-leaning wackos.
Here is the statement that pushed my latent left-leaning wacko buttons: But people should know that GMOs are tightly regulated (some scientists say in an overly burdensome manner). Excerpt is from the website Slate, article by Keith Kloor. (See article)
Are you kidding me? What planet has this guy been living on? I even went to the NY Times Op-ed he sited (and notice it is an Op-ed for cryin’ out loud) to see just how “regulated” this source claimed GMOs were. The truth is, GMOs in food are absolutely NOT regulated and Biotech has rigged it so that oversight of the process is done voluntarily and in-house. The FDA pays no mind as long as the food is perceived to be GRAS – generally recognized as safe. And as long as Biotech claims the food is GRAS, the FDA has no reason to suspect otherwise. After all, it was a Monsanto lobbyist who was the FDA food safety czar at the time GMOs were being examined for initial approval back in the 90s. Convenient, huh? If one wanted to fact-check this information one could google FDA Food czar Michael Taylor or FDA + GMOs or generally recognized as safe. A slew of links will materialize.
Truth be known, this is actually a case in which I’d love to be proved wrong.
SLEUTH 4 HEALTH 