A Critique of Anti-Biotec Hype
The anti-biotec crowd is relentless in its oppostion to biotec and its disinformation on the subject. They never let the facts get in the way. Dr. Henry I. Miller examines an example from the NY Times of author Andrew Pollack rewriting biotec facts.
Reflecting the views of biotech’s antagonists, Pollack approaches the subject as though the genetic engineering of plants were fundamentally new. But virtually all of the 200 major crops in North America have been genetically improved, or modified, in some way. Plant breeders, not nature, gave us seedless grapes and watermelons, the tangelo (a tangerine-grapefruit hybrid), the canola variety of
rapeseed, and fungus-resistant strawberries. In North American and European diets, only fish and wild game, berries, and mushrooms may be said not to have been genetically engineered in some fashion. North Americans have consumed more than a trillion servings of foods that contain gene-spliced ingredients, with not a single untoward reaction.
Miller goes on to point out numerous misconceptions and errors concerning biotec that Pollack asserts. Then he wraps up:
Finally, Mr. Pollack’s disparaging assertion that “industry. . . has been peddling the same two advantages herbicide tolerance and insect resistance for 10 years,” is puzzling. These traits have been of monumental importance — not only to farmers’ bottom line, but to occupational health and the natural environment. Enhanced pest resistance in plants has obviated the need for hundreds of millions of pounds of chemical pesticides (and thereby reduced environmental and occupational exposures), and herbicide tolerance has made possible a shift to more benign herbicides and to environment-friendly no-till farming.
The whole article is at Tech Central Station here.