Better Living Through Chemistry: The Settled Science

If I still dressed up for trick or treat on Halloween, I think I’d don a costume for the most frightening thing imaginable to the Greenie left: I’d dress up as a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO). Go with Frankenfood when Frankenstein won’t do.

Yesterday the National Academy of Sciences released a 407-page report on genetically engineered crops that debunks most of the frothier claims of the anti-GMO crusaders. From the summary:

While recognizing the inherent difficulty of detecting subtle or long-term effects in health or the environment, the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between currently commercialized genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops.

Even worse from the greenie point of view is the finding that GMOs have produced positive economic outcomes for their users. Better living through chemistry, and higher profits too! Talk about feeling the bern burn!

I wonder whether Greenpeace and other panic mongers will accept this “settled science”?

Meanwhile, late last week the World Health Organization released a major report on pesticide residues that many environmentalists will chose to ignore. In particular the WHO study looked at diazinon, glyphosate, and malathion*—three pesticides that environmentalists have targeted for a long time. The conclusions:

Overall, these studies provided no convincing evidence of genotoxic effects, and the Meeting concluded that diazinon was unlikely to be genotoxic. The Meeting concluded that diazinon is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. . .

In view of the absence of carcinogenic potential in rodents at human-relevant doses and the absence of genotoxicity by the oral route in mammals, and considering the epidemiological evidence from occupational exposures, the Meeting concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet. . .

Based on consideration of the results of animal bioassays, genotoxicity assays and epidemiological data, the Meeting concluded that malathion and its metabolites are unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure via the diet.

Looks like environmentalists came out 0 for 3 here.

* Regarding malathion, three years ago I wrote here about B.T. Collins and his great malathion escapade.

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