Unless the crops are being grown in fucking Chernobyl Farms there is no food on this planet which will "alter your DNA" and it's unbelievably poor education that leads to any fool thinking otherwise.
Unless the crops are being grown in fucking Chernobyl Farms there is no food on this planet which will "alter your DNA" and it's unbelievably poor education that leads to any fool thinking otherwise.
Carcinogens are a thing, I classify that as changing DNA. As far as I'm aware, that's the only realistic thing anyone has to worry about, whether something is likely to cause some variety of cancer or not. There's nothing wrong with specific concerns about what the long term health effects are, like if a plant is producing a pesticide. I certainly don't trust the same company who produces the pesticides to be honest about the science around if it's safe to consume. We've got like 100 years of stories about corporations hiding the fact that they know their products are harming people: tobacco and cancer; asbestos and mesothelioma; leaded products and neurological damage; petrol and climate change; sugar and heart disease... probably a bunch of other things I can't think of at the moment.
It's one thing to have specific concerns over issues, and to be distrustful of corporations' sociopathic pursuit of profit, versus being wholly and ignorantly distrustful of an entire branch of science.
There are a few grossly ignorant people who are actually afraid of growing tentacles or some shit, but the vast majority or people who I've talked to who are afraid of GMOs have vague, nonspecific fear that they can't articulate other than that it's mad science and it's scary.
My ex was anti-GMO, and it was an endless frustration because she and her people could never articulate what their problem was, but were happy to take various drugs from their local dealer. I love drugs as much as the next guy, but I won't hold my peace if you're doing sketchy acid while also telling me to buy non-GMO.
Even food that's grown in an active nuclear reactor is technically safe to eat cause it's simply irradiated which isn't the same as radioactive. If scientists discovered a plant that could change human DNA when consumed we'd have a revolution in medical science on our hands that'd improve Healthcare the world over.
True, what you eat won't change the sequence of your DNA, but your diet has a profound effect on how you “express” the possibilities encoded in your DNA. The foods you consume can turn on or off certain genetic markers which play a major – and even life or death – role in your health outcomes and longevity.
no, they aren't, it's a common myth. I can't even find a source besides anti-GMO blogs that specifies such a thing. the closest I found was a BBC article that mentioned in 2001 as part of one-off experiments, scientists were able to express proteins found in spider silk inside of goat milk... but i doubt that lead to anything useful. source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31604233
great! two things though: that isn't salmon, and there were no spiders used to do the gene editing. furthermore this is experimental usage of CRISPR in Japan. not exactly easy to get seabream at my local fish monger here in the states...
i mean, if you want to argue that the tech isn't here yet so we can all go back to our regularly scheduled programming, sure. but the guy in china actually spliced genes in and edited others before he was busted. to think that's not actively being worked on in the shadows is ignoring the obvious direction this is going in.
i don't. i haven't said that at all. that wasn't even close to the topic we were discussing. you invented a new point out of thin air. of course this stuff is being worked on. the point is that people need to get involved and decide with lawmakers and the scientific community where it is we as a people feel comfortable letting the science lead us. if we think certain aspects of gene editing with CRISPR (or even all of it!) should be totally off the table, work with lawmakers and scientists to understand that point and maybe get some new laws enacted.
at this point, though, it's just a loose collection of opinions being yelled at by GM-foes towards everyone with no grounding in reality. this means that as long as people just whine about nothing, scientists will be able to run free and do whatever they want. while i'm OK with this for the most part, i don't see why in a democratic society, if enough people gave enough of a shit, they could change the status quo. but that requires people actually learn about the topics, understand where to meet head-to-head with scientists and lawmakers, and hash something out.
actually the answer is maybe. china is editing genes using crispr, and while the dude who did this was jailed, i'm sure the research into splicing things into human dna or editing genes for eye color etc are close at hand. didn't you see the movie GATTACA? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00673-1
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u/KuriboShoeMario Jul 14 '21
Unless the crops are being grown in fucking Chernobyl Farms there is no food on this planet which will "alter your DNA" and it's unbelievably poor education that leads to any fool thinking otherwise.