Over the summer, after a contentious legislative battle, the United States House of Representatives passed the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act with bipartisan support, which sought to limit states’ ability to require the labeling of Genetically Modified Organisms. The bill was a response to the efforts of many state legislatures to require companies to label GMOs on all food, which supporters say increases transparency in the food supply. Opponents respond that GMOs have been shown to have no negative health effects, and research done by William Lesser, has shown that burdensome labeling laws could increase the food expenditure of the average American family by as much as $500 per year. But while GMOs may remain a contentious issue politically, there is a broad scientific consensus over their benefits.

 Firstly, I should point out that “GMO” is a bit of a misleading term. Basic farming practices such as selective breeding have been used for millennia to preserve certain genetic traits and even create unnatural organisms such as corn or chickens, but these products are never really thought of as unsafe or unnatural. The scientifically proper term for the modern “GMO” is “Transgenic Organism,” meaning that an entire gene from a different organism has been artificially added to the genome of the modified organism. One of the first attempts at a GMO crop was to take a gene that expresses an anti-freezing protein from a winter flounder and add it to the genome of a tomato, thus minimizing losses to freezer burn during shipping. While it may seem strange to be adding fish genes to a tomato, the process is considered perfectly safe, and all GMOs are thoroughly vetted by the Food and Drug Administration before ending up in the grocery store.

The resistance to GMOs is often rooted in falsehood. No study has ever shown any causative link between any health problem and the consumption of GMOs. Despite this, many celebrities, food enthusiasts and environmental activists believe that there are many risks associated with GMOs. Every malady, from autism to Alzheimer’s, has been ascribed to the proliferation of GMOs, often in direct contradiction to scientific evidence. Anti-GMO activists will also claim that the process is not “fully understood” and that no concrete studies have been done to verify the safety of GMOs. Both of these claims are false. Transgenic organisms have been a staple of biology for decades, and literally thousands of studies have repeatedly rejected the claim that GMOs are unsafe. 

Despite the facts, anti-GMO activists have waged very vocal campaigns, and these sadly seem to be working. According to polling done by the Pew Research Center, only 38 percent of Americans believe that GMOs are generally safe, compared with 88 percent of members of the American Academy of Sciences. Activists have also launched coordinated campaigns against GMO labs, often publishing the addresses of researchers, sending death threats and even directly sabotaging labs.

 There are numerous arguments for promoting and expanding the use of GMOs. The biggest argument is that using GMOs are simply more productive. GMO food, combined with other innovative agricultural practices, has allowed humanity to produce more than enough food to feed everyone on earth--although sadly because of waste and inefficiencies, world hunger is still a reality. Extensive research done by University of California-Davis’ Genetic Literacy Project has shown that various GMOs improve yields, minimize crop loss to weeds and pests and even ship better, meaning that more people can eat more food for less money. GMOs are also more environmentally friendly. For example, organically grown potatoes naturally produce formaldehyde, a moderately dangerous chemical and known neurotoxin. But recently the Biotech company Simplot has created a new potato that not only produces less acrylamide but also requires less energy and pesticide to produce. Another advantage of GMOs is their increased efficiency. GMOs require significantly less energy and water to produce than their organic counterparts by increasing the per-acre yield and reducing losses to drought or disease. 

Studies done by PG Economics, an agriculture think-tank in the United Kingdom, have shown that yields can increase by as much as fifty percent, depending on the crop. One would think that the drought-ravaged and usually environmentally conscious West Coast would be leading the charge on expanding the use of GMOs, but many of the strongest opponents of GMOs in Congress and the media hail from Oregon, Washington, and especially California. Many GMO crops are also designed to require fewer pesticides than traditional or organic crops, which limits the ecological impact of agriculture. 

In short, GMOs are simply cheaper, more effective, and in general superior to traditional or organic crops. One would therefore hope that support for these miracle plants would be higher, but in truth GMOs have faced an uphill battle.

 Since GMOs first reached the market in 1994, numerous great advances in the field have been thwarted by unscrupulous activists. Recently, the British company Oxitec completed testing of a genetically modified mosquito in residential areas in Brazil. These mosquitoes produce offspring with a fatal genetic birth defect, so they can be used to remove large numbers of disease-carrying mosquitoes without the use of harmful pesticides. Furthermore, these modified mosquitoes are all male, so they pose absolutely no risk of biting humans or pets. 

While tests overseas have been overwhelmingly successful, these mosquitoes are facing an uphill legal battle in the United States. Despite these successful tests, anti-GMO radicals have lobbied the Florida government to prevent the use of these mosquitoes. The government who recently agreed to a moratorium on these new mosquitoes. This entirely unnecessary delay has exposed millions of U.S. citizens to dangerous illnesses such as dengue fever and West Nile virus. But there are even more tragic stories of stillborn GMO products. 

Golden rice is a form of genetically modified rice that has beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A) added to it. Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness, and according to the World Health Organization, in much of the developing world a vitamin A deficiency can be fatal, especially for children. 

The WHO estimates that as many as a quarter million preschool age children with this deficiency die every year. Research done in China by Dr. Guangwen Tang at Tufts University showed the amazing health benefits of golden rice. 

However, after her results were published in 2012, a massive smear campaign was launched against the project, featuring online petitions, celebrity appearances and government lobbyists. Pressure from activists led the Chinese government to actually arrest researchers who collaborated on the project, and the bad press led Tufts to bar Dr. Tang from conducting research on human subjects for two years. Attacks like these hamper the research and development of GMOs, leading to unnecessary human suffering.

In a world of over seven billion people, efficient and environmentally sustainable agriculture is necessary to keep humanity fed. GMOs are a reliable and proven method of improving yields and minimizing environmental damage. Hopefully, we will learn to appreciate the wonderful advances this technology can give us, and GMOs will become a common weapon in combating hunger and climate change.