GMO A Go Go

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GMO A Go Go is a short, 9-minute black propaganda film, which is sponsored by NaturalNews and which is directed against GMO corporations. It makes a variety of inaccurate and outright false claims about genetically modified food.

This article is dedicated to listing and debunking the claims made, sometimes implicitly, in this video.

Claims

Claims of the movie

Analysis

0:37

GM food contains lots of fish and insect genes.

First off, the implicit suggestion that this is somehow undesirable is a textbook example of the composition and division fallacy. Incorporating a few genes from a fish or an insect into a vegetable does not make the vegetable more "fishy" or "insect-y"; this is not how biochemistry works. Secondly, most genes incroporated [sic] into GM crops actually come from bacteria.

0:50

GM food routinely undergoes food irradiation, which destroys all nutrition. A banner saying "Now available in Europe" flashes across the screen.

The WHO's report on high-dose irradiation contradicts this claim, stating that "food irradiated to any dose appropriate to achieve the intended technological objective is both safe to consume and nutritionally adequate". The mention of food irradiation, a technology completely unrelated to genetic engineering, is an obvious attempt to exploit radiophobia.

1:20

All data demonstrating harm arising from the use of pesticides, as well as other data which is inconvenient to the biotech industry, is dismissed as flawed by dishonest scientists.

Unless Monsanto suddenly discovered a way to control the entire field of biotechnology, this clearly wouldn't be possible. This is an outright conspiracy theory devoid of any evidence. The recent EU ban on neonicotinoids, as well as the worldwide withdrawal of DDT and 2,4,5-T from agricultural use, shows that data inconvenient to the biotech industry is not ignored. The producers are ignoring the anti-GMO activists' habit of sweeping all contradictory data under the rug by claiming it is was fabricated by shills, but are quite happy to promote any study that supports their worldview, no matter if it has been criticized or not. Accusing others of something you are guilty of yourself is known as psychological projection.

1:48

Bacillus thuringiensis proteins (a.k.a. Bt toxins) incorporated into some GM crops are responsible for bee deaths and colony collapse disorder.

Bt toxins are toxic to some insects from the orders Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and Coleoptera (beetles). Bees are in the order Hymenoptera, along with wasps and ants, and lack the gut receptors which cause Bt toxicity in these insects. A meta-analysis of 25 studies found that Bt-containing crops have no effect on bees.

2:12

Bt toxins are untested and possibly harmful to humans. A grasshopper (from the order Orthoptera) is depicted to illustrate the insect toxicity of Bt.

This is one of the more amusing claims in this video due to the widespread use of Bt by organic farmers. Contrary to what the video claims, many animal and human feeding trials that involved Bt-containing crops were conducted and have found no evidence of toxicity. The use of an insect from the wrong order for the illustration (see previous claim) only adds insult to injury.

2:28

Bt crops can withstand more weedkiller, because they produce their own pesticide.

This is a conflation of the Bt toxin trait and the glyphosate resistance (a.k.a. "Roundup Ready") trait, which are completely independent. There exist GM strains with only one trait or the other and strains with both. The authors apparently lack elementary knowledge about the technology they are criticizing.

3:25

The effects of transgenic food on humans are unknown.

The first genetically modified crop was approved for sale in the United States in 1994. Nearly two decades later and well over three trillion transgenic meals consumed worldwide, not even a single case of transgenic food being linked to illness has ever been recorded. A meta-review of twenty-four multigenerational and long-term animal feeding trials shows that GM food is safe, and many animal studies have proven transgenic food to be safe. The scientific consensus says that there are no generic health risks common for all GM food. Any risk can only come from a specific engineered trait. This view is shared by the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the European Food Safety Agency, the International Council for Science, the U.S. National Academies of Science, and almost all national scientific bodies. Transgenic food has been proven to cause genital baldness in goats, but Monsanto claims that these are "intended" side effects.Do You Believe That?

3:43

Independent research on rats eating genetically modified potatoes resulted in slower growth, reproductive issues, organ development problems and other issues.

This claim is apparently based on Arpad Pusztai's much-criticized 1999 paper. The Royal Society reviewed his work and concluded that it was "flawed in many aspects of design, execution, and analysis", that they "found no convincing evidence of adverse effects from GM potatoes", and finally that "no conclusion can be drawn from [the study]". Furthermore, Pusztai overlooked the fact that potatoes tend to be a poor diet for rats. On a side note, at 4:10 the video depicts dollar bills containing the Illuminati symbol. The implication that the Illuminati own Monsanto is quite hilarious, and betrays this video's roots.

4:13

Genetically modified crops will take over on organic farms.

The USDA has a mandatory limit on how much non-organic plant material can be included in organic crops. While contamination to some degree is unavoidable, it is typically very low, and can be reduced with sufficient space kept between organic and transgenic fields. In corn for example, proper isolation techniques can easily result in contamination levels of under 0.5%. Soybeans are another popular transgenic crop, but their method of reproduction means that contamination is extremely low with only minor precautions. The European Commission considers 1% to be an acceptable level of contamination.

5:05

Biotech companies sue farmers out of business for accidental cross pollination between GM and non-GM crops. This is a nefarious plot to gain total control over the food supply.

The first part is is an extremely common claim, yet in reality it has never happened. Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto for growing their GM canola without permission, but this was hardly a case of accidental cross pollination -- Schmeiser deliberately selected for this trait among his own mildly-cross-pollinated crops. The OSGATA sued Monsanto with a similar claim, but their case was thrown out when they were unable to present any evidence that it had ever happened. The second part is just more conspiracy-mongering.

6:27

GM companies actively lobby against laws requiring the labelling of genetically modified food.

This claim is true, but the reasoning behind this lobbying is misrepresented. Anti-GMO activists typically lobby for labels which would only specify whether the food contains any GM ingredients. As pointed out above, the scientific consensus is that no useful general statement can be made about all GM crops, therefore such labels would convey zero useful information to the consumer. Their only purpose would be to serve as leverage for anti-GMO pressure groups. In a similar manner, we do not put labels on food informing whether it was handled by black people, because the only purpose of such labels would be to provide leverage for racism.

7:16

Hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide due to the introduction of Bt cotton in India.

The International Food Policy Research Institute analyzed that claim using official Indian government data, and discovered that the suicides began years before the introduction of Bt cotton, and did not increase after said cotton became available. So whatever the cause is, it's not biotech. Bt cotton has massively decreased insecticide use in India, which has the added side effect of avoiding several million cases of pesticide poisoning every year. Moreover, comparative studies indicate that poor farmers using Bt cotton fare better economically and nutritionally than those using conventional cotton.

8:10

Transgenic pig feed caused sterilization and growth problems.

This claim is based on anecdotal evidence from one pig farmer from Denmark, Ib Pedersen, who claimed various improvements in his pig herd after he switched to non-GM feed. This claim is insane, since if it was true, the pork industry would have completely collapsed by now.

Conclusion

This video is pure propaganda. There's no better word for it. The multiple Illuminati conspiracy theory references throughout the video, the sheer number of lies (ab)used by the video's creators, and sponsorship by NaturalNews makes this one of the worst sources for information on genetically modified food out there.

External links

• GMO A-Go-Go! - the movie itself on YouTube
• GMO A-Go-Go! at IMDb