GMO conspiracy theories

GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food (also referred to as genetically modified organisms or "GMOs"). These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics charge that GMO conspiracy theories are largely promulgated by those opposing the production and sale of GMOs, and instances of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have lately occurred in the context of public health issues that are mostly unrelated to GMOs, including the current Zika virus outbreak and concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Context

The existence of conspiracy theories relating to the fear over GMOs has been attested to by scientists, journalists, and skeptics who oppose much anti-GMO activism. Such commentators include Michael Shermer (writer of a monthly Skeptic column series for Scientific American),[1] Mark Lynas (an environmental activist and writer who opposed GMOs for years and recently switched positions),[2] and Jon Entine (the founder and head of an advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the case in favor of genetic engineering in agriculture and biotechnology).[3] Academics writing about bioethics and science communication have also taken note. A 2013 paper published in the journal PLOS ONE found statistical evidence that linked conspiracy theorist ideation as being a significant factor in the rejection of scientific propositions about genetically engineered food.[4] One GMO conspiracy theory was identified by biochemist Paul Christou and horticulturalist Harry Klee as a claim that development and promotion of GMOs was done by pesticide companies to cause crops to become more vulnerable to pests and therefore require more pesticides,[5] while philosopher Juha Räikkä identified a conspiracy theory that claims the lack of any reliable scientific evidence that show harmful effects of GMOs is due not to a lack of evidence but rather to a conspiracy to hide that evidence.[6]

Conspiracy theories involving GMOs and their promoters have been invoked in a variety of contexts. For example, in commenting on the Séralini affair, an incident that involved the retraction of a much-criticized paper which claimed harmful effects of GMOs in lab rats, American biologist PZ Myers said that anti-GMO activists were claiming the retraction was a part of "a conspiracy to Hide the Truth™".[7] A work seeking to explore risk perception over GMOs in Turkey identified a belief among the conservative political and religious figures who were opposed to GMOs that GMOs were "a conspiracy by Jewish Multinational Companies and Israel for world domination."[8] Additionally, a Latvian study showed that a segment of the population believed that GMOs were part of a greater conspiracy theory to poison the population of the country.[9]

Social critic Margit Stange contextualized certain arguments adopted by GMO conspiracy theorists as being part of the larger controversy surrounding the subject:

The corporate push for genetically modified food arouses great suspicion. Critics charge that GM food ("Frankenfood") is profitable to industry not only because it can be patented but because crop uniformity will eventually drive up pesticide demand. The charge that big food interests take advantage of poverty to open new markets for GM food is restated by conspiracy theorists, who describe a deliberate macroeconomic creation of food shortages in impoverished nations in order to open the door to GM food. The food industry's opposition to GM food labeling and precautionary measures fuels such suspicions.[10]

This view was echoed by bioethicist Michael Reiss and moral philosopher Roger Straughan who explain in their book Improving Nature?: The Science and Ethics of Genetic Engineering that fears about the consolidation of power by a few agrochemical companies over farmers is a main argument against new genetic engineering technology in agriculture: "At its extreme, this fear belongs to the conspiracy-theory genre and, to caricature somewhat, envisages powerless farmers forced to pay ever increasing amounts to anonymous international companies who profit from the cost of the crop seed and from the cost of the herbicides used to spray them."[11]

Political science professors Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent in their book American Conspiracy Theories summarized the people that have adopted GMO conspiracy theories thusly:

Another prototypical conspiratorial movement involves those opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMO), in essence a protest against the genetic engineering of food. Not everyone who opposes GMOs is a conspiracy theorist: reasonable people can disagree about research and fail to see small groups of people covertly working against the common good. But most visible and vocal members of this movement, however, are conspiracy theorists. They believe that genetically modified foods are a corporate plot, led by the giant multinational Monsanto, to profit off unhealthy food.[12]

Monsanto

A major aspect of many conspiracy theories is the fear that large agribusinesses, especially Monsanto are working to undermine the health and safety of the general public by introducing and promoting GMOs in the food supply. One claim is that Monsanto is deliberately hiding scientific evidence that GMOs are harmful.[6] Some anti-GMO activists claimed that Monsanto infiltrated both the American Food and Drug Administration and the American Association for the Advancement of Science which is why the two organizations have supported the scientific evidence for the safety of the genetically engineered food available for human consumption.[13] Jeffrey M. Smith is identified in the book American Conspiracy Theories as arguing that Monsanto has "captured" the FDA and many other countries.[12] In the compendium Agricultural and Food Controversies, the authors who are social scientists and food scientists trace the conspiracy theory relating in particular to Monsanto back to events in the early 1990s:

There are some well-qualified dissenting scientists and a motivated group of food activists behind them, pushing back against GM food. They believe a GM crop is not substantially equivalent to traditional crops. Moreover, they believe that the FDA follows the substantial equivalence rule not because of the science, but because the FDA was corrupted by corporate influence. This is not a belief that the authors' share, but there are smart people of high character who do believe this conspiracy theory, and their side of the story deserves to be heard.

In The World According to Monsanto, author Marie-Monique Robin describes how the substantial equivalence began with a 1992 policy statement by the FDA under the leadership of a former Monsanto lawyer, who, after working in the FDA, returned to Monsanto as vice president. Her story suggests that GM regulations were the product of a revolving-door system where regulators are former and/or future employees of the company being regulated (note that some argue Monsanto wanted excess regulations to keep out competitors, but that is not Robin's story). It is not hard to imagine a company rewarding lenient regulators with a nice job, and food activists have websites listing powerful government officials and their relation to Monsanto and other corporations. If this sounds like a conspiracy theory (a term not meant as a euphemism), it is.[14]

Belief that Monsanto is particularly problematic has inspired such actions as the March Against Monsanto and the singling out of Monsanto over other agribusinesses such as DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, BASF and Bayer, and has been identified as a salient feature of anti-GMO activism.[15]

An example of Monsanto-based conspiracy theorizing were the claims by some anti-GMO activists that Monsanto banned GMOs from their cafeterias while promoting them for sale and consumption by the public.[16] Anti-GMO/chemtrail blogger Barbara H. Peterson, a retired correctional officer and rancher, complained that Monsanto "has painted those of us attempting to shed light on the dangers of genetically modified/engineered organisms (GMOs) as 'conspiracy theorists'...." She went on to attack Monsanto's suggestion that sabotage could be a possible explanation for the discovery of a few plants of experimental genetically modified wheat found inexplicably growing on a farm in Oregon as being a conspiracy theory itself.[17]

Zika virus

In January 2016, concerns over a Zika virus outbreak were accompanied by claims first published on Reddit that the virus was being spread by a genetically modified mosquito.[18] The fears were based in part because of a new mosquito abatement initiative led by Oxitec—male mosquitoes are genetically modified to be sterile, and released to mate with females, resulting in no offspring, thereby reducing the Aedes aegypti mosquito population that spreads tropical diseases such as Zika.[18] The claims were identified as "unproven" by the debunking website snopes.com.[19]

Chipotle food safety

In the context of ongoing concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill certain commentators have implied that the outbreaks of food-borne illnesses were intentional sabotage by the biotech industry in retaliation over Chipotle's removal of GMOs from their menu.[20][21] The claims were identified as "unproven" by the debunking website snopes.com.[22]

Ethical criticism

In Scholars & Rogues, an online progressive political journal, David Lambert, a development program officer for the United Nations, compared the conspiracy theories supported by some in the anti-GMO movement to those supported in the anti-vaccination movement,

Like preventable childhood diseases, malnutrition is another great moral failing of our time. GMOs such as golden rice—rice modified to contain high levels of beta carotene in order to compensate for the vitamin A deficiency which kills hundreds of thousands of children around the world and blinds many more every year—and drought resistant crops, which will become increasingly vital in the global south due to climate change, have vast potential to help those who don't shop at Whole Foods. But real progress has been stymied by the paranoid and misinformed, who clamor that GMOs, which are biologically no different than "natural" foods, are somehow poisonous. Behind it all is of course an evil corporation: Monsanto.[23]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Shermer, Michael. "Conspiracy Central." Scientific American 311.6 (2014): 94-94.
  2. ↑ Mark Lynas (29 April 2013). "Time to call out the anti-GMO conspiracy theory". marklynas.org. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Jon Entine (11 May 2015). "Why GMOs? Challenging anti-technology conspiracy theories". geneticliteracyproject.org. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  4. ↑ Lewandowsky, Stephan; Gignac, Gilles E.; Oberauer, Klaus. "The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science". PLoS ONE. 8 (10). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075637. PMC 3788812Freely accessible. PMID 24098391.
  5. ↑ Paul Christou; Harry Klee (2004). "Chapter 50: Political and Social Risk Amplification of GMOs". Handbook of plant biotechnology. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-85199-8.
  6. 1 2 Räikkä, Juha (2009). "The Ethics of Conspiracy Theorizing". The Journal of Value Inquiry. Springer Netherlands. 43: 457–468. doi:10.1007/s10790-009-9189-1.
  7. ↑ "Belated retraction of Seralini's bad anti-GMO paper". Pharyngula. Retrieved 2016-01-31.
  8. ↑ Veltri, Giuseppe A.; Suerdem, Ahmet K. (2013-02-01). "Worldviews and discursive construction of GMO-related risk perceptions in Turkey". Public Understanding of Science. 22 (2): 137–154. doi:10.1177/0963662511423334. ISSN 0963-6625. PMID 23833021.
  9. ↑ "SHS Web of Conferences". www.shs-conferences.org. Retrieved 2016-01-31.
  10. ↑ Margit Stange (2003). Peter Knight, ed. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 310. ISBN 978-1-57607-812-9.
  11. ↑ Reiss, Michael J.; Straughan, Roger (2001-05-21). Improving Nature?: The Science and Ethics of Genetic Engineering. Cambridge University Press. p. 143. ISBN 9780521008471.
  12. 1 2 Uscinski, Joseph E.; Parent, Joseph M. (2014-08-05). American Conspiracy Theories. Oxford University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9780199351824.
  13. ↑ "The Misleading War on GMOs: The Food Is Safe. The Rhetoric Is Dangerous.". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
  14. ↑ F. Bailey Norwood; Michelle S. Calvo-Lorenzo; Sarah Lancaster; Pascal A. Oltenacu (17 November 2014). Agricultural and Food Controversies. Oxford University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-0-19-936842-6.
  15. ↑ Stephen D. Simpson, CFA. "Why Is Monsanto Evil, But DuPont Isn't?". Investopedia. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  16. ↑ Willy Blackmore. "Why We Shouldn't Waste Time on GMO Conspiracies". TakePart. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  17. ↑ "Monsanto's GMO Wheat Conspiracy Theory". Farm Wars. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  18. 1 2 Lydia Ramsey. "A wacky conspiracy is circulating about Zika and GMOs — and it needs to stop". Business Insider. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  19. ↑ LaCapria, Kim. "MOSTLY FALSE: Zika Virus Caused by GMO Mosquitos". snopes. Retrieved 2016-01-31.
  20. ↑ "Publisher's Platform: Chipotle Must Denounce Mike Adam's Conspiracy Theory". Food Safety News. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  21. ↑ "Chipotle fans have a wacky conspiracy theory about the chain's E. coli outbreaks". Business Insider. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  22. ↑ LaCapria, Kim. "Chipotle Sabotaged by GMO Activists?". snopes. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  23. ↑ "Conspiracies against progress: why the rise of the modern conspiracy theory should concern us all". Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
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