The Irrational Criers of "Frankenfood"

I am a little tired of seeing the people on facebook constantly lambasting Monsanto.  It is indicative that we haven't moved past our initial fear of the early 1800s when Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein."  Those who are afraid of genetically modified foods, pesticides and irradiation, quite frankly, do not understand the science behind it. 

Monsanto has invented things that have not been great.  But if you've been a chemical/pharmaceutical/agricultural company since 1901, it's inevitable that at some point, you're going to make something that shouldn't have been made.  Some of them were great ideas, but had something unknown.  Like DDT.  Some of them were great ideas, but were used in not great ways. Like Agent Orange, which was a pesticide, and not approved or intended for use on people.

But, Monsanto has given us lots. And after seeing the 20th list of "Five Reasons Monsanto is from Below,"  I made my own version.



5 Ways Monsanto has saved (or significantly improved) millions of lives:

1)      Enantiomers:  Prior to Monsanto’s work in the 1960s, it was impossible to make a drug enantiomerically pure. This technology significantly lowers the toxicity of thousands of drugs.  Other drugs, such as L-dopa (the #1 treatment for Parkinson’s disease), wouldn’t be possible without this technology.
2)      Cox-2 Inhibitors:  Monsanto was the first company to make a Cox-2 targeted inhibitor.  Though this has now been sold to Pfizer, Celebrex improves millions of lives today.
3)      AstroTurf:  So it’s useful on football fields, but it’s also used in agriculture research and engineering.
4)      rBGH:  So apparently, Bovine Growth Hormone is a bad thing.  But, I haven’t actually seen any real evidence for that, so I don’t believe that.  The milk cartons even acknowledge that when they brag about how they don’t have it.  Instead, I see that there are more cows, who make more milk, and this seems like a good thing to me.  So, making recombinant BGH is wonderful.
5)      Genetically Modified Crops: Have you ever wondered why the people who seem to think that genetically modified crops are from Satan are the same people who have World Hunger Banquets?  Little secret for you:  the answer to World Hunger is genetically modified crops.  Without Monsanto’s genetically modified crops, it would not be possible to increase the agriculture output the way we need to.  Crop yield is significantly increased, because GM crops can grow significantly closer together, and more of them survive to harvest.  GM crops have also made it possible for crops to grow in soil that does not support agriculture, such as most of the continent of Africa.  The UN Food Programme agrees that Monsanto’s crops are necessary to fight world hunger.

Just felt that Monsanto needed a little Cyber-Support

Comments

cg.gwhatch said…
Thank you for saying (or writing)what I think needed to be said.
March 31, 2013 at 5:57 PM
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