The Lies And The Truth

The government must be bold enough to up-end the activists who are coming in the way of the nation’s agricultural progress.

- Shanthu Shantharam

FEAR, SCEPTICISM, REJECTION, and anxiety in humans are normal reactions to anything new that they encounter. Such initial reaction to genetically modified (GM) crops was a norm about 30 years ago. It began in the United States with a group of women belonging to a club called Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD) in the early 1980s as soon as the word was out that scientists had gained the ability to manipulate DNA, the basic molecule of life. Those were the early days of the gene revolution when recombinant DNA (rDNA) techniques were used to cut DNA into pieces and select the piece needed to insert it into another organism.

Organisms that had a new piece of DNA inserted into their nucleus (chromosomes) came to be called transgenic organisms or genetically engineered organisms (GEOs). The UN calls them Living Modified Organisms (LMO), a compromised political definition. But people who started protesting the technology called them GMOs, a misnomer because all organisms are genetically modified either in nature or by human intervention.

So those who started opposing it to make their campaign effective started calling them GMOs to appeal to the public.

Today, a scientifically accurate term GEOs is nothing but GMOs, which is used in common parlance. Scientists lost this fight a long time ago in the war of words.