We actually had a fairly mild day today. We wandered around Iowa city which is a very liberal modern town, did some shopping, book viewing, etc. afterwards we visited at the home of the Honorable Mary Mascher, a Democratic member of the Iowa House of Representatives (not the representative in Washington) from Johnson County (Iowa City).Representative Mascher invited her colleague Representative Sally Stutsman, a local farmer, an environmental activist, and a Ph.D. student from University of Iowa, which we learned is Iowa’s liberal arts university, completely separate from Iowa State University. We talked about a lot! From population to affluence to Common Core (the controversial elementary and high school curriculum).  Jim pointed out that Iowa is the most changed landscape in the US with 1-5% of the original wetlands/prairie and over 60% of the land being planted in corn or soy. I heard about WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)–an experience that people can sign up for to gain experience while working for a farmer, but being housed and fed so it’s more affordable. Lastly we talked a good bit about the precautionary principle. It’s the idea that you don’t act immediately on new science after testing, but wait to see and test multiple outlying effects and long term effects before using a new technology. It’s waiting much longer to ensure that the idea is proven safe before using it. Unfortunately, the US has a bad history with this, Europe is getting one. We only talked with regards to GMOs in which Europe is waiting, and the US is utilizing them, but many historical technologies go under this idea such as nuclear energy technology (we never thought about the waste or cost until it happened), DDT (we knew the plants would be fine, didn’t realize it would kill fish, birds, and possibly harm people long term), and multiple other ideas in which we had high expectations for a technology and preliminary tests that said they were safe. The only other thing we did today was read Paarlberg’s chapter on GMOs and food safety.

In Paralberg we read that although food sometimes causes illnesses, it’s far less than it used to be and still is in some places. Deaths from them are also incredibly low and more commonly associated with personal food preparation (e.g.,undercooked meat). That’s to be expected in a place as affluent as the US. Interestingly, both consumers and producers want stricter rules for safety. Producers favor stricter regulations because any outbreak causes costly recalls, hurts image, and results in a giant drop in sales of whatever was contaminated for some time afterwards, even if only one farm caused the issue. Paarlberg also discusses irradiation as a way to kill bacteria on food for market. Proponents say irradition makes the food safe, but as a chemist I’m just curious how it may affect compounds in the food since it’s high enough energy to potentially change some compounds. It also likely kills any beneficial bacteria in foods other than meat, since most meat bacteria to my knowledge is not beneficial. Otherwise I feel this is likely an exaggerated concern since radiation sounds scary… As a chemist I can say you’re exposed to dozens of forms of radiation every single day by the sun, radio waves to send stations to your car or tv, and microwaves in your favorite kitchen appliance. Hospitals have X-rays and MRIs, which both use radiation. It’s only some types that are dangerous and only if a high enough amount of exposure. Next he goes into GMOs explaining what they are and how they’re regulated. In the US they’re tested for any possible harm like any new food, also for allergens. Otherwise they’re considered as safe as anything else, but Europe has taken a tougher stand on GMOs, requiring food containing them to be labeled as such. This worried people about eating them, so the market basically ended for GMOs in Europe. Very few countries grow GMOs and almost all of them use it for animal feed crops or cotton only. It’s because people don’t like the idea of consuming GMOs even though there is currently science saying they’re safe. I personally feel that some traits are worth scrutiny (plants with built-in pesticides), others are worth the effort (vitamin fortified plants, such as Golden Rice) but we should aim for the same effect through hybridization. My main concern is that gene insertion could cause long term effects on health or more likely cause unintended changes to plant physiology (which could cause health or environmental damage in the long term). My teacher made the point that science backs GMOs just as science backs global climate change, but political parties ignore or mistrust the science that they don’t agree with (me included). I feel that it goes to a point my sustainability course made that people are increasingly exposed only to viewpoints with which they concur (TV commercials, news companies, radio channels, even webpages are all either liberal or conservative-oriented). This makes all of us feel the beliefs and evidence are skewed towards our side when really we’re just looking at one side. Honestly having the opportunity to see both sides on this trip has been a really useful experience to hear the arguments made by proponents and opponents of a host of issues, including GMOs.

The book itself seemed a bit on the pro-GMO side, but made a few claims that seemed off to me. Most of these are likely because I’ve only really been exposed heavily to one side of the argument. Really the only one I can claim was a non-truth was that GMOs don’t have terminator genes. Even when talking to someone who supported GMOs she claimed that seedless plants were GMOs. This is apparently a myth, since even a quick Google search to an .edu site explains it’s a breeding process that makes seedless grape varieties, although it can sometimes be done chemically instead. It’s not an example of gene insertion or a GMO. One can chemically cause a type of plant that will birth a seedless melon, or one can breed this same type of plant which just has twice the chromosomes (so breed this four-chromosome breed with a two-chromosome breed and the three- chromosome child is sterile). The site I saw even called it making a “mule” watermelon (mules are naturally sterile hybrids between donkeys and horses). I simply believe that both sides claim evidence, make counter claims, and are heavily biased in what they believe. It bothers me that either side might be using misinformation or bad science to back its claim, and it seems that both sides do (based mainly from this book). This is my reason for disliking research that is often funded by those who want to see a specific result.