I think it can be best explained by this juxtaposition, for this topic will, like climate change, have to undergo considerable debate before we resolve our differences.

A) For practical purposes, Monarch Butterflies in North America are extinct. The reason is their food supply, which used to grow wild beside farmer’s fields, is now absent, because of the weedkillers (Roundup) applied to fields of GMO crops immune to that chemical. There is no milkweed. There are no Monarch Butterflies anymore.

B) Soon to be released will be a yellow rice that provides a single serving with more than a days worth of beta carotene. Likewise fruits and vegetables can now contain good HDL cholesteral instead of bad LDL.

There is great harm being done by Genetic Modified Foods.

There is great good which will come about due to Genetic Modified Foods.

Obviously from a practical level, having no bans or regulations on certain GMFoods is equally as damaging as banning all GMFoods…or making them all illegal. It is not an all of one, none of the other proposition.

The science is pretty safe. What we are doing is short circuiting the process of what man has always done…. selective breeding. We’ve changed the genes of dogs, cats, cows and goats.

But what is not known, is the effect. As with the Monarchs, there are unintended consequences involved with having GMFoods. Who would have thought through far enough, on how this would affect the butterfly we all know and love? What regulator could possibly have such a far reach of a scope to figure out how every ripple caused by such a use would effect everything else across its march of time?

Yet to ban all GMFoods will cause a lot of humans to die of starvation. Yes, it is a third world problem.

Therefore allow me to be the first to throw down some guidelines… Let us call it just for fun, the kavipsian rule of Genetic Modified Food.

Modifying food to benefit those eating it is ok. Modifying food to enable those growing it to make more money, is not.

That would have nipped the Monarch problem in the bud, and allowed Mankind to live long and prosper……