GMO labeling is good science

A GMO labeling law has arrived in the US, albeit one that has no teeth (link). For those who don't want to click on the link, the law is passed in haste to pre-empt a more stringent Vermont law. The federal law defines GMO narrowly, businesses do not need to put word labels on packages (they can, for example, provide an 800-number), and violaters will not be punished.

One of the arguments against GMO labeling is that it is unscientific because (some) scientists are 100% certain that GMO foods are safe. (e.g. this Boston Globe editorial)

Any good scientist knows that scientific "truths" are true until they are proven otherwise. Science is a continuous process of making hypotheses, and finding data to confirm or reject them. The Bayesian way of thinking is very useful here. Being true is a probability - more confirmatory data increases the probability that a given hypothesis is true.

So why is GMO labeling good science?

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there is no science without GMO labeling.

How is nutritional science done today? What is the research that tells us coffee is good, butter is good, salt is bad, etc.? Granted, this is a shaky field that has issued lots of false results. But the usual form of analysis goes like this: conduct a large survey of consumers and ask them about their diet (e.g. how much red meat do you eat each week?); obtain information about their health status, either through the same survey, a different survey, or direct measurements if they are part of a research study; then correlate the dietary data and the health data.

Now, imagine you want to study if eating GMO foods affects your health, either positively or negatively. Your survey question will be something along the lines of "How much GMO foods did you eat last week?"

Without GMO labeling, there is no way to conduct such research. This is why GMO labeling is good science. Not labeling GMO is bad science - actually it mandates no science.

 

Comments

[Cris]

1- Those surveys find correlation, never causation, and are quite useless. They've also shown how people don't remember at all what they are during the week, so the correlations found are often not real either.
2- You presume, for your proposed survey, that all GMOs are the same, and different from other foods. Far from the truth of course. A bt crop is very different from a roundup-ready crop, and the biggest difference is not the GMO but the amount of pesticides used to grow them. You'd have to label the food with the protein added by the genetic modification.
3- But then again, why not just study what that protein does when consumed? Then you can create a blind, randomized control trial and actually learn something.
4- Followig your train of thought, we'd have to list on food not just the ingredients but also the strain, the manner in which it is cultivated, and a ton of other stuff. I would actually appreciate that, but would probably not be able to eat anything anymore. :)

[Kaiser]

Cris: Thanks for the comment. 1 - yes I often criticize nutrition "science" on this blog. however, I think those scientists are doing the best they can given the very difficult problem of not being able to randomize your treatment. In a similar way, I think it is in the spirit of science to make incremental progress, rather than negating all such studies without a viable alternative. 2 - of course, I didn't mean that the particular question will be on the GMO survey. 3 - have anyone done such a study? also, it is quite possible that the effect of GMO is small and accumulates over the long term 4 - one parallel is the polygraph which most scientists agree have no effect but a lot of the public believe it does. So some scientists do studies on polygraphs to prove that they don't work. If we don't label our foods, it is very difficult to do a study.

[mrtos]

In an ideal world where everyone is an objective thinker, labeling GMO could be good science. However most people are not objective thinkers, least of all about their own health and its correlates. What these labels lead to (and what the proponents of such labels really want) is that suspicion is cast on GMO products specifically, which will in turn influence people's self-reports - especially if the scientific surveys repeat the suspicion by mentioning GMO.

In order to do objective science in this survey manner, if at all possible, the respondents should list the exact products they've had, and only the researchers should know whether they contained GMO or not. So that in fact speaks strongly against having visible labels on the products.

[Kaiser]

Mrtos: Your concern is one that is shared by a lot of scientists. We want the government to impose good science on the populace. The problem is that we already allow all kinds of products and services with highly questionable scientific value. Starting with diets, "supplements", "super foods", Fitbits, etc. We also allow cigarette smoking even though we have as solid a science as is possible showing that it causes cancer. There, the accepted solution seems to be labeling!

Re the last paragraph. If you are talking about "ideal", the researchers shouldn't know either. Most researchers are paid for by industry also, which creates a type of problem beyond study design.