There are six citrus trees. in the backyard of my childhood home. I remember one hot summer day when a little boy went out to paint the tree trunks white. White paint increases the albedo (the proportion of light reflected by an object) and therefore keeps trees cooler. The fruit was not yet ripe, so the leaves on the trees and unripe fruit were a uniform green at the time.
As I crouched under one of our orange trees, I was surprised to see a bright yellow lemon hanging from a small branch in the midst of all the green. I ran inside to tell my dad about the midsummer miracle that had taken place right in our own backyard.
“Oh,” he said calmly, to my obvious disappointment. “Well, those orange trees were grafted into lemon broth.”
That didn’t mean much to me at the time, but I later learned that most citrus trees are actually grafted onto a different type of rootstock to take advantage of a particular species’ ability to resist disease or produce more fruit. , etc. . As a result, a branch can sometimes sprout that bears fruit from the original rootstock.
Little did I know that my father was one of the evil geniuses behind a growing trend toward genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food supply. In addition to “playing God” with that orange tree, we also had a tangelo tree, a cross between a tangerine and an orange. They are delicious, juicy and easy to peel in all their genetically modified heresy.
Vaccines and me
A few years before the “lemon incident,” I was taken to a doctor’s office and stuck with a needle. My mom was one of the first to find out about the new chicken pox vaccine and she was eager to use me as her guinea pig. To this day, one of my favorite and surefire ways to surprise people is to tell them I’ve never had chickenpox. To my peers, no one escaped childhood without getting chicken pox. It is a highly contagious airborne disease that was practically a rite of passage for young people until the vaccine became popular.
I was too young at the time to know that my mother was an evil shill for “big pharma” trying to poison my blood for some unknown personal gain, but now the truth is all too clear.
become anti
I’ve never been a big fan of putting the word “anti” in front of any noun. It seems to me that there are very few things worth being 100% anti 100% of the time. Also, the word has many negative connotations: anti-Semitic, anti-Chinese, anti-Christ, anti-union, anti-immigrant. Besides antipasto and antioxidants, I try to keep the word “anti” firmly out of my vocabulary.
These days, both sides of the political aisle have a plethora of “anti” movements going full throttle at all times. The anti-vaxxers (vaccines) and the anti-GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are two of the most colorful and loudest of these charming groups.
Ironically, they usually come from opposite sides of the political spectrum. One group seems to believe that corporations seek to profit from poisoning and monopolizing our food supply through GMOs. The other thinks the government is using us in some crazy science experiment to see what happens when enough lead and mercury are pumped into our veins.
Anti-GMO, Anti-Vaccination: Who is crazier?
The truth is that vaccines and GMOs have been around longer than most people realize, as have their opponents. Even when Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine in the West in 1798, several countries in Europe moved to ban the procedure. Alfred Russell Wallace, co-founder of the theory of evolution with Charles Darwin, said that vaccines are “a giant hoax…they never saved a single life.”
In China, successful vaccinations date back to at least the Ming dynasty in the early 16th century. More recently, vaccines have nearly eradicated polio, a debilitating disease that dates back to the time of the ancient Egyptians. They are not modern inventions of some evil business-government alliance.
For GMOs, humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals for only the last 14,000 years. The American Indians of the Wampanoag tribe are credited with helping the Plymouth Colony survive in part by sharing their knowledge of interbreeding various crops. You may know this as the Thanksgiving story.
No matter how hard you try with your “old” super grains like kamut and quinoa, you’ll never be able to completely eliminate GMOs from your diet. Even your favorite four-legged friend that wanders into your house, be it a cat or a dog, is a genetically modified organism, bet on it. Who’s playing God now, sister?
GMOs and the poor
Maybe it’s not so bad that we do all this playing God when the result is generally to improve the lot of human beings everywhere. Uganda is among the poorest nations in the world, but one thing they have in abundance is bananas. Ugandans eat on average around a pound of bananas per day. But in 2001, bacterial wilt disease began to devastate the crop, and no amount of pesticides could keep the disease at bay.
Scientists at the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization have finally created a genetically modified disease-resistant banana by inserting a gene specific for green peppers into the genome of ordinary bananas. While the breakthrough could save Uganda’s banana crops, opposition from scientifically weak anti-GMO groups has prevented its use.
In other regions, it is thought that genetically modified rice strains engineered to have more vitamin E could prevent blindness in some people.
Different styles for different people
It is true that there are probably some harmful side effects that accompany vaccination. For my part, I’ve never seen the logic in allowing a stranger to inject a mysterious concoction into my arm once a year just so he can supposedly stave off the flu. In fact, if I get the flu every year, my problems are probably deeper than my flu shot can cure.
And hey, natural is always better. I avoid processed foods as much as I can and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it with genetic modification. I like my chia seeds and spelling just the way they are, thank you very much.
While I’m not a huge fan of being anti-this or that, I respect everyone’s right to be anti-any-paranoid-fear-you-can-conjure-just don’t ask. me to board his crazy train. If you want to avoid GMOs and vaccines like the plague, do so. But it’s not fair or logical to start political campaigns that force everyone else into their little box with arcane, antediluvian laws banning GMOs (read: all foods everywhere).
If a cafe doesn’t meet your standard of sanity by purging its shelves of GMOs or thoroughly identifying them for your viewing pleasure, vote with your feet and find a new place to get your morning bagel. Or start your own cafe and pay the lab to vet your food to make sure it’s properly labeled GMO or non-GMO. If you’re right and the GMOs turn out to be the ungodly killers you think they are, you’ll strike it rich and be the hero of the town.
Likewise, if an infectious disease is terrorizing the neighborhood and you think the vaccination program is a secret government plot to put a microchip in your child’s arm, try homeschooling. Better yet, start your own private school with fellow anti-Vacxers, now that’s entrepreneurship.
Meanwhile, there are many poor people fed by the GMOs they detest and the vaccines they denigrate. So if you must make a scene with each shot show or spliced rootstock, do it on your own.