I also do not get the idea that GMOs do not have the regulatory mechanisms to deal with new proteins. Why would this be any kind of true with traditional hybrids? Regulatory mechanisms are themselves proteins, and subject to exactly the same chances as everything else in genetics.
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It doesn't help when the proponents claim there's no difference between GMOs and more conventionally created plants. That implies GMOs should receive no more scrutiny than normal artificial selection in crops.
There is a difference in methodology... but not in safety. There is absolutely no reason that the safety tests that, for example, the FDA uses to evaluate a new type of imported natural foodstuff would be insufficient for testing a new type of GMO food.
The GMO could cause allergies or be poisonous? So can new crops that haven't been used in the country before. That's why we have safety testing.
Because that's exactly what a number of people in the thread seem to be saying.Did I say anything like that?
Did I say you did?
You've been generally more circumspect.
I certainly don't trust Monsanto or frankly any large company to use the technology responsibly.
Hell, I don't trust my bank, or frankly any large financial institution, to use money responsibly. But I also don't want to abolish money; it's incredibly useful stuff. I'd even be OK with it being a lot more ubiquitous than it currently is outside of the "1%".
The issue is that you can do far more drastic things with genetic modification techniques than you can traditionally.
Slight correction: you can do drastic things a lot faster with genetic modification. You can still do equally drastic things traditionally, but it takes a lot of trial and error and often a large degree of luck.
Also bear in mind that lateral gene transfer between plants and bacteria -- without the use of genetic modification techniques -- has been demonstrated in the laboratory; it's not just theoretical.
It doesn't help when the proponents claim there's no difference between GMOs and more conventionally created plants. That implies GMOs should receive no more scrutiny than normal artificial selection in crops.The amount of unregulated lateral gene transfer in traditional crossbreeding is far greater than in creating a GMO from the same two plants for the same purpose. That almost implies that traditional methods should be under more scrutiny, not less.
Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better.
That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.
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It doesn't help when the proponents claim there's no difference between GMOs and more conventionally created plants. That implies GMOs should receive no more scrutiny than normal artificial selection in crops.The amount of unregulated lateral gene transfer in traditional crossbreeding is far greater than in creating a GMO from the same two plants for the same purpose. That almost implies that traditional methods should be under more scrutiny, not less.Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better.
That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.
Why? Its being done in a controlled environment with lots of precautions taken.
Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better. That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.
In practical terms, what's the difference? After all, the salmon and tomatoes do have a common ancestor, if you go back far enough.
Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better. That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.In practical terms, what's the difference? After all, the salmon and tomatoes do have a common ancestor, if you go back far enough.
But that gene and tomatoes don't share a common ancestor. It was expressed for the first time far after plantae split from archaea. In practical terms the scientists who created it had absolutely no way of knowing that it wouldn't cause all the cell walls of the tomato plant to turn to mush at temps above 10C and no real plan for containment to prevent cross-fertilization if that did happen. It was exactly luck that kept that experiment from jeopardizing a major dietary fruit in our food supply.
Why? Its being done in a controlled environment with lots of precautions taken.It doesn't help when the proponents claim there's no difference between GMOs and more conventionally created plants. That implies GMOs should receive no more scrutiny than normal artificial selection in crops.The amount of unregulated lateral gene transfer in traditional crossbreeding is far greater than in creating a GMO from the same two plants for the same purpose. That almost implies that traditional methods should be under more scrutiny, not less.Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better.
That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.
Is it?
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the scientists who created it had absolutely no way of knowing that it wouldn't cause all the cell walls of the tomato plant to turn to mush at temps above 10C
Then the experiment would have failed and they'd have tried something else.
and no real plan for containment to prevent cross-fertilization if that did happen.
Other than the fact that their lab experiment isn't, you know, being marketed and planted all over, until they see it works and can be sold for a profit. You can't sell tomatoes whose cell walls all turn to mush at temps above 10C. You can't even grow them, which means they're sure as hell not cross-breeding with or outcompeting any existing tomatoes.
It was exactly luck that kept that experiment from jeopardizing a major dietary fruit in our food supply.
No, it was exactly the difference between the R&D phase and the marketing phase of a product. Luck has nothing to do with it.
Why? Its being done in a controlled environment with lots of precautions taken.Is it?
The first, almost by definition, and the second out of self-interest -- I don't have the facilities in my garage to do any inserting of genes, and I'd want to make sure I'm inserting the correct genes (the ones I intended to), if no other reason than that I'll need to replicate the process for eventual testing and marketing.
Please describe exactly how ER and Golgi fold complex 1 of the electron transport change. Then please explain exactly how it is inserted into the mitochondrial membrane. Please include the method used for designating the end point location.I vehemently disagree that we don't understand. Uncountable hours were spent discovering these techniques, learning the best ways to use them, determining the most effective vectors, and choosing the best recipients, and there were no doubt plenty of failures, set backs, and missteps. There is no way there could be dozens of viable GMO's if the science behind it was not understood. The much more dangerous methods were the methods used before, mutation breeding was haphazard, sloppy, and had an actual chance of creating a harmful plant. It's like the difference between a modern neurosurgeon and a civil war saw bones.Evolution [is] a far cry from using a retrovirus to add genes into our expression matrix.I disagree. Most of the human genome is exactly that -- dead viruses. They may provide some resistance to similar viruses (much as we're often trying to do by inserting other ones into grain crops), but they have no physical expression on us. When our ancestors selectively bred wheat with other strains of wheat or even other plants altogether, they were doing more or less the same thing, except a lot more haphazardly.Exactly my point. Evolutionary artifacts are just that, artifacts. Foods that we engineer to express genes they don't have regulatory pathways for are another matter entirely. Even if we engineer them to express alongside an existing pathway we are still haphazardly (as you put it) playing with things we don't truly understand.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=methods+for+genetic+modification&h l=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0CBsQgQMwAG oVChMIktTQ_fOGyQIVx7IUCh2rzQ2X Start here, once you're done with all of them I'll introduce you to an entomology professor I met once who works with transgenic mosquitos, he very knowledgeable on the subject.
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Reminds me of one time I was in Brooklyn with La Principessa meeting some of her friends and we were in some overpriced coffee shop. She and her friend started chatting and the friend's husband was cramming to pass the bar, so he had his headphones on which left me with a copy of Asimov's More Soviet Science Fiction eavesdropping on a couple of white, French I think, but what do I know?, maybe they were Belgian or something, hippies arguing with a black hippie about GMO's.
The Euro-hippies were adamantly anti-GMO and the black hippie was all like, "we could wipe out rickets in one generation." "I don't trust science," said Eurohippie. "Science is great" responded black hippie, who was wearing a t-shirt advertising something like Doctor Zang's Electrotherapy Clinic. I figured it was a band or something, but after they left, the law student looked it up and it turned out to be some quack in Bushwick or something who claimed he could use electric shocks to make you stop biting your nails or quit smoking.
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And I liked that post. Dang!
Reminds me of one time I was in Brooklyn with La Principessa meeting some of her friends and we were in some overpriced coffee shop. She and her friend started chatting and the friend's husband was cramming to pass the bar, so he had his headphones on which left me with a copy of Asimov's More Soviet Science Fiction eavesdropping on a couple of white, French I think, but what do I know?, maybe they were Belgian or something, hippies arguing with a black hippie about GMO's.
The Euro-hippies were adamantly anti-GMO and the black hippie was all like, "we could wipe out rickets in one generation." "I don't trust science," said Eurohippie. "Science is great" responded black hippie, who was wearing a t-shirt advertising something like Doctor Zang's Electrotherapy Clinic. I figured it was a band or something, but after they left, the law student looked it up and it turned out to be some quack in Bushwick or something who claimed he could use electric shocks to make you stop biting your nails or quit smoking.
I guess Quitter's Inc. was taken.
Yeah, I'm not worried about GMO sourcing genes from the same species of carrot. I'm worried about taking genes for membrane sterols of pacific salmon and putting them into tomatoes so they can withstand cold better. That type of engineering is what I'm calling haphazard and reckless.In practical terms, what's the difference? After all, the salmon and tomatoes do have a common ancestor, if you go back far enough.
This is a little bit disingenuous. If we're talking about food safety, "sharing a common ancestor" isn't what creates issues. If I have an allergy to salmon, for example, that allergy most emphatically does not extend to other life forms that share common ancestry with salmon, which is the reason that I can eat tomatoes with confidence.
.... unless someone has decided to poison some tomatoes with salmon allergens. In which case, I can only eat tomatoes that I know are safe, and since in well over 99% of the time, the tomatoes aren't labelled for where their genes came from. I will never be able to eat a Taco Bell taco again, although one might argue that's not that horrific a loss. But more significantly, there's not even anything Taco Bell can really do about it, since a) we've blocked any significant GMO-origin labelling by policy, so TB doesn't know what the farmers have planted, and b) we also don't know what the farmers next door have planted, and pollen travels.
That's not really an issue with natural cross-breeding, because salmon don't naturally cross-breed with tomatoes. And even if there are some animals that might share genes with salmon -- well, I can easily figure out not to risk eating trout. But I don't really have to worry about carrots or oysters, unless Dr. Frankenfood has been making monsters again.
Yeah, sure -- trout, salmon, oysters, and carrots all share a common ancestor. But I really only need to worry about the trout-salmon commonality "in practical terms."
So the entire opposition to GMOs hinges on potential food allergies? Seriously?
So the entire opposition to GMOs hinges on potential food allergies? Seriously?
No. But if the only response you have to the opposition is to misrepresent it, that shows that you don't actually have a response to the very real dangers that GMO food brings.
Dangerous technologies are nothing new. Flying machines are dangerous. Anti-cancer drugs are dangerous. Horseless carriages are incredibly dangerous. Step one is recognizing that the danger is real.
Pretending that there is no danger is a) wrong, b) stupid, and c) dangerous in and of itself.
But if the only response you have to the opposition is to misrepresent it, that shows that you don't actually have a response to the very real dangers that GMO food brings.
So far in this thread, food allergies are the only actual danger that's been presented. The rest as been hyperbole, hand-wringing, and outright fantasy (dissolving tomatoes decimating our food supply, for example). So, of all these other deadly dangers we should be cognizant of, please be so good as to enumerate a few of them.
You'll find me to be easy to convince by presenting actual evidence, but not at all by calling names and hurling accusations.
So far in this thread, food allergies are the only actual danger that's been presented. The rest as been hyperbole, hand-wringing, and outright fantasy (dissolving tomatoes decimating our food supply, for example). So, of all these other deadly dangers we should be cognizant of, please be so good as to enumerate a few of them.But if the only response you have to the opposition is to misrepresent it, that shows that you don't actually have a response to the very real dangers that GMO food brings.
We are introducing new proteins into an environment where their normal regulation does not exist. Sometimes those proteins fail to function. Sometimes those proteins function fine. Sometimes those proteins have an unexpected and obvious side effect that renders the product obviously unfit for its purpose.
The danger is that sometimes those proteins will have an unexpected but inobvious side effect. Allergens are one such side effect, since you can't tell if a food contains allergens just by looking at it. But science is littered with harmful chemicals that don't look like anything in particular, many of which have delayed onsets that are only noticed after large number of people have been harmed by them.
The danger is that sometimes those proteins will have an unexpected but inobvious side effect. Allergens are one such side effect, since you can't tell if a food contains allergens just by looking at it. But science is littered with harmful chemicals that don't look like anything in particular, many of which have delayed onsets that are only noticed after large number of people have been harmed by them.
So, the clear and present danger is that some proteins might have some toxic effects, of which we are entirely unaware, and which somehow cannot be predicted or detected? By scientific standards (and remember, I am a scientist) that falls pretty far short of "evidence" that these effects are occurring.
Look, GMOs have been in widespread use for some time now. With all these horrid side effects, surely there would be a case study or two that you could link to, for the benefit of us rubes, that indicates the link between the GMOs and the problem.
Alternatively, you could link to more theoretical papers that at least establish a viable cause-and-effect pathway for some of this protein toxicity. That's somewhat weaker evidence, but it's a lot more than we've been given.
Are you arguing that GMOs are inherently not dangerous?
Nope. I'm asking for someone to actually step up and be willing to show that they are. Link to some case studies. Illustrate a biochemical pathway. Barring any evidence or any specifics whatsoever (other than a reference to possible food allergies), it just sounds a lot like Chicken Little.
That it isn't possible to create something dangerous through genetic modification, intentionally or otherwise?
Like I said, GMOs are in widespread use, and have been. Show me the actual effects. Don't just wring your hands and utter nebulous portents of doom. If these stupid mad scientists with their uncontrolled experiments are wreaking such massive harm on humanity, there must be any number of documented instances -- unless we veer into conspiracy theory instead.
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So, the clear and present danger is that some proteins might have some toxic effects, of which we are entirely unaware, and which somehow cannot be predicted or detected?
Goodness, yes. Isn't that why the FDA exists?
If you're suggesting that we can predict all the toxic effects of a novel chemical from first principles, there should be no need for the FDA at all. This is obviously false.
If you're suggesting that FDA-style clinical trials are guaranteed to detect all the toxic effects of novel chemicals, that's also obviously false, which is why the FDA has a recall mechanism.
By scientific standards (and remember, I am a scientist) that falls pretty far short of "evidence."
I dunno, I consider "look, there it is" to be pretty good evidence of a thing's existence.
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Goodness, yes. Isn't that why the FDA exists?
Awesome -- so just show me where the FDA has banned further GMOs and/or recalled existing ones, because these genetically-modified foods keep failing all these trials.
I dunno, I consider "look, there it is" to be pretty good evidence of a thing's existence.
Then link, don't just allude. You keep saying the danger is evident, yet no one is willing to point to actual documented examples?
Goodness, yes. Isn't that why the FDA exists?Awesome -- so just show me where the FDA has banned further GMOs and/or recalled existing ones, because these genetically-modified foods keep failing all these trials.
I can't, because there aren't any trials to fail, because the FDA does not require clinical trials for GM foodstuffs.....
.... which is part of the problem. If a new ear of corn had to go through several thousand test subjects to determine whether or not it introduced any new side effects, we'd find out.
But you rarely find what you don't even bother to look for.
I dunno, I consider "look, there it is" to be pretty good evidence of a thing's existence.Then link, don't just allude.
Already done. Look upthread. And, yes, unexpected allergies are a danger and can even be fatal.
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Orfamay,
Given peanut allergies exist, should we ban peanuts? If not, I'm struggling to see the relevance.
Can GMOs cause harm? Of course they can. Everything can cause harm under the right circumstances. Do they? Possibly. Do they cause so much harm that it outways their utility and their use needs to be incredibly restricted? Need actual evidence to support that view, which so far is not being shown.
EDIT: Why should GMOs be treated differently than traditionally cross-bred foodstuffs? Do you need a massive trial for every new variant created by traditional breeding which also can cause unexpected allergies? Guess we should ban that, too.
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Please understand that I'm fine with oversight. I'm less fine with proposed oversight that's transparently geared towards preventing a new technology from ever being used, even if show to be safe. I'm still less fine with people calling to outright ban stuff because they don't understand how it works and it sounds scary.
To me, most of the anti-GMO sloganeering sounds exactly like the anti-vax campaign. "Vaccines cause autism!" "They've been shown not to." "Well, I think they're still dangerous!"
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Then link, don't just allude.Already done. Look upthread. And, yes, unexpected allergies are a danger and can even be fatal.
Headdesk.
Me: "So the danger is from potential food allergy?"
You: "Obviously there are much, much, much more widespread and worse dangers than that! Don't even try to pretend there aren't!"
Me: "Such as?"
You: "Maybe something bad!"
Me: "Such as?"
You: "I just showed you! Food allergies!"
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Orfamay,
Given peanut allergies exist, should we ban peanuts?
No, but we should label them.
Normally, peanuts are self-labelling, of course. You look at it, and it's a peanut. In the case of invisible peanuts such as peanut oil, there's a legal requirement to list it on the ingredients list on the food package, so I can make a determination about whether a given food is safe to eat.
An obvious analogical safety precaution would be to require anything that contains potentially allergenic genes from pean
Can GMOs cause harm? Of course they can. Everything can cause harm under the right circumstances. Do they? Possibly. Do they cause so much harm that it out ways their utility and their use needs to be incredibly restricted? Need actual evidence to support that view, which so far is not being shown.EDIT: Why should GMOs be treated differently than traditionally cross-bred foodstuffs?
Because traditionally crossbred wheat will not contain peanut-specific genes, so I don't need to worry about peanut allergies in my kasha.
That is self regulating. One person dies from peanut genes in their tomato, GMO tomato producer goes into s$~#storm.
But you guys are thinking too small. We need tomatoes with scorpion stingers!
Which still doesn't change the fact that the corp is going to have a very hard time dealing with it. It isn't going to be about securities fraud there.
Me: "So the danger is from potential food allergy?"
No, it's from the fact that novel chemicals created outside of their natural environment generally have the potential to be very dangerous.
Me: "Such as?"
Anything that the FDA has rejected as harmful in the past fifty years. Including things that were originally considered safe .
"Me [KG]": But the FDA as never rejected a GMO as harmful.
Of course not. The FDA doesn't require extensive safety testing for GMOs, and that's part of the problem.
"Me [KG]": So you have no actual evidence for this problem?
Of course we do. Allergens are actual evidence of the existence of a potential problem that the existing regulatory scheme won't catch.
It's a very simple sorite.
Premise) Genetic modification can introduce harmful chemicals into foodstuffs.
Premise) Without extensive testing, or lack thereof, of a chemical cannot be reliably determined.
Conclusion-1) Without extensive testing, we don't know that GMOs are safe.
Premise) GMO are not subject to extensive testing, by policy.
Conclusion-2) We don't know if GMOs are safe.
Premise) Things that are not known to be safe are known to be risky.
Conclusion-3) GMOs are risky.
The first premise is shown to be true emprically, via the allergens
The second is shown to be true by the history and mere existence of the FDA.
The third premise can be confirmed by looking at the relevant regulations.
The fourth premise is basically the definition of "risk."
Pretending that GMOs are not risky is a) stupid, b) wrong, and c) dangerous. As I wrote before.
The ball's now in your court. Disprove one of the premises above, or STFU.
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Sorry, I don't have to convince you of anything -- GMOs are already in use. If you want to call anyone who opposes banning them wholesale as "dangerous" and "stupid," go ahead, if it makes you feel superior, but it doesn't accomplish anything. If you want me to "STFU," make me. On the other hand, if you want to actually convince people of the veracity of your viewpoint, and thereby enlist them to help change things, you're doing a really piss-poor job of it. So far you've told me the problem is allergies, and the all rest has been veiled hints of cosmic evil from beyond the stars, peppered with personal insults.
GMOs have been on the grocery store shelves since 1994. That's over twenty years of widespread consumption, and no one has even a tentative connection to any potential problem other than not being aware of a potential allergen. (In contrast, the first large-scale nuclear reactor went on line in the U.S. in 1957, and the risks of a meltdown were made clear by direct observation at a different reactor in 1961). If we're looking at widespread health repercussions on otherwise healthy people, the story of some instance -- connected to any GMO at all -- should have broken a long time ago. With the number of people eager to Erin Brokovitch themselves into fame, then short of a massive conspiracy that makes Area 51 seem likely in comparison, the risks, realistically, can't be anywhere near what the doomsayers claim.
Now, If you want to name a few GMOs and advocate a series of clinical trials on them, I'm all for that. But if you want to ban them all because scary, I'm totally unconvinced. At the risk of sounding callous, if little Bobby looks at anything that was ever in the same county as a peanut and suddenly dies from it, his genes seem like more of a risk to humanity than the peanut's, so he's not a good poster boy for your crusade.
You both keep implying they haven't been tested, and aren't being tested, but I don't think that's strictly true.
European Commission research.
Literature review of long-term studies.
If your stance is that the studies being done are inadequate, surely the approach would be to point out ways in which that's the case, and recommend corrections. On the other hand, Orfamay merely keeps repeating that the use of GMOs is "too risky" and that anyone who doesn't automatically agree with him is "stupid, wrong, and dangerous." He doesn't make recommendations, only threats.
those look like generic "Is there anything dangerous about the concept of GMOs" studies. Looking for overall trends in harm from GMOs, rather than studies of particular products to see if the changes made to them are safe.
The meta-studies are looking for any trends -- or evidence at all -- of harm from GMOs. The studies they reference -- the ones they're summarizing the results of -- are the ones you seem to be looking for. There are thousands of those, so it's inefficient to link them all individually. If you wanted to, though, you could easily start with any of the meta-studies linked and use the "references" section to pull up any number of specific studies on specific GMOs.
The aim of this systematic review was to collect data concerning the effects of diets containing GM maize, potato, soybean, rice, or triticale on animal health. We examined 12 long-term studies (of more than 90 days, up to 2 years in duration) and 12 multigenerational studies (from 2 to 5 generations). We referenced the 90-day studies on GM feed for which long-term or multigenerational study data were available. Many parameters have been examined using biochemical analyses, histological examination of specific organs, hematology and the detection of transgenic DNA. The statistical findings and methods have been considered from each study. Results from all the 24 studies do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observed
We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety during the last 10 years, built a classified and manageable list of [1,783] scientific papers, and analyzed the distribution and composition of the published literature. We selected original research papers, reviews, relevant opinions and reports addressing all the major issues that emerged in the debate on GE crops, trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide. The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops
those look like generic "Is there anything dangerous about the concept of GMOs" studies. Looking for overall trends in harm from GMOs, rather than studies of particular products to see if the changes made to them are safe.The meta-studies are looking for any trends -- or evidence at all -- of harm from GMOs. The studies they reference -- the ones they're summarizing the results of -- are the ones you seem to be looking for. There are thousands of those, so it's inefficient to link them all individually. If you wanted to, though, you could easily start with any of the meta-studies linked and use the "references" section to pull up any number of specific studies on specific GMOs.
The aim of this systematic review was to collect data concerning the effects of diets containing GM maize, potato, soybean, rice, or triticale on animal health. We examined 12 long-term studies (of more than 90 days, up to 2 years in duration) and 12 multigenerational studies (from 2 to 5 generations). We referenced the 90-day studies on GM feed for which long-term or multigenerational study data were available. Many parameters have been examined using biochemical analyses, histological examination of specific organs, hematology and the detection of transgenic DNA. The statistical findings and methods have been considered from each study. Results from all the 24 studies do not suggest any health hazards and, in general, there were no statistically significant differences within parameters observedWe have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety during the last 10 years, built a classified and manageable list of [1,783] scientific papers, and analyzed the distribution and composition of the published literature. We selected original research papers, reviews, relevant opinions and reports addressing all the major issues that emerged in the debate on GE crops, trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants...
You can't produce a review study on Statins and a review study on beta blockers and then say that all drugs are safe.
You can't show that statins are safe and then show that beta blockers are safe and then claim that no drugs are tested and that all drugs are too dangerous to be on the market, either. So what you do is come up with a reasonable standard of testing for safety, show if and why it's not being met, and try and get other people to agree to it. That's how you get people to join your cause. For example, if you feel that the FDA should be required to conduct all GMO testing, as opposed to reviewing the tests done by manufacturers and independent groups, lobby the FDA to take over that particular job. If you feel the producers' tests are not transparent enough or are somehow not reproducible, and that independent testing is not covering the gap, cite specific instances of that. If you feel the tests themselves are methodologically flawed, propose improvements. Don't just go on with vague forebodings about the sky falling.
This obviously won't work if one side insists that no standard can ever be good enough, though. At some point, demands for "more testing!" become de facto bans on any new products, if all are heeded regardless of the need. So make sure whatever standard you propose ensures adequate safety, but not at the expense of being an impassible barrier.
"GMO #542 uses a gene that's been linked to cancer susceptibility, and hasn't been tested at all," will get people like me to sit up and pay attention.
"Evil frankenfoods are never tested and will likely kill us all!" will get people like me to ignore you.