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 from an object) and therefore keeps trees cooler. The fruit was not yet ripe, so the leaves on the trees and the unripe fruit were uniformly green at that 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 summer solstice miracle that had taken place right in our own backyard.
“Oh,” he said calmly, much to my obvious disappointment. “Well, those orange trees were grafted onto 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 a higher amount of fruit. , etc. . As a result, a branch can sometimes sprout that produces fruit from the original rootstock.
Little did I know that my father was one of the evil masterminds 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
Some years before the “lemon incident” I was taken to a doctor’s office and pricked with a needle. My mom was one of the first to hear about the new chicken pox vaccine and she was eager to use me as a guinea pig. To this day, one of my favorite and surefire ways to surprise people is to tell them I’ve never had chicken pox. To my peers, no one escaped childhood without contracting chickenpox. It’s a highly contagious, airborne disease that was practically a youth rite of passage 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 benefit, but now the truth is all too clear.
turn anti
I’ve never been a big fan of putting the word “anti” before any noun. It seems to me that there are very few things worth being 100% anti 100% of the time. Furthermore, the word has many negative connotations: anti-Semitic, anti-Chinese, anti-Christ, anti-union, anti-immigrant. Aside from 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 slew of “anti” movements going full speed ahead at all times. The anti-vaxxers (vaccines) and anti-GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are two of the most colorful and rowdy 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 monopoly on our food supply through GMOs. The other thinks the government is using us in some mad science experiment to see what happens when enough lead and mercury is pumped into our veins.
Anti-GMO, Anti-Vaccination: Who’s 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, called vaccines “a giant hoax…they never saved a single life.”
In China, successful vaccines date back at least to the Ming dynasty in the early 16th century. More recently, vaccines have all but 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 crossbreeding various crops. You may know this as the story of Thanksgiving.
As hard as you try with your “old fashioned” super grains like kamut and quinoa, you will never be able to completely eliminate GMOs from your diet. Even your favorite four-legged friend that roams your house, be it a cat or a dog, is a genetically modified organism, go for it. Who’s playing God now, sister?
GMOs and the poor
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we do all this playing God when the result is generally to improve the lot of human beings everywhere. Uganda is among the world’s poorest nations, but one thing they have in abundance is bananas. Ugandans eat on average about a pound of bananas per day. But in 2001, bacterial wilt disease began to ravage the crop, and no amount of pesticides could keep the disease at bay.
Scientists from Uganda’s National Organization for Agricultural Research have finally created a genetically engineered, disease-resistant banana by inserting a gene specific to green peppers into the genome of the common banana. While the breakthrough could save Uganda’s banana crops, opposition from scientifically weak anti-GMO groups has prevented its use.
In other regions, genetically modified rice strains engineered to have more vitamin E are thought to prevent blindness in some people.
Different styles for different people
It is true that there are probably some harmful side effects that accompany vaccination. I for one have never seen the logic of allowing a stranger to inject my arm with a mysterious concoction once a year just so he can supposedly avoid the flu. In fact, if I get the flu every year, my problems probably run 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 big fan of being anti-this or that, I do respect everyone’s right to be anti-whatever-paranoid-fear-you-can-conjure, just don’t ask. me to get on board his crazy train. If you want to avoid GMOs and vaccines like the plague, do so. But it’s neither fair nor 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 good sense by purging its shelves of GMOs or painstakingly 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 research 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 unholy killers you think they are, you’ll strike it rich and be the hero of the town.
Similarly, if an infectious disease is terrorizing the neighborhood and you think the vaccination program is a secret government plot to microchip 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 who are fed by GMOs that they hate and the vaccines that they denigrate. So if you must make a scene with every spliced rootstock or vaccine show, do it on your own.