- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Thousands of children could die after court backs campaign group over GM crop in Philippines, scientists warn
Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop Golden Rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.
The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of Golden Rice, which was developed to combat vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.
But campaigns by Greenpeace and local farmers last month persuaded the country’s court of appeal to overturn that approval and to revoke this. The groups had argued that Golden Rice had not been shown to be safe and the claim was backed by the court, a decision that was hailed as “a monumental win” by Greenpeace.
Many scientists, however, say there is no evidence that Golden Rice is in any way dangerous. More to the point, they argue that it is a lifesaver.
This was the same reaction I had when the Covid vaccines were rolling out. “They haven’t been proven to be 100% safe and effective!” OK. Sure, but you know what is guaranteed to be bad for you? Covid. There are two choices here, and there’s a clear mitigation of harm with one option over the other.
It’s shocking that we’d rather see children die of treatable vitamin deficiencies than the off-chance that the food ‘might be unsafe’.
I believe pfizer? and some other pharma companies have now admitted to the non-zero risk for blood-clots and fatally-low platelet counts due to the vaccine. We still do not understand the full long-term impact of the vaccines. We need to stop the vaccine rollout and study the long-term and wider population effects now so that if in 10 or 20 or 30 years down the line if we start seeing people developing abnormal long-term systemic chronic effects due to the vaccines, we now have a MASSIVE study-patient-base available.
Medicine has to be RESPONSIBLY applied and while vaccinations are necessary they still have to be studied to death to ensure their safety and efficacy.
Private corporations DO NOT GET A FREE PASS.
I agree that those studies should be done. Studies should ALSO be done on people with unvaccinated covid infections, but we can’t do that on a large number of people, because they’re dead. The vaccinated people might have a ‘non-zero risk for blood clots’, but they’re still alive in the meantime.
Yeah, your chances to get blood clots due to vaccination are orders of magnitude lower than your chance to just die from covid.
Cool. Now there’s the question.
Covid itself is known to fuck with the body in a wide range of ways, creating severe long-term consequences for many. We know it’s true, and we know covid has way more lasting side effects than vaccines do.
What is the guarantee it doesn’t cause something very bad to you down the road? Maybe even something we don’t know yet? COVID-19 is not perfectly studied, and what is studied tells us it absolutely can cause problems down the road.
It’s also not safer by the virtue of being “natural” - viruses are essentially pieces of randomly changing encapsulated code injected into our bodies and reprogramming our cells. It could be anything, and I mean that.
Pfizer vaccine (or pretty much any approved covid vaccine for that matter) has little known side effects and is not expected to cause much more going forward.
From all the data we have now, vaccinating is a better pick both right now AND against future consequences.
Also, due to the fast pace of viral mutations, the vaccine will probably be completely useless in the 30 years you suggest.