Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

Mark Lynas, environmentalist who opposed GMOs, admits he was wrong.

"If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-‘90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations’ selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Thanks to the efforts of Lynas and people like him, governments around the world—especially in Western Europe, Asia, and Africa—have hobbled GM research, and NGOs like Greenpeace have spurned donations of genetically modified foods. But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong."

I've never really looked at the issue in detail. My understanding has always been that farmers have crossed plants to make new hybrids and GMOs are just another way of doing that. GMOs can be more controlled in what they change, though it's really hard to know the effects on humans, particularly over the long term, without studies that probably don't happen to the extent we'd like (particularly over the long term). Still I'm for trying to improve things using best current practices. I'm not sure how it all pans out with patent issues and monopolies and while labeling is fine, there's no way to provide the public with information that would be at all useful in a decision. Still, given all that, I'm happy to see that someone discovered science, looked into the issue, and came to a conclusion, particularly one that was different from their original position. That's the way it's supposed to work.