Now There’s A Label, But What’s A GMO?
Credit: Kathleen Masterson for VPR
By Kathleen Masterson, Vermont Public Radio
While the terms “GMO” and “genetic engineering” carry some stigma for certain audiences, to scientists simply agreeing on a definition of what counts as genetically engineered — and what doesn’t — isn’t so straightforward.
“So many things in biological science in particular are a continuum, and drawing a line is kind of arbitrary,” says Richard Amasino, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is also on the committee at the National Academy of Sciences, which produced a recent report on genetic engineering.
“We didn’t focus too much on definition of genetic engineering,” he says, “but we spent a few hours realizing that we just can’t really draw a line anywhere.”