As recently as last Fall, a now discredited French study threw a little scare mongering into California’s Proposition 37 campaign by depicting tumor growth in rats fed genetically modified (GM) corn. In as long as GM crops have stirred controversy, food safety has been among the issues coming in for attention. But now one of the founders of the anti-GM movement has “discovered science” and come to the conclusion food safety is not at risk from GM food. Epiphanies are always interesting to me, especially one this dramatic. Mark Lynas is today a British journalist and award winning science writer. A speech he gave on Jan. 3 to the Oxford Farming Conference is turning out to be one of those rare game-changers. In the speech, a founder of the anti-GM food movement issued his personal apology to the planet for the harm done to world food production. Oh, and he also said GM food is without risk to food safety. The money quote: “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough. So my conclusion here today is very clear: the GM debate is over. It is finished. We no longer need to discuss whether or not it is safe – over a decade and a half with three trillion GM meals eaten there has never been a single substantiated case of harm.” And: “You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food. More to the point, people have died from choosing organic, but no-one has died from eating GM.” Lynas used “unflinching language and tone” in the remarks, according to Bloomberg News, which is where I first learned of this speech. It was downloaded 125,000 times in the three days after it became available. My take is Lynas demonstrated impressive knowledge of science and current GM events around the world. “We are coming to a crunch point, and for the sake of both people and the planet, now is the time for you (the anti-GM lobby) to get out of the way and let the rest of us get on with feeding the world sustainably.” And don’t think he’s gone corporate. Lynas documents how opponents have raised the cost of bringing any GM crop to market that only big corporations can do it. “It now costs tens of millions to get a crop through the regulatory systems in different countries. In fact the latest figures I’ve just seen from CropLife suggest it costs $139 million to move from discovering a new crop trait to full commercialization, so open-source or public sector biotech really does not stand a chance, “ he said. “There is a depressing irony here that the anti-biotech campaigners complain about GM crops only being marketed by big corporations when this is a situation they have done more than anyone to help bring about. As for food safety risks, he says the public has been fooled into misconstruing reality. Germany’s deadly 2011 E. coli outbreak was equal to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster with 53 deaths and 3,500 victims of kidney failure and the source was organic beansprouts. Lynas says the people who chose organic to avoid “trivial risk” from pesticides or fertilizers are the one who ended up making fatal decisions. The author has a few good things to say about organic, but wants people to understand it freezes agricultural practices at about 1950, just as the Amish practices stop at about 100 years earlier. His message is we cannot afford to stop there or not use technology to feed a world population of more than 9 billion by 2050. Totally disconnecting food safety from the GM food issue is not going to be easy. Many GM stories you see in the news these days are about obscure patent issues or the intricacies of federal processes. I’ve chased these myself only to find there was never going to be any “Perry Mason” moment about food safety. However, food safety studies are going to go on forever. One of my colleagues pointed out that a recent Nova Scotia study has found Monsanto’s GM cucumbers cause the added problem (or maybe benefit) of causing “total groin hair loss and chafing in sensitive areas.” (Okay, that was Canadian satire.) What it does mean, I think, is that we are going to raise the bar for what makes a GM food story a food safety story. It is the only way we can make sure we are expending time and resources on the right food safety targets. And as I think about it, maybe we need to go back and look at all those illnesses and deaths caused by organic practices and look at whether the public is properly weighing risks. In other words, we should raise the bar all around.