Comments

Dustin, First of all, allergic reactions are rarely fatal (besides peanut type allergies and bee sting allergies and the like). I am an allergy sufferer and have been all my life, I don't even try to avoid my allergens...I just deal with the symptoms. I'm fairly certain that the hundreds of millions of people in the world who do not have enough food to eat would not care in the least if they might have to suffer through some allergies to keep from dying of starvation. But more importantly, unless you have a reliable source indicating otherwise, the information you posted about Starlink isn't even accurate. According to a CDC report, 28 people reported apparent allergic reactions related to eating corn products that MAY have contained the Starlink protein. However, the US Centers for Disease Control studied the blood of these individuals and concluded there was no evidence that the reactions people experienced were associated with hypersensitivity to the Starlink Bt protein. (I added the capitalization of MAY for emphasis...it's not even certain these people ingested corn with the genetic modification.) Starlink was taken off the market because the FDA had only approved its use in animal feedstocks because there was a concern that it might cause allergic reactions in a small percentage of people. No one even studied if it would, because when the modified protein started showing up in corn for human consumption, it killed the product completely. (The company apparently didn't take enough precautions to prevent cross pollination to other, non-modified corn plants.)

@ scubasdsteve87: You would be right if there weren't MILLIONS of dollars per year spent on trying to cure / prevent deaths due to obesity related illness. But there is FAR more money spent on trying to cure illness and disease related to obesity than there is spent on flu research. Not to mention, if a flu pandemic hit that wiped out 10 million or more in a matter of months, we would be begging those flu researchers to save us. It's foolish to think that if "only" 30,000 people a year die of something (just in ONE country) it's not worth studying. For one thing, it's 30,000 people! For another, research into curing or treating one type of infection or illness often illuminates the way to better treatments for other illnesses.