Big Pharma nutjobs and GMO lunatics

[ponch]

I'm seeing an increasing amount of these characters popping up all over the internet.

Today I was reading a 'debate' about how Big Pharma will not release the cure for cancer as they make much more money selling treatments instead.

Several people then piped up that if you eat a healthy vegetarian or vegan diet then it is possible to cure cancer through diet alone (if that was the case why did the big pharma boys waste time and money developing a cure?). Bizarrely one guy also claimed he cured himself of cancer by drinking alkaline water.

So, why have vegetarians and vegans died of cancer in the past? Well that is simple, it's GMOs isnt it. Fucking Monsanto man, those guys are fucking up vegan and vegetarians shit left right and centre. They control the seed market and are throwing all sorts of modified madness in there.

After that I had seen enough and made my exit. I don't for one second think pharmaceutical companies are squeaky clean, infact i'm sure they probably get up to some sketchy practices (exaggerated claims of effectiveness, playing down side effects etc) but the level of claims these people are ridiculous at best and have no basis what so ever on any kind of scientific theory.

So who are these people? Are they real? Are they trolls? Are they spouting this outlandish guff so that when someone stumbles across a genuine concern they are tarnished with the same reputation and given no credibility? Are they making this shit up so it looks like they are 'in the know' and therefore increasing their sense of self worth? Are they paranoid recluses that still live with their mother in the spare bedroom?

What are your opinions on these people? Do they know the truth?

 

[Jackal]

It's the digital age. We get to experience and share both extremes of enlightenment and ignorance.

For better or worse, everybody has a voice, and everybody wants to cling to something even if it flies in the face of logic.

Simple, misguided reductionist thought appeals to masses who get crowd sourced and bleat their lines in opposition to each other.

They would do better bashing their heads off the keyboard.

 

[Sprout]

These are the same people who were terrified of BT corn and GM Salmon thinking by eating these foods they would absorb the genetic information and mutate.
Conveniently forgetting to consider all those times they've eaten a hamburger without morphing into a bovine form.
8)

Lack of education breeds ignorance, and the Internet is the perfect tool for spreading such ignorance.

 

[BecomingJulie]

All the food anyone eats today is genetically-modified. Mostly it's been done the old-fashioned way, by waiting for a mutation to arrive by pure random chance and then breeding it like there's no tomorrow; but there's no reason to suppose that should be any less potentially dangerous than deliberately creating our own mutations -- which is still quicker, even if it's done to roughly the same standard as you'd expect of someone trying to work on a densely-populated, double-sided, mixed-technology printed circuit board using a crude, non-temperature-controlled 30 watt soldering iron and 18-gauge solder, in inadequate light and wearing boxing gloves.