How the anti-GMO movement has merged with COVID conspiracists

This article or excerpt is included in the GLP’s daily curated selection of ideologically diverse news, opinion and analysis of biotechnology innovation.

The Organic Consumers Association, which promotes the organic industry and is a top funder of the anti-GMO conspiracy website U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), just published an article that says:

Despite an ongoing cover-up by government authorities, the biotech industry, the military industrial complex and the mass media, there is growing scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was created and (most likely accidentally) leaked from a dual-use military/civilian lab in Wuhan, China.

Good grief. There are at least three conspiracies in that one sentence: (1) A massive cover-up; (2) the coronavirus was created; and (3) the Wuhan lab serves a military purpose.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and conspiracy theorists gotta theorize. When one conspiracy gets old, they move on to a new one. It’s usually the same, predictable people, though.

Related article:  How anti-GMO groups and 'Russian trolls' influence public perceptions of science

Before it was interested in coronavirus conspiracies, the Organic Consumers Association was peddling all manner of nonsense, such as 9/11 trutherismchemtrailsFEMA’s secret plan to implement martial lawpesticides causing school shootings, and (of course) anti-vaccine propaganda.

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We should think of conspiracy theories as “viruses of the mind.” They are infectious because they spread from person to person. Like viruses, they are often completely impervious to treatment such as reason or logic. And once infected, a person holds on to conspiracy theories for life.

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