Letters to the Editor

Prayer for health

I never met Jim Burns or Emme Tomimbang, but certainly know of them, everybody does, the governor’s son and the TV star. I never imagined such bad things could happen to people like that as described in the MidWeek story (cancer, aneurysm). I have my own health issues, though nothing as bad as that, and am also looking after my parents, so it was a real inspiration to read about Jim and Emme and what they’re going through. Thank you, and my prayers go out to them.

Gail Silva
Honolulu

Terrific teen

What a wonderful story on Tashawna Wright, recipient of the Rotary Maurice J. Sullivan Scholarship. It makes me feel better about the future knowing young people such as she are coming up. Good luck to her.

Alice Lee
Makiki

GMO foods safe

Trillions of meals of GMO foods have been eaten by billions of people for tens of years with only scant and questionable reports of ill effects. That is very strong evidence that GMO foods are safe. A consumer advisory saying that is currently playing on radio and TV.

I have never heard a responsible advisory saying that a GMO food should be shunned because it would cause a problem. I have heard many such reports involving, for example, chicken (cook it thoroughly or you could get salmonella), or produce like lettuce when, as I recall, pigs got loose in a lettuce field (don’t eat it because you could get listeria).

One of the goals of continuing research in agriculture is to keep the cost of food down. The result is that GMO foods are usually less expensive than food produced by older methods. They are often better, too, e.g., seedless grapes and watermelons, new kinds of papayas and apples, etc. These are good things.

Karl Seff, Ph.D., M.I.T.
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, UH Manoa

Real GMO issues

The flurry of letters kicked up by Bob Jones’ column on GMOs have all focused on whether or not GMOs are safe for human consumption. While that is obviously a critical matter, there are other issues, such as: Who controls our food? By creating crops that do not produce seeds, which describes GMOs, farmers are beholden to the world’s biggest chemical companies, not to the time-honored method of saving seeds from one harvest to plant the next one, or naturally cross-breeding plants to bring out the best properties.

Another issue is the massive use of pesticides and herbicides in growing GMO crops.

Even if these “robo-crops” produce food that is safe to eat, these other issues should give proponents a reason to pause and reconsider.

May Oshiro
Honolulu

Send your letters to dchapman@midweek.com. Letters may be edited for clarity and space.