Environmentalist Mark Lynas, who once destroyed GM crops and then made headlines by ending his opposition, is stepping up his call for reason to triumph

Mark Lynas Tom Pilston/The Times

Pro-science types, when they lambast those who campaign against genetically modified crops, often point out that no one has ever been harmed by the food produced from them. After 3 trillion meals, they insist, nobody has credibly reported even so much as a headache.

August bodies – from the US National Academy of Sciences to the UK’s Royal Society – all agree that food from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is as safe as any other.

Perhaps I am the first person, therefore, harmed by dealings with a GMO. During an hour spent recently examining the performance of …