US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO Labeling Law 446
An anonymous reader writes: The House Agriculture Committee approved a measure banning mandatory GMO labeling as well as local efforts to regulate genetically engineered crops. The decision is a major victory for U.S. food companies and other opponents of labeling genetically modified foods. "This... legislation will ensure that Americans have accurate, consistent information about their food rather than a 50 state patchwork of labeling laws that will only prove costly and confusing for consumers, farmers and food manufacturers," said Pamela Bailey, CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), said in a statement.
This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Our Business Is Life Itself.
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
With no evidence that GMO food is bad for your health why should mandatory labeling be required. If people are actually keen to have non-GMO foods and a market exists for those people why not simply label all other food as GMO free to appease that market?
You see the same thing happening with every other food property starting quite early with the labeling of foods that contain no artificial colours or flavours, and 99% fat free, not to mention "organic", gluten free, phosphate free etc.
If people care about it then the labels will come on their own accord, until then there should be no reason a food should be labeled unless there's a risk associated with the product that the manufacturer is willfully omitting.
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"With no evidence that GMO food is bad for your health why should mandatory labeling be required."
This is explicitly the federal government overriding local laws (county/city/state) that may WANT this labeling. Why does "there's no evidence that it hurts" equal "therefore, the federal government should jam it down everyone's fucking throats?"
I bet the rest of your politics don't look like this.
"If people are actually keen to have non-GMO foods and a market exists for those people why not simply label all o
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Sorry, there is plenty of evidence:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/st... [cbsnews.com]
even though the study was initially retracted, it's since been republished and the initial retraction was widely condemned by scientists and researchers worldwide.
A case could be made that Monsanto pressured people for the retraction.
Personally I think that their GMO corn is really bad for people and animals and that eventually it'll be proved without a doubt but in the mean time Monsanto continues to rake in millions if not billions on pro
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You have a terrible definition of the word 'plenty'.
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Wow, are you being sarcastic? I took you seriously right up until you mentioned aspartame. I challenge you to find ANY scientific study that shows aspartame is harmful in any way.
The FDA called aspartame "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved". More than 100 toxicological and clinical studies it has reviewed confirm that aspartame is safe for the general population. Source: http://web.archive.org/web/200... [archive.org]
That was 16 YEARS ago. This horse has been dead a
Backwards (Score:4, Funny)
You have this backwards. If companies are going to introduce new products into our food supply, the burden of proof should be on them to prove that there aren't any negative health consequences.
Is it harder to show proof of absence? You bet your ass. And given the ramifications involved, it should be.
Look, I'm not an anti-gmo crusader. I think it has a lot of promise to more efficiently feed a growing world. But, like any technology, it can be used both responsibly and irresponsibly, and the private sector doesn't have a great track record of putting public health ahead of profits.
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Food producers can individually appeal to the anti-GMO market by labeling as GMO-free, just as they label for kosher. The new law just prevents all food from having to be labeled. How would you like it if most of the food you bought were to be labeled, NOT HALAL?
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Should we also do this with conventional hybrids? Since they also have the chance of "new untested substances to be produced within it"?
If not, why not?
And if so, are you aware that pretty much everything we eat is a hybrid? Some newer than others, of course. But none of those hybrids have undergone "proper clinical trials before release"....
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no objection to the science of GMO. It is the business of GMO that I do not trust.
The difference between conventional hybrids and GMOs is that the the set of plants and animals that can be obtained by the former over any given time frame is a tiny subset of those that can be obtained by the latter. GMO gives food producers a great increase in power, and as a great philosopher once observed, "With great power comes great responsibility". I don't think the current food companies have the necessary responsibility.
With conventional hybrids, they are more limited in what they can do, and it can take longer to achieve a given desired organism. These limitations give us a chance to make sure that they are not misusing their power.
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I have no objection to the science of GMO. It is the business of GMO that I do not trust.
That's exactly where I stand. GMOs are like machines and genetic engineering in general is like a CNC - you can make tools to improve the world as easily as weapons and malfunctioning equipment that will get people killed (in fact, the latter are easier to produce.) They need to be tightly regulated just like drugs because they are every bit as potentially dangerous and worse they are far more complex and less well understood (Hell, most of what we do with GM involves copying and pasting genes between dif
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a problem with the science of GMO because I don't think that humanity is nearly as smart as we think we are. Only 15 years ago we mapped the human genome and there were many speeches about how it was going to lead to many breakthrough cures. Turns out that things are much more complicated than just simple single on/off switches. Then there was the so-called junk DNA that scientists kept going on about for so long. And then it wasn't too long ago that they realized that it actually did have a purpose. (On a side note it shouldn't be a big surprise since nature wouldn't normally be keeping around a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't useful.)
So far, for the most part all GMO has done for us is create new strains of food that is resistant to poisons that have ended up creating more resistant weeds. We keep hearing about all of the wonderful things that GM can do but it just doesn't get past the laboratory.
I wouldn't mind seeing it used to transfer genes within the same species and it would speed up the process you could recreate with selective breeding. But I'm against transplanting genes from one species to another because we just don't know enough about how the genes interact. It's not whether the food is safe to eat or not (which is what everyone seems to focus on) but what unforeseen impacts with the plants we are introducing.
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Crossing bacterial genes with corn genes is not quite the same thing as mixing and matching corn genes from one variety with another. When we take a gene from bacteria and insert it into corn we are creating a quite unnatural thing and making a whole lot of assumptions about our understanding of genetic language in the process. Maybe it was safe to do, maybe it was not. With selective breeding and hybridization, you are at least starting with genetically compatible material. You also have millions of years of history demonstrating this to be reasonably safe. Nature prevents humans from impregnating hippos, but GMOs are effectively doing just that as well as things far more perverse.
For many of us, we feel an abundance of caution is merited. Given the players involved, it's really hard for us to simply accept their statements of "trust us." There's no independent verification of safety, just blind faith that Monsanto and co. aren't employing a calculus with our health and their profits.
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This mixing of genes between completely different plants or plants and bacteria is actually quite common in nature. For example, take the sweet potato, which contains bacterial genes naturally.
See http://www.nature.com/nature/j... [nature.com]
http://www.npr.org/sections/go... [npr.org]
Re: This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Informative)
From the FDA's web site [fda.gov] (emphasis mine):
Food and food ingredients derived from GE plants must adhere to the same safety requirements under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act that apply to food and food ingredients derived from traditionally bred plants .
The developer produces a safety assessment , which includes the identification of distinguishing attributes of new genetic traits, whether any new material in food made from the GE plant could be toxic or allergenic when eaten, and a comparison of the levels of nutrients in the GE plant to traditionally bred plants.
FDA scientists evaluate the safety assessment and also review relevant data and information that are publicly available in published scientific literature and the agency's own records.
In my book that qualifies as a statement from the company of "trust us." There's no independent verification. Since GMOs are held to the same standard as traditionally bred plants, no standard either really.
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Hybrids have a multi-thousand year safety track record, I think we can call the long term data in on that issue.
WRONG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergy
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/10/04/potato-chips-dangerously-delicious/
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Hybrids have a multi-thousand year safety track record, I think we can call the long term data in on that issue. GMOs do not.
A lot of natural foods contain toxins, allergens, carcinogens -- in small quantities, sure, but we can use genetic engineering to reduce that without losing the flavors, nutrients, and antioxidants. With selective breeding, who knows what you'll get. Using genetic engineering can also reduce the amount or nastiness of pesticides used.
There was the killer potato.
Using conventional breeding techniques, agricultural scientists developed an insect-resistant potato. The potato had insecticidal toxic substances in its skin.
The potato was so toxic to humans that it could kill you.
(I saw this in Science magazine years ago, if you want to look it up.)
There are lots of toxic plants and animals. Toxicity gives them an evolutionary advantage.
There are lots of auto-immune diseases that are probably caused by natural foods that we use every day, or b
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That's funny. Every peach I get at the market, even at Whole Paycheck, contains a cyanide-laced pit. What magic peaches do you get that don't have these?
Re: This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Informative)
Every GMO sold in the U.S. has undergone extensive pre-market safety testing. What specifically about this process do you feel to be deficient. Especially in light of the fact that many other tools, such as random mutagenesis via radiation, do not require any pre-market testing depite having actually made people sick (unlike any GMO in the last 20 years).
Re: This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every GMO sold in the U.S. has undergone extensive pre-market safety testing. What specifically about this process do you feel to be deficient. Especially in light of the fact that many other tools, such as random mutagenesis via radiation, do not require any pre-market testing depite having actually made people sick (unlike any GMO in the last 20 years).
You pick up the torch, and I'll pick up the pitchfork. GMO LABELLING IS NOT JUST ABOUT SAFETY. What's "deficient" is knowledge of which products are using a technology that people object to on, for example, the grounds that Monsanto's use of patented GMO crops are polluting neighbor small farmers who are then inadvertently find themselves in trouble for patent infringement. Another reason is people don't like new technologies forced on them whether they like it or not. And I'm sure there are other reasons people have for not wanting GMOs. So I'll say it again, GMO LABELLING IS NOT JUST ABOUT SAFETY.
If there's nothing to hide, there's no reason NOT to label if people want it. What's "confusing" is not to label it and leave people wondering. And in fact we see there IS something to hide. They know if they label GMOs some people won't buy them because of it. I can tell you though, if I see two products on the shelf and one says "non-GMO," THAT'S the one I'm buying.
Fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
Then I will pick up the torch.
Every GMO sold in the U.S. has undergone extensive pre-market safety testing. What specifically about this process do you feel to be deficient. Especially in light of the fact that many other tools, such as random mutagenesis via radiation, do not require any pre-market testing depite having actually made people sick (unlike any GMO in the last 20 years).
I have no problem with putting well-tested GMO products in the supermarket. I have a problem with a multibillion dollar corporation bribing my Congresspeople so that they will be able to hide the fact that the products are engineered.
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize, right, that every GMO is required to undergo years of testing? Unlike anything labeled as Organic or Natural or Dietary Supplement which do not require any testing at all.
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And the money involved makes it VERY likely that process is corrupt at MANY levels...
The limitations imposed by "traditional" methods impose hard limits on what can be done.
I personally, don't mind creating and selling GMO's...
I very much mind not being allowed to know WHAT my food IS. This corporate shill of a law is prime example of the subversion of how capitalism is supposed to work. For capitalism to work properly the consumer need to be able to make a INFORMED decision. That is being denied to me.
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's been evidence.. but you can't find it now, because the independent labs that did the research were bought out by Monsanto, closed down, and the evidence buried. I'd imagine that now they proactively buy out anyone who has anything negative to show the world, and shuts them down before they can even tell anyone what they're finding.
Do you have evidence of this or are you just spouting paranoid theory? And don't tell me "just Google it" or any other similar smart-ass comments. You're making the claim, you provide the evidence.
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Irrelevant. Food safety is the responsibility of a specific government department. Labeling laws depend exclusively on what they think and until they determine that something is a risk it has no business on a food label.
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Either the evidence doesn't exist at all or it's so crap that it shouldn't be taken seriously. Anything else doesn't make sense in world that has Wikileaks that's reporting on illegal government spying and other shady activity by world go
Re: This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No ... over the last hundred years, with improvements in public hygiene, water supplies, and vaccines, we have essentially conquered lethal childhood disease. We have effectively conquered food-borne illness. We have found effective anaesthetics and antibiotics and discovered effective methods of surgery so that essentially no one dies of minor trauma. The same techniques mean that most birth defects are now survivable.
Heart attack, cancer, etc haven't skyrocketed as causes of death because of our diet ... they've skyrocketed because we now live long enough for these to be the primary things that take us out, because we've beat all the other stuff! All these diseases have (obviously) existed for millions of years, but essentially no one ever succumbed to them because they didn't live long enough!
Can most of us eat better and exercise more and eek out a few more years? Sure. But I'd much rather our situation today than that of our forbears of even a hundred years ago.
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People DID live quite long even in previous centuries (as long as you didn't work in a coal mine or such), and low life expectancy in previous centuries must be adjusted for the insane child mortality in it. If you do so, your improvements over time vanish: (http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans-constant-2-000-years.html)
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You've clearly never been to Asia! I'm going to presume the rest of your comment is just as accurate.
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The concept of GMO food is not inherently bad. What concerns me is the implementation, and to be more specific, the testing involved. Companies like Monsanto rush these things to market in order to get the quickest and highest ROI they possibly can. What I would consider adequate testing over an adequate period of time has not been done. Meanwhile GMO DNA is already incorporated into the biosphere of the entire planet due to cross-pollinatio
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Oh, and a word regarding traditional hybridization: Not the same thing at all -- because it's not like farmers, historically, were somehow incorporating insect DNA into their crops, which, I believe, is what was done with GMO tomatoes.
You were doing OK till then. Actually, the genes for plants and animals are full of DNA for viruses and bacterial that were incorporated into the host DNA.
There was an article in the New Yorker a few years ago that explained how segments of viral DNA were incorporated into the human genome. Once they sequenced the human genome, they could search for viral sequences, and they found a lot. There are lots of DNA viruses that incorporate themselves into human DNA. That's why it's so hard to get rid of herpesvir
Re:This legislation brought to you by.. (Score:5, Informative)
Celiac disease dates back to the 2nd Century [csaceliacs.org] and was given its current name in 1856.
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Celiac disease dates back to the 2nd Century [csaceliacs.org] and was given its current name in 1856.
Celiac disease has a strong inherited component, and also an environmental (food) component. If somebody had been living in a place where they eat mostly potatoes or rice, and came here and started eating wheat, you'd see more celiac disease. Or if the old country started importing wheat, you'd see more celiac disease.
Interestingly, rheumatoid arthritis was common in America, but rare in Europe until about 1700. It seems that there's something that causes rheumatoid arthritis in America, that traveled to Eu
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next step: asking questions will be a terrorist ac (Score:2)
and they'll bring back the noose for it.
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We played God when we took out the first diseased appendix.
Other opponents (Score:5, Insightful)
other opponents of labeling genetically modified foods
Now who the hell considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods unless they have a financial stake in it? Is there anyone walking down the street who has nothing to do with the food industry and considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods?
This... legislation will ensure that Americans have accurate, consistent information about their food
So a law that requires that GMO foods are labeled as GMO foods would be a barrier to accurate, consistent information? Someone wrote that quote without even bothering to check what the issue was, didn't they?
Re:Other opponents (Score:5, Insightful)
other opponents of labeling genetically modified foods
Now who the hell considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods unless they have a financial stake in it? Is there anyone walking down the street who has nothing to do with the food industry and considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods?
I have no financial stake it in an I oppose labeling of GMO foods.
This... legislation will ensure that Americans have accurate, consistent information about their food
So a law that requires that GMO foods are labeled as GMO foods would be a barrier to accurate, consistent information?
Yes. Because "GMO" doesn't tell you anything all. It makes people *think* they are making an informed choice about their health when actually they are choosing randomly and because people have limited time and attention span, adding the label means other, actually important factors, get less attention.
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Re: Other opponents (Score:2)
Yes.
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Re:Other opponents (Score:5, Insightful)
The GMO label means nothing, but those pushing it will use it to imply GMO=unsafe. It then becomes a weapon they can use to advance their agenda to have all GMO removed from the food chain. For no good reason.
Some people falsely believe gluten is bad. Do you support banning labels that tell people that a food contains wheat?
Non-sequitur. Celiac [celiac.org] is quite real even if most of the people avoiding gluten don't have it. There is no such thing as "GMO sensitivity". Indeed, there can't be because "GMO" is not a substance.
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I have no financial stake it in an I oppose labeling of GMO foods.
OK, so why do you have a problem if the food I buy needs a GMO label if it is GMO food?
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A law effectively limiting information disclosure is really shady, regardless of which way you feel about GMO.
Knowing something is GMO DOES tell you it tastes worse and was created by Monsanto, who I'd love to see burn. It's the food world's equivalent of "Made in China" - sure, it'll do, and it isn't always harmful - but I'd rather avoid it.
And the Federal government prohibiting any requirement by states of a statement of fact on food labels is fucked up. Sucks to your overbearing commerce clause; read the
Re:Other opponents (Score:5, Insightful)
GMO company: There's no need to label these things. They're perfectly safe.
Anti-GMO activist: Why do you hate transparency? If it's perfectly safe, there's no reason not to label them.
[Time passes. Labels mandated.]
Anti-GMO activist: If GMOs are so safe, why is labeling them mandatory?
Consumers: Hey! That's a good point!
Re:Other opponents (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider myself an opponent of mandatory labelling GMO foods as GMO, without having a financial stake in it.
I would suggest instead that non-GMO products should voluntarily label themselves as non-GMO, and enforce the veracity of that claim under truth in advertising laws. I still believe that's actually better even for the people who are opposed to GMO in general, because now they know what to look for. This is the "kosher-label" model instead of the "danger: explosive!" model.
I could also see my way to mandatory labelling specific classes of GMO products if a legitimate concern could be cited about them. Otherwise it's just really arbitrary. Like mandating a "contains Utah genes" label for products whose ancestry ever included a plant or animal raised in Utah.
Enforcing labelling on an arbitrary basis does in fact create a barrier because your choice of what is a mandatory label *itself* conveys information ("we politicians aren't confident this is safe for human consumption, but aren't willing to ban it outright either"). And the thing is, that's what presumably any product that intentionally contains no GMO truly wants to advertise, so they should go ahead and advertise it. It's their right. I haven't seen a lot of these labels. There is "organic" which guarantees no GMO, but it also comes with some extra requirements you may not wish to impose, like limitations on pesticides and fertilizers.
It's kind of like biased reporting. It is possible to report a sequence of things that everybody agrees are facts, in such a way as to suggest something that is non-factual. That's what bias is.
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And, since there is no evidence that GMO foods in general have negative he
Everyone has a financial stake in this (Score:2)
There is a cost associated with labelling. I'm not interested in paying more for my groceries due to anti-GMO fear mongering.
GMO-free providers can choose to label their food (as some do now). This lets consumers purchase GMO-free foods if they place a greater value on those and keeps the cost of doing so on the product they value more.
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Everybody in rich countries would pay more for food, while people in poorer countries would literally starve to death because of those labels. ... Informed consumers would not care about the label, while uninformed consumers (the vast majority, yourself included) would be actively killing people across the globe with their ignorance and fear.
I'm not sure that I quite understand, can you introduce an even more ridiculous level of hyperbole? How about some FUD? Maybe it would help if you compared me with a Nazi (c'mon, mandatory labeling? It shouldn't be that much of a stretch for you).
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I'd object without any financial stake because it doesn't fucking make sense.
EVERY SINGLE ORGANIC* FOOD YOU EAT HAS BEEN "GENETICALLY MODIFIED" FROM ITS ORIGINAL FORM by (at the very least) selective breeding if not more intrusive means.
*ironically, the only "food" you can eat and totally avoid this would be entirely synthetic things like Twizzlers and Sweetarts. Have at it, Luddites.
Say what? (Score:2)
I think you mean "this legislation will ensure that Americans have no way of knowing they're being sold GMO food."
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Indeed. "This legislation will ensure that Americans do not have accurate, consistent information about their food".
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I think you mean "this legislation will ensure that Americans have no way of knowing they're being sold GMO food."
Unless for some bizarre reason you are purposefully trying to avoid non-GMO food, then you shouldn't care.
If you want to ensure that you are buying non-GMO food -- which is what the anti-GMO activists want -- then all you have to do is buy food that is so marked. This law doesn't change that at all.
Good! Those laws just misinform consumers anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good! Those laws just misinform consumers anywa (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly. GMO labeling laws are analogous to labeling table salt as "NOTICE: HAS CHEMICALS!".
FWIW, in California, every supermarket has this posted near the fresh produce section, but not associated with any particular product.
Proposition 65 WARNING: Products contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
This clearly conveys the real and important information to the consumer about the fresh produce for sale at every supermarket in California ;^)
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I'm not really sure how GMO labeling helps. Non-GMO labeling may help, but that happens mostly voluntary. It to me it isn't a safety issue, unless you are going to say, this corn or wheat isn't as nutritious as a natural product, or this product only appears to resemble a tomato, it may not smell, taste or provide nutrients found in natural tomatoes. It isn't all that clear to me what path forward we can take to give more people access to better food. Sure I prefer to buy organic, non-GMO, free range, hormo
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Labeling laws like this convey no real information to the consumer.
Yes it does. It informs the consumer whether the food contains GMO or not. And some consumers care about this and wish to be informed.
They just add a word to the food item that many people interpret as frightening, a word that has literally zero impact on the safety or sustainability of the food item.
So if the consumers are put off by GMO then the solution is to hide the fact? People of Asian and Jewish religion are put off by products containing pork. Maybe you could argue that pork is perfectly safe and they are over reacting. So should we just hide the fact that some food contains pork because we know better than they do that pork is safe?
This is definitely a win for people everywhere in the US.
How is hiding information that
Whatever happened to transparency? (Score:2)
Labling (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we should have mandatory labeling on anything that contains DNA, just to be safe.
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Meaningless mental masturbation (Score:2, Insightful)
"Genetically modified", all food is genetically modified. Humans have domesticated, modified by selection, hybridation and other means, all the food since the beginnings of agriculture. Labelling this or that is therefore simply a lie, because all should be labelled, then.
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The old methods of crossbreeding were limited and judged by nature. The available tools were crude and impotent and nature acted as "referee" to keep bad shit from happening
The new methods may bypass this protection
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Difference between x-rays and GMOs is x-rays don't self propagate. Maybe a better analogy would be... Stuxnet?
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It doesn't matter how many thousands of years of selective pressure we force onto various crops, we will never make them glow in the dark.
Do you understand that selective breeding is how organisms got glow-in-the-dark ability in the first place? It's pretty clear you could get them there through selective breeding.
Meanwhilie is Russia, GMOs are banned - Seriously! (Score:3)
Putin just states that GMOs will be forbidden in Russia. This is not even a joke:
http://sustainablepulse.com/20... [sustainablepulse.com]
We will now be witness to a very large controlled experiment.
I have all ready arranged an explanation for you guys when Russia shows lower rates of disease X and scientists proclaim the "Russia Paradox":
1. There is better disease reporting in the west.
2. Russian statistics are doctored by corrupt officials.
3. Moderate vodka consumption has health benefits.
Glorious (Score:2)
I remember first seeing on a container of recombinant-bovine-growth-hormone-free yogurt that stated there was no difference between it and rbgh containing yogurt.
I thought - "What? Why would the manufacturer put both of those labels on his product?" Of course, it's because the agricultural lobby paid off politicians in order to force non-rBGH manufacturers to put such labels on their product.
You know how Tom Wheeler, former top lobbyist for the cable industry is now head of the FCC? Yeah, it's safe to ass
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I read this in The Economist recently:
"Mr Putin and his associates know, from first-hand experience, that courts and judges in Russia are for the most part obedient puppets of their political masters. They also believe, wrongly, that the Western system works on the same principle, but just dressed up with more hypocrisy and flimflam." [economist.com]
I'm no fan of Putin, I think he's a corrupt oligarch. But I see things like this, shenanigans in the financial sector and various other regulations swayed by donations at all
We don't need a law (Score:2)
Any person who pays attention knows that ALL processed food contains GMOs
Unless you know the farmer personally, or REALLY trust the advertising of the "organic" producers, it's safe to assume that ALL corn and soybeans, and ALL products made from corn and soybeans contain GMOs
Kinda reminds me of Cal prop 65, requiring sellers to disclose if their products caused cancer in lab animals. Now EVERY product has the warning, and everybody ignores it
Freedom of choice. (Score:3)
I don't understand the problem with simply specifying what they are selling?
And as a consumer, regardless of if you are for or against the creation, use and spread of genetically modified organisms, why would you ever not want your food labeled with what it is?
For instance, where I live, food is usually labeled with where it has been produced and where it's been packaged. Since I think needlessly long transports of goods are idiotic, I tend to buy as locally produced and handled meat and vegetables as possible, even if it sometimes is a bit more expensive due to my country's high cost of labor and strict regulations on how you are allowed to treat your animals and what pesticides you allowed to use.
If the food hadn't been labeled, I wouldn't have the freedom of choosing where I want my food produced and packaged.
Same thing with actively genemanipulated food. If it isn't labeled, I am not free to choose if I want to buy "naturally" breed products or if I want to buy genetically modified products. That freedom is dependent on the producers informing me of what they're selling me.
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Seriously, EVERYTHING YOU EAT is GMO.
The vast majority was done by selective breeding and grafting, a very small amount by directly fiddling with the genes.
There is not a single crop that hasn't been modified by humans in some way.
Re:approves an anti (Score:5, Informative)
The big thing you have to remember about this is that traits are not one-to-one with genes. One gene can affect many different traits and one trait can be affected by many different genes. When you genetically engineer an organism, you run the risk of creating or altering traits you never intended. This can and has lead to problems like feed corn that's toxic to the cattle and pigs it was intended for.
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When you genetically engineer an organism, you run the risk of creating or altering traits you never intended.
Correct, but this is true of all genetic alterations, including conventional breeding: known examples include toxic potatoes and celery. [nap.edu]
This can and has lead to problems like feed corn that's toxic to the cattle and pigs it was intended for.
Citation needed. I believe you are referring to a case where GE corn was contaminated [academicsreview.org] with fungal mycotoxins, and as the corn was GE, anti-GMO groups claimed it was the GE aspect that made them sterile, not the well known toxic agents that happened to also be in there (which they conveniently neglected to mention).
If we take your argument, we should label conventional bre
Another blow to states' RIGHTS. (Score:3, Insightful)
This GMO stuff isn't like selective breeding, it is putting genes from a different species into a plant...like splicing DNA out of a frog into a stalk of wheat.
Why is the food industry so "afraid" of letting the consumer make an informed decision on what they want to put in their bodies?
The food industry hasn't put this much effort and money behind anti-consumer legislation since the food nutrition l
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Non-GMO foods are free to label their foods as such.
There are no labeling requirements for organic foods. Producers do so because they feel there is a market for it. If there truly is a market for non-GMO foods, then people will be putting 'doesn't contain GMO' stickers on their products.
So .. shut the fuck up.
Re:Another blow to states' RIGHTS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Another blow to states' RIGHTS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. The labels are about informed choice.
I have the right to know if what I'm buying with my money is the result of a combination of genes that have undergone thousands of years of 'safety testing' known as evolution, or something concocted in a lab by people who don't even understand fully the basics of what they're doing, but whose employers are in a rush to make a quick buck while they have the patent; something, which is only 'tested' against the interpretation of the safety rules of the said employers for a year or two.
Even if there was a working thorough safety testing procedure and no cause of concern (which isn't the case just yet), if I'm buying something with my money, I still have the right to know what it is made of, just like I have the right to know what's on the ingredient list, where something was manufactured, what color is the item in the package, what is the CPU inside and how many points are there per inch, and just like I tell my clients what's in the product that I ship to them.
If you're against labeling on the ground that it creates 'fear', let's remove the country of origin stuff too, after all, the importers have done all the testing and it is quite certain there's no harm to the consumer. Let's remove info about nutritional value, because high calories or weird ingredients scare the consumer. Finally, let's get rid of the pesky expiry date stuff, we all know that businesses will thoroughly test and that they won't put something spoiled on the shelves.
Re:Another blow to states' RIGHTS. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. The labels are about informed choice.
I have the right to know if what I'm buying with my money is the result of a combination of genes that have undergone thousands of years of 'safety testing' known as evolution, or something concocted in a lab by people who don't even understand fully the basics of what they're doing, but whose employers are in a rush to make a quick buck while they have the patent; something, which is only 'tested' against the interpretation of the safety rules of the said employers for a year or two.
I also used to be a huge proponent of GMO labeling before listening to Bill Nye [startalkradio.net] explain why it's both redundant and pointless and should be embraced instead. Every-thing we eat is literally some variant of GMO, we've been making GMO foods since we've been cultivating crops and domesticating animals. Nothing we eat today is not GMO unless we go berry picking deep in the forest. I know it's simpler to think many of the foods we eat today were cultivated/domesticated 10,000's of years ago, and it's true. However we've been continually modifying everything we eat, every year, non stop, since then. The corn we eat today is nothing like the native plant we first cultivated, and also different than the corn we ate 100 years ago. So the idea of the food we eat having been safety tested for "thousands of years" doesn't really strictly hold up.
Also finding out how freaking awesome their genetics lab work was amazingly impressive. They can test and sequence genomes for plants in hours with specialized machinery instead of weeks like it used to take. Transcend 100s of generations of a plant in a matter of weeks, selecting from among the throng the best candidates for perpetuation. When they're happy with the genetic results they then cultivate them to ensure expectations meet reality. 100's of geneticists do this for 3-4 years before handing it over to the FDA which reviews it for another 3 years. There is no going "back to the old ways" on this where you sprinkle pollen on the stamen by hand and wait for it to grow before selecting. We're waaaay past that. We can improve the new GMO process but there's ZERO chance we're going back to the old ways.
If anything it's scary-amazing to know how effective it is and where this will take our world in the next 100 years. We're now able to do in weeks what takes mother nature centuries. We can make plants resistant to bugs, pests, reduce the water they intake, make them more nutritious, give them a longer shelf life, reduce or eliminate natural toxins that many plants have, grow faster. This is really literally super food. Being anti GMO is nearly as bad as being anti-vaccination.
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Nope. The labels are about informed choice.
I have the right to know if what I'm buying with my money is the result of a combination of genes that have undergone thousands of years of 'safety testing' known as evolution, or something concocted in a lab by people who don't even understand fully the basics of what they're doing, but whose employers are in a rush to make a quick buck while they have the patent; something, which is only 'tested' against the interpretation of the safety rules of the said employers for a year or two.
Even if there was a working thorough safety testing procedure and no cause of concern (which isn't the case just yet), if I'm buying something with my money, I still have the right to know what it is made of, just like I have the right to know what's on the ingredient list, where something was manufactured, what color is the item in the package, what is the CPU inside and how many points are there per inch, and just like I tell my clients what's in the product that I ship to them.
If you're against labeling on the ground that it creates 'fear', let's remove the country of origin stuff too, after all, the importers have done all the testing and it is quite certain there's no harm to the consumer. Let's remove info about nutritional value, because high calories or weird ingredients scare the consumer. Finally, let's get rid of the pesky expiry date stuff, we all know that businesses will thoroughly test and that they won't put something spoiled on the shelves.
The thousands of years of 'safety testing' known as evolution was being bypassed long before the discovery of DNA, let alone the ability to directly manipulate for crops. Canola is one of the biggest 'GMO' crops after corn, and Canola itself is not a natural occurring plant formed from thousands of years of evolution. It is a hand bred variety of rapeseed invented in the 70's about 2 hours drive from where I'm typing this. Demanding GMO or not GMO labelling on crops makes about as much sense as demanding th
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It is a hand bred variety of rapeseed invented
What you mean is that traits already existing in rapeseed were enhanced via a particular selection process.
Genetically engineered canola has only one 'useful' property - herbicide resistance.
I mean they are BOTH genetically engineered. One was genetically engineered by using an unknown number of completely random mutations to get a desired result. The other was genetically engineered by using a specifically selected DNA change to get the desired result. The obvious follow on is that it's kinda absurd to demand that the higher fear of unexpected consequences is with the specifically chosen DNA change versus the unknown number of random mutations method.
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Re: approves an anti (Score:5, Insightful)
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So instead of a controlled change of genetics, you give it a dose of radiation to allow a random genetic mutations.
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Transgenics may not be the same thing as hybridization, but it is a process that can also occur naturally. The claim that "hybridization mimics nature, while transgenics is purely human engineering" is another lie.
Re:approves an anti (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't make any difference how many right wing propaganda sources you quote since they are all incorrect. When you (or they) state flatly "no GMO food that ever makes it to your plate ever has genes from one organism transplanted to another" it not even close to the truth. A simple Wikipedia search is all that it takes to get the facts.
All the cursing and name calling in you rant makes you appear unhinged and delusional. Given that you are spouting lies as well it's obvious that a rational reader would ignore everything you say.
This makes me wonder. Perhaps your family history is unique, but as far as the rest of humanity is concerned Bacillus thuringiensis is not an organism found normally living with other bacteria in our gut. If your assertion is true then maybe you do have Bt genes or are a host to that organism. If so, when did you find out about the moth/butterfly lineage in your family tree. Please share with us the story about how you ancestors interbreed with insects.
Note: In case my response was too well written for you to understand, I will restate it in terms more suited to your limited capabilities: I called you a damn liar, said that anyone with sense should ignore you, and someone in your family tree was a bug fucker. Is that simple enough for you?
Re:approves an anti (Score:4, Informative)
There's nothing you could eat that has ever done that. Unless you're a cannibal.
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Yes, there are some legitimate problems with GMOs, but they are legal issues, not health or environmental ones, and no one is talking about the alternative: More fertilizer, more water, more land use, more fuel to get less food.
Regardless of this, why shouldn't food be labeled with that it is?
If you want to buy genetically modified products since they're less environmentally straining, or for other reasons like higher nutrient values or such, you must have labels to be able to make this choice.
If want to stay away from genetically modified products due to being afraid of potential harm, or other reasons, you must also have labels to be able to make this choice.
What your choice or reasons are is irrelevant to the question of labeli