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Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food
gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times:
"For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated. The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a probable November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture. Tens of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on the election showdown. It pits consumer groups and the organic food industry, both of which support mandatory labeling, against more conventional farmers, agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto and many of the nation's best-known food brands like Kellogg's and Kraft."
...is some good shit. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Yum!
I guess we all know how this will go down, considering what happened in France. The FDA will step in and overrule any vote
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
see Food Inc and other documentaries about the pernicious effects of agribusiness
-I'm just sayin'
While I applaud the notion, this all overlooks the fact that pollen from Monsanto's GM crops is wind- and insect-borne to even organic farms.
And what about scientists who say it is harmful?
"More conventional"!? Which f*£king joker wrote that line? Nothing is more conventional than organic. Laughable.
As far as the food industry is concerned, labelling is equivalent to banning genetically modified food.
As far as I am concerned, if they can't sell it for what it is, then they shouldn't be selling it.
Funny excuses they use to not label the franken-food as GMOed. "We don't want mandatory labeling because nobody can keep track of the ingredients." If you can't keep track of a dozen ingredients in your food products, how are you keeping track of all those genes and the interactions between them?
If they don't have anything to hide, then why not label it GMO? Hint - because nobody in their right mind would buy it, that's why.
So, they want to patent the food but not admit it. Sounds like organized crime.
If GM food is awesome, then why aren't they proud enough to slap a big 'ol label on it and say so? I mean, I buy "Sugar Free" and "Fat Free" stuff, they're proud of that... "New and Improved" has been the promotional battle cry since marketing began... So, what's so bad about informing the consumers? Consumers should have the choice: Some people might prefer it regardless of any real or perceived benefit or harm. Eg: I buy cage free eggs not because of better living conditions for birds, but because of the taste -- Tastes like Freedom! It's not like all the other eggs say: Unborn Chicken Slaves...
The point is: without a label, how can I exercise consumer choice? Put it another way: If the corn has DNA pesticide enough such that I don't have to fight off Texas sized mosquito swarms anymore, then I might just ONLY eat Deep Woods OFF(tm) brand Gene Boosted food.
It isn't all that hard to tell if the food you are eating contains genetically engineered ingredients. Corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya are the only crops that have been genetically engineered, Due to the way bulk amounts of commodity crops like corn and soy are processed, if something has them one of those ingredients in it and was produced in a country that uses GE crops (like the US, Canada, Argentina, or Brazil), and is not labeled otherwise, then it is a very safe bet that it is GE. This is not very hard to remember.
The problem with mandatory labeling in many. While it is easy to claim 'right to know' the reality is a bit fuzzier if you take the time to think about it. First, we should not require regulations based on who screams the loudest, or based on simple wants. Millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, vegans, ect. have dietary restrictions, but rather than demand that food processors cater to them, they go through the market, create demand for food labeled kosher or halal or vegan, and buy that food, or simply do their homework, for example, calling to find out if the gelatin in a product came from pigs, or if the 'natural flavors' of a product were animal based. There is nothing wrong with them doing their thing, but they do not try to impose their beliefs on others either.
the second problem I have with it is that it is inconsistent and uninformative. If I say I modified my computer, what does that tell you? Nothing. If I say something is genetically engineered, what does that tell you? Does it tell you how it was changed or what gene was inserted? Nope. Furthermore, there are many ways that we alter the genetics of crops. Selective breeding, hybridization of inbred lines, marker assisted breeding, wide crossing & embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, mutagenesis, induced polyploidy. There's also ways that modify the plant without affecting the genetics (grafting and tissue culture) and a host inputs that are applied to plants that you could inquire about (including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, and various plant growth regulators). To single out one thing is very inconsistent.
So, where is the 'right to know' if something was produced with mutagenesis, or to know if rice has the sd-1 gene or a tomato has the Ph3 gene, or to know if something was treated with a synthetic plant growth regulator to thin the fruit? Fact is there are too many things to possible be listed that you could know, so only important thing (like ingredients and allergens) are labeled. You want something else labeled? that's fine, do what the Jews, Muslims, and vegans do and create a free market demand for it (rmember, there is the organic label, and certification from the Non-GMO Project), but if you can't create enough market demand, don't go to the government demanding special treatment. Could you imagine the torches and pitchforks if a Muslim group said that they could not be bothered to read the Quran and find out what was Halal and Haram so they demanded mandaotry labeling?
What this whole thing really reminds me of is the 'Evolution is only a theory' stickers you see people push for in textbooks. Sure, it is true, evolution is 'only' a theory, just like a 'Contains GMOs' sticker would be true, but you know damn well that the purpose of such stickers is to case doubt on legitimate science by preying on the general public's misunderstandings and ignorance for political or ideological reasons, not to educate.
It has been labelled as such (vs. real sugar) for a while
Except they're not happy with that.
Like wheat. That's genetically modified from several of inedible grasses
Tomatoes, too. From inedible nightshade.
Almonds as well - wild almonds will kill you dead.
Bananas are all clones of a single tree.
I can go on.
The People of California demanded tighter automotive emissions standards, and the federal government said we couldn't have them.
Dairy foods which tout their lack of rBGH are required to carry a message stating that the FDA has found no substantive difference between milk from cows with or without rBGH, which is a lie. The opposite has been proven in court. Will California even be permitted to require labeling of GM foods? And when can we get the lies removed from the packaging?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem with labeling things genetically modified especially with processed foods like pretty much anything that comes in a box or can... is that it tends to be mixed up from lots of sources. So some of it is modified and maybe some of it isn't.
So here's the solution. Write on the side of the can "may contain genetically modified goods"... that would have to put on the side pretty much everything. And that's fine. We can put that next to the nutrition chart.
Then there will be a couple companies that don't use genetically modified food and they'll put a BIG label on the side that says "the reason you're paying 40 percent more for this food is because we used more expensive food and we know we can fleece you for extra"...
Everyone happy now? That is dead simple to arrange and everyone gets what they want and what they deserve. The big companies that are pumping out most of the food we eat don't have to do any extra work. Just put on the label "may include genetically modified food"... and we're done with this stupid controversy.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
... So please stop lending credence to it. The real concern is creating a crop monoculture engineered to meet Monsanto's short term needs (eg to sell roundup-ready seeds every year, then selling the roundup, etc), and not the long-term needs of society or even just farmers.
If you selectively breed crops or animals for food - breeding to extend specific traits you find desirable, how is it not the same?
Granted, it takes longer to produce the outcome you want through breeding traditionally - but you still get the same outcome in the end.
Why is "natural" GMO acceptable and this not?
If they do that, they should also require homeopathic "medicine" have a large label saying "this only contains water and anything that happens to you is a result of magical thinking on your part".
In fact, they should also put the "magical thinking" warning on GMO food as well.
Why do you take an issue and pigeon-hole it into a political ideology? Hell the term "left-winger" is a pigeon-hole in and of itself. All you are doing is displaying your ignorance, I am very surprised you got that single upvote.
Furthermore, [citation needed] for your assumption that there is a correlation between being anti-GMO and being left wing.
AccountKiller
when enough of the big companies don't give in to their new requirements and stop selling them food they will get real hungry real quick.
Climate deniers are left-wing? Are you, per chance, synesthetic?
.: Semper Absurda
The opposite has been proven in court.
Just because some judge let something into a trial doesn't make it correct. You could state that some study has been peer reviewed and published. But making it into court means nothing scientifically.
Have gnu, will travel.
Pretty much all crops for the last few hundred years has been GM food. The only difference is instead of a monk trying to cross-pollinate different varieties of crops together, we have scientists actually looking at the genetic makeup of the crops.
unsupported suspicions
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm seeing people in here saying that tomatoes are GMO because they're in the same family as Nightshade.
Not correct. Here's how it works...
Hybrid: Pollen from plant A is daubed on the stamen of plant B, yielding a hybrid. Both the parents and the offspring are the same Genus and species, such as Snap peas, or Pisum sativum. You can hybridize them into many varieties, with different characteristics, such as time to maturity, mildew resistance or sugar content.
Genetically Modified Organism: Genetic material is extracted from organism A and artificially implanted/replaced into the genetic material of organism B. Neither organism are even close to each other, such as adding the genes for luciferase in jellyfish to tobacco plants to track calcium uptake.
The name for corn is Zea mays. The name for StarLink(TM) is StarLink(TM), because it is an entirely new species that has not been classified under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, by the International Botanical Congress.
So.
Daubing pollen on plants is good. Daubing jellyfish on plants doesn't work. Splicing jellyfish into plants is a Bad Thing.
[End Of Line]
Based on my regular reading of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I think there's a better a argument that the right-wing is anti-science. Read Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Creationism, anyone? Stem cell research?
I don't belief that GMO, as we see it today, will affect my health so I don't mind eating it. I cannot however in good conscience send my money to Monsanto and the likes.
So you cannot force labels on the manipulated foods? Ok, then why not invent a "gene-manipulation free food" label and only grant it to "clean" food? Along with promotion, this can prove to be even more effective since you get to set the standards and make sure that nobody slips past.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
and it cost me $200/mo in Arizona to eat. The only way I can cut that is to switch to a diet rich in R(amen) vitamins and Hydrogenated goodness. GM is the least of my worries.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
From http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09371.html
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently requires labeling of GE foods if the food has a significantly different nutritional property; if a new food includes an allergen that consumers would not expect to be present (e.g., a peanut protein in a soybean product); or if a food contains a toxicant beyond acceptable limits.
Please do read the entire link above. It contains a reasonable summary of the debate.
See
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875183&cid=40115673
FIrst, see http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875183&cid=40116361
Second, the scenario you describe is utterly unrealistic.
You:
1) Ignore the market for certified "organic" foods
2) Ignore the fact the scientists study plant varieties and store their DNA, so they can't all disappear like you suggest
3) Ignore that Monsanto has competitors, both private companies and governments
4) Ignore that the scenario you describe could happen with conventional artificial selection just as well as with GMO's
And, you mention Microsoft. Why do you treat computers and plants so differently? You say genetic engineering is evil because there is Monsanto. By the same logic, computers are evil because there is Microsoft. Then why do you use computers?
Based on my regular reading of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I think there's a better a argument that the right-wing is anti-science. Read Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Creationism, anyone? Stem cell research?
You may disagree that human embryos have a right to life, but to label pro-life people as "anti-science" is utterly dishonest.
Saying that they are "anti-science" because they oppose the effects (human embryo death) of one specific type of research is like saying that I am anti-science because I oppose the research of Josef Mengele.
I don't even want to enter into the underlying subject matter (right to life of human embryos) here. I just want the debate to stay adult, instead of being dominated by name-calling.
Shame on you.
Selective breeding occurs over time, any negative effects (health, environmental) appear gradually (over generations) and can be tracked, studied and mitigated.
GMOs are strictly studied before being released to market.
In fact, the exaggerated regulation keeps a very high barrier to entry, and is responsible by the current strength of Monsanto.
See
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09371.html
Organic food is inefficient. Its popularity is due to irrational fears.
here:
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09371.html
Dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous when you have a wall of it ten meters high approaching you at high speed.
It's also dangerous when you are ten meters down in a pool of it without breathing apparatus.
In fact, it's dangerous at much lower levels, such as when you drink more than 4 liters a day (for someone of about average build) or try to chug two liters of it in one go. (Not as dangerous as chugging dihydrogen monoxide with fermented grain products, but still dangerous.)
Of course, this is not an allegory. Water is all around us, has been for a long time, and can be dangerous in large volumes.
GM crops are only recent, all we have scientific proof of is their short-term effects and their tendency to cross-breed with everything they can breed with, and the damage to the friendly fauna.
Kind of like seeing a tsunami wave of some water substitute coming at you. Except that it's hard to imagine a real water substitute.
The patenting, at any rate, would be evil enough without the tendency to naturally cross-bread with neighboring crops, but add the tendency to cross-breed, and it's like pointing a shotgun at all the farmers who don't want to mess with it and saying, "Resistance is futile." Because resistance is now futile, and Monsanto is not known for taking a light hand on enforcing their rights.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
"Mutated" beats "engineered to allow increased pesticide use".
First, there are also GMOs designed to use *less* pesticide, or to simply
produce higher yields, or to be healthier.
Second, if you have a problem with pesticides, then lobby for a law that either
bans the exaggerated use of pesticides, or mandate labelling products which
used much pesticide. Why specifically pick on GMOs?
GM was demonized by a patent-crazed monomegalomaniac corporation.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If the government mandated their products to be labelled as:
WARNING: this product had contact with an unusual amount of feces
?
It is all about consumer choice, right? No consumer will ever have a irrational uninformed fear when he reads a FDA warning, right?
People do never assume that "warnings" indicate danger, right?
Looking is not tasting. I suppose you'r going to claim gold auido wires and such, but there is a difference.
(And the difference is in fact sometimes visilble, but that's a side-issue.)
Is it somehow wrong to want to retain a little variety in the world?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
What do you call a red carrot?
Never seen blue corn?
What are you arguing here?
But blue or red or orange or purple maize are not the unusual colors because the corn is genetically engineered. Neither are the red or purple carrots you can sometimes get in Japanese grocery stores.
If Monsanto is willing to wipe out all the natural species by forcing all farmers whose seed crop gets infested with the Monsanto genes, they need to have a far greater variety of viable breeds.
And your expansion of the term "genetic engineering" is gratuitous.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Could be, if we gave it all lots more time.
Time is one of the big problems, you see.
But giving direct genetic intervention time to play out doesn't support Monsanto's monopoly.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Monsanto is in far too big a hurry to establish their monopolies.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Considering that -all- of our food crops and animals have been wildly genetically modified, I've never been able to figure out the recent "OMG GMO FOOD" panics, other than the weird shift western culture has taken toward being frightened of science in the past decades.
I still do not understand why your nightmare scenario applies to GE but not to conventional artificial selection.
I also made other objections in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2875183&cid=40116659.
You do realize, of course, that almost everything in Food, Inc, is a damn lie?
1) Being a local, small business is not a synonym for a neutral, objective, or ethical company.
2) Best case, this leads to labels like those already plastered everywhere in the state of California. "The State of California has determined that this product contains chemicals known to raise the risk of cancer" or some shit. Except you know what the problem is? Those labels are *everywhere.* They're the first thing you see when you get off the jet. They're in the jetway. The jetway that you literally *have* to walk through.
When you take a message and plaster it everywhere, on everything, you destroy its ability to communicate effectively. Add to that the complete lack of evidence that any of these changes produce any kind of negative health effect, and you have a scare tactic that accomplishes nothing and only frightens people based on zero scientific evidence.
This isn't the same thing as defending Monsanto (I don't) or calling for crazy-ass levels of genetic engineering in food with no oversight. I'm in favor of neither.
See http://www.ota.com/organic/mt/business.html
Organic food and beverage sales represented approximately 4 percent of overall food and beverage sales in 2010. Leading were organic fruits and vegetables, now representing over 11 percent of all U.S. fruit and vegetable sales.
And it grew by a factor of 26 from 1990 to 2010. In 2010 it grew 7.7% (if it keeps this 7.7% growth rate, it will double every 9.3 years)
At this growth rate, it will soon reach 10% of the market, and this far more than enough (remember, the market is huge) to ensure genetic variability, not to mention the facts that Monsanto has many competitors (private companies, government agencies all over the world), including ones who design high-yield seeds with conventional artificial engineering. And the fact that plant varieties are catalogued and preserved. Really, your nightmare scenario cant happen.
Please reconsider. You may campaign against plant patents, or against their excessive duration (AFAIK it is two decades). You may campaign against Monsanto's practice of suing farmers who allegedly benefited from their seeds without paying - you may advocate legal reform to stop this practice. But please stop demonising GMOs!
Hating consumer groups and organic food freaks equally and intensely, I shall send my few nickels to assist big agriculture in defeating these witches.
This subject came up on facebook when my sister-in-law (who is convinced that vaccines caused autism in her sons, and kooky untested therapies can cure it) posted some image with some anti-GMO food propaganda pasted on. A discussion (and I use that term lightly) ensued about how bad GMO foods are. I broke the complaints down into three basic categories.
First there is the anti-GMO FUD that points out the sparse, sometimes solitary studies of how bad GMO foods are for human consumption. In true FUD fashion there were half-truths, distortions, and flat out lies. One notable comment brought up how the organism that makes the BT toxin is closely related to the organism that causes anthrax, so why would you want to eat corn that might be that dangerous. The second category was basically not being comfortable with the idea of GMO foods. I can't really complain about that. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of eating raw fish. Not a big deal. Not like I'm going to use that as the foundation for legislation, and it shouldn't be used for GMO foods. The third category was that Monsanto is evil. I'm not going to say they have nothing to be ashamed of, but I see their behavior as more of a symptom of what is wrong with patent law. They are defending their patent portfolio. They aren't necessarily doing things illegally, but they are doing a lot of douchebag things.
I would rather see some good patent reform take place than food labeling legislation. Putting a patent on a variant of corn with one gene thrown in to kill pests/reduce the need of pesticides makes about as much sense as software patents. The fact that patents are granted is, in my opinion, the real problem here, or at least in how it is being implemented. I can see something like the prescription drug model where the innovating company can sell the seed exclusively for a set amount of time before other companies can start selling generics. I can even see a licensing fee for the generics, but the draconian exclusivity and the silly don't save seeds contracts are the symptom (ranks up there with the RIAA's philosopy), the patents and how patent law is being interpreted are the sickness.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Let's take a good look at this logically. Considering what happened in France, anyone in their right mind knows that if a plant repels insects, there is probably some kind of poison that repels them. True, there are miraculous things that happen. No doubt about that. There is always the God factor. But there are plants you /CAN/ eat that grow in the wild that repel them naturally. Whether or not you should eat them on a daily basis or eat much of them is a totally different ball game. Many of them are mildly if not majorly toxic, and they should only be consumed in moderation. Yea, they very well could have illiminated some of the harmful aspects of the toxins that repel, but more than likely somewhere down the road a problem will arise, just like all of the pesticides and fertilizers that have been found to cause problems. Some have been illegalized. Without further testing, I question whether anything that is genetically engineered should be mass marketed. I don't doubt that the Lord gave people sense enough to do some amazing things with science, but He also gave you sense enough to test things out thorougly before you mass market them. Throughout the years there have been many things that comforted us, even saved our lives, but as we all know, some of those things weren't so well thought out. I can think of a few seemingly harmless ideas they say can help you that have really messed me up. I may mess up in some ways now, but there's quite a few things I know not to do and not doing them has paid off. I'd say learn a lesson from the past and test them out thoroughly before you actually do it.
Monsanto citing biologically contaminated farms adjacent to GMO farms, as "infringers", is akin to Tokyo Electric calling nucleotide contaminated houses, receivers of stolen property, and extorting payments from the victims !
is what this is all about. GM etc is the means to that end.
No joke, I was at a supermarket about six years ago, and they ran a publicity campaign for about a month, with a big banner outside. It read:
FRESH IRRADIATED BEEF - try some today!
I never asked if their campaign was successful.
I want the choice to boycott Monsanto by pressing farmers not to use their strain. Otherwise it causes an overuse of pesticides which is bad for nature, but also for the farmers and people leaving around the farms. The only way to do it now is to know whether there are some GMO in my food. And "popular suspicions", that's GMO's lobbies who try to make you believe that. Yes, sure GMOs by themselves are probably safe, there are no reasons they would be worst than other strains, if we just have the proper testing. I do not care about what hippies believe. However, there is "scientific suspicion" with proper peer reviewed literature about pesticides they sell with the GMOs. It is exactly like saying nuclear power is the cleanest forgetting about waste management.
Who cares about the whether the company is good or bad, That is a red herring. If the majority of citizens want something labeled, then label it. Most of us live in democracies, why can't we have democratic rights?
So, what you are saying is that an industry that:
A) Claims ownership of GMOs amongst farmers, and quashes any non-GMO competition...
B) Attempts to hide from consumers the fact that their products are GMOs...
is attempting to enforce a double standard on the world's food supply to the detriment of everyone else?
Monsanto and others (like ADM) are basically saying that they own all food, one crop at a time. Anyone who wants to eat is not allowed to grow their own food, and must pay them for the privilege of eating to survive. I seem to recall bottling companies doing this with fresh water.
Sounds like corporate terrorism with the purchased blessing of government officials. The people responsible for this travesty should be held accountable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sludge
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.254.IH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHsIjMPP2M8
They dont want you to know.
Big ag is big money. Big money wants bigger money. Profit at all costs.
"vegetable" rennet is from modified organisms that go thru a centrifuge to extract the enzymes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet
Only small very specialized producers use animal rennet with comes from calf stomachs.
Kill calfs or modify bacteria. Pick your poison, or stop eating cheese.
Does that mean we'll finally get rid of Canola Oil?
Mandating a label on all GMO products would essentially be "warning" label for consumers. However, there's no undisputeable evidence that the GMO products are any more dangerous to the consumer than standard [non-organic] foods. All other products requiring warning labels are due to potential direct harm to the consumer...for example tobacco, alcohol, peanuts, undercooked meat warnings, warnings on seafood for pregnant women, over-the-counter or prescription drug warnings, etc. This legislation is proposing to raise any food with a GMO product up to a "danger" level equivalent to the aforementioned products, but without the toxicological rationale. At this time if we label a GMO food, we're labeling an idea or a irrational fear that the product is dangerous to the consumer. Unnecessary warning labels on products actually degrades consumer confidence in all warning labels, which from a larger public health perspective could do greater harm if more consumers ignore product warning labels, some of which really are important.
Besides, Monsanto and other GMO-business groups would have a very justifiable reason to challenge this sort of labeling in courts. A court battle could take years, cost the gov't hundreds of thousands of dollars in court fees, and there's a very good chance the courts might side with the GMO companies. It's better to take the money that would be spent on court and lawyer fees and put it towards funding independent research to determine if there actually is a health risk to consumers. If it turns out there is a risk, then the gov't has more support for a label, and we might even avoid the court case altogether.
For the record, I don't support GMO foods. I think the production side of GMO foods is awful. I buy organic whenever I can. The cynic in me thinks the people who really care about this GMO vs. non-GMO issue are probably buying organic already, and the people that don't care probably won't be swayed by a label.
Think I'm kidding? Sludge. Its whats for dinner.
The extremely high herbicide and pesticide use on GMO crops is the real problem here. If they (Monsanto etc) were manipulating genes to make food better (as they claim) it would be no problem. What they are really doing is making it more profitable for the chemical companies at the expense of farmer profit and food safety. There is a very serious threat to the bee populations of the whole planet that are being decimated at this very moment as a result of the unreasonable levels of pesticides (kill bees directly) and herbicides (kill plants that bees need) that are used on GMO crops. The tactics that these chemical companies use are pure trickery and it is appalling that so many farmers fall for the cheap carnival tactics: "here's a hat, use our chemicals" or "if you are a good person, you are anti-organic". It is no secret they think we are all stupid enough to let them hijack our global food supply. They are in for a big surprise, now that their lies are out in the open, people are rebelling against this highly unsafe line of food products.
As humans are part of nature, your argument fails. We (nature) are applying the selective forces in the form of genetic engineering in the lab.
Virtually every food we eat has been genetically engineered in some manner. Opponents would be better served by asking for a better ingredient list. I suspect most people would probably like to know what chemicals reside in or on their vegetables and fruits, for instance.
(1) Monsanto is pushing for a global monopoly on what you eat. Do you want any one company, no matter how neutral to you you may think they are now, controlling the production of the crops that make up the bulik of your caloric intake? Or even just one of those crops? No, they haven't limited themselves to just corn, but, since I have to point it out to you, do you even want them controlling all your corn? That includes corn syrup, which is not evil if you aren't eating too much, and if you haven't developed a reaction to it. That also includes corn starch, among a number of other such things. You'd be surprised what corn starch is used in. Corn is not just canned corn and on-the-cob and corn tortillas and such.
Speaking of corn-on-the-cob, maybe monoculture is okay if all you want is corn flour, but corn that makes good flour is not the best corn to eat whole-kernel. It isn't just taste, there is a reason for the taste variations, and a reason the body sometimes wants one taste instead of another. It's about what the body needs.
And if one company controls all that, they have the right to tell you, if you want/need/crave corn a certain way, no, this year there isn't enough interest, we've cancelled that crop. One more bureaucracy to screw up your day-to-day life. One moer bureacracy that could have been avoided.
(2) No, it doesn't matter that the modifications might be entirely transparent to human nutrition. For all we know, there might even be some beneficial unexpected effect. The problem is, mixing and matching bits of the program that produces corn is not known to be safe in the long term, any more than it is not known to have some surprise beneficial effect.
It's very much like some young hot-shot programmer taking your source code base, and without the time necessary to fully understand it, grabbing chunks from the advertising group's code base and pasting them into the payroll code at near-random, and watching the results for a few minutes, and saying,
"Let's take that live. Now. Across the entire corporate system. Trust me!"
With the more "natural", more "traditional" methods (that we have only been using for a relatively short time, true), there is more time, more separation from the overall agricultural base, more room to make mistakes and recover from them without turning the entire race into guinea pigs.
You may be comfortable with a company that arrogant. I am not.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If I told you I had baked a turkey at normal turkey baking temperatures and there was not e-coli or salmonella found you would think I knew how to bake. What would you think if you then found out I had baked the turkey for 2 WEEKS? You'd rightly think I was an idiot or up to something. Well that is EXACTLY what Monsanto did with the recombinant bovine growth hormone (RBGH) testing. They claimed that any residuals were destroyed at "normal pastuerization temperatures". What they didn't tell was that they kept the samples at that temperature for half an hour! 30 minutes is NOT normal for pastuerization. That is the equivalent of a 2 week turkey bake.
Now Monsanto and their scientists have been accused of a lot of things but stupid is not one of them. So they HAD TO KNOW what they were doing and hiding the fact that there were residuals left at normal pastuerization times.
If you trust someone who bakes a turkey for 2 weeks you will probably trust Monstanto and their lackies/employees at the USDA/FDA. I will never trust them.
So why not "let the market decide"? Why not label genetically engineered food as such so consumers can make an informed choice? There is no reason not to. All these companies and politicians against labeling pay lip service to the free market but only when they get what they want. Sorry but it doesn't work that way.
I hate to be contrary here, but you're still shifting the blame.
The FDA has lots of problems, I'll grant that. But you can't just push any principle out of context and say it's the principle that's wrong.
Monsanto is to blame. The FDA isn't doing its job, true. They should not be letting anyone mess with the live DNA code base like this.
The US Patent office isn't doing its job. True. Those patents should never have issued, and we can see why such things should not be patentable -- because Monsanto can use them (with only ever-so-little under-the-table-money-for-grease) to establish a monopoly that reaches way and beyond anything they invented or discovered.
The courts are not doing their job. True. If a judge can tell something is beyond his own understanding, he should recuse himself. A jury that does not understand a question is not a jury of peers of the accused. Judges and jurors need to be sought outside the system sometimes, and if understanding is bias, both parties are in the wrong: neither party should be found for, neither should win.
But, in any active society, there will always be such problems. Good citizens should not take advantage of the failures of the system. They do so at their own peril, because it destroys the very environment in which they are trying to "win".
That is what is evil about what Monsanto is doing here.
Monsanto is dead wrong. Monsanto is the problem, until they quit trying to take control of the system under the excuse of "recouping their costs and making their fair profit."
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I'd be happy with all GMO food being labeled, including all domesticated species. oh, you mean only "bad" GMO? please define. no genes from outside the species? good by nectarines! or are you going to define how "close" the source of the gene can be? what about crossover and other "natural" events that produce novel genes? what about transmission of genes by viruses?
it's simple: define the actual bad properties that make you afraid of GMO food, and regulate those, not the GMOness. does BT-GMO corn produce some sort of residue you can detect, and can make a case is harmful? regulate it. if someone put nut proteins in corn, allergic people would notice and be justified in complaining, or at least wanting useful labels.
otherwise, your anti-GMO labeling should consist of "NOT safe for paranoid luddites". maybe a custom symbol, like a gothic L struck through. for those who aren't down with this newfangled "language" stuff...
Well, there's a good fiat. "People DYING of starvation. So give Monsanto a monopoly on corn (and a bunch of other things) because they know how to make genetically engineered crops!"
Kind of sounds like the "Won't someone think of the children?!?!?!" meme.
There are better ways. In spite of what a bunch of shill scientists say, we can feed them this year and next year.
Maybe we use some GMO crops in limited places where regular crops really couldn't grow. But just those really few places, and we watch the results carefully for at least a couple of decades. And we try to make sure that we have backup plans and emergency exits.
All of those precautions, otherwise, we know only too well what happens in a monoculture.
And, guess what? Yeah, by the time we could be confident there are no dangers, and, by the time we have figured out how to prevent the monoculture, Monsanto's pantents will have expired. But that's a good thing, because they never should have been granted those patents.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I won't comment on your allegations, but I think this is an opportunity
to comment on an underlying, important topic: that science is orthogonal
to morality.
Many people think that scientists should regulate themselves, because
"they are experts". But people forget that morality is philosophical,
not scientific. There is no empirical way to determine whether an action
is right or wrong.
Now, the scientists input is very valuable, because they have
valuable knowledge of the situation. But to say that
scientists alone should decide what research is acceptable
because "they are experts" is like saying that West Point
generals should determine by themselves whether or not
we go to war, because they are experts.