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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."
see Food Inc and other documentaries about the pernicious effects of agribusiness
-I'm just sayin'
I agree, it's too late. For example, two out of five different local organic farmers' corn I purchased at the Madison (Wisconsin) Farmers' Market last year came up positive for B. thuringiensis toxin genes. This is not an isolated case; the peer-reviewed literature is replete with examples of transgenic introgression into 'natural' populations. If you want to read more about this, you can start with this nearly-decade old paper that's been cited hundreds of times: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14526376
It has been labelled as such (vs. real sugar) for a while
Except they're not happy with that.
And what about scientists who say it is harmful
Depends on whether they actually publish their results in a peer reviewed journal or not. I looked for that study in NIH and darnedest thing, couldn't find it. As far as I know, the Ermakova study was never actually published in a peer reviewed journal. If you want to case doubt on the safety of GE crops, you're going to have to do better than that. even Andrew Wakefield managed to get his study in NIH. And for that one study, here's a couple hundred more to look over. Fact is, GE crops have been extensively tested, and there is no convincing evidence whatsoever to suggest that currently used GE crops are harmful to human health.
Elbert Dallas Thomason
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Monsanto-Beats-LA-Farmer.htm
Why would a mysterious agriculture department sprout up months after Monsanto threatens a local farmer and illegally takes samples of his crops?
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-4048288.html
Or going after the infrastructure that non-Monsanto farmers require to make a living:
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-videos/6-must-see-videos/12161-monsanto-vs-seed-cleaner-moe-parr
Are you defending Monsanto, or just pointing out that the 400+ patent violation cases instigated by Monsanto that are in the judicial system (as of 1999) and are NOT public record don't count as "monsanto up and suing people"? We can't tell if they are cross-pollenation cases becasue they aren't public record due to uncertain influence of Monsanto at the local level:
http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/cfsmonsantovsfarmerreport1.13.05.pdf
I agree that contract violation is illegal (saving seed and all that). Have you stopped to consider why they sign these contracts that don't allow them to save seed, and force them to buy more each year at increasing prices? Jeez, I'd have to have a gun pointed to my head to sign something so ludicrous. /sarcasm
I also agree that it should be illegal to extort people into having no choice but to buy from Monsanto or go broke. Because I'm sure you can google, and I'm sure you can find limitless cases where Monsanto bullies and threatens farmers.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
That's not entirely true. Look at High Fructose Corn Syrup. It has been labelled as such (vs. real sugar) for a while, and there are technically alternatives, but all of the big name sodas (and a whole slew of other products) still use it.
The USA structures its agricultural subsidies in favor of corn and its import tariffs against cane sugar.
That's why everything in the USA has HFCS and it's not pervasive anywhere else in the world (AFAIK).
If we 'normalized' our corn subsidies and removed our cane sugar tariffs, HFCS would dissappear from the American market.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
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.
Actually people who care about the purity of their food did just this. "Organic" was the term used to describe foods that were grown under certain rather strict conditions. This was going quite well and a thriving and growing market segment was catering to people who wanted "organic" food. Then at the behest of major agribusiness the US Government stepped in with legislation that redefined "organic" to be something that was substantially less strict and then made it illegal for associations to use different definitions of "organic."
Now in the case of GM foods, it is illegal for a food to be labeled as non-GMO food. So your exhortations to copy the Kosher/Halal approach is a bit ironic considering that we have been banned from doing so! This free market nonsense is absurd. The free market is supposed to depend on an informed buying public. We want to be informed.
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?
Could you imagine the outrage that would be generated if the government banned the labeling of food as kosher or halal? You argue that there are way too many types of genetic manipulation for us commoners to be able to know the difference. On one hand this makes the case for labeling and strict regulation even MORE OBVIOUS. There should not be a presumption of safety, genetic tinkerers should bear the burden of proof before their crops are sold to the public or released into the ecosystem. Also your argument is a bit misleading, the GMO crops that are most available on the market today fall basically into two categories. Roundup-resistant crops and crops which produce their own pesticides. Roundup-resistant means that astonishing quantities of Roundup were used on the crop to kill weeds. Roundup which was touted as safe by your agribusiness "scientists" is turning out to be pretty bad for us. Roundup is teratogenic, and endocrine disruptor, and causes genetic damage. The second common type is even scarier since we know that you can't wash the pesticides off of these, they are inside!
I usually fall on the science side of arguments (evolution, climate change, etc.) but there are currently two areas of science that have been totally corrupted by money and corporate influence: Pharmacology, and agricultural biology. Anyone who follows this story knows that new GMO crops are invented all the time and the FDA rubberstamps them because the FDA is a captured agency. It's staffed with a revolving door of Monsanto and ADM employees. There is no way that the kind of large scale long-term studies have been done to validate the safety of GMO crops. So I call a hearty BS on your vilifying concerned people as being anti-science. Shame on you for resulting to name-calling.
-- QED
Tell me then, where can I freely, and relatively easily find food products that do not contain genetically UNmodified corn or soy? Have you ever called up General Mills to ask them about the corn that was used in a particular box of cereal? Seriously?
Your statement that this information is "non-essential" is strange. Why would knowing if our food has been soaked in Roundup be non-essential? Roundup ready crops have been modified to be resistant to the broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup. They were created basically for the purpose of selling more of Monsanto's best selling herbicide. Roundup is toxic, it is an endocrine disruptor, and it damages DNA. In addition is has a profound negative ecological impact. You also ask "why single out one thing and ignore the rest?" Well because direct manipulation of genetic code is very new, very radical, only sparsely tested, and has become unavoidably widespread in very short time. Each of those criteria is worthy of making an exception and forcing monoplistic predatory corporations to disclose what they are feeding to the public. Oh and this is not an individual issue, it is societal. When some of these crops turn out to be really bad, all of society will have to bear the medical costs.
-- QED