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California Wants Genetically Modified Foods To Be Labelled
bbianca127 writes "In November, California will be voting on Proposition 37. The proposition would mandate putting labels on foods that have been genetically modified. While supporters of the proposition think that consumers deserve to know what they're eating, opponents call it 'anti-science' and have donated $25 million to defeating the measure. From the article: 'Unsurprisingly, the battle has gotten very expensive, very quickly. Agribusinesses and food manufacturers have donated a total of $13 million toward defeating the measure, bringing the total up to $25 million in the coffers of those proposing the proposition. In comparison, the organic farmers and environmentalists who support the proposition have managed to raise less than a tenth of that total amount.'"
While the motivations for this may be unscientific, not telling people what they're eating doesn't really help either. People need to learn more about the science so there's less unknown for them to be afraid of.
and just jump straight to discussing which side has more money rather than which side has valid points?
The GMO makers tout their products as being so safe and great, such benefit to humanity. They should proudly label their products: Contains GMOs! What's to fear!?! This isn't anti-science but pro-science.
Genes from animals? Genes from other plants? Genes inserted directly?
Where does 200+ years of cross breeding come in? Is that considered 'intelligent design' or genetic modification?
It isn't anti-science to know the ingredients, and their specifics, of what goes into the foods we eat. It is just the companies being concerned about giving away what could be harmful nutritional information. The lobbyists wail against it like children. This doesn't make any arguments against science.
So, this is what a totally free libertarian market looks like, huh? Big companies throwing temper tantrums at the very notion of consumer empowerment and scientists and government agents falling in line to soothe their wailing.
How about this? SIt down with the top food scientists in the United States, come up with every possible ingredient and fact about the contents of the food consumers should know, and then hire the top graphic designers to present this information in an organized and clear way.
Oh, what's that? You don't want to rustle Kraft and Dean Food's feathers? OK, forget it. Let's stick to our 1980s food labeling standards and continue eating anal glands with our vanilla wafer cookies in total blind ignorance.
Why proponents of GE are trying to stop (via outspending) those who promote informed consumer choice is beyond me. If GE really is beneficial then consumers will see the reduced prices of the food, notice the improvement in quality and associate those with GE. If GE turns out to be hazardous in some cases then an informed consumer is made responsible for their own decision (although, in the US this hardly seems to be a factor these days in lawsuits). What could possibly go wrong with labeling food?
...are required, so why not GMO labeling? It strikes me as the same thing. Why *wouldn't* you want to know exactly what is in the food you are eating?
What's more is that labeling GMO foods as such actually increases consumer access to information, which is one of the fundamental tenets of competition in the free market economy. The pseudo-conservative horde is always up in arms about labeling as being anti-free market when in fact the opposite is true.
All food has been genetically modified, we don't eat any wild foods anymore.
I would rather think businesses would want to label whether or not the produce had any 'patented' genetic modifications applied to them. People ought to be able to know whether or not it might not be legal for them to plant any of the seeds in the produce, after all, if they have not bought a license for the intellectual property in question.
(For the irony impaired, the above comment is intended to contain at 20% of the RDA of iron.)
Our economic evidence is backing up what our medical evidence has already shown to be perfectly clear
What..... that big business, agri or otherwise, has no problem withholding salient information from the public (even when they have the right to know) in the name of profit?
What exactly is anti-science about demanding that ingredients be listed? If anything, it will make it easier to compare the effects of modified and unmodified plants. If there are no differences or the modified plants prove to be healthier, then there is no downside for the agribusinesses.
It was defeated. I said it was fear-mongering. Why warn someone of something that you don't have any proof is a threat?
The other line I said, which I don't know if it as effective, but it amused me greatly:
"My great, great, great grandfather made his fortune by genetically altering flowers to have new colors, so this isn't as new as people think"
The agribusinesses are right, it is anti-science, and it is bullshit. In this case, the side with the truth also has the money. Imagine that.
The "truth" about a food includes whether genetically-modified organisms were involved in producing it. Perhaps those advocating labeling are doing so for reasons that aren't scientifically valid, but, hey, maybe the answer to bad speech is more speech - why don't the agribusinesses spend their money making the case for food the production of which involves GMOs rather than saying "trust me, you don't need to know this". It's not as if it's banning GMO-based foods.
Perhaps, if this measure were enacted, many people who are fearful of such technology will see just how much of our food is modified from its natural state, while causing no harm to said people. As long as the label was neutral (instead of "warning! GMO detected! Has caused cancer *when ingested in extreme amounts by laboratory mice*), it could actually serve to inform the public, instead of scare them.
There will always be those who reject technological advancement. Let them have their information.
Indeed, and many countries have labeling requirements that require GMO to be disclosed as well. Oddly enough, GMO sells poorly in those countries. No wonder they're fighting it here(where something like 70% of packaged food products have GMO ingredients)
Pretty much everything in the food chain contains some GMO product. Of course tracking what and how much would be an administrative nightmare with no benefit to consumers. But the goal of the anti-GMO crowd is to scare people into pricing the products out of the market, it has nothing to do with public health.
Regardless of your stance on the health effects of GMOs, if would behoove us to look more closely at the business practices (specifically w.r.t. intellectual property) of the seed giants, i.e. Monsanto: patenting life, monopolizing the seed market, shaking down small farmers with patent infringement suits, and all so they can sell more Roundup, creating a monoculture of herbicides. It's the same corporate playbook we've seen countless times in the tech world.
We had herbicides before Roundup-ready GMOs. It ain't no huge innovation, aside from being a revenue win for Monsanto.
http://cenblog.org/cleantech-chemistry/2010/03/what-did-farmers-do-before-roundup/
On what do they spend all that raised money to change the outcome of the vote? Advertising? "...to defeating the measure." sounds more than just an advertising campaign.
Meh... they shouldn't be allowed to call them whatever they were originally...
Strawberries spliced with salmon? Sorry, that's not a strawberry anymore.
Corn spliced with caterpillar? Not corn.
Oh wait, it is. It's the only reason people pay a premium for the same product.
Act 1: FDA-or-somebody: "Umm, ADM, your 'xeno-bites' brand genetically engineered cowroach burgers have absolutely no track record of safety testing..."
ADM: "Shut up, four-eyes, and go kill jobs somewhere else. We'll let the consumer decide what they feel comfortable eating."
FDA-or-somebody: "Um, ok."
Act 2: California: "Hey, the consumers want to know what ingredients are in food, so that they can exercise free choice and let the market decide between "Ammoniabeef, Piney-Fresh" and "Soylent X"!"
ADM-or-somebody "Shut up, bureaucratic busybody, all our products are safe and legal and the consumers would just worry their little heads about it if we were to tell them. In fact, tell that dirty hippie down the street that he isn't allowed to use the phrases 'GMO free', 'less than .01% zergling by weight', or 'minimally teratogenic' in advertisements!"
This basic back-and-forth is what annoys me so much about this brand of spat: When the regulators show up, health and safety regulations based on research are treated as a bunch of ivory-tower paternalism. When the customers show up demanding the data that they actually need to make their own choices(since they are justifiably somewhat doubtful that benevolent regulators have their backs on this one), they get a paternalistic rebuff and assurance that the previously neutered regulators are totally all over this one...
There are arguments enough against having it merely one way or the other; but handing the customer the shit end of both worlds is just plain crass.
All have been "modified" by grafting or cloning... How evil...
On Bill Maher's show: if GMO food truly is safe and beneficial (and it generally is if you remove Monsanto et al. from the equation), then the obvious solution is not to keep consumers from knowing what it is they're eating, but just the opposite--educate them on exactly what it is they're eating in a neutral, fact-based manner.
Rob
TFA states that "Agribusinesses and food manufacturers have donated a total of $13 million toward defeating the measure, bringing the total up to $25 million in the coffers of those proposing the proposition."
Apparently the list includes Coca-Cola, DuPont and Nestlé. Where can I get a list of all the businesses that don't want us to know what is in the food we eat and how it is made?
Knowing less means knowing MORE!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Have you seen what Americans eat these days? Holy shit, that wouldn't even pass as food 100 years ago! We eat such an unhealthy assortment of food as a daily staple, I think we ought to sort out our heart disease and diabetes problems before we spend our efforts scrutinizing GMOs. GMOs may be damaging our health, but it can't be as important as addressing the obvious and immediate issues we currently face.
If history is a guide. Big money will successfully kill this. Note, it's not big money itself that does this. It's the damn voters who fall for it. Fuck them
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Bill hr254 has died in committee for over a decade.
The sludge industry makes billions spreading you and your neighbors sh!t on farm fields....and they like to do it in secret, cause, well, you know - its disgusting/revolting/dangerous/creates superbugs/un-american/u pick the description.
In the end, u r eating the end of the line of a sewage treatment plant.
I wonder how much of our healthcare problems in this country are caused by using effluent, septage, or sewage in food production for people?
I think this is as big, or a bigger issue, than GMO.
If you think GMO is bad, stop eating cheese - most cheese consumed in USA comes from GMO organisims that are centrafuged to pick out the enzyme which causes milk to curdle.
It is all about trade-off. So, if we want to inform the public, that is good, but let us do it fairly, without the FUD though. Many producers of regular crops also use a lot more insecticides. Why shouldn't they be required to disclose it as well?
Moreover, the public should be informed that the wheat and the rice they eat has nothing to do with what their ancestors ate. It has been modified in all sorts of crazy ways, sometimes use radiations to accelerate genetic mutations. Should we disclose this as well? Let us be fair: why not?
A better informed consumer is a great thing. FUD is something different.
I'll take GMOs if this means that farmers don't have to dump crazy quantities of insecticides on their field. But if I don't know which insecticide they used and how much they applied, how can I make an informed decision?
Considering that there are several European countries that have blanket bans on GMO crops, you might want to include them in your "Brainwashed people (especially Americans, due to their culture) can't be healed very easily." statement.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
The headline is ridiculous. Perhaps a majority of Californians want this. We will find that out in November (at least we will find out if a majority of the Californians who bother to vote want it).
However, the initiative process means anyone who gets enough signatures can get an initiative on the ballot. Anyone. That's why saying "California wants ... " is ludicrous. Both right-leaning and left-leaning initiatives, some loony and some thoughtful get on the ballot in California. Getting on the ballot in California means nothing. The proof is in the voting.
Sometimes there are diametrically opposed initiatives (e.g. a few years ago one would deregulate somewhat the power company, and another would increase it's level of regulation!). Does that mean California is cognitively dissonant? Perhaps, but not because of whatever initiatives are proposed, since they are proposed by different people.
Just by looking at the initiatives proposed in the last few years (e.g. some anti-immigrant, some pro-pot) you would think that all different kinds of people with all different kinds of ideas live here. Imagine that.
Does it matter if it were anti-science?
No more so than the label "May contain nuts" on a box of chocolate covered almonds. It's not because it's bad, it's because it's a fact... and allowing the consumer to make an informed decision (even if "may contain nuts" on a box of chocolate covered almonds might treating a consumer like an idiot, it's still not misinformation).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
p>And by the way, why does the headline read "California Wants Genetically Modified Foods To Be Labelled"? Shouldn't that be "Organic Farmers and Environmentalists Want Genetically Modified Foods To Be Labelled"?
No, It shoud read that people that want a free market to operate properly are asking for the information for that to hapen.
But why should they when the ministry of Agruculture only wants what's best for them, Comrade.
How can it be anti-science to put a truthful blurb on something which says what it is?
So you had a chat with California, and California told you what it wants, did it?
Interesting. Given all the controversy and disagreements between various Californians, it is a bit surprising that California has reached such a clear position before the referendum has been held. Does California not care about the opinions of Californians who are opposed to the labeling?
If California is so biased and does not wait for the conclusion of the democratic process, I wonder why Californians allow California to stay. Do the wants of California have any bearing on the matter?
Meg Whitman outspent Jerry Brown. Anecdotally, the spending may have backfired as it caused her to be seen as the "big money" candidate. If throwing money at a campaign always worked, we'd have had a President Steve Forbes too.
There is not one thing Monsanto and friends can say to change my mind about this. Let 'em spend themselves into oblivion.
Normally, I would agree, but I must disagree in this case. The vast majority of people in the U.S. are science-illiterate and easily swayed by sensational headlines (For example, last week slashdot posted a story on how the background radiation in Fukushima is less than that of Denver, yet people panic over radiation exposure in Japan, but not Colorado.). I worry that a similar backlash against GM crops could negatively affect the world's food supply.
While we can disparage crops that have been crafted to withstand copious amounts of insecticide, please keep in mind that there are 7 billion people on the planet, and all of them need to be fed. Much of the world depends upon the United States' agricultural output. GM helps boost this output. While the American consumer can withstand a few cents increase in cost due to decreased food supply, the same increase can trigger food riots in less fortunate countries. If the United States' agricultural output is enhanced by GM, then I'm all for it. I worry that shunning GM food in the US could hurt further investment/development.
I'd like to know where my computer's component parts came from. Not generally, I mean specifically. Which country, which mountain, which small town, whichever of those is applicable. What were the resulting processes from there on.
Simple labellling could save tens to hundreds of hours of lab work for smaller scale researchers. Sorting out which foods are GM and which are not would be a time consuming task some folks cannot budget into their research.
There is nothing wrong with knowing which foods you put into your body. Science cannot prove or disprove the safety of the food universally and ultimately that is the discrection of the consumer, not a board of marketing directors or GM researchers to determine. If I don't like GM I don't like science? Is that it? Are scientists going to use the anti-creationist mantra that questioning research findins is unscientific? Yea, and questioning your President is unpatriotic, right? Keeping information from me that are no doubt pertinent to my consumption preferences, THAT is anti-science.
And I'm saying this as a person who has full confidence that well researched GM foods are acceptible food sources! As a consumer, I reallly don't care if it's GM, I just care how expensive it is! :)
No more so than the label "May contain nuts" on a box of chocolate covered almonds. It's not because it's bad, it's because it's a fact... and allowing the consumer to make an informed decision (even if "may contain nuts" on a box of chocolate covered almonds might treating a consumer like an idiot, it's still not misinformation).
Except that the reason for the "may contain nuts" label is that some people have dangerous allergic reactions to nuts. There's a known, legitimate hazard that is being warned against. There is no such hazard in the case of genetically-modified foods.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
With the incestuous relationship of Monsanto and the FDA, an annual lobbying budget second only to Big Tobacco, it is likely they will continue purchasing the support of government officials as usual.
Why so many things can already be mis-labeled, i.e. MSG (Autolyzed Yeast Extract) and myriad other ingredients, but people are presumed without the right to know whether their dinner is bio-modified or not, makes no sense. If something is to be sold as food, all practically available information should be made available and transparent. What is entirely insane is the efforts of Monsanto to punish companies for labeling their own products as GMO Free. In most cases where GMO Free labels are used, a compulsory disclaimer of insignificance is placed below. Odd that such modifications would ever be made if no significant differences were achieved.
I am not anti GMO. But I am against its current implementation. Monsanto has destroyed many farmers, attempted such grotesque strategies as the Terminator Seed, litigated 1000s of hard-working farmers for nothing, and has at times been reckless with its technology. There are thousands of political reasons alone which should be ample cause for mandatory labeling, but voluntary labeling at the very least should be completely unhindered -- perhaps like Cruely Free, Dolphin Safe, etc.
The likeliness of every single instance of modified food proving itself safe after decades is low, and some margin of error seems inevitable. Food is also not an option for anyone -- it is totally essential and therefore a shared and public element. The very concept of privatizing food and obscuring its "nature" is asinine. Many supermarkets show the national origin of the product as they should, and consumers use this and similar data to make personal choices for which the interference of should be a crime. An informed public is the only public; anything else is a product. If consumers knew absolutely nothing of GMO and only of Monsanto's litigation history alone, that in itself would dissuade most consumers from touching their products. What are they afraid of? Choice? Well golly gee. I guess they'll just have to force themselves then, because as the meme goes, "We have a whole planet to feed". Next time someone pukes that meme, try asking them about their agricultural experience and just how far they think GMO really needs to go to meet that task. There is plenty of room for choice for many years to come. Assuming people can't make intelligent choices is dangerous behavior for a government, especially when it comes to basic needs. It is also a self-fulfilling, self-perpetuating expectation.
I've worked on a few farms and know very well what excellent production can be yielded without GMO. To even suggest that non-GMO agriculture has become obsolete is ludicrous. And until it is, label the damned products!
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The "organic" growers will want testing of foods from the big companies to keep them honest. But, it could well be mandated for all producers.
If you say it's non-gmo, prove it. Regardless of the size of your operation.
With modern laboratory methods, we can detect tiny amounts of specific genetic material.
example: detecting Asian Carp DNA in the water of Lake Michigan. We haven't seen the carp, but we know that at least a few are there from the shed genetic material.
Imagine the consternation when much of the final product "organic" food also tests positive for detectable amounts of transfered BT genes or other GM material. Additions that could have blown in with pollen or from volunteer plants. You grind, mix and process many foods, so anything in it gets distributed. If your suppliers don't do a good job of vetting their sources, you're screwed.
Too bad if it was contamination. Go to court for remedy if you want. But, in the meantime it's not GMO free so pull off the labels or pull it from the shelves.
It's all in how the levels are set in the regulations and what part of the production cycle the testing is done at.
If you want GMO free, it doesn't matter how it gets in, so end product testing rather than the incoming materials is quite reasonable.
If it passes, big food should lobby for stringent levels and testing. Besides, for large companies, the expense can be spread of huge amounts of product shipped. For small organic producers, not so much. If it passes, this "big win" may be a devil in disguise for those that wanted it.
If GMO's are SO very safe, than the promoters who want to sell and market GMO crops should easily be able to schlep down to LLoyds of London and get a 100 trillion dollar bond. If they are so certain and can show it - as they all claim they can - then the bond should really be a pittance.
If they can't convince an insurer of the safety to get such a bond, then probably the public shouldn't trust them either.
So, that's my solution. You can sell any crop you want. Just go get that hundred trillion dollar bond. When you're wrong, the money will be in the bank to cover your loses and we'll be good.
If you can't get the bond, I guess you have some more research and proof to provide.
[And regulate the bond holder viciously, so they can't renege on their bond liability either.]
"In the absence of a health hazard (which the FDA has said does not exist)... "
You trust the FDA? Really?
Look up the phrase "corporate capture", and count how many times "FDA" is mentioned in the same articles.
"... the labeling burden is on those who care about it."
Which, according to polls, is a clear majority of the American people.
The "truth" about a food includes whether genetically-modified organisms were involved in producing it. Perhaps those advocating labeling are doing so for reasons that aren't scientifically valid, but, hey, maybe the answer to bad speech is more speech - why don't the agribusinesses spend their money making the case for food the production of which involves GMOs rather than saying "trust me, you don't need to know this".
Probably because they don't think it will work. When people are thinking rationally, it is practical to sway their opinions by presenting facts. When a large number of people have made up their minds and turned themselves into a movement that is highly skeptical of any "facts" from outside of the movement and wholly accepting of "facts" from within the movement, reason becomes nearly waste of time.
It's not as if it's banning GMO-based foods.
Shelf space is limited. Products that don't sell well enough are soon not available. Is there really a difference between being banned and being forced off the shelf by a default boycott?
"Thing is, every crop humans grow for food already HAS been genetically modified, through centuries of selective breeding. In the case of ruby red grapefruit, the crop was developed by exposing the seeds to radiation and causing a LOT of mutations quite fast."
No, the "nasty truth" is that with all those mutations and cross-breedings, they are STILL plants, and they STILL do not contain genes from already-highly-artificially-modified bacteria, or jellyfish.
It's NOT the same thing, and to pretend that it is, is no better than lying.
And so because there's no danger, it should be completely acceptable to simply not tell the consumer the origins of what it is that they are eating?
This reminds me greatly of a parent deciding to not tell a child what in a meal because they know the child will refuse to eat it.
Do you really believe that it s also acceptable for adults to be treated this way?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Our economic evidence is backing up what our medical evidence has already shown to be perfectly clear
What..... that big business, agri or otherwise, has no problem withholding salient information from the public (even when they have the right to know) in the name of profit?
Me and my mutants are enquiring minds and want to know.
I've been eating Killoggs Korn Flakes with a spoon in each right hand since I can remember when
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So nothing novel in there then. Therefore no patentability, it's just a natural thing like numbers.
The market can operate just fine if GMO-free foods are labelled as such, and the cost (which goes way beyond the cost of the paper label itself) will be passed on to the people who care about it. This is, as I said, an attempt to convince the average consumer that there is a hazard, not to alleviate lack of knowledge among those who want to know.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
The people just might get what they want, and they don't know enough to know what it is!
Quick, SuperPacs, to the CashMobile, we must fund our own Ballot Proposition.
If that were the case, it means these companies *know* that the consumer at large does not want their product. Exactly why they have these aversions to the GMO products is inconsequential: the public is innately biased against it, and does not want to consume that product.
So, in order to force the consumers to consume the "cheaper" GMO produce, they have to be deceptive in the packaging and labling.
How is that not a deceptive market practice?
If this were cheap chinese electronics that are functionally identical being sold as genuine items, the FTC and WIPO would be birthing purple cows over it, but because it's just food, and you wouldn't understand the difference anyway, it is perfectly OK to conceal this information to enforce continued profits of a product line?
This produce has been modified from its original version. It has been mutated to give school children early-onset puberty and destroy your digestive system"
This isn't about withholding information. The information is freely available to anyone willing to research it. This is about forcing information beyond a rational minimum of information (like nutritional content, ingredients, and allergies) to be displayed, but not all the information, only the information that fits political agendas. Kosher and Halal aren't required to be labeled by law, but that doesn't mean anyone is hiding that information. You don't have to label if something was produced via tissue culture or bud sport selection or mutagenesis or wide crosses either, but that doesn't mean anyone is hiding anything. Why is that a non-issue, yet doing the same for genetic engineering is 'withholding information'?
There should only be a warning label if there's something to warn against. Seems pretty simple to me. And the Prop. 37 advocates most certainly want this to be perceived as a warning label. Anyone to whom it matters can already seek out non-GMO food with no problem, and probably already does. This is, again, not about providing people with information, but convincing them that the information is important.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
It isn't [only] about eating food that is genetically modified, it is about how genetically modified food has the potential to destroy ecosystems. If someone is worried about GM plants out competing natural plants,and potentially letting an entire ant colony die (I am trying to be serious), it would make sense for them not to support them by buying elsewhere, and they can only do that when things are labeled.
+1 for labels, because you can only make use of logic when you know all the parameters.
Yes. For thier edification, life expectancies continue to increase pretty much everywhere in the world except for a few war-torn locales. I see no evidence our food is suddenly going to start to kill us. Lack of food, of course, kills many people.....just sayin. So slap a "may contain GMOs" label on everything, and get on with feeding people. It's a much more important problem.
Yeah, that post was (to quote the moderation FAQ) "Flamebait: Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage." Uh-huh.
And I want surgically modified Californians to be labeled.
Quack, quack.
Agribusinesses and food manufacturers have donated a total of $13 million toward defeating the measure, bringing the total up to $25 million in the coffers of those proposing the proposition
Uh, I think that should have been "opposing" the proposition. Monsanto would have been kind of annoyed if they accidentally gave all of that money to those proposing the proposition...
The whole fucking plan here is to get stupid people to avoid GMO food by putting big scary labels on it. It's FUD, and you know damn well that's what it is. Stop fucking pretending this is anything else.
Because for the life of me, I cannot determine if that counts controlled breeding programs.
To me, there is no difference if it happens in a 1980s test tube or a 1780s greenhouse... To me, there is not such thing as "genetically unmodified" food anymore.
As a California resident, I probably could have guested that some stupid "prop" like this would pop up. Shocking, California wasting ungodly amounts of money it doesn't have to institute ridiculous social ideas just to fart out some propaganda. If any place in the world thinks that it's majority has the right to force-feed social bullshit down the throats of everyone, it's California. I swear, I'm going to dance around wearing only plastic bags, smoking within ten feet of [anything] and eating a happy meal, maybe while juggling some gigantic genetically engineered tomatoes. Stop wasting my money.
Look you can take your bible thumping butt out of here, I don't want to hear about how you don't believe in evolution.
It's about what's costly. The last thing any company wants is to be required to create a second tier/class of product, food in this case, that requires separate handling, processing, packing, labeling and/or distribution.
The only thing Monsanto currently has to do is sell the promise of reduced cost to the farmer. If the Bill passes, it the reduced cost of production will be more than offset by the increased cost of handling and marketing what amounts to a new product.
I hope the Bill passes. That way, if they want their Frankenfood to be accepted as the same product, they'll have to prove that it is, BEFORE it hits the market. I'm no fan of increasing the toxicity of corn, even if it does decrease the amount of pesticide that's required to grow it because it forces me to eat it whether or not I want to.
As it is, I can't even wash the pesticides from most produce anymore because of the way it's handled by the middle men who may wash it before they wax it and gas it. My only recourse is to peal the outer layer if I want to be sure not to ingest the toxic components of production.
There's no reason I should have to eat bio-engineered, genetically produced pesticides or support their egregious manipulation of the courts in prosecuting organic farmers for not buying their Roundup-Ready DNA.
The world should not become Monsanto's Oyst®!
Can someone link to a study that proves that GMO food is safe? Just because something doesn't kill you immediately doesn't mean that it has no negative health impact.
All food will be labelled, then? Since 'genetically modified food' refers to -ALL- food products grown with agriculture.
"Look you can take your bible thumping butt out of here, I don't want to hear about how you don't believe in evolution."
Hahahaha. What an ass.
Inserting the genes of already gene-modified bacteria and other animals into PLANTS is not "evolution". And I never said ANYTHING about not believing in evolution.
Pick up a science book. Or at least, criticize something real instead of this imaginary BS.
I live in California, and there are legally mandated warnings like this all over the place -- so many of them that it's impossible to take them seriously.
"WARNING: This area contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."
You get this in places like hotel rooms and gas stations. What am I going to do, stop putting gas in my car or stop staying in hotels?
It's also applied in totally inconsistent ways. Some companies that sell herbal medicines have to put the warning on their product, which sort of makes sense, because any carcinogenic effect is an effect regardless of whether the product is "natural." But in other cases (chocolate, vinegar), the courts have ruled that other "natural" products don't have to have the warnings because they're natural.
There are some possible sane, logical reasons to be concerned about the political and economic effects of GMOs (concern about patents, inability of farmers to use seed from their own crops, reduction of genetic variability, harm to neighboring fields from spraying roundup on GM roundup-resistant fields, ...), but there are no sane, logical reasons to be worried about health effects of eating them -- not on a population basis, and certainly not on an individual basis. Therefore I think it's great that Californians are bestowing upon themselves yet another set of warnings. The proliferation of warnings ensures that people will pay even less attention to them than they do now, and that's exactly the right result, since they should be paying zero attention to them in the first place.
Eating is actually a fairly dangerous activity, because we do a lot of it, and even a low probability of harm becomes significant when it's repeated by every individual many, many times. But we don't want to know about the high risk of harm from eating "natural" foods (salmonella, carcinogens in barbecued meat, ...). We only want to know about the (zero) risk of harm from eating "unnatural" GM foods, because that seems scarier.
Same deal with people being afraid their kids will get kidnapped by a stranger when they should be worried about them getting run over by someone talking on their cell phone. The first risk is nearly zero, but it's unusual, so we're more scared of it.
Same deal with people thinking the Fukushima nuclear accident (with zero deaths) is really horrible, while the tsunami (18,000 deaths) isn't a big deal. The rational reaction would be to improve early warning systems for tsunamis, but because nuclear stuff is unusual, we're more scared of it.
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I fear that this initiative will result in less genetic engineering, due to Luddism.
Genetic engineering can greatly increase crop yields and this is good for everyone.
You're hiding something. It's the only impression you can give, whether it's true or not. Consumers are entitled to choice. I am entitled to choice. It is unconscionable that the FDA didn't mandate this kind of disclosure long before now. If the industry thinks my choice is 'uneducated,' then make your case and educate me. But I don't consume this stuff by choice because history tells me that some corporations would feed me lead-wrapped mercury if the guys who made the profits would be safely dead before I found out it was bad for me. So let me make the choice.
The usual argument is that spraying corn plants with live BT germs as pest control introduces much more than just the active protien when people eat the corn. (You ingest whole germs.) If eating whole germs des not show any noteworthy reactions, then surely eating just the active protien in the corn would be less harmful even than the sprayed natural corn.
However, this discounts that proteomic is a *very* new discipline, which is cinsistently showing that simply adding a gene can have a wide array of consequences in a host organism, especially when the gene is incorporated in a less than controlled fashion (such as via a retrovirus vehicle.)
Eating the corn is safe. Eating the germ is safe. Eating the corn and the germ together is safe. Eating the corn that harbors genes from the germ might not be safe; there is a growing body of evidence that the location of a gene in the nuclear DNA has very real effects, and can cause dangerous biological processes in the host.
This is why testing these products is essential, and why people need to be given much more information than they are.
I want milk from cows treated with rBST, but I can't find it anywhere anymore. You can say it's about labeling, but in practice it amounts to a de facto ban.
WTF Fail??? There is precisely the same hazard in genetically modified foods, it's the primary reason people want to know.
GMO's have gene sequences inserted into their DNA from some other species, eg bacteria or squid. The purpose of those genes is to create protiens, and it is protiens that cause allergies.
So we could have the case of someone who is allergic to seafood having a reaction with GM soybeans. It is 100% valid that people should be informed.
Sorry, I should be clearer, it is protiens that *trigger* allergies.
Of course not all GM foods will trigger allergies, but we just dont know which ones will affect which people. It is propper to use caution and part of that is to inform the public so that they can make a choice as to their risk exposure.
If the proponents of GM food win this one, there is still another approach: provide an opt-in certification for labelling non-GM foods. Like organic foods, if companies decide that customers are swayed by this label, then more might opt-in.
My main beef with GM foods, is the amount of testing and the attitudes of companies like Monsanto when it comes to control of food variety and persecution of farmers who end up being contaminated by Monsanto pollen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If that were the case, it means these companies *know* that the consumer at large does not want their product. Exactly why they have these aversions to the GMO products is inconsequential: the public is innately biased against it, and does not want to consume that product.
Consumers in the US are 'innately biased' against GMO foods for the simple reason that they've been drowned in the 'frankenfood is death' hype. Keep in mind that if you can slap a label on something that magically makes it 'organic', you can charge a much larger price thanks to yuppies that pride themselves on 'only eating organic'. Remember the 'Baby Mozart' craze that made some people a few cool millions? Tailored towards yuppie parents, not a bit of scientific evidence to support it, and even studies showing that it was all hype. Also consider that hydroponically grown plants can be labeled as 'organic'. In all things, follow the money. Who makes money if this passes, who makes money if it doesn't, and what's the real deal without all the hype? Where's the peer-reviewed studies on both sides of this?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
It's OK to demand that it be listed. And if who you buy from doesn't list it, don't buy from them. Making it a law just wastes many millions of dollars. The problem with legislation is that it's legislation. If enough people want to boycott GM foods then they'll be less economically viable and they'll have more non-GM food to choose from. This has the added benefit of self-verification of far-away farms problematic, so those wanting to avoid GM foods will be more likely to buy local.
When labeling becomes government mandated then lots of money comes into play. And of course graft and corruption always follows money.
-- Who checks to see if a product is labeled non-GM ( or not labeled GM) correctly? Can the product be tested or does it require access to the process of growing and processing?
-- How many steps away from the original product is GM labeling necessary? If the product is canned, frozen, dried? (requires more bureaucracy to monitor/enforce)
-- What about meat products where the feed was GM crops?
-- Does it make any yard waste now "toxic" because someone might have put GM corncobs in with the grass clippings? Don't want to use that compost on your organic tomatoes.
--What about subsequent products made from the original product that want to avoid the GM label? Can the makers of these products go by labels only or do they have to research themselves to avoid liability? (requires even more bureaucracy to monitor/enforce ), If they go by labels only do they have record keeping requirements?
-- What about restaurants that serve food that want to avoid putting "GM" next to every item? Do they have to certify each dish? Does having GM foods in the same refrigerator or kitchen taint the whole menu? (Is this something new for the health dept to check up on?)
-- What about foods sourced outside CA? This means raw ingredients, processed and packaged food. Who goes to other states ( or foreign countries) to test / verify? (It's useless to have a law that doesn't include a process for verifying the labeling is correct )
-- What about mail order? No ordering out of area non-GM food if the seller can't verify that their ingredients are non-GM ( harder to do if they're sourced from a place where that's not a requirement)
Depending on the costs involved it might just be cheaper for businesses who want to sell food in CA to put a warning up similar to the Prop 65 warnings: "Food sold here may contain GM products" and then be free from having to maintain the records needed to avoid liability for any miss-marked product.
The people who want to avoid, or at least know about, GM foods could have spent their money on creating an independent infrastructure to monitor food producers and give them seal of approval on foods they verified was pure non-GM. Those same people could then foot the bill for that infrastructure and any additional costs the producers incur and pass along in the form of price increases. This is not unlike foods certified as Kosher or Halal.
Those prices increases for non-GM food will be there if it's legislated though, since it's unlikely that anyone would investigate a producer who labeled their product as GM. Only the un-labeled ( or labeled non-GM) will be called upon to prove it. That's the only way to prevent unscrupulous sellers from putting out cheaper GM foodstuff and lying about it. So while the labeling is supposed to be forced on the GM products the biggest financial burden will be on the non-GM producers. Considering much of the GM crops are intended to increase yield ( and decrease cost ) the gap between GM and non-GM costs is liable to get bigger if the non-GM have new regulations to adhere to.
If it were GMO, Monsanto et al. would be suing them into bankruptcy.
I work for a south-eastern agricultural university. We do research in controlling the spread of GM DNA, and based on what we've found, the situation is more or less hopeless.
Once the GM DNA is out there, it is out there, and it spreads whether you want it to or not. Germination vectors are quite mobile and can travel for miles and miles, so even with the mandated buffer space between GM and non-GM crops, it is impossible to prevent the spread of GM DNA.
We are working on a paper now that will basically conclude with 95% confidence that non-GM DNA will be extinct in food crops by 2050 - worldwide.
What the Prop. 37 folks want is for the people who don't currently care about GMO one way or the other to see a label and think "Hmm, there's a label on this about it being genetically modified. That must mean it's something bad."
I care about how much trans fat is in the food I eat yet that information is denied to me. All the labels on all food says 0 grams due to loopholes you can drive a truck thru thanks to ag lobbies having their way with our elected representitives. I have to look for the words "partially hydrogenated" and take a wild guess whether the value is closer to .49g or .01g per totally arbitrary "serving".
Your argument reminds me of striping the labels from medicines and replacing them with generic statements detailing their intended function and thinking people won't care or miss the information. Guess what they would. I fail to see why food should be any different. I should have the right to know if I'm getting a tylenol or a baer or a generic version of the same.
If my corn has DNA spliced in from turtles and clownfish I WANT to know that. I want to make my own decisions before beta testing a new infallible creation of man on my family. I don't care who is supposedly inconvienced with labeling requirements in the process.
To say that I have GMO-free choices misses the point entirely. I'm not at all against GMO. I want to know specifically what strain I'm getting GMO or not.
The "truth" about a food includes whether genetically-modified organisms were involved in producing it.
The truth also includes the benefits of genetic engineering. Maybe we should label non-GE having more mycotoxins? Maybe we should label GE soybeans as resulting in reduced carbon emissions? Furthermore, the truth includes many other thing about the crop. Was it blasted with radiation and useful mutation selected, as commonly happens in wheat? Was it treated with a chemical to double its chromosomes, as is used in many hybrid lines? Was it selected from a mutated bud, a common practice in apples? Was it crossed with a wild relative then back crossed to get desirable genes, a hot topic in tomatoes (whose wild relatives can be toxic). That's the truth too. Why isn't that labeled? And don't you think it is deceptive to single out on of those while ignoring everything else? It makes the thing singled out to appear exceptionally unique because many do not know the genetics of the crops they eat. It is especially so if the thing singled out has a history of fearmongering campaigns being directed at it.
Perhaps those advocating labeling are doing so for reasons that aren't scientifically valid
That makes all the difference. Laws should be determined by reason, not whoever can shout the loudest (where do you stand on cannabis legalization and gay marriage?).
hey, maybe the answer to bad speech is more speech
How about the right to speak when and if you want to? No one is opposing labeling. The issue is mandatory labeling. Two different things. If someone is selling GE corn, or a product containing GE soy, why should they be forced to label their product as such? The choice should be up to them.
why don't the agribusinesses spend their money making the case for food the production of which involves GMOs
Do you honestly think that would work? There are tons of papers published by independent scientists from around the world demonstrating the benefits an safety of GE, and this is very often dismissed by those who oppose GE (and make no mistake, these pro-labeling campaigns are anti-GE) as being part of the corporate conspiracy. There really isn't much the corporations can do at this point with respect to making a their case (not that you should really be listening to what they say anyway). Realistically, if GE food is not labeled, people will say 'Ooh, they don't label it, what are they hiding, it must be bad for you!' and if it is labeled people will say 'Ooh, they have to label it, that must mean it is different somehow, it must be bad for you!' just like when people point to labeling or bans in other countries as evidence that GE crops are dangerous.
It's not as if it's banning GMO-based foods.
No, they're just scaring people about them, thus making them less useful for farmers (whose end goal it to run a business and make a living), which will consequently prevent future advances from genetic engineering, especially for horticultural, minor, and biodiverse crops and small biotech businesses (as well as ones that simply benefit the environment, like Enviropig, which failed because it benefited no one bu the environment and that wasn't worth putting up with the fear mongering), while big companies that sell seed for agronomic crops like Monsanto continue to hold large market shares and likely only lose some sales (after all, did proof that trans fats stop the majority of people from eating them...then again, despite the fact that they are a known danger and GE crops are as close to safe as science can demonstrate, no one has launched any big scare campaigns against the known danger, so I could be wrong about that). I swear, I would not be surprised if one of these days we found out Monsanto was behind this pro-labeling anti-GE nonsense.
And how many real farmers have GMO producers destroyed by covertly spreading GMO pollen/seeds. Tough shit.
I'm no farmer, but I can grow heirloom vegetables. GMOers doubtlessly want to outlaw that, too. Fuck all the GMO cocksuckers. They claim to care about hunmanity. Bull crap! They care about the almight dollar.
What exactly is the difference between GMO and the "natural" plants and animals? These people realize we selectively bred *all* of our essential food (plant and animal) species over long periods of time, right? They're nothing like nature intended, we made them this way. GMO is just doing it faster. The chicken, beef, goat, corn, wheat, carrots, broccoli, etc... ANYTHING you're likely to find in a supermarket, never existed in anything like its current form in unaltered nature. We cultivated and bred them, and they became optimal feedstock for us as we became agricultural and grew in population. Even what you'd think of as game animals (go kill a deer in the wild for food!) were (in some cases, unintentionally) selectively bred into today's game animals from far less optimal "natural" stock.
And from the other end of this argument, good luck defining "organic" food in any sensible or sane way. Anything you can consume beneficially is by definition organic. Organic chemistry is organic. Modified DNA is organic. Ok, so you're redefining the word organic to mean something else? What? Chickens that were raised on a beautiful spacious farm, given pet names, individual groomers, and an acre of roaming land per bird? Fed on real earthworms? Just so you can cut off it's head and eat it? WTF is the point of that? You're still killing it for food, and it's brain is far too small to know the difference in lifestyle. Not to mention "organic" farming and ranching doesn't scale. If you mandated that all food on the planet were raised to your "organic" standards, 3/4 of the world's human population would need to immediately starve to death to make up the food gap from the loss of food industrialization. And those several billion people definition do feel the difference between surviving on food and starving to death in agony.
Similar arguments can be made from other industries, like say, rare earth oxides.
What is the scientific difference between osmium oxide produced by sweatshop laborers in china, using ecologically devistating prcesses, and osmium oxide produced under far more sensible conditions in say, (random country here) "brazil"? Both are osmium oxide. Barring some freak of isotopic yeilds, both will identify exactly the same in a mass spectrometer. They are both osmium oxide.
The genera public may still have an innate negative bias against the dirty chinese version. Hiding the fact that it is dirty chinese osmium oxide, by claiming "your argument is not scientific, so unimportant!" So that you can continue using the cheap source of the oxide over the more expensive one, becase "the public can't tell the difference anyway" is straight up anticonsumer.
That is exactly what is happening here. The GM crops are undesirable for sociological reasons, just like the chinese osmium is sociologically undesirabl. Same with "conflict diamonds." This argument is like de'biers saying "there is no outstanding difference between a conflict diamond, and a non-conflict diamond that ordinary people would recognize, so there is no reason whatosever to disclose the source of our diamonds, or brand label them as such."
The real imperitive here, is that they want to continue selling conflict diamonds at non-conflict prices, by forbidding the consumer to have knowledge of where the diamonds in their wife's wedding band came from.
The difference, is that we have GM crop companies wanting to call GM corn "Corn", for the same effect. Some people object to GM for religious reasons (playing god)-- others think it is franken food. Others are concerned that the crops were banned in other countries, and don't want to eat them. Forbidding that knowledge so that the GM companies can continue to sell the products as fungible generic produce, despite its exotic nature, is the same exact thing.
In any other industry the practice is universally reviled.
Why is it tolerated in the food industry?
Who says it has to be considered a warning label? It's just saying what it is. Period. If consumers interpret it as a warning label, that's really their own problem, isn't it? Is it morally right to deliberately decide to not tell the whole truth to consumers about a product just because some percentage of them will happen to not like it and probably avoid those products?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's no requirement that privately funded research become publicly available, and every effort to change that has been scuttled, so far.
And it should stay that way. Not all research is about cherry picking what you want to publish. Sometimes it's a matter of determining what I can do to improve my market position. Or what new features consumers what in my market. I shouldn't be forced to publish everything -- I paid for the information. If someone else wants it, they can pay for it.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Can someone link to a study that proves that GMO food is safe?.
No, because it is logically impossible to prove that anything is safe. "Safe" is simply the lack of harm so proving safety necessarily requires proving a negative. It is also highly improbably because non-gmo is known to be not-safe. It will cause harm. It is only a question of degree and to whom.
Another labeling requirement, especially only in one state, is an expensive proposition for several reasons. It implies substantial compliance costs in machinery to get the 0.5% non-GMO level (or no one compiles and it means nothing) and it creates an opportunity for senseless tort that quibbles over precise compliance.
There is no law preventing labeling now. Non-GMO producers can label their product now, but they don't, because it's not worth the cost of doing so. For that matter, "organic" already implies non-GMO. It implies more than that, but the purists are not completely out of luck.
Several people have argued "the consumer has a right to know regardless of the science". Well, maybe, but it has to have some limit when we are talking about mandated labeling. Should we label whether or not the water came from Hetch Hetchy (which some environmentalists want to remove as a reservoir)? Shouldn't consumers know the water that grew their food came from an environmentally sensitive (according to some) water shed? There isn't enough room on the label for all of this information, nor is it cheap to actually discern it.
Living in California, I think of the carcinogen warnings that were mandated by a proposition some years. They are in most buildings. There is no reference to the amount of carcinogen, the type, or the risk level. It's just a blanket statement. Everyone ignores it because it means nothing. That was not an exercise in informing the consumer, but it did help the bar association.
Basically, all it says is that any commercial food producer (note: farmers cultivating 1 acre of land, or producing $5000 worth of crops, are exempt/have no labelling requirements!) must put a label saying CONTAINS GMO INGREDIENTS / MAY CONTAIN GMO INGREDIENTS on retail food (IIRC, there's an exception for restaurants), unless every person involved in producing it has signed of that it doesn't have GMO ingredients, or they have tested all the ingredients.
Until ~2020, there's an exception that means you could use could use cornstarch that you know came from GMO crops, and still not label anything--because cornstarch is a minor ingredient.
Now, there's absolutely no distinction provided between Roundup Ready, Liberty Link, and Bt corn.
For those who have less background knowledge, Bt corn uses a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis--which has been used as an organic insecticide (organic as in "registered / used for organically-grown crops") for over half a century, and causes no problems for humans. Most seed companies have some Bt strains.
Roundup Ready is what Monsanto's been suing everybody over. It offers resistance to glyphosate, a _relatively_ mild herbicide (the conventional alternatives are far more toxic to man, and less effective on weeds).
Liberty Link is a different herbicide-resistance trait, developed by other companies (Bayer Crop Science, with some work by Pioneer). It confers resistance to glufosinate, which is listed as "Toxic to vascular plants" (read: just about any plant) and has several restrictions (including no application to wetlands).
Are there reasons someone might avoid any of them?
Yes.
Do those reasons apply equally to all of the traits?
Absolutely not!
The only reason one would want to avoid them all is that "Somebody tampered with something!"
Now, is that a scientifically sound criteria for making an informed decision?
I doubt it.
If all the information that's provided is that, are we promoting making an informed decision?
The claim is laughable.
Now, it's probably going to make 5 c. difference for the casual shopper...because most of the companies will just add "May contain ingredients from genetically modified organisms" to the labels.
The concerned shopper will probably spend at least 10-20% more, due to restricted selections.
And the average farmer will either spend several hours more taking care of paperwork, or get paid 95% of what he used to...which could mean half the income, thanks to operating overhead.
(note: numbers are a vaguely informed guesstimate)
~A senior majoring in Crops at CSU Chico, and one-time intern at Pioneer, where I worked on evaluating drought tolerance of several new varieties.
"MAY CONTAIN INGREDIENTS FROM GMOS"
That's all the proposition wants labelled.
So no, it's not informing anyone.
1) Food producers mark practically everything as GM. Whether it is or isn't.
2) California buyers panic.
3) Producers release small amounts of non-GM food onto the market labeled as non-GM. With prices set by false scarcity.
4) ?????
5 Profit!
Have gnu, will travel.
I shouldn't be forced to publish everything -- I paid for the information. If someone else wants it, they can pay for it.
I'll admit this is completely off-topic and I do not have a better alternative, but this statement caught my attention. While completely aligned with current market goals, this demonstrates very succinctly what is ultimately wrong with capitalism and pretty much every market system that has come before it. It takes true vision and innovation which should be symbiotic with human progress and perverts it into a parasitic act whereby we eliminate the best parts (human progress through information sharing) and turn it into a net negative (information consolidation and stonewalling through IP law).
That seems like a curious comparison. You're basically saying that:
Consumer: Why don't you label your food as non-Kosher?
Producer: Because I'm not trying to market my food to you.
Is the same as:
Customer: Why don't you label your food as GM?
Consumer: Because if I did that, you wouldn't eat it!
Not commenting on whether or not consumer's fears about GM food is justified, only saying that the producers know people would shun the food simply for being GM.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Consumers in the US are 'innately biased' against GMO foods for the simple reason that they've been drowned in the 'frankenfood is death' hype.
And don't forget that consumers are also "innately biased" against GMO foods that have been drowned in pesticides and herbicides.
I see. So if you were conceived in a green house, that would make you the Swamp Thing. By the transitive process of bullshit.
Most of these anti-GMO arguments are based on the naturalistic fallacy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy)
If you have legitimate disputes about actual GMO products, then speak up. But enough with the handwaving already.
"If you have legitimate disputes about actual GMO products, then speak up. But enough with the handwaving already."
I already have, which you would know if you had been paying attention. No "hand-waving" here.
There is evidence that GMO "nicotinoid pesticide" crops are a primary cause of Colony Collapse disorder, killing off bees in droves. There is evidence that the resulting nicotinoid compounds are, in fact, harmful to humans. And just to put the icing on the cake, the actual pests that it was supposed to kill or repel are quickly becoming resistant.
There was recently a class-action lawsuit against one of the companies that makes GMO corn, over cows that their feed corn apparently killed. The company settled out of court to avoid litigation, and the product was pulled from the market.
There was a paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal last year that linked "roundup-ready" GMO products to liver damage in mice and rats.
I could go on, but there is no need. Get a fucking education yourself before you start insulting people, you moron.
The "truth" about a food includes whether genetically-modified organisms were involved in producing it.
You're right. And whether or not brown people have touched my food is also part of that "truth". After all, you can't prove there's no such thing as "nigger cooties". And the customer has the right to know if any minority has been involved in the production of their food. It's just information right?
It's information that the average consumer can't possibly know what to do with. They (and almost everyone who will read this page) has absolutely no understanding of plant biology or nutrition. They will only see it as some kind of health warning, even if there's no reason why that might be the case. It's ridiculous fear-mongering and you all need to stop pretending that this is a concern about health rather than a concern about a specific business that produces some GM foods. It's the same thing the environmental extremists do - disguise anti-corporatism as environmental responsibility.
GM foods are not more or less likely to be "drowned" in anything, except for the few types that produce their own pesticides, in which case they would be drowned in less.
Also, there has never been a case of an end-user (someone who buys produce in the store and eating it) getting sick or dying from pesticides. None. ZERO. They are not even capable of giving you an upset stomach or acne at the levels you are exposed to as an end user.
"If you have legitimate disputes about actual GMO products, then speak up. But enough with the handwaving already."
By the way: although you could have found most of these things in about 30 seconds on Google, I have some links here for you to read:
Syngenta Charged for Covering up Livestock Deaths from GM Corn" By the way, my memory was off about the "lawsuit". The company did not settle a lawsuit. They have been charged criminally and the case is not over.
This article contains links to evidence that roundup-resistant and Bt-toxin producing BMOs are much more dangerous to human health than previously believed.
Learn now neo-nicotinoids from GMO crops are killing off bees.
There is far more, but I rest my case.
I shouldn't be forced to publish everything -- I paid for the information. If someone else wants it, they can pay for it.
I'll admit this is completely off-topic and I do not have a better alternative, but this statement caught my attention. While completely aligned with current market goals, this demonstrates very succinctly what is ultimately wrong with capitalism and pretty much every market system that has come before it. It takes true vision and innovation which should be symbiotic with human progress and perverts it into a parasitic act whereby we eliminate the best parts (human progress through information sharing) and turn it into a net negative (information consolidation and stonewalling through IP law).
Paraphrasing Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others. The ultimate reality is that a system which requires people to act against their own personal interests is at best going to yield similar results with some layers of added corruption.
However, IP law is not exactly capitalistic. It is a government granted monopoly on a patent, copyright, or trademark. The assumption is that a greater amount of creative effort is applied when they exist vs when they do not exist.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I haven't the slightest idea why that first link did not come out right, but here is the correct one.
how else do you explain "informing" the electorate that less information is better?
What exactly is anti-science about demanding that ingredients be listed?
Nothing, but that is not what is happening here. Ingredients are already listed. They are demanding that a particular method of crop improvement be labeled, while ignoring all the others, based on political agendas not science.
If anything, it will make it easier to compare the effects of modified and unmodified plants.
You could apply that same logic to any other method of crop improvement (and I'm not just talking about breeding). Why single out one thing?
then there is no downside for the agribusinesses.
And if people made their decisions based on science alone, that would be true. But this (besides having neither scientific nor moral basis) would be sending the message that GE is something specifically demanding of a label,
But it doesn't matter if its rational. If labeling is what folks want, then labeling we should have.
To be clear, I'm not anti-GM food. While my own gardening practices are rather organic (especially with regards to pesticides and herbicides, which I find zero use for), I'll gleefully stuff all manner of things into my gullet that I find appetizing with little regard for its source or its treatment.
But with labels, I (the consumer, who will integrate the food product into my own body) can make a more informed decision about the food that I eat (though whether I choose to or not is my own problem).
If I find GM-derived food to be better in some measure that is important to me, I'll buy more of it. If I find that it is substandard according to my own whims, then I'll tend to buy less of it. And if I find that it is exactly the same (as so many claim), then I will tend to select whichever product is a better value.
But as things stand: In the process of consuming possible-GM food, I don't know a damned thing about its origins or treatment, except that it exists, and I may or may not be eating it.
There is no argument which can be made which would persuade me to believe that having less information available is better than having more information available.
Kid-proof tablet..
By that logic I also demand that organic food produced using animal feces be prominently labeled as such, including the list of specific source species, and furthermore that the government regulate and enforce this labeling requirement.
What's that you say? "Grown using pig feces" unfairly harms the marketability of your produce while providing information of dubious relevance? Don't I have a right to know?
What about a "grown by supporters of [traditional marriage | LGBT rights]" labeling requirement? Perhaps irrelevant to nutritional value, but don't I have a right to know? The whole Chic-Fil-A circus certainly proved that a lot of people care.
I'm not trying to put arguments in your mouth, by the way, just illustrating that justifying labeling requirements takes more than an appeal to some sort of "right to know". Some standard of relevance--whether scientific, political, social, or otherwise--is required.
So far, no consumer relevance has been established with respect to GMOs from a scientific standpoint, so some people who nevertheless feel strongly about the issue are trying to establish political relevance via this vote.
I guess California has got a lot of labeling to do, then. It's not like anything we eat today isn't genetically modified, or hasn't been for a couple thousand years...
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
Oh, you want science?, then how about all the data about how GMO's are horrifying? The many, many different ways, it could single-handedly destroy huge portions of our food supply; that making food grow faster, doesn't make it more nutritious, exascerbating major problems in the food supply, while minimizing minor ones; that a third of the world's food supply is now in the hands of a single company, (Monsanto). There are plenty of documentaries probably covering a hundred others.
Also, they find it odd that people want to know their tomatoes are actually TOMATOES, rather then part virus, fungus, fish, monkey, or whatever else they feel like splicing into it, (which is done with Retroviruses).
Captcha: Monkeys
Well in the case of Starlink Corn there is a hazard as the pesticide is in the corn. Is it 100% sure there is no Starlink in the food supply?
Anyway, the GMO label would inform the customer they were purchasing a genetically modified food product, fundamentally.
If the customer rejects the GMO product then so what--it is their money and they get to decide what to buy.
You all speak of the consumer's right to "make an informed choice" but you forget that almost all consumers are uninformed.
My freedom includes the right not to have my right to consume better, genetically-modified food (as backed by actual science) ruined by the paranoia of a propaganda-fueled public.
Please explain to me why I should trust Joe Blow Consumer and his paranoid ability to ruin the market viability of my preferred product, because "his friends say it is bad" over the opinions of actual scientists.
I'm waiting.
The right to offend is central to the right to free speech.
Lack of evidence of consumer relevance is not the same as evidence of lack of consumer relevance. I'm not necessarily for or against GM technology, but I think that new ways of producing food should always be aligned with consumers' interests.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Bullshit. There is no time for research for each thing you buy in a shop. You would starve doing that research. I think people at least should have the right to know what they are eating. And not in covered terms. So no "vegetable oil". Does it contain soy or not? (Soy allergy is one of the most widespread ones). And yes, I demand to know if my world is put to danger for my food. Each few months you read (even on slashdot) discoveries in the field of genetics that are so basic that no one can seriously believe that genetic engineering is understood and perfectly safe. It may be safe in a tightly sealed laboratory, but it definitely isn't in the open field.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I'm not against research in GM technology, but I'm very against releasing anything into the nature unless it has been ensured over a period of at least 50 years it won't affect the nature and the bio diversity.
What I'm strictly against are corporations playing with GM to improve their profit. Not because I'm envy them for their money, but for the sole reason that profit motivated modifications are a too big security risk.
If GM modification is only allowed by globally peer reviewed research and only with the intend to help the mankind and modified organisms has to be in quarantine for at least 50 years, then it's ok for me.
Looking at the labelling issue the market can only work as the marked fundamentalist theories explain when the customer is fully informed. Suppression this information is distorting the marked.
I personally would enjoy this GMO sticker movement pulverized into the ground by whatever evil, underhanded, corporate fatcat methods are necessary to do so. Probably less than 5% of people in the US know what the terms "gene" and "genetic modification" and "organism" truly mean, while possibly 80% of the rest have reached some sort of confident misunderstanding. Understand this: MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT A GMO IS. It is IMPOSSIBLE to force educate everyone in the US with the 1-2 years of university level biology to gain even the semblance of knowledge required to understand what 'G' 'M' 'O' entails, along with the whole protein and DNA thing... hell all of molecular biology. In the brains of most people, GMO has strong associations with the "things to avoid because they are unnatural and wrong like same-sex marriage" bundle. Putting this sticker on every food item will serve no purpose other than to reduce the amount of funding reaching biological research. Those saying that "people have the right to know what they are eating" and "we get nutrition facts, why not GMO sticker?" are full of it. A "GMO" sticker provides no benefit to those few who even know what a GMO is (will it also the name the vector used? the source genome used? pblast alignments with similarly translated proteins of various species? known protein interactions, conformations, metabolic pathways?). Society wouldn't get anything but OONGA BOONGA scared from some extra worthless "UNNATURAL ABOMINATION - This product wasn't on the Ark!! " sticker everyone has to peel off before eating.
However, I would actually prefer if the corporations published even the most shallow genetic details of their product on an easily accessible website to allow qualified judgement from those in the general public who for whatever reason do not trust the corporation they are purchasing from.
The same thing that makes GMOs patentable whereas you can't patent "the potato".
Since GM crops are the norm, instead label NON GM foods as being "GM free". No way that agribusiness can complain about that.
Yeah, and if hybrid seed is so great, why not label it? And if food produced via tissue culture is so great, why not label it? And if food produced via induced polyploidy is so great, why not label it? And if food produced via somaclonal variation or mutagenesis is so great, why not label it? And if food produced via doubled haploid hybridization is so great, why not label it? And if Haram food won't send you to hell, why not label it?
Yes, to all.
Whenever there are options in producing something that ends up indistinguishable to consumer's naked eye, consumer should be informed which options were chosen. If there is one default, "mainstream", way of doing something, then perhaps we can argue that it is what consumer expects and label only the products which differ.
The information is freely available to anyone willing to research it.
How? If the manufacturer doesn't put it on the label, then how is a purchaser supposed to find out that the ingredients have been genetically modified?
This is about forcing information beyond a rational minimum of information (like nutritional content, ingredients, and allergies) to be displayed, but not all the information, only the information that fits political agendas.
Nutritional content and ingredients are also "information that fits political agendas", and food manufacturers were opposed to labelling them for the same reasons. How is GM different? There is no real reason why nutritional content should be labelled other than politics (aka "people want to know", which also applies to GM).
this is what a totally free libertarian market looks like
We are talking about the largest, most expensive, most powerful government in human history, with the most complex system of laws ever conceived. If you think this is libertarianism, then you either incredibly misinformed, or deliberately building an empty strawman.
Reduce the size of government to 1/10 what it is today, measured both in revenue and power over the people, and then we'll start talking about whether we can call it libertarianism. Yes, 1/10 the size. THAT is what libertarianism looks like, and it looks NOTHING like what we have today.
Why does *everything* always have to come down to whomever has the most money, wins?
I'm a pure capitalist, through and through, but when is this ultimate greed going to stop? Does capitalism really have to mean "fuck everyone else"?
Well, would you support midwestern states labelling products where non-Christian businesses were involved in the production? If there are no differences in the product or the rational approach turns out to make the products better, then there is no downside for the *business.
During the telegraph/telephone era, people were afraid the poles were going to fall down and kill people. By your logic we should have set back the deployment of telephones simply because people were afraid.
What a moron. "Don't allow any scientific breakthrough unless it has been proven for 50 years to be safe" is more about you being ignorant and afraid than protecting others.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Colour me confused, but wouldn't it be more "anti-science" NOT to put the GM labels on food to educate people about the food they eat?
Maybe they are just saying they think the majority of plebs in the USA are anti-science to begin with.
Companies like Monsanto would just make lots of subsidiaries with different, harmless-sounding names. You'd have to look up all of the names in an online database in order to know if they belonged to a "bad guy" or not. Few consumers would go to that amount of effort.
Many companies already do that, and they sell better because they do(hint: kosher and halal foods)
That seems like a curious comparison. You're basically saying that:
Consumer: Why don't you label your food as non-Kosher?
Producer: Because I'm not trying to market my food to you.
Is the same as:
Customer: Why don't you label your food as GM?
Consumer: Because if I did that, you wouldn't eat it!
Not commenting on whether or not consumer's fears about GM food is justified, only saying that the producers know people would shun the food simply for being GM.
And producers don't know Jews would shun the food simply for being non-Kosher?
It's the same damn thing, except Jews have the good sense to treat anything unlabeled as non-kosher, but anti-GM nuts don't.
I can not comprehend how this is not a standard across the globe yet.
I am also a linux sysadmin and oppose software patents. The biotech industry is at the forefront of lobbing for more intellectual property rights. http://www.bio.org/articles/unleashing-promise-biotechnology I oppose lifeform patents so if corporations dabble in genetic engineering they are on their own. No public subsidies should go to biotech (and yes patents are a subsidy)
Why not make an alliance/certification program that puts a label on food that is NOT GMO? Make it cheap and affordable for farmers.
I personally buy 99% organic (100% vegan, 80%+ raw) because I believe it is good for me. People should have the right to know what they eat. Anyone trying to take this right away should be punished, sued, bankrupted as a company. Not less.
Here is the summary:
"Requires labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways. Prohibits labeling or advertising such food as “natural.” Exempts foods that are: certified organic; unintentionally produced with genetically engineered material; made from animals fed or injected with genetically engineered material but not genetically engineered themselves; processed with or containing only small amounts of genetically engineered ingredients; administered for treatment of medical conditions; sold for immediate consumption such as in a restaurant; or alcoholic beverages."
Odd that it's not in the linked article. It seems strange to me that someone would write a piece about the ballot measure without actually summarizing what it says, or even *linking* to a summary.
A discussion of prop 37 can be found on ballotpedia and on the CA Secretary of State's voter information website. What should be clear is that much of what we're talking about here (e.g. labeling of accidentally contaminated crops, mandatory testing for genetic alterations) has no bearing on the actual proposal.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Oddly enough, GMO sells poorly in those countries.
They actually sell quite well in those countries, people just don't realize it. Most GMO crops can be engineered using GMO techniques and, once finalized, reproduced through selective breeding techniques to produce the exact same result without splicing DNA. Laws like the one California is proposing just force that extra step in the development process to get around the laws.
nobody makes a buck from the introduction of the alien species.
Unless you have something to hide.
Of course, in this case, whichever side has more cash will win, but in a perfect world it would be based on facts and logic and not raw money.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What is genetically modified food?
Does it count off spring? animals fed with it? possible cross breeding?
Labeling GMO is a FUD driven idea. It has no merit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
* Gene transfers do naturally happen. But transgenic DNA is much more likely to do so (which is actually required for some genetic engineering techniques to be used, and an unintended consequence of other techniques) to the point it is considered instable. Genetic engineering also uses promoters with the capacity to awake dormant genes, with the result that those promoters are now present in about every living organism, from humans to bacterias.
* Those points increases mutations in every contaminated host. Which means troubles ranging from infertility to cancer, along with the rise of new infectious diseases.
* Not only that but the inserted genes can be toxic: there are reported cases of intestinal bacterias in humans producing insecticides after a contamination by GMO.
* 80% of GMO used today are designed to be resistant to specific herbicides like RoundUp, this is the very business model of those plants. As a result, use of herbicides in the USA has been multiplied by 15 since the use of GMO. Which is likely to have health and environmental consequences, something already asserted with bees.
* Some other GMO produce antibiotics and pesticides, which results in more and more bacterias and insects being resistant to those products. Some bacterias that could be easily eradicated twenty years ago are more and more often troublesome, with possibly serious complications. How antibiotics are used today in agriculture is scandalous.
* On the other side the economical benefits of existing GMO are very questionable and sometimes detrimental, especially with the rise of resistant predators for plants. And we still have to see the long-promised commercial products that would use less water, less naturients or grow on sterile soils.
So, what do you think is a proper scientific attitude in this matter? To document yourself and question what you think may be true, or to boldly claim that being anti-GMO is being anti-science because you heard some Monsanto-hired expert claim this on Fox?
Now there are three unrelated questions to be answered:
* Are the available GMO products good?
* Are the current genetic engineering techniques good?
* Is the GMO concept good?
I do not have the answers, although I have intuitions. But only the last one is a matter of beliefs (including anti-science stands) and not of scientific facts.
Now it is important to note that it is very hard for independent researchers to get funds to study the social, economical, environmental and medical consequences of GMO. While, on the other side, Monsanto & al produce a considerable scientific noise, spend a lot of money into advertising and commercial actions, and have strong political supports.
It is true that labeling GMO foods would mess up the data for biotech science: Since these chemical companies haven't conducted any health studies or tests on their GMO foods, this is how they want to do it - - - by sneaking it in and waiting for results (and in the meantime making billions $$). Following suit, just like the tobacco companies - - - we are the consenting guinea pigs. Look how long it took for cigarette labels!
Slowly reports are coming in from independent organizations that show GMOs and other nightmares, such as bovine growth hormones, antibiotics and tight cages used on animals are creating ill health - - - in humans and animals.
Would anyone in their right mind really want a chemical company securing and producing our food? We need intelligent farmers producing the food! And intelligent people demanding healthy food.
If you don't care about your health or the health of animals, plants or the environment ...... then GMO's are for you! You are the market for their profit!
Regarding stupidity, even the gods themselves contend in vain! GMO should stand for Give Me Organic!
Monsanto needs us for their experiment.
Monsanto needs to control the food market so that we'll all bow down to them in the future.
Down with Monsatan!
"It's the same damn thing, except Jews have the good sense to treat anything unlabeled as non-kosher, but anti-GM nuts don't."
Anti-GM don't have anyway to know that's relevant and useful in the store where they shop. What little information there is is non-obvious for economic reasons in favor of big business.
You're right, let's put the average number of insect and mouse parts per loaf on every loaf of bread sold! Perfect information!
Well it will encourage hygene in food preparation. If customers see that bread X has 10 times the number of mice droppings that bread Y has, then they will reward the makers of X for their effort.
The limits exist because it's widely accepted that it's impossible to keep all vermin out of food stocks. The limits are allowed to remain because it's widely accepted that a certain amount of insect parts being ingested is not unhealthy (indeed, in many parts of the world, insects are main courses). Why induce market forces on elements which simply don't matter?
So why not have the same standard in GMO food? Since GMO is not impossible to keep out of food, then have it marked.
I would agree that setting limits to the amount of GMO food that may be present in food is not the way to go. There is no evidence that GMO is harmful to humans (yet at least). So set a maximum % (0.01% or something, just enough to cover accidental pollination) that is allowed in food without being labeled. Anything above that, and the people eating it have a right to know.
And if the limit is ignored by the maker, then the people have a right to sue. Just like in cases where they find a mummified rat in their flour.