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China Rejects 545,000 Tons of US Genetically Modified Corn
hawkinspeter writes "The BBC is reporting that China has rejected 545,000 tons of U.S. corn that was found to contain an unapproved genetically modified strain. Although China doesn't have a problem per se with GM crops (they've been importing GM soybeans since 1997) — but their product safety agency found MIR162 in 12 batches of corn. 'The safety evaluation process [for MIR162] has not been completed and no imports are allowed at the moment before the safety certificate is issued,' said Nui Din, China's vice agricultural minister. The Chinese are now calling on U.S. authorities to tighten their controls to prevent unapproved strains from being sent to China after the first batch of corn was rejected in November due to MIR162."
Since GM crops are already shown to jump to other fields, it's hardly surprising. And hardly the only time this has happened. This is just another friendly FU, like the "near collision" in the sea off China, to remind the US that China holds all the cards.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Isn't this just things working as they should?
The North Koreans will happily take it.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
We should reject their 545,000 tons of smog.
I mean, if you're just going to throw it away and all.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
"The safety evaluation process [for MIR162] has not been completed and no imports are allowed at the moment before the safety certificate is issued," said China's vice agricultural minister, Niu Dun.
The Ministry of Agriculture has recently launched a publicity campaign to allay concerns over GM foods and says the criticisms are unfounded.
Seems pretty fair to me. sloppy testing on the US end is all.
Apparently the melamine powder content was too low...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXIds5_F50
Assuming that Chinese health authorities have their priorities straight, that must mean that eating US corn is more dangerous than breathing the air in Beijing. This is worrisome!
I know I'm not the first one to point this out here, but seriously, let me repeat this:
HOW CAN ANYBODY THROW AWAY HALF A MILLION TONS OF FOOD WHEN SO MANY HUMAN BEINGS ARE STARVING?
How have we - collectively - come to the point where this sort of things is acceptable? This is completely indecent, and someone in power should be shot over this.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I thought that the Chinese just used US Treasury bonds for expensive toilet paper.
I'm pretty surprised that the USA still makes anything that China wants.
I hope that ALL GMO crops are banned worldwide, including the US.
On a serious note... If a TPP nation were to try such a thing, Monsanto (or whoever) would be able to sue the government in an international tribunal.
They are also reluctant to permit supermarkets to stock garbage bags with greater dimensions than 500*650 millimeters, and, no pharmaceutical shop may sell no more than two boxes of golden throat lozenges per week. That's all central planning folks.
China has a "Product safety agency"? Really? It must only apply to imports, not exports.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It was tested for two years http://cera-gmc.org/index.php?action=gm_crop_database&mode=ShowProd&data=MIR162. Considering most drugs take decades if they even make it to market.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Let's say China ships us 545,000 tons of toothpaste laced with lead, and our health inspectors reject it. Would this even be news or just another day at the Los Angeles shipping ports?
As it stands, our trade deficit with China is so great, we're coming up with creative uses for all the shipping containers being stocked 30 or 40 high -- we could build housing for the homeless from all those containers, and completely eliminate homelessness in this country, if only we had the land to put all those containers somewhere else.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Assuming this was the same corn that made its way into Taco Bell brand tacos.
No wonder people are obese, sick and have cancer. GM is poison.
Knowing customers regulations how does one ship a half million tons of something they know or should know will be rejected if inspected? Cross their fingers...hope for the best?
I hope someone is getting slapped/fired.
What it were tainted with lead, they'd probably have no problem with that... y'know, being China and all that..
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Around re7urn it
This sick propaganda starts with the media. Fuck reading a story's contents, you give me the color/race, ethnicity, religion, sexual-orientation, wealth/affluence, partisanship of the story (domestic and international), I'll tell you exactly what the reactions of my countrymen will be regardless of the facts. This post-colonial imperialism is sickening and runs through the veins of our society from top to bottom. It creates double standards, domestically and internationally.
China and its Ministry of Agriculture rejects unapproved goods just like our FDA would. How dare they expect the same as us? Let the smear campaign begin! China executes Uyghur Muslims, all of a sudden China is the best. Why? Because in our hierarchical caste system, China seems ranks higher than Muslims. This is the reality, a single stamp on your forehead of an identity defines one entirely and groups you with a stereotype irrelevant of the facts. And if you think that people are willingly going to accept second-class treatment, you are tripping, keep investing in the military as this is the only way.
This is exactly why:
These double standards and injustices go on BECAUSE you permit it to happen. I'm the fucking patriot here, you are just a mindless sheep falling in line, fuck you!
All the chemicals and crap they put in everything they make and export to us, and they wont accept some corn..
"How dare China import lead-tainted goods! Ban!"
"How dare China ban our GMO exports!"
American Exceptionalism is Exceptional Hypocrisy.
GMO had nothing to do with it. the corn didn't contain any lead or any other heavy metals, and thus the Chinese government determined that it was unfit for repackaging and export to its trading partners.
Moreover, those tests started with small scale products that took decades or centuries to work through, as opposed to being planted as a monoculture through billions of hectares at a time.
But, hey, go ahead and don't eat cultivated foodstuffs, only wild produce, until they're proven safe.
Don't use that to insist that GMOs don't have to be tested.
We send them something *safe* and they reject it. Just pour some lead in it.
The country where they make fake everything, right down to fake eggs has a problem with genetic modifications to corn.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/06/how-to-make-a-rotten-egg/
The whole point of some of these changes is to make the food no longer attractive (or possibly even toxic) to pests. It seems reasonable that the changes required to do this may have some impact on people as well.
That said, direct genetic modification is a lot less likely to cause problems than the radiation-based mutation where they just blast it and see what they end up with--that ends up changing a lot more DNA than the direct modification would, and has far fewer labelling restrictions.
Freedom means asking permission and taking orders.
They have been found making "oil" out of sewage, you'd think something like this would pass without any problem.
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/12/19/six-chinese-nationals-indicted-in-corn-seed-theft-case/article?nclick_check=1
Six Chinese nationals have been indicted as part of an ongoing agriculture espionage case involving the attempted theft of valuable trade secrets from U.S. seed manufacturing companies.
U.S. Attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt announced the indictments Thursday morning in a news statement.
Federal prosecutors announced last week that the men had been accused of traveling across the Midwest to steal millions of dollars in seed technology trade secrets for use at their China-based seed company.
When your citizens start growing an extra pair of arms you know you're in trouble.
The poisons and toxins their industries are letting into the air, lakes, rivers and oceans cause more mutations than any GM crop, have they evaluated what those toxins are doing to their people? hell no, but watch out, spend a lil money on foreign food grains and they'd better be straight plain grains.
Get real - their people are getting sick and dying in droves from their own short-sighted stupidity - letting a lil gm corn into their country won't do anything to the numbers that are dying daily due to their poor air and water quality....
A country responsible for leaded paint in toys, melamine in pet food and baby milk is refusing corn over GMO concerns ?
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
For a fucking ear of corn. A buck for a fucking Orange. A fucking buck for a god damn apple.
I am going to hijack one of those fucking trucks.
Better than a armored.
Don't punch the gift horse in the mouth, take the damned food and eat it.. Or starve.
Ungrateful pinheads
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Every time you eat RoundUp Ready corn, soy, canola you are eating glyphosate. The pathway by which glyposate kills plants is known as the shikimate pathway. This same pathway exists in the bacteria in your gut. That is also where 75% of your immune system is regulated as well as it has been called your "second brain" due to its importance in providing the building blocks your brain needs to function.
Once you have poisoned your gut bacteria you will get a lot more autoimmune and inflammation based diseases and conditions.
The EPA is increasing limits on allowable glyphosate in food crops from 200 ppm to 6,000 ppm and in oil seed crops from 20 ppm to 40 ppm. Of course it is perfectly safe because the company making it said so.
Consume at your own risk.
If they plant that corn, would it be bye-bye for the honey-bees?
The irony of China rejecting food from the US is incredible considering the amount of toxic garbage they ship over here daily with no remorse.
Never, ever, ever, ever eat anything that came from China. I boycott all Chinese food and candy products, including for animals, and I make sure to convince everyone else I know or come across to do the same.
Unlikely, bees are not needed for corn pollination. But the GM soybeans do have flowers. I remember bees on those while working in the fields.
No good deed goes unpunished.