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US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO Labeling Law
An anonymous reader writes: The House Agriculture Committee approved a measure banning mandatory GMO labeling as well as local efforts to regulate genetically engineered crops. The decision is a major victory for U.S. food companies and other opponents of labeling genetically modified foods. "This... legislation will ensure that Americans have accurate, consistent information about their food rather than a 50 state patchwork of labeling laws that will only prove costly and confusing for consumers, farmers and food manufacturers," said Pamela Bailey, CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), said in a statement.
who identifies as an uncle
Ain't that a bad thing?
..your friends at Monsanto Corporation.
Our Business Is Life Itself.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
It is like creating a law to hinder cars because horses are closer to nature. There will be soon GMO babies. Should we put a stamp on them too?
other opponents of labeling genetically modified foods
Now who the hell considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods unless they have a financial stake in it? Is there anyone walking down the street who has nothing to do with the food industry and considers themselves an opponent of labeling GMO foods?
This... legislation will ensure that Americans have accurate, consistent information about their food
So a law that requires that GMO foods are labeled as GMO foods would be a barrier to accurate, consistent information? Someone wrote that quote without even bothering to check what the issue was, didn't they?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This will never become law because Obama will not sign it. A bunch of big companies just wasted their money buying these guys.
I think you mean "this legislation will ensure that Americans have no way of knowing they're being sold GMO food."
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Labeling laws like this convey no real information to the consumer. They just add a word to the food item that many people interpret as frightening, a word that has literally zero impact on the safety or sustainability of the food item. This is definitely a win for people everywhere in the US.
Exactly. GMO labeling laws are analogous to labeling table salt as "NOTICE: HAS CHEMICALS!".
This is right up there with Cheneys "working group" and the "Halliburton Clause" making the fluids used for fracking "proprietary" and not beholden to the Clean Water act.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
You've got a little Monsanto around the corner of your mouth...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I think we should have mandatory labeling on anything that contains DNA, just to be safe.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Yeah, that one got me too. By banning rules requiring "X" information be posted, we're ensuring that people stay more informed.
WTF.
"Genetically modified", all food is genetically modified. Humans have domesticated, modified by selection, hybridation and other means, all the food since the beginnings of agriculture. Labelling this or that is therefore simply a lie, because all should be labelled, then.
and they'll bring back the noose for it.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The bill will probably not make it through the Senate.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Over the past hundred, heart attack, cancer, diabetes, and birth defects have sky rocketed. And you say there's no evidence.
And most autistic children have received the MMR vaccine. Anti-GMO types are the same as anti-vaxxers
If the political system and the legal system fail at this, the maker movement can work around this with basic biotech equipment at home.
That is not true. It is equivalent to labelling "dolphin free tuna", or "made in the USA", or "not produced in sweatshops".
It doesn't say much about the health consequences of the item, but a lot about how it was produced.
There is a cost associated with labelling. I'm not interested in paying more for my groceries due to anti-GMO fear mongering.
GMO-free providers can choose to label their food (as some do now). This lets consumers purchase GMO-free foods if they place a greater value on those and keeps the cost of doing so on the product they value more.
Putin just states that GMOs will be forbidden in Russia. This is not even a joke:
http://sustainablepulse.com/20...
We will now be witness to a very large controlled experiment.
I have all ready arranged an explanation for you guys when Russia shows lower rates of disease X and scientists proclaim the "Russia Paradox":
1. There is better disease reporting in the west.
2. Russian statistics are doctored by corrupt officials.
3. Moderate vodka consumption has health benefits.
Anytime you are not allowed to know what is in your food, how it was made, or where it came from, you know your government is not looking out for Your Interest.
"US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO Labeling Law"
should be
"US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO-Labeling Law"
Ah, another case of anti-science panic.
Yes, there are some legitimate problems with GMOs, but they are legal issues, not health or environmental ones, and no one is talking about the alternative: More fertilizer, more water, more land use, more fuel to get less food.
Oh, and to pad the profit margins of the laughable "organic" food industry, which, incidentally, is spending much more money on lobbying and propaganda than the GMO industry.
So, just lump this one in with climate-change denial, anti-vaccinet, chemtrail and moon-landing--was-a-hoax crowds.
I remember first seeing on a container of recombinant-bovine-growth-hormone-free yogurt that stated there was no difference between it and rbgh containing yogurt.
I thought - "What? Why would the manufacturer put both of those labels on his product?" Of course, it's because the agricultural lobby paid off politicians in order to force non-rBGH manufacturers to put such labels on their product.
You know how Tom Wheeler, former top lobbyist for the cable industry is now head of the FCC? Yeah, it's safe to assume that this sort of thing occurs throughout the US regulatory apparatus. You know the IRS scandal regarding the targeting of conservative groups? Yeah, Big Ag seems to do the same thing but through the regulatory apparatus.
You know, El Chapo broke out of jail, probably with the help of Mexican authorities. It was reported that "He then hinted that the authorities had been complicit in the jailbreak by posting: 'The dog (slang for the Mexican government) dances for money, and I've bought it.'
Fortunately, we don't have law breaking like that here. First the bribery and conflicts of interest are legalized of course, THEN the "favors" occur. So - no illegality.
There are a few issues where a big part of the American electorate supports seemingly retarded policies. One of them is health insurance, where the US (alone in the developed world) stick to a private and non-universal model. Another is GMOs. I know of a few GMOs, such as the one with the RoundUp resistance gene. If the GMO alone is (maybe) not harmful, a plant filled with RoundUp certainly is (cf. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201). And I don't even need to get into technical details like these. I don't want to see your GMOs in Europe. We're well off without them. Period.
Remember when 'radiation' was so 'good' for your health, every major shoe manufacturer in the USA wanted you to have a foot X-ray at every fitting. When every major sheeple science targeted 'science' magazine was screaming about the coming wonders of 'atomic' powered cars, and demanding the acceptance of the use of atomic bombs in major land alteration building projects across the USA.
Or perhaps you recall the movement to make pre-frontal lobotomies as common as childhood vaccinations for the vast majority of the 'under class'- the proponent of this horror held the HIGHEST science prizes in the USA.
Or maybe you may recall a little thing known as the AMERICAN EUGENIC MOVEMENT- the one that Adolf Hitler himself praised for directly inspiring the 'racial purity' policy in Nazi Germany.
Need something newer- how about the FACT that the top psychiatrists in the USA designed and assisted with the mass use of TORTURE by the US government against Muslim opponents of America's genocidal wars of invasion in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.
Of course the same FILTHY POLITICIANS who unanimously voted to support the Jewish state's crimes against Humanity in Gaza last year also support American sheeple being denied the RIGHT to know what is in the food they eat. Who ever said 'cattle' should have a choice? And watch as the usual pseudo-science shills, fresh from pleasuring themselves over pictures of dead kids in Gaza, tell you it is a 'scientific fact' that sheeple should be kept in the dark about anything concerning their health and well-being. They said exactly the same thing when they were sterilising and mutilating the genitals of the female 'under-classes' in the USA for more than 50% of the 20th Century.
If it is a Monsanto product or not. I don't like their "Seed Nazi" tactics forced upon farmers.
Exactly. GMO labeling laws are analogous to labeling table salt as "NOTICE: HAS CHEMICALS!".
FWIW, in California, every supermarket has this posted near the fresh produce section, but not associated with any particular product.
Proposition 65 WARNING: Products contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
This clearly conveys the real and important information to the consumer about the fresh produce for sale at every supermarket in California ;^)
You have this backwards. If companies are going to introduce new products into our food supply, the burden of proof should be on them to prove that there aren't any negative health consequences.
Is it harder to show proof of absence? You bet your ass. And given the ramifications involved, it should be.
Look, I'm not an anti-gmo crusader. I think it has a lot of promise to more efficiently feed a growing world. But, like any technology, it can be used both responsibly and irresponsibly, and the private sector doesn't have a great track record of putting public health ahead of profits.
You stereotypers are all the same...
I'm not really sure how GMO labeling helps. Non-GMO labeling may help, but that happens mostly voluntary. It to me it isn't a safety issue, unless you are going to say, this corn or wheat isn't as nutritious as a natural product, or this product only appears to resemble a tomato, it may not smell, taste or provide nutrients found in natural tomatoes. It isn't all that clear to me what path forward we can take to give more people access to better food. Sure I prefer to buy organic, non-GMO, free range, hormone free, etc.., but I'm not sure that can scale at a cost that is workable for everyone. We've created such a glut of false abundance. We have tons of cheap food that isn't very good or very good for you, but it's cheap so we can feed the millions of people who can't afford better alternatives.
Any person who pays attention knows that ALL processed food contains GMOs
Unless you know the farmer personally, or REALLY trust the advertising of the "organic" producers, it's safe to assume that ALL corn and soybeans, and ALL products made from corn and soybeans contain GMOs
Kinda reminds me of Cal prop 65, requiring sellers to disclose if their products caused cancer in lab animals. Now EVERY product has the warning, and everybody ignores it
NFM
There is some suggestion that some of the chemicals introduced into the food chain by US corporations have psychoactive properties and have been used as a means to reduce aggression globally as part of cold war defense strategies.
The alterations to the genetic code of these products need to be examined in the context of biological weapons aimed at slight alterations of human behavior. At present, all examinations exclusively focus of disease and toxicity, not minor behavioral changes of large populations.
Until complete, I would not allow any GMO product to enter the food chain.
Honeybees and butterflies devastated.
You win the worst headline of the day: it states precisely the opposite (that the US House approved a tough labeling law that was anti-GMO) of what the actual story was about (the House approved a law about GMOs that was anti-labeling)
Usually, products will be "Packaged in America" or something similar. Canada among other countries requires the label at LEAST indicate where the product originates|comes from. Packaged in a country doesn't tell you squat.
I guess this is to comply with secretly negociated provisions of TTIP (aka TAFTA)
I read it and it's super evil.
For example you can label as "non GMO" even if there was inadvertent contamination or if an animal is fed with GMO food (425-a-2)
See though, 1) and 2) are actually really damn likely is the problem. Remember how much lower infant mortality rates are in Cuba? It sure as hell isn't because less babies are dying.
That said I'd really love to see an honest study on a national level like that. Just...probably not from Russia.
Obama's been the sort of corporate whore that the owners of the Republican branch of the demopublican party have wet dreams about.
The whole Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) thing he's pushing gives corporations blank checks to pillage the governments that sign it. For example, if Monsanto (a BIG GMO pusher) claims to have lost any profits due to any sort of GMO labelling or prohibition, the TTIP allows them compensation, without any actual proof of harm. Even if it were proven that a product killed 10% of its users, that does not prevent them from compensation for lost profits.
Far more than the produce section of supermarkets. The outside of every pharmacy, hardware store, grocery store, and even banks carry a similar warning sign.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
I remember checking into a hotel with one of those cancer warnings in California. Yes, the actual hotel itself was found to cause cancer in California.
I've always wondered why it is that so many things which are safe else where cause cancer in California. Seriously, what's wrong with that place?
There is a difference between "Anti-GMO labeling law" and "Anti-GMO-labeling law"!!! Guess which one you meant? Stop making your readers guess what you're trying to say!
"We have tried war, but the use of economic power is far more effective" .. the Collector, evil overlord of Pluto ...
Doctor Who - The Sun Makers
This GMO stuff isn't like selective breeding, it is putting genes from a different species into a plant...like splicing DNA out of a frog into a stalk of wheat.
Why is the food industry so "afraid" of letting the consumer make an informed decision on what they want to put in their bodies?
The food industry hasn't put this much effort and money behind anti-consumer legislation since the food nutrition labeling act (you know, the Nutrition Guides on the back of products) a few decades ago.
What are they afraid of people knowing???
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem, it seems to me, is not that the GMO's are safe or unsafe. It's that any trust authority has been completely destroyed by money. The FDA/EPA/USDA are funded by Congress and Congress appears to be corrupt. So anything that branches off of them appears to be corrupt. How are we supposed to believe anything from any of these people with such an appearance of corruption. It's a big money game and sometimes the money coincides with the larger public interest but more often it seems not to. So I believe in what I saw my 80 year old mother eat, who does not have diabetes, does not have heart disease, is not and never has been overweight and still has all her marbles. She ate real food that generations of people ate before her that didn't skip steps or have spider genes inserted in it. She might have accidentally eaten a spider and then ate some corn, but she never ate spidercorn.
This doesn't matter. Walmart, MacDonalds and other big retailers will be requiring GMO labeling, rejecting GMO products and they already banned other GMOs (rBGH/rBST). The market place will reach out and slash the GMO producers to little bits.
Our customers don't want GMOs. They vote with their wallet. It's Capitalism with the big 'C' working.
FTFY.
So then we use the system to fix the system. You don't want your product associated with GMO's? Tough. How long would it take the manufacturers to get behind a GMO identification if their sales were impacted by rumors that their products were unsafe due to GMO's? What would happen if a whisper campaign were started about your product? It could be your corn, green beans, peas, fruit, or chicken. Look at the Anti-Vaxxers - Some of us will believe anything! If enough of us believe your product is unsafe, your sales will plummet. If enough of your sales plummet, maybe you will get behind some feeble Federal testing campaign that will certify that your product is GMO free.
Better still big corporation, why don't you tell us how your product is GMO, what are the benefits - did you increase the nutritional value and allow more product to be grown in less space on less water? I'd probably buy it. Just tell us what you did and why.
Personally, I do not have a problem with GMO products, I just want to know. I have enjoyed tangerines and those little grapes that taste like cotton candy. Thay were yummy. And for the anti-vaxxers - do you know when Johnny Polioseed is coming to your town?
But there is only so much information one can get on a label. Genetic modification is a complex subject. And poisonous genes are easily obtained in the time honored genetic manipulation called cross breading. So foods need deep chemical analysis for all the compounds they contain. Foods even considered safe have marginal toxins that most people can tolerate in small enough quantities. Poison is a relative term.
So I suggest a single domain worldwide as a clearinghouse for information. Companies pay a nominal yearly fee to list info on new products, something like $50. Once listed it's never deleted or edited but annotations with dates are allowed. Something like a country register but worldwide. The information is also available in multiple languages or have separate info per country per their own regulations. Call it online labeling and it's cross referenced to UPC and other product code systems. (I don't think UPC changes if a food company changes their ingredients list.) Maybe a QR code.
I think the managing organization should be a non profit managed by representative from all countries that want to participate. And it should be nominally supported by the countries that join.
The submitted documents become public, can be copied by anyone, and for all intents and purposes are public domain. This allows the organization to fail and then be replaced. The important thing is that the information is available forever so that it is "too important to fail."
It's because if you give any substance to lab mice and wait long enough, they'll get cancer.
"With no evidence that GMO food is bad for your health...."
Bullshit. How do you know if you don't wait 20 - 30 years? How about terminating experiment on rats just before they get sick? Who supplies the "evidence"?
Absence of evidence does mean evidence of absence.
My personal opinions on GMOs aside -- anytime someone says 'no, you don't need to know' I take issue. If people want to buy non-GMO and organic, I think they should be allowed to do so. Legislating less information just seems ridiculous. If people are fine with GMO, it will remain profitable and a good business, if more people prefer to avoid it -- then so be it.
I just find it interesting that the political right, general speaking, likes to talk about the free market -- and yet when stuff like this comes us, they pretty behave in a way that is the the exact opposite. Smells of lobbyists, corporatism, and maybe even bribes or other nefarious goings on imo.
and should also be mandated to label their GMO food in the US, so that consumers can choose.
The truth is that GMO foods have already so penetrated our foods and particularly processed foods that the food makers expect to lose customers if they are required to label.
Monsanto, ADM, etc are not trustworthy nor are the US food agencies that are suffering from regulatory capture. Label GMOs and let the consumer choose.
If the plant was not created by nature hybridization via crossbreeding and instead has genes that could not naturally occur in the plant genome. Label it as GMO.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
This /. story is day-old so prob stale by now and OK for me to comment w/out griefr's - so here's my thoughts on what's been said:
As w/every post, the thread goes well beyond food issues and business interests; As always, the pros and cons are all
laid out bare, well and good. sick and poorly, within the scope of this collective's singular perspectives.
Here, the talk is added cost of labeling vs sunk costs to health and saftey. Can't tell the sock-puppets w/out scorecards/labels.
Branding aside, labels have come to mean nothing at all, regardless of GMO. Unless you know (and trust) the producer,
reputation means diddly in the 'corporate' world.
"Big" biz plays by no rules, don't get caught, that's just about it. And even that one, with some embarrassment finding just about every news-cycle,
has lost its' teeth. Pay a fine, admit no guilt, after sparing no expense to play for time exhausting the four Dâ(TM)s
(Deny, Disrupt, Degrade & Deceive)
Puting the arguments for SMB as factual and otherwise correct aside, big .gov is beholden to big .biz and those .coms .coms
(even the best or biggest) are competing tooth-n-nail w/other, foreign (whatever that has become to mean)
for investors (Mit's paradise) that excludes about 90% of the world's population.
GM, now a shell for a bankers' wet dream, lays off US workers the same week their execs in CN glow/fawn over booming expectations.
Home ownership has lost value while the overbearing of private equity and high-finance steals all its wind.
The fix is in, the system is rigged, cards are stacked, and house always wins; worst case causes a disaster then comes to the rescue to bleed
the carcass dry.
We already do not know where our (corporate) food comes from; it's a positive sign that more people are reading the labels at all.
The 50 shades of choices we see in the isles has no connection to the companies (investors) who own and possibly control them.
Cascadia (all natural...) gets purchased by GMills; will they add GMO's to an otherwise 'organic' product? They might if they could.
What's worse, their reach extends to prohibiting GMO-labeling AND non-GMO labeling. Like gag-orders, we can't say it is, can't say it isn't. Those who make what we eat (are bound to)
put profit over people, trust that.
Even what is generally considered safe (HFCS) does not mean good for you; even if its pronounceable. Artificial flavors, colors, tastebugs
to fool our tastebuds; what it means to be bitter, sour, sweet, salty or umami. Welcome to biotek; trans-fat full of never-ending possibilities.
What corporate interests can spent: to hide their skeletons, to enact or defeat bills, to get their way by exersizing monetary control
over the public's voice in the political system is at public expense and (mostly) against their desire.
The commonweal is a weak force under the weight of capitalism; tho it and free-trade seem more notional ideals than their current sorry state.
It's has come to know neither bounds nor shame, and given the enormous resources of lobby and lawyers, few limits on what they cannot get away with.
Always question of scale, always relative, always growing, always demanding more of everything; including consumption.
The cost of national politics and lawmaking, in time wasted begging and the ridiculous amounts required,
has replaced (the notional ideal of) democracy with a full-on pay-to-play congressionsl cesspool.
Lawyers and millionaires masquerading as buffoons. safely re-electable, ensconced in their office doing 'insider-trading'.
Nearby is a`supreme court which resembles a parliment of crows, one of which is a zombie placemat.
Both of which hold the lowest public esteem in history.
They have created an atmosphere no less corrupt than the stink-eye and filthy shakedown on any roadside in any banana-republic,
they increasingly declare our valuables a c
resist propaganda
Not controlled. Many other factors many change in both countries, making causation pretty hard to nail down.
Labeling laws like this convey no real information to the consumer.
Yes it does. It informs the consumer whether the food contains GMO or not. And some consumers care about this and wish to be informed.
They just add a word to the food item that many people interpret as frightening, a word that has literally zero impact on the safety or sustainability of the food item.
So if the consumers are put off by GMO then the solution is to hide the fact? People of Asian and Jewish religion are put off by products containing pork. Maybe you could argue that pork is perfectly safe and they are over reacting. So should we just hide the fact that some food contains pork because we know better than they do that pork is safe?
This is definitely a win for people everywhere in the US.
How is hiding information that people may care about a "win" for people?
The title should read "US House Committee Approves GMO Anti-Labeling Law" since it "banning mandatory GMO labeling" its not against GMO its against labeling that it is GMO.
> I have all ready arranged an explanation for you guys when Russia shows lower rates of disease X and scientists proclaim the "Russia Paradox":
Of course. Because you Americans are all smart, all powerful and always right. No propaganda in your _free_, _democratic_ country. No corruption in your country, you legalized it. You don't kill and commit genocide while you wage war, only Russia and those other "non-friendly" countries do. You are morally superior to everybody, and you're better than everybody !! Right ?? C'mon now, don't pretend you don't think like that.
Fuck your science. It's fueled by money and as long as it is "corrupted" like that, I don't want it to be anywhere near me ..and especially not in my food.
One thing is sure. I'll never come close to your country. Really wanted when I was young, but the older I am.. I'm seeing that you people are seriously disconnected from reality and well, just plain nuts. You people are nuts. Thank god there are countries in this world that don't give a shit about what you think and your laws, so I, and other sane citizens of this planet can go. Yes, Russia is saner than you ever will be.
So once more, fuck you, your country, it's laws, three letter agencies, monsanto, militarized police, propaganda machine that's too big to comprehend (everytihng on you tv, hollywood included), politician sociopaths war criminals (every single one of them) I hope you have a FAT life. As I'm sure you will.
Stuff those chemically laced and fake rotten food up in your arrogant know-it-all-all-righteous mouth !
You do realize, right, that every GMO is required to undergo years of testing?
True but the testing they undergo is less rigorous than drugs and yet every so often a new drug has to be recalled because of either rare side effects or long term effects that were not known at the time of release. That is not a reason to ban GMO since, as with drugs, the benefits can outweigh the risks. However we would never dream of giving someone a new drug without telling them what they were taking so why should it be ok to let people eat GMO without telling them?
If GMO labelling were mandatory then companies would be forced to pass the benefits onto consumers: if GMO strawberries are cheaper to grow then they should be cheaper in the shops. This combined with an education campaign would mean that people would see and understand the benefits of GMO and so be more supportive of it. By hiding it the corporations can pocket the savings instead of us and they don't have to bother educating anyone which perpetuates the resistance to the technology.
Grocery Manufacturer's Association says it all. This is a ruling in favour of manufactured food-like products, not the production of actual food.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
US House Committee Approves Anti-GMO Labeling Law
That headline needs parentheses to make sense of it. Or does it mean the Food Babe has to wear a hat with "I'm a stupid dork" written on it?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Just because a decision is driven by lobbying efforts by money-hungry corporations with all the moral compass of a psychopath doesn't mean the decision is actually wrong.
Tuna hasn't tasted the same since they took the dolphin out of it. *sniffles*
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The scourge of GMOs are patents, an unless it gets totally completely illegal to patent life, I want GMOs labeled.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Read: The China Study
the vast majority of GMO are not tailored to resist specific natural pests, leading to a decrease use of pesticides, it's exactly the opposite... GMO are usually engineered to be highly resistant to a specific type of pesiticide (round up anyone) so that we can flood the crops to our heart content with it... no thanks. "Over 99% of GMO acreage is engineered by chemical companies to tolerate heavy herbicide (glyphosate) use and/or produce insecticide (Bt) in every cell of every plant over the entire growing season. " www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bronner/herbicide-insecticide-use_b_5791304.html
So what? If I go to the grocer and see a sign that says "Kosher" that has absolutely no significance for me and a lot of significance to people who care about ideas that I think are pointless. So what do you think would happen if we passed a law saying that accurate labeling of "Kosher" foods could not be required or enforced? You think people who want Kosher food will suddenly wake up and say "thanks for not letting me waste my time caring about that silly idea?"
You want to guarantee that science never, ever gets treated with respect and trust? Keep supporting laws that indicate the arrogant and insane idea that democracy works best if we treat people like they are too stupid to decide for themselves what they do and don't want.
Want to make sure actively hate everyone in a position of "authority"? Support those laws even when anyone with a half a brain can look at this in the same context as what's been going on with the frakking, energy, automotive and trade industries and conclusion that this has nothing to with good science and everything to do with money and politics.
This is not going to be a "win for people everywhere in the US." This is going to make it even more difficult for people involved in science, business, and government to hang on to any last shred of trust that Americans have in them.
Then I will pick up the torch.
Every GMO sold in the U.S. has undergone extensive pre-market safety testing. What specifically about this process do you feel to be deficient. Especially in light of the fact that many other tools, such as random mutagenesis via radiation, do not require any pre-market testing depite having actually made people sick (unlike any GMO in the last 20 years).
I have no problem with putting well-tested GMO products in the supermarket. I have a problem with a multibillion dollar corporation bribing my Congresspeople so that they will be able to hide the fact that the products are engineered.
I don't understand the problem with simply specifying what they are selling?
And as a consumer, regardless of if you are for or against the creation, use and spread of genetically modified organisms, why would you ever not want your food labeled with what it is?
For instance, where I live, food is usually labeled with where it has been produced and where it's been packaged. Since I think needlessly long transports of goods are idiotic, I tend to buy as locally produced and handled meat and vegetables as possible, even if it sometimes is a bit more expensive due to my country's high cost of labor and strict regulations on how you are allowed to treat your animals and what pesticides you allowed to use.
If the food hadn't been labeled, I wouldn't have the freedom of choosing where I want my food produced and packaged.
Same thing with actively genemanipulated food. If it isn't labeled, I am not free to choose if I want to buy "naturally" breed products or if I want to buy genetically modified products. That freedom is dependent on the producers informing me of what they're selling me.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
Is this a law against GMO labeling, or a law for anti-gmo labeling?
If the former, shouldn't it be anti gmo-labeling or anti-gmo-labeling?
Without a fully informed customer, there can be no free market.
Thought to be safe because our understanding of genetics was that this would be benign. Caused birth defects because the mother's body chemistry changes caused birth defects to grow uncorrected.
We were mistaken that genetic information was only affected by genetic code changes.
BSE: genetic change caused by non-genetic means (prions).
A gene that produces luminescence in a starfish may produce the same proteins to illuminate a carrot. But some other shared genetic code (they DO have a distant common ancestor) reacts badly and produces a toxic chemical that in starfish is stopped by the presence of OTHER genetic codes.
Feds cant regulate intrastate commerce. Buy locally grown food and this regulation evaporates. Then again, the feds would never let "the law" stand in their way so maybe that wont work...
Wait wait, but with the gay marriage thing the Republicans said that states should be free to make their own laws... but now it's dangerous to have 'patchwork legislation' throughout the republic? Wow, it's almost like they make up everything on the spot to support their donors.
And when I was a kid, NOBODY was allergic to peanuts.
Something *has* changed, history buff.
It's always good when corporations win. People don't need to know shit. People suck, corporations rule! WOOHOO! FUCK YOU POOR FUCKERS!
Oh by the way chalnoth, i doubt you'll ever get rich with GMO stuff, so are you just an idiot or a moron dreaming the american dream?
Wow a troll, how nice.
FTA: "Those states like mine, Maine, which has already passed a law that requires GMO labeling... we would be prohibited from doing it," U.S. Rep Chellie Pingree, a GMO labeling supporter, said in a conference call with reporters." Reading that statement it is clear to see that the freedom to choose upon an informed basis i.e. knowing if food is produced as GMO or not seeing GMO food as potentially providing a food source that is mixing for instance animal genes into plants without the consumer knowing can have vegetarians munching away on parts of organisms they would not otherwise. Jews and Muslims alike munching away on pig genes and everyone else who'd prefer munching away according to a precautionary principle munching away on things they would otherwise not touch. This legislation clearly is no victory for consumers and would be interested in hearing from the different people affected by this as to what they think about this restriction of knowledge.
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Wow. Who pissed in your non-GMO Cheerios?
Citing your own tin foil hat crowd lends no credibility to your argument.
Note this is a ban on mandatory but not on voluntary labeling:
Non-GMO: Label
GMO: Not label
(GMO lose customers if not labeling)
(GMO can't label: false advertisment)
This allows full separation. Under an appropriate model this is the unique equilibrium.
I did a lot of number crunching for a plant biology lab (at a University). For foods that are typically not on the market in "GMO" style, there is a lot of fear in adding one to the market. It simply isn't viable to introduce one at this time.
So, instead we do GMO in the lab, determine what works, then do a lot of breeding to get the gene combination we want in a "natural" way, and put that on the market. When I left we were developing a fast growing apple tree that would let us do our experimentation in faster cycles before we migrated it to a real tree (that wouldn't collapse under its own weight).
Definitely against GMO labels, but I might consider pesticide and other sprayed on chemical labels being actually informative.
Would suck to live in Russia. My friend just bought a 4-in-1 Apple tree for home. It's GMOed 4 ways. Russia will be banning those? Fuuuuuck... Back to communism (and the associated fascism) they go!
This reminds me of a thing a few years back where every bottle of laboratory chemicals had to have a sticker on it saying "For the purposes of the New Jersey Right to Know Act, contents partially unknown." It took a few years before they realized that there was no practical value in that labeling requirement. In the meanwhile, I put one of those stickers on my refrigerator. It seemed appropriate.
What a crock of feces from the GMA association calling thos a win for consumers.Accurate labelling of food by this law? I bet she can pull a vacuum on a 100' hose in addition to what she paid these cogressional assholes.