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.

Comments

This legislation brought to you by..

[kheldan]

..your friends at Monsanto Corporation.

Our Business Is Life Itself.

Re:This legislation brought to you by..

[thegarbz]

With no evidence that GMO food is bad for your health why should mandatory labeling be required. If people are actually keen to have non-GMO foods and a market exists for those people why not simply label all other food as GMO free to appease that market?

You see the same thing happening with every other food property starting quite early with the labeling of foods that contain no artificial colours or flavours, and 99% fat free, not to mention "organic", gluten free, phosphate free etc.

If people care about it then the labels will come on their own accord, until then there should be no reason a food should be labeled unless there's a risk associated with the product that the manufacturer is willfully omitting.

Re: This legislation brought to you by..

[krlynch]

No ... over the last hundred years, with improvements in public hygiene, water supplies, and vaccines, we have essentially conquered lethal childhood disease. We have effectively conquered food-borne illness. We have found effective anaesthetics and antibiotics and discovered effective methods of surgery so that essentially no one dies of minor trauma. The same techniques mean that most birth defects are now survivable.

Heart attack, cancer, etc haven't skyrocketed as causes of death because of our diet ... they've skyrocketed because we now live long enough for these to be the primary things that take us out, because we've beat all the other stuff! All these diseases have (obviously) existed for millions of years, but essentially no one ever succumbed to them because they didn't live long enough!

Can most of us eat better and exercise more and eek out a few more years? Sure. But I'd much rather our situation today than that of our forbears of even a hundred years ago.

Re:This legislation brought to you by..

[harlows_monkeys]

I have no objection to the science of GMO. It is the business of GMO that I do not trust.

The difference between conventional hybrids and GMOs is that the the set of plants and animals that can be obtained by the former over any given time frame is a tiny subset of those that can be obtained by the latter. GMO gives food producers a great increase in power, and as a great philosopher once observed, "With great power comes great responsibility". I don't think the current food companies have the necessary responsibility.

With conventional hybrids, they are more limited in what they can do, and it can take longer to achieve a given desired organism. These limitations give us a chance to make sure that they are not misusing their power.

Re: This legislation brought to you by..

[crmarvin42]

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).

Re:This legislation brought to you by..

[CanadianMacFan]

I have a problem with the science of GMO because I don't think that humanity is nearly as smart as we think we are. Only 15 years ago we mapped the human genome and there were many speeches about how it was going to lead to many breakthrough cures. Turns out that things are much more complicated than just simple single on/off switches. Then there was the so-called junk DNA that scientists kept going on about for so long. And then it wasn't too long ago that they realized that it actually did have a purpose. (On a side note it shouldn't be a big surprise since nature wouldn't normally be keeping around a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't useful.)

So far, for the most part all GMO has done for us is create new strains of food that is resistant to poisons that have ended up creating more resistant weeds. We keep hearing about all of the wonderful things that GM can do but it just doesn't get past the laboratory.

I wouldn't mind seeing it used to transfer genes within the same species and it would speed up the process you could recreate with selective breeding. But I'm against transplanting genes from one species to another because we just don't know enough about how the genes interact. It's not whether the food is safe to eat or not (which is what everyone seems to focus on) but what unforeseen impacts with the plants we are introducing.

Re:This legislation brought to you by..

[crashumbc]

And the money involved makes it VERY likely that process is corrupt at MANY levels...

The limitations imposed by "traditional" methods impose hard limits on what can be done.

I personally, don't mind creating and selling GMO's...

I very much mind not being allowed to know WHAT my food IS. This corporate shill of a law is prime example of the subversion of how capitalism is supposed to work. For capitalism to work properly the consumer need to be able to make a INFORMED decision. That is being denied to me.

Re:Other opponents

[erice]

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?

I have no financial stake it in an I oppose labeling of 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?

Yes. Because "GMO" doesn't tell you anything all. It makes people *think* they are making an informed choice about their health when actually they are choosing randomly and because people have limited time and attention span, adding the label means other, actually important factors, get less attention.

Re: approves an anti

[crmarvin42]

False dichotomy. There are a lot of ways to speed up the process other than GMO. Irradiation is still widely used in countries that don't allow GMO. If changing 1 gene makes you uncomfortable, then using mutagens to RANDOMLY change thousands of them in unknown was should scare this shit out of you.

Re:approves an anti

[Required Snark]

You are factually incorrect. Some GMO crops use genetic material from Bacillus thuringiensis which as it's name implies is a bacteria, not a vascular plant.

Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) is a Gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, commonly used as a biological pesticide. B. thuringiensis also occurs naturally in the gut of caterpillars of various types of moths and butterflies, as well on leaf surfaces, aquatic environments, animal feces, insect-rich environments, and flour mills and grain-storage facilities.

During sporulation, many Bt strains produce crystal proteins (proteinaceous inclusions), called delta-endotoxins, that have insecticidal action. This has led to their use as insecticides, and more recently to genetically modified crops using Bt genes.

It doesn't make any difference how many right wing propaganda sources you quote since they are all incorrect. When you (or they) state flatly "no GMO food that ever makes it to your plate ever has genes from one organism transplanted to another" it not even close to the truth. A simple Wikipedia search is all that it takes to get the facts.

All the cursing and name calling in you rant makes you appear unhinged and delusional. Given that you are spouting lies as well it's obvious that a rational reader would ignore everything you say.

This makes me wonder. Perhaps your family history is unique, but as far as the rest of humanity is concerned Bacillus thuringiensis is not an organism found normally living with other bacteria in our gut. If your assertion is true then maybe you do have Bt genes or are a host to that organism. If so, when did you find out about the moth/butterfly lineage in your family tree. Please share with us the story about how you ancestors interbreed with insects.

Note: In case my response was too well written for you to understand, I will restate it in terms more suited to your limited capabilities: I called you a damn liar, said that anyone with sense should ignore you, and someone in your family tree was a bug fucker. Is that simple enough for you?