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Tiny Vermont Brings Food Industry To Its Knees On GMO Labels (ap.org)
schwit1 writes: General Mills' announcement on Friday that it will start labeling products that contain genetically modified ingredients to comply with a Vermont law shows food companies might be throwing in the towel, even as they hold out hope Congress will find a national solution. Tiny Vermont is the first state to require such labeling, effective July 1. Its fellow New England states of Maine and Connecticut have passed laws that require such labeling if other nearby states put one into effect. The U.S. Senate voted 48-49 Wednesday against a bill that would have blocked such state laws. The food industry is holding out hope that Congress will prevent states from requiring such labeling. Some companies say they plan to follow Vermont's law, while others are considering pulling their products from the small state.
For the same reason that people find it a bad idea to self-identify as "liberal" or "socialist". Reactionary types have poisoned the word in the popular vernacular.
They aren't concealing anything. Food manufacturers already make it a point to label it non-GMO if it isn't, because they know that people who follow the food religion will prefer it, even if it means paying more. The same applies to kosher and halal labels.
Anyways, requiring a GMO label is intended for nothing else than to stigmatize. It is every bit as asinine as the California proposal a few years back to require cell phones have a radiation output level, which is retarded because cell phones emit all of zero sieverts, but some dumb fucks think it's a wonderful idea to have to put manufacturers in the position of making phones that emit less EM energy, and for no good reason whatsoever.
This is the same plan as those wanting GMO labeling, not to mention that fighting GMO food is dumb and even counterproductive from an environmental perspective.
I'm conflicted over this. I agree that the label is intended to stigmatize. But I can't quite see that we shouldn't have them. The people who want the label to be there want it because it's scary sounding and they hope it will dissuade people from buying food that contains GMOs. And those people want to undermine the GMO food industry for a lot of stupid, superstitious, bullshit reasons.
But I do have objections to GMO food. My objections revolve mainly around two things: intellectual property rights and monocultures. I don't think it's a good strategy for our species for corporations to "own" and "license" the right to plant certain seeds. Also, agricultural monocultures can open us up to harm when some plant pest, pathogen, or disease latches on to the monoculture and potentially causes crop failure because our crops are all genetically identical. (The latter problem is possible without GMOs, but is enhanced by GMOs.)
The labels are factual, but when people are dissuaded from buying GMO foods because of the label, they're just buying in to a superstition that GMOs are bad. The people advocating for labels are doing it for the wrong reasons, but I do think we need to put some real thought into how we incorporate GMO foods into our food supply. I'd just rather we did it for the right reasons, because the way we're going now, we're having the wrong conversations about the dangers of GMOs.
You might be surprised to learn that "socialism" is not a dirty word in most of the first world. There are many political parties across the globe that use terms like "social" and "liberal" in their names with no shame... including Germany, the very nation depicted in your picture. I think it's entirely fair to say that American media bears at least some responsibility for that particular stigma's continued existence at home.
Nice illustration how word poisoning works. For you, "socialist" is a nasty word. For me, here in Europe, we have had a socialist party in our government for the better parts of the latter 20 century, and we have reached a prosperity level that most of the world, and I dare say including the US, envy us for. So someone calling himself "socialist" isn't that big a deal here.
I needn't hit books to see that. I need to open my window.
He would, by the way, be the absolute polar opposite of a "liberal" for the average European. Also due to our political history, where the liberals are usually found at the right edge of the political spectrum.
A "conservative" here is more a centrist than a right wing nutjob. If you're looking for poisoned words in the political arena here, I guess you have to reach for "nationalist". That well has been utterly poisoned for good, I think. But I guess that's what starting the bloodiest war in the history of mankind would do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, the left wing media did us all a massive disservice demonizing a war that amounted to sending non-voluntary soldiers to a war meant to suppress a government that our government knew would most definitely win a democratic election (the reason that both the French and then US wouldn't allow elections in the country). In fact, we have a good sized record of disrupting legitimately elected governments because they we inconvenient for us. "Socialist" governments are most definitely not the only form of governance that has served to oppress people.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Quite the opposite.
A free market according to its model requires one thing that does not exist in our reality: A consumer with total information available to him. And while this is impossible, we can still try our best to get to it as close as we possibly can. Because that's what the market model demands.
Only an informed consumer who knows every aspect of the product could possibly choose the "best" product. Only then could he even come close to having the function that the free market requires from him: Determine the product that fits his needs best, choose this product, reward the producer making it and punishing those who fail to do so.
This would be what a FREE MARKET requires and demands! Without this, there is no free market. Unfortunately, whenever someone start blaring "free market", the very last thing he has in mind is such a model market. What he has in mind is a dumb customer who will buy whatever shit you feed him. Either you then get to hear that a customer "could try to get that information on his own if he really wants to" or even the completely bogus shit that there is no need to inform that customer or that he has no right to any kind of information altogether.
That is bullshit. Because then he CANNOT perform his function in the free market system. The consumer does not only have the right to be informed, he MUST be informed, whether he likes it or not, to perform his elementary function in the system! And that's independent of any health hazards or whatever else you could think of. The question the free market asks is not whether it is good for someone, the question is whether he wants it.
So no, free market and labeling legislation are not contradicting. They're pretty much a requirement.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You clearly don't work in medicine, healthcare, the pharma industry, or even understand how drugs work. I also suspect that you've had very basic instruction in biology. I get tired of hearing "pharma companies only make drugs that address symptoms so they can keep selling you drugs." I think you are conflating "disease treatment" and "cure". Most drugs are disease treatments, since permanent cures are not possible (at this time) for the vast majority of diseases. But, e.g., there were recent market approvals of 3 actual cures for hepatitis C.
Drugs are developed to have a mechanism of action that directly addresses underlying disease. When it costs in excess of $1 billion and 10 years to bring a drug to market, you don't waste time on something that you have no idea how it works. Never mind that FDA and every other health regulatory agency in the world frowns upon pharma companies saying "we have no idea how it works, but it does, so just approve it." You make sure you are targeting the molecular and cellular causes of the disease. The drugs drastically reduce the severity of the disease. This manifests in a reduction in symptoms. The average person sees it as "the drugs only treat symptoms, I still have the disease", but what is actually happening is the drug is treating the disease and reducing its severity and a reduction or disappearance of symptoms is really just a side effect of treating the disease.
TL;DR: "Treatment" and "cure" are not the same, and "cure" is often not possible at this time. So should pharma companies not bother?