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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.
Because facts without context are deceptive. Evolution is 'just' a theory, agree with me? So why not label that on textbooks? Hey, it's a fact, you don't want to hide facts do you? The thing is, your average person has no idea what genetic engineering really is or what it means. Giving people one small detail, without telling the complete story, without explaining the details, knowing full well that years of misinformation are going to result in them thinking something that is not so, is not informative. It is a lie of omission, plain and simple. These laws are forcing lies because no one stopped to ask people who actually know the science behind the crops what they thing.
And don't try to tell me that it is being hidden; that's another intellectually lazy excuse. A quick Google search tells you what is and is not GE, and how. Corn, soy, cotton, canola, papaya, summer squash, sugar beet, alfalfa, and soon apple and potato, with traits like insect resistance (Cry and Vip genes), herbicide tolerance (C4 EPSPS and bar genes), virus resistance (PRSV-CP and WMV-CP genes), drought tolerance (CspB), and soon consumer oriented traits. Yeah, it isn't on the label, but neither is any of the other things we do to crops that you don't know about. I've never seen head of lettuce as containing the Nr gene for aphid resistance bred in from the wild species Lactuca serriola. I've never seen a product containing watermelon labeled as containing an artificially produced polyploid, as seedless watermelons are. I've never seen an apple labeled as being a bud sport, a somatic mutant derived form a chance shoot, as many apples in stores are. I've enver seen citrus labeled as having been developed through radiation induced mutagenesis, yet that happens. I've never seen corn be labeled as having been produced via doubled haploid hybridization, yet that is also a thing. I could go on but you get the point. Every plant in the grocery store has a story. Genetic engineering is just one part of that.
Now, what you are asking is why food producers don't want to single out one part of a much larger story, one that has been stigmatized by years of scientifically baseless fearmongering, knowing that your average person is completely ignorant of the history and present science of crops and agriculture, and slap a label on that doesn't actually tell you anything meaningful (genetically modified how and why? Label doesn't say). Be real here, they have a very good reason for it. This push for labeling is just the GMO denialists' response to being completely wrong about the safety and benefits of genetic engineering. They lost on the facts, now they're trying to make it look like genetic engineering needs labels, because if they're so safe why hide it? Of course, these same people then point to Europe and say 'if they're so safe why do they need labels?'
I'll believe this is about honesty and transparency whenever the anti-GMO crowd demands that non-GMO corn be labeled as having higher mycotoxin levels. I'm not holding my breath for that though.
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.
We have monocultures without GMO.
To which I explicitly stipulated in my comment. GMO property rights have demonstrably caused farmers problems. Those problems may have been brought on more by the farmers than the GMOs, but they have certainly occurred. In addition to those problems, I also anticipate problems in the future. As we cede power to massive agro/chemical corporations, they will inevitably take advantage. This is borne out by all of human history.
Here is an example of an IP right causing a problem for farmers:
http://www.monsanto.com/newsvi...
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.
I vote that any foods that are radioactive, even if just a little bit, be required to be labeled as radioactive and have a measure of how much radioactivity per serving. This seems to me more important than labeling GMO foods, but then maybe you don't mind eating radioactive food.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
That's the way Monsanto portrayed it. Fact is, the judgment against the farmer was reduced by the Canadian Supreme Court to $1 because he didn't do anything to take advantage of the Monsanto seed. He didn't use Round-Up on his crops - he couldn't afford to use it on his fields. He only used it in ditches surrounding his farm to prevent weeds from encroaching into his fields. So there was zero benefit to him going "out of his way to gather the seeds from his neighbor's crops and use them in preference to other seeds." He had no motive for behaving as Monsanto claimed he did. (Incidentally, the resistant seed came from canola in one of these ditches - what he thought was his canola. It was theorized that it was instead blown there from a neighboring farm, or seed which had fallen off a truck driving down the intervening road. He did not gather the seeds from his neighbor as you portray.)
The Canadian Supreme Court let the ruling against the farmer stand however because they believed Monsanto's argument that its Round-Up Ready resistance could not be spread by pollination, and so the farmer "ought to have known" that any canola which survived being sprayed with Round-Up was their patented seed. This was later shown to be false as they've found the GMO portions of Round-Up Ready resistance in wild plants.
But the damage was done, and the reason there haven't been recent cases of Monsanto going after farmers is because they've mostly thrown in the towel and just pay Monsanto if they suspect they've got Round-Up Ready crops in their field even if they never knowingly planted it. Which is Monsanto's real goal here - charging rent for the privilege of farming.
In terms of IP law, this combined with the dismissal of organic farms' opposition is a terrible precedent because it decouples risk from reward. If Monsanto's seed finds its way onto your farm and you benefit from it, Monsanto profits from it. If Monsanto's seed finds it way onto your farm and you are harmed by it, Monsanto is not liable for it. It cannot work that way. Either you are allowed to release a product and profit from it but are liable for the harm it causes, or you are not allowed to release it.
There is a little problem with your narrative. For decades now the US pharma companies almost exclusively concentrate on drugs that treat symptoms rather than underlying diseases. Every drug also has a laundry list of side effects for which you take other drugs to manage those. It is madness. On top of it, they are allowed to advertise their products. I have zero confidence in this industry actually producing anything beneficial other than profits.
The food industry is even worse. When I live in a totalitarian communist country a chocolate had cocoa butter, milk and sugar. Now that Nestle took over the factory, it has palm oil, high fructose corn syrup, lactose, milk powder and dozens of color and taste enhancers. How is this better?
Socialism might be dirty word, but it is the norm across the Western Europe and now with the fall of Soviet Union also across the Eastern part. Before there was a dictatorship of proletariat, authoritarian system that had nothing to do with socialism except for name.
And when it comes to Bernie Sanders, he could not run in any country in EU. You know why? He is a right wing nut. Yes, that is right. If his policies were proposed in any EU country, including UK, the people there would revolt against them. Because 10 days of paid vacation is simply inhuman. Only 12 weeks of maternity is barbarity. Nobody would stand for such right wing craziness. Even the Tories in UK are left of Sanders on social issues.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
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?