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Stop Bashing GMO Food, Say 109 Nobel Laureates (nytimes.com)
The New York Times reports:
More than 100 Nobel laureates have a message for Greenpeace: Quit the G.M.O.-bashing. Genetically modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C...
"Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production," the group of laureates wrote. "There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."
Slashdot reader ArmoredDragon writes: As an echo to that comment, one of the key benefits of GMO is increased crop yield, which means a reduced need for deforestation to make way for farmland. GMO food such as Golden Rice, which improves the micronutrient content of rice, and Low Acrylamide Spuds, which are potatoes engineered to have reduced carcinogen content compared to their natural counterparts, can possibly solve many health problems that are inherent with consuming non-GMO produce. And for those concerned about patent-related issues, many of these patents have recently expired, which means anybody can freely grow them and sell the seeds without the need to pay any royalties.
"Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production," the group of laureates wrote. "There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global biodiversity."
Slashdot reader ArmoredDragon writes: As an echo to that comment, one of the key benefits of GMO is increased crop yield, which means a reduced need for deforestation to make way for farmland. GMO food such as Golden Rice, which improves the micronutrient content of rice, and Low Acrylamide Spuds, which are potatoes engineered to have reduced carcinogen content compared to their natural counterparts, can possibly solve many health problems that are inherent with consuming non-GMO produce. And for those concerned about patent-related issues, many of these patents have recently expired, which means anybody can freely grow them and sell the seeds without the need to pay any royalties.
Facts schmacts, evidence be damned. 95% of the GMO bashing dosent involve facts, evidence, critical reasoning or any type of actual science outside of social. Just like vaccines, more "scientists" decrying the naysayers won't help. Now if 109 music, movie and sports stars came forward we may be talking some actual change in perception.
So far all I hear are a bunch of "concerned" people with various naturistic hippybullshit beliefs, or unspecified concerns over "genetic modifications", ignoring the wide variety of things that are being done, and the fact that everything we eat has been genetically modified by cultivation or quicker means. We should not create new religions, prove it or it doesn't exist.
Monsanto continues to push the argument over to whether modified genes are safe. The logical argument against GMOs is not that there is anything wrong with modifying genomes, but in what we have modified them to do, which is to be raised in soils heavily laden with chemicals, Round Up in particular. This has caused a massive increase of such chemicals in our diet. They have been linked to cancer, autism, and a slew of gastrointestinal problems.
Yeah that's all fine and good but have you read *obscure mommy blog article*
More than 100 Nobel laureates also think that everyone should stop worrying about AI's turning into SkyNet.
Along those same lines, more than 100 Nobel laureates think that the undead apocalypse will never happen.
It's not the food that I'm concerned about but the potential for 'interesting' spread of the genes to other plants.
(Interesting as in 'May you live in interesting times.' )
"But I read on the internets that GMO food is made by Big Corporation whose only motive is to line their pockets, not help people. These foods will change our DNA to make us docile and less fertile so the elites can lord over us. And the food tastes like crap, too."
Yet when asked to show the evidence for such statements they always come back with, "I can't remember" or we find out the source they read is nothing but a conspiracy web site or a completely discredited report.
But they'll continue to maintain they're right and everyone else, including every scientist who performed a study showing there is no issue with GMO food, is wrong and is only saying things are okay because they're in the pocket of Big Corporation.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I was previously against any GMO food, but after learning more about the subject it might not be that bad. I'm not saying GMO is solid, but it certainly is not one sided evil. I think the challenge for both perspectives is real information. Currently it's mostly FUD (on the no side) and Marketspeak (on the yes side).
.net is not popular around these parts, but the geek outs on dotnetrocks is really cool. Richard is awesome at reading up on specific topics, and that show really has some cool insight into gmo. They even made a followup in may. Also worth listening too.
Information is key.
I can recommend listening to dotnetrocks geek out on GMO here https://www.dotnetrocks.com/?s...
I know
Only if you use the farming methods which are already devastating our cropland. Contrary to popular belief, organic farming doesn't mean that you only use stuff on the USDA approved list. It means a cyclical system in which feces gets returned to the fields. This is a perfectly safe thing to do if you observe basic safety standards, and if you're not overmedicating your population so severely that their waste becomes a health hazard on that basis; crap left to sit around for a year turns into dirt. It can happen much more quickly if you add a little compost and stir it occasionally, but that's not strictly necessary. Or you can use systems like AIWPS to permit the use of ordinary flush toilets and sewer architecture.
Tilth is not in itself inherently harmful, although it is unnecessary and a waste of energy input. Monocropping is inherently harmful, especially when it is done continuously, without the benefit of crop rotation. This has become more and more common in factory farming. This is essentially hydroponic farming in a soil medium. Everything that the plant needs has to be supplied manually, and it's done using synthetic fertilizers made from petroleum.
It's not that GMO is inherently bad. It's that the majority of it is controlled by untrustworthy assholes who use it to no good end. They're patenting life and selling it back to us.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
when companies like Monstanto can't use our patent system to control people's access to food. I've seen poor countries have to turn down offers for free grain because they can't risk the GMO stuff being planted and then their farmers getting shaken down. It's _food_. Just regulate it already so there's enough profit motive to keep people interested as opposed to living like god-kings.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Modified over tens, hundreds, or thousands of years of selective breeding for the desired traits.
Just kidding, kinda.
I do wonder a bit though when we start putting arctic fish genes into plants to make them frost tolerant[1]
Or "insecticides" into food crops[2]
I do want plenty of testing before it starts showing up grocery store shelves.
[1] http://www.public.iastate.edu/...
[2] http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista...
If it's so safe, label it as GMO like other countries do and let people choose.
You know how I know that you don't just want to "let people choose"? Because if that was your real concern, you'd instead introduce voluntary labeling of GMO-free foods. Like, you know, what we already have. Then people who decide to go "GMO-free" could do so to their hearts content, and you aren't using the government to promote your anti-GMO agenda.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Exactly.
Whatever happened to the simple principle of labelling things?
We have to list ingredients, unless they are only used to "process" the item. So, we could literally dip the item in Agent Orange, as long as we then washed the item afterward. Never mind that things have membranes that are porous -- we washed it off!
We preserve nuts with sulfuryl fluoride, a product used to fumigate houses. A product that have caused serious and permanent damage when people went back into the house too soon. But none of that product remains on the nuts? Who says? Who tests? Why no mention on that bag of almonds?
We have to list ingredients, except with bottled water, where we helpfully list the calories and grams of carbohydrates. Why don't we list the amount of dissolved solids, and/or calcium, etc.?
We worry about mercury in our drinking water, but not in our flu shots, even when the amount present is 25,000 times higher than what we would allow in drinking water. Why?
Companies introduce new pharma or pesticides/herbacides, and the EPA trusts the company's tests. Until enough people die, etc. to prompt a sufficient hue and cry that the EPA feels bad enough to take the company rep out for a good tongue lashing at an all-you-can-eat lobster fest.
I come here for the love
Really, as someone who actively avoids GMO and boycotts GMO users, I hate it when people throw things like 'Golden Rice' and 'Low Acrylamide Spuds' because those are positive examples of GMO, but most people who are avoiding GMO are doing so because they don't believe Roundup-Ready Soybeans is a responsible example of bio-engineering for health, at it has been shown to create cycles of superpests while putting known carcinogens in our food supply.
For some reason, I'm coming up blank to describe the difference between responsible and irresponsible GMO.
...but none of those dangers are the ones the anti-GMO idiots are ranting about. And they're mostly philosophical or theoretical dangers, such as effects of biological "intellectual property". Meanwhile, they discount that GMO food could be safer, via having reductions in natural toxins or artificial pesticides. Also GMOs have an intelligent design process plus testing (rather than random mutation and no testing). For a good laugh, compare the list of dangers an environut claims vs those from a biologist.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Assume all modifications are safe.
Are all humans working with them perfect and not malevolent? (No.)
Can we ensure no cross contamination or impact to other species (plants, insects, whatever) is ever possible? (No.)
Further:
A select few individuals on the planet control the vast majority of the food supply. They control the direction its going, the cost to buy seeds, and the seeds themselves because they've been engineered not to germinate or produce viable offspring past the first generation.
The food supply becomes increasingly monoculturistic and susceptible to infestation, plague, or other failure, at a global scale.
The crops are sprayed with increasingly potent pesticides which end up in the soil, in the water, in the plant (not just on it), and in our bodies. These chemicals are known to fuck you up.
I have over and over gripped about the same thing. Seriously, the lack of logic on ithe anti-GMP types is nothing less than amazing.
The reason why ppl scream about GMO food is that a FEW of the modifications has been to make these plants resistant to round-up. TO be honest, that is stupid that they are doing that. It will only be a matter of time before that gene is spread to weeds and make worthless. That is real. However, the question of how that gene will move is not from human intervention by from normal mechanisms.
The point is,that it does not matter HOW the gene is transfered, but the types.
The anti-GMOs need to educate themselves and focus on where the issue is (the massive wasteful use of round-up) rather than their pointing to the means which helps us in so many ways. For example, Rice is being made resistant to Salt which is a real issue for Asian rice. And Corn is being developed that can tolerate major droughts. These are all happening via GMO. And these changes are NOT harmful to the globe or the environment.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
the key issue here is not your freedom of choosing GMO or not, it's the millions of people who are starving.
it's the same bullshit wih the malaria. Greeners sit in front of their Macbook, sipping their skinny latte, enjoying their self-righteous campaigns and brochures and tweets, while poor people thousands of miles away die of malaria and hunger.
lucm, indeed.
To be clear, while I have some hesitation about GMOs, a lot of it is about the ecological uncertainties (what happens if the 'Frankenfish' gets into the wild and out competes/outgrows wild salmon) and the corporate practices behind it (Monsanto monopoly and aggressive practices against independent farmers, etc).
It's not just about gene splicing or wearing tinfoil hats, there are very legitimate concerns about GMOs.
Also, don't lump everyone together, I'm 100% pro vaccine, but I do have reservations about GMOs.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
For the most part, I'm alright with genetically modified foods that are resistant against pests. The only thing I'm not OK with is genetically modifying plants to grow in nutrient depleted soil. If the soil doesn't have any nutrients, the food is going to be useless to me when I eat it.
I believe that the food itself is probably OK for human consumption although GMO food (especially tomatoes) does seem to have much less and/or odd flavour. I think the biggest risk about GMO food is oddly overlooked, and that is that it will lead to a varietal monoculture controlled by a single company (Monsanto). Do you really want a single corporate with their thumb on all corn production for example? Do you really want to loose your choices of different varieties of things?
Also look at what happens when a disease hits a monoculture, It already happened to bananas in 1965, and even todays bananas still seriously risk going extinct. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/...
Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered ‘Golden’ rice are false. ‘Golden’ rice has failed as a solution and isn’t currently available for sale, even after more than 20 years of research. As admitted by the International Rice Research Institute, it has not been proven to actually address Vitamin A Deficiency. So to be clear, we are talking about something that doesn’t even exist.
And about alternatives;
The only guaranteed solution to fix malnutrition is a diverse healthy diet. Providing people with real food based on ecological agriculture not only addresses malnutrition, but is also a scaleable solution to adapt to climate change.
For decades they've blocked the use of such labels in the US.
Only recently has this been allowed, and only last year has a standard label been designed. A handful of products have been certified to use the USDA's standard label.
Anytime you want to slap a label on something about how your product doesn't contain the awful shit another product does, you get a massive push back, lawsuits, etc. that can last decades. Look at the fight the milk lobby put up against the hormone labeling. You can't say your butter comes from cows without buckets of hormones without also saying "those hormones were never proven to directly cause cancer" (and you could never prove it because to do so you'd have to inject humans with the hormones directly while believe that it could, which would be unethical). The same battle was fought over eggs with regards to cage free and antibiotic free.
You can't just go around and say your product doesn't have trash in it because there's an entire lobby of trash that will sue you at every step.
GMOs could be a fantastic boon for humanity. the keyword is could. The sad fact is that current engineering efforts directed toward making food have all been toward making food more addictive. They want people to buy more and more food even if it kills them and guess what, it is killing people.
I fear we may end up with monstrosities like sugary vegetables and based on what I've seen in the market, this fear is justified.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Not as long as companies can patent the genes and basically force farmers into submission.
Contains: GMO will be treated the same way, causing market failure when there is a demand and in fact a need for those products.
That is not how "demand" works. Scientists need to make their case to consumers. Consumers have a right to demand the labels, full stop.
This is the standard big-food position in the US. The same thing happened during mad cow. A few companies wanted to test every cow and brag about it on the label. FDA said, "you can test every cow, but you can't brag about it, because that would imply that our spot-check system isn't 100% effective. We are infalliable, and our industry-negotiated spot-check system is perfect. Your criticism of it is illegal because you would be misleading the public into dissent."
If scientists don't want this to happen, they need to pay more attention to their credibility. They cannot be allowed to earn it with a bludgeon. A real scientist won't try.
Well, then, that's a good thing to complain about, because truthful advertising should always be allowed. If you can't advertise something as GMO-free when it is -- which, based on what's available at the local grocery store, isn't actually a problem today -- then I'm happy to support changing that.
That doesn't have anything to do with trying to force companies to add a scary new label to convince people to stay away from GMO food, though.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Having GMO labeling is every bit as pointless as saying what particular state and county it was grown in, or whether it's kosher or halal. Really, it is.
The reason food has an ingredient list is so consumers can identify possible allergens prior to consumption. If it's not listed on the label, then it is immaterial to the food.
I agree. Hipsters are newer than GMO's, and we should study them thoroughly. Though we might need something to suppress our gag reflex.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
GMO's could be safe, but a significant portion are not. Thanks to our "for sale" highest bidder government, who allow substandard testing regimes to be accepted in the approval process.
Their is a world of misery headed our way thanks to these vested interests. The public is right to not trust these people. Is it any wonder why medical issues seam to be consuming ever more resources and funds look at the source, the food we eat.
The real risk inherent in genetically modified organisms involves the fact that genetic manipulation is becoming increasingly arbitrary, with new techniques that essentially allow building up of genomes or sections of them from human-designed or computer-designed combinations of the basic letters AGTC.
Thus it will become possible to create organisms that are almost arbitrarily different than existing organisms.
It is far from inconceivable that one of these substantially-artificial organisms could take over a large ecosystem niche from existing organisms, AND have a second, unanticipated and quite possibly negative effect.
I can't be more specific about the threat than that, and importantly, neither can the proponents of unleashing arbitrary GMOs into ecosystems.
The risk probability may be very low, but the severity could be compensatingly extremely high, due to the self-replicating nature of the threat, and also the fact that until it happens, its negative effect would be an unknown unknown and would be almost impossible to mitigate rapidly enough.
The following, while it is a science fiction novel, illustrates plausible scenarios, given the near impossibility of controlling the spread of new arbitrary artificial pathogens:
https://www.amazon.ca/Windup-G...
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Labling it as "GMO," as if it was verifiably dangerous like a pack of cigarettes is a way for non-scientific groups like Greenpeace and concerned bloggers to stigmatize GMO off of the store shelves. If they got away with labling, they could next argue "If it's so safe, then why is it labeled?" Just because something has been genetically modified artificially, like bananas without active seeds in them, wheat that's many times more productive now than 10,000 years ago, or in vitro fertilized children doesn't automatically necessitate branding them.
Then you summarised with, "you can't patent Life, man."
Oh no, you clearly can. The question is whether you should be able to, and I would obviously argue against.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The laureates are looking at it strictly through the lens of science. They are correct given the logic and brief history of experiments to date. Not qualified to fact-check it myself so I'll believe them.
However if they are being 100% honest they must admit they ignore the issues around how that science is being applied and used for real business. For example it enables the establishment of monoculture in the food supply puts it at high risk of infection. As went the Gros Michel so goes the Cavendish soon. Is there enough genetic diversity in the animal food supply to resist a new superbug? Of course there are other issues with the big business around control of the GMOs and the close relationship they have with government.
Only one question - if GMOs are truly safe then why can't they just be labeled as such in the store? I like to know my ingredients and I'll choose. Why are big business and government trying to hide it?
Fuck Greenpeace. They don't want us to "meet the demands of a ballooning global population"
They want us to die.
Anything that doesn't involve hairshirts, self-loathing, and hundreds of millions of dead humans getting off the planet to "let nature heal" is beyond those assholes.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Has anyone studied the correlation between roundup ready corn acne the rise of the hipster culture? Discuss.
"Only if you use the farming methods which are already devastating our cropland. "
In what world does hydroponics not apply to GMO?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The statistics used to say that GMO foods will not create a problem. They are heavily flawed and in serous need of a bit of applied chaos math with genetic outcome variations. The 'safe margin' used in the generation of mutation included no viral strains present in the habitats where the foods are raised. Scientists have definitely not finished mapping the proteins responsible for cell behavior when a cell is presented with infection. This means that we HAVE NO IDEA what viruses may or may not arise from infection of a GMO used for farming. Absolutely NO IDEA. Never modeled or studied.
Genomics isn't a simple statistic of probability of mutation. Millions of organisms interact with each other in every ecology, and only weak statistical probabilities based on weak environmental observations are enough for the 'intellectual elite' to declare us safe?
That's not science, that's gambling in an establishment known for cheating.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Acne ... And. Still training the New phone.
Enjoy your parasitic Helminth worm infestation...
This is precisely how plagues start.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
My problem with GMOs is not that the scary stuff that Greenpeace peddles, but the business practices of companies like Monsanto. I also have a problem with the supposedly "pro-science" folks who are anti-GMO labeling on the basis that scare-mongering will keep people from buying GMO-labeled products. I have a Ph.D. in a scientific field and one my absolute most deeply held beliefs is that nothing is more anti-science than withholding information. Don't like what people do with that information? Tough. It's your responsibility as a scientist or pro-science person to educate your audience. Telling people they've got it wrong and don't worry, they should just trust you, and no, we're not going to have a conversation about this is flat out anti-science, period, end of story. If you want people to be OK with GMOs, fine, I agree with you, but it do your job as a scientist, give people complete information, and help them understand the issue instead of making them feel like they're too stupid to understand it.
By the way, one of my other deeply held beliefs is that if you are a scientist and you cannot explain your field to a layperson in a way that they can understand, you probably don't understand your own field very well. In other words, if your excuse is that people are too uneducated to understand, then I think you need to reassess how you're explaining things. You're the educated person, the onus is on you to share your knowledge. If you can't do that, shut up.
And my own skepticism. Genetically modifying food on the molecular level is not the same as breeding. You will never see in nature where mechanical and chemical means are used to cross species like it's done in the lab.
Actually this is 100% false. Not only do genes cross from species to species in nature, but it actually happens all the time. In fact the human genome -- your genome -- has some 100,000 gene fragments from some other species inserted into it. Three of those genes spliced into you are actually complete gene sequences, one of which is responsible for the human placenta.
http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/f...
Tell me these battles are being fought any differently, with dueling protesters and everything. Facts hardly enter the picture.
I do want labels though, just like I want signs and color to indicate where the bike lanes are. Doesn't that make sense?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
" it's the millions of people who are starving.
Yeah - and they coming out of thin air creating justification arguments for all kinds of BS.
Why are people unhappy and argue, are angry, fight and kill about ideas in their brains?
Are the current systems in place able to address those issues?
After years of research scientists are still debating if milk is good or milk is bad. They are still debating carbs vs fats vs protein ratios for humans.So what does this mean. More useful would be to comment on what will happen if Trump comes in power. That will still be considered logical with respect to Democracy atleast and anyone can comment on Democracy.
Got any proof that a significant portion is not safe to humans? Humans are living longer and healthier than at any time in history, so you better have some strong evidence proving GMO is bad.
Leave those kids alone. They have SJW'd themselves out of worthwhile sexual relationships by perverting the female role into a pseudo-male one. Sick pop beats and ghetto videos of cleavage are all they have left. Let them sit around in their saggy shorts and their backwards ball caps, tattooed like drunken sailors, faces buried in their pitiful cellphones, worthwhile social interaction totally alien to them. Have some fucking pity, man. They are so lost.
What those nobel laureates don't seem to understand is that there are many good reasons to be against genetically modified food that have nothing to do with food safety. For example, not everybody thinks that patents for certain genetic modifications are beneficial to small local businesses in poorer countries. Some people are even in principle against patenting genetic modifications. There are also issues with cross-pollination and lawsuits against local farmers by large corporations. I personally have nothing against having GM food at the local supermarket, as long as it is clearly marked as such so consumers can make their own choice. Monsanto and other companies have been lobbying against a duty to mark GM food in Europe for many years. Your mileage may vary, but I personally would never trust any company that actively lobbies for making their their consumers less informed.
> NLs leveraging their social status to sway opinions in matters in which they are no better qualified than Bono or Mike Tyson.
I bet you can't name a single nobel laurete who isn't OBVIOUSLY smarter than Mike Tyson in general. Any NL is highly literate, which makes them more qualified than Tyson on any subject other than perhaps boxing, and ear bitingb
No, they don't. Labels can indicate benefits, too. There are nutritional labels, labels that say, "organic" or "kosher" or even, "New and Improved!".
The bottom line is that consumers, who are paying for every goddamn thing including the research into GMOs, want labels indicating GMOs. It doesn't matter why. They're paying the bills, they get to make consumer choices for whatever reason they want, including ones that you might think unimportant.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You are funny.
http://www.infowars.com/watch-...
You are welcome on my lawn.
It was all about bashing Monsanto — the "evil" company, that specialized in GMO seeds and holds thousands of patents.
European competitors in particular were so afraid of it rising, they started a PR campaign to mongering fears of GMOs. The campaign created public's perception so negative, some countries (France, Germany) ban GMOs outright and vandals attack growers. Lately Monsanto (and DuPont) must've started fighting back, because American media began defending the technology — even calling its opponents "anti-Science" (where have I heard that before?).
But now that a German firm is seeking to buy Monsanto, Europeans need to be disabused of their misconceptions too.
GMO-haters have nothing but FUD — they've heard it is (or may be) dangerous, but don't know why — somebody told them... See also "chemtrails" and "Trump is racist".
Unfortunately, even in the US food can not be labeled "Organic", if it contains GMOs...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Horseshit. What does my ability to make consumer choices about the provenance of the food I eat have to do with millions of people who are starving?: If I don't eat RoundupTM Corn, does that mean starving people in Bangladesh won't get to eat their Golden RiceTM? Is the food safety of the world dependent on hiding a single true bit of information from food consumers?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Wouldn't it be better for the society to agree on some kind of international legal and financial framework that would fund public research in GMOs?
This I think is the key to the problem. GMO technology could do bad things if it is not handled responsibly and in today's world the only thing you can trust large corporations to do is to look after their short term financial interests even, stupidly, when that damages their long term interests...and before you come up with counter examples just remember that the CEO can change so even if a company is ethical now there are no guarantees for tomorrow.
I would absolutely trust the work done by publicly funded biologists bound to follow strict ethics guidelines and required to publish in peer reviewed journals. The system is not perfect but mistakes do tend to get found and corrected. However I worry a lot about the GMO research done by large corporations. We have already seen that some pharmaceutical companies repeat drug tests until they get the result they need do show a drug works. How likely is it that a company would repeat GMO testing until the results show that it is ok to deploy? What happens if a scientist in such a corporation has an idea that something might be wrong with the product and wants to do extra tests to confirm it is ok? An academic could do the tests to learn something but would a corporation risk jeopardizing a major product for a test which is not legally required?
I will eat GMO foods all day. I'm not worried about eating them. But I think it's crazy to assume that artificially introduced genes in plants and animals will not spread throughout whole species over time. That kind of regulation just can't be enforced enough. And there are so many mechanisms at play in DNA that we only partly understand. A researcher could write over some 'junk' to add genes to rice, and then it turns out the 'junk' contained a RNA suppressor of a crop-destroying rice virus. We don't know enough.
If it's so safe, label it as GMO like other countries do and let people choose. Any time you have to hide something, there's usually a reason.
First of all, just because you don't list something doesn't mean you're "hiding" something. Food containers and labels have limited space. There's a basically infinite amount of facts about a food you could list on a label, but most of it is deemed irrelevant by companies. ("Gosh darn it! Where are the numbers listing the viscosity, specific gravity, and thermal diffusivity of my yogurt on the label!?! What are they hiding?!")
Second, the FDA and various government organizations regulate what companies can put on labels (including what they can NOT put on labels), often for very good reasons. Information taken out of context can be a problem. For example, a few years back there was this big scare about mercury in processed foods that contained HFCS, most of which had mercury amounts in the range of a part per billion. This got huge headlines -- "OMG -- HFCS puts mercury in our food!!" Except for one really basic problem: the levels of mercury in the HFCS-containing foods were actually LOWER than the mercury levels in most other "natural" foods you'd buy at the supermarket. See, mercury is a naturally occurring substance, and a level of a few parts per billion is typical for many foods. The "study" didn't even bother to isolate whether HFCS was the primary source of mercury in the processed foods, which it probably was not.
I mention all of this because I remember seeing some discussion on the internet that wanted to put labels about the "dangers" of HFCS on food too -- "WARNING: Foods with HFCS may contain mercury" or something like that. I don't think anyone ever considered taking this seriously, but there's a perfect example of a factually correct statement (HFCS foods may indeed contain mercury) but which gives a completely bogus impression about the role of HFCS or the normal expected amounts of mercury in food.
Are companies "hiding something" by refusing to put a factual but misleading label on food?? If GMOs are misunderstood by the majority of the population, then by forcing companies to put information on a label, aren't we promoting those misunderstandings rather than educating consumers?
Anyhow, all of that said, I also agree that in a democratic system, people have the right to lobby their legislators to promote whatever sort of product labeling they wish. If enough ignorant people want GMO labeling and convince their representatives to require it, that's the price companies pay for doing business in a democratic system. If they want to win over the "anti-GMO" wackos, they can lobby and run ads explaining it to the public themselves.
The problem is the label doesn't help consumers make informed decisions, it just helps them make irrational ones. Anything GMO related is also possible in non-GMO foods.
Consumers don't know what they actually want.
How do you label a food as GMO? What is GMO exactly?
If you mutate a seed with radiation or you cross breed with chemical mutagens that is currently qualified as organic in the USA and EU. Those are considered to be completely safe and traditional methods of engineering.
Why is using radiation okay but inserting a specific gene at a specific location not okay?
Saying something is GMO tells you nothing and it is just feeding into fear.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Whatever happened to the simple principle of labeling things?
Vermont passed a GMO Labeling Law that went into effect July 1, 2016. As NPR noted, since most food companies can't (read: won't) practically make different labels for different states, the effects of this law will cover national food labels.
Now... The US Congress, pushed by AG companies, is voting on a bill next week to (basically) preempt this law:
This bill would delay labeling for up to two years while the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture develops rules for the labeling of genetically engineered foods. The Secretary would be charged with developing three options of disclosure including a plain language label, a symbol, and electronic or digital links accompanied by the wording “scan here for more food information”.
[Not sure a QR code instead of words would be that helpful while grocery shopping.]
More links at: http://www.google.com/search?q=vermont+gmo+labeling+law
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Genetically modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C...
No, they don't actually know that, they can't...
Why? Because they don't have hundreds of years of experience with it, and that much at least will be needed to know if we are totally screwing with our food supply or not...
This is our food, without it, we all die. This is one of the most important things we can touch, next to our air and water...
We don't have any idea what the long term evolution changes will be to the general food supply with all our tampering, but I do know that we already have narrowed down a lot of foods due to selective harvesting and many varieties of foods are already gone.
They are playing around with Pandora's box, assuming the contents won't hurt anyone. But they haven't had the box open long enough to really know the outcome...
I heard a reporter on NPR mention that there's also a general belief that non-GMO foods are (should be) less expensive. Not sure AG companies want to foster that belief...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
crap left to sit around for a year turns into dirt.
Enjoy your parasitic Helminth worm infestation...
This is precisely how plagues start.
If only you had ever composted anything, you would know that heat alone will solve that problem if you only put all the crap in one pile.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's more like bashing Ford for it's role (along with GM) in, say, killing off public transit or the electric car. The producer is distorting the market and large parts of human civilization for their long term profit; and doing it at a scale that's hard to grasp...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
crops/species invading and replacing natural non patented species we have every right to bash them and question them.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Its like Ford towing away your current car, putting in their own car in its place and then demanding money from you for the car they just put in stating that because its in your parking spot you own it and have to pay them for it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Here is what really happened:http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/107-nobel-laureate-attack-on-greenpeace-traced-back-to-biotech-pr-operators/
The problem is the label doesn't help consumers make informed decisions, it just helps them make irrational ones.
Maybe so. But people should be free to make irrational decisions.
Vitamin pills, homeopathy and feng shui are just a few examples of irrational things that lead people to spend their money unwisely. In a free society, that's just part of life's rich tapestry.
If a sufficiently significant proportion of the population wants labels, they should have labels. Your definition of irrationality is irrelevant.
Patents, related collusion/corruption are the main problem with GMOs my friend.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
in which feces gets returned to the fields
I guess we finally know the meaning behind your username...
I'm going to side with every state and federal regulatory agency in the US, which bans any use of human waste on food crops, over your assertion that it's trivially easy to render safe.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
"the key issue here is not your freedom of choosing GMO or not, it's the millions of people who are starving."
And the solution is not better farming techniques or technology, but fewer people. That's the dirty little secret that politicians, environmentalists, religious zealots and Nobel laureates dare not speak aloud.
What are the 'green' people doing to discourage fertility among those least able to support new human life? They can rant about GMOs, global warming, polluted air and oceans, etc all they want, but until they address the excess billions of humans on earth the problem will never be solved.
We may some day send men to Mars or peer into black holes, but there is no technology that can save the planet while the population continues to increase. Starvation will continue, disease will spread and the entire planet will continue to deteriorate.
Please don't be distracted by the infinite consequences of the problem; focus on population management, the root cause.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Perhaps we should take note of the "blooming population" mentioned as a reason for needing GMO crops. Should we try to accommodate excessive population levels or work towards mandatory levels of reproduction that are safe and sustainable. I find nothing wrong with GMO crops bur I find a whole lot wrong with the notion of population growth being allowed and a lack of restoration of quality to all areas to go in the direction of a vibrant natural environment. At this very moment i live on a huge salt water estuary that is is severe crises due to algae blooms that are toxic destroying not only wildlife but bans all contact with humans on our beaches and waterways. It is caused by agricultural run off and global warming as well as allowing homes to have been built too near the Indian River and its lagoons. Growth is a devastating negative and we here only bullshit about real solutions. In Florida one answer would be to only allow indoor farming such that no run off could ever occur from agriculture. In other words, plainly said, we need very radical changes. We also need to disallow any new housing or residences in many of our counties as well as restricting tourism. These types of solutions can not be accomplished with our current forms of government.
Yes, I really like the labels that say organic, tells me which products are over priced to serve an indoctrinated audience.
Gazing the future
Recently, I (re)stumbled upon an article called "Environmental Heresies". A good and interesting read for sure, but, like with all these kind of articles, the author (futurologists, they are called, I believe) makes the same basic mistakes as all his predecessors. I'll give some rebuttal and criticism:
His first point, about slowing demographics, is not very much disputable: it is as it is, and if it's in decline, it's in decline. However, whether we will level out completely, or go down, or up again, is not as clear cut as he seems to portray. The author gives as main reason that people go to cities, but I think this explanation is inadequate, and certainly not enough to explain the changing demographics.
It should be noted, for instance, that, during the middle ages, the amount of children born in cities were no less then those on the countryside. What *did* change, though, is the empowerement of women (most notably in matters of procreation) and social and medical advancements. THOSE are the real reasons why demographics change. It also follows that, if, by some disaster or serious economic and scientific decline we would degrade into former levels of welfare and reduced possibility for women to control any family planning, demographics would go up again. It is therefor not an absolute certitude that the world-demographics will continue to decline...this is only true as an extrapolation, if everything remains more or less the same. However, it is exactly the danger of this sort of extrapolation that the author is (also) lamenting against.
As for genetically modified (GM) crops, I fear he really simplifies the subject too much to be useful in making a rational decision about the pro's and cons. Basically, he over-optimistically only conveys the pros, while barely mentionning any of the cons - as if they were unimportant.
It should be noted however, that with living organisms, you can not simply test it out in the wild, and then expect to be able to put the genie back in the bottle when things go wrong. Once you contaminated a natural area, and the contamination has a sufficiently advantage (in a darwinistic sense) to stay around in the genepool, there is no way in hell you can get rid of it completely, when it turns out it is damaging humans, or other species and ecological systems.
Now, his counterargument that those won't survive in the wild seems rather weak. In effect, some GM genes *already* have contaminated other 'wild' crops, and it didn't sizzle out in the wild, on the contrary (a prominent example of that are some strains of GM corn in south-america). So... it may be that some GMs will not survive in the wild, but you can bet some *will*, however. And he, nor anyone else, can garantuee that such GM or hybrid crops can't be damaging or unhealthy to the ecosystem or local species, including humans.
Also, the reductionistic view of "we're not doing anything else then what people have been doing for centuries" is somewhat misleading too. Yes, people have been breeding crops, and cultivated crops are not 'natural' in the sense that they occur in the wild...but it's an unfair analogy, because one is comparing oranges with apples. For instance, with GM, it is perfectly possible to make genemodifications between two completely different species of plants. In effect, this trans-species swapping of genes with GM, can be done between animals and plants. In all those centuries that "we have always done this" I would like to see any example where this has actually been done before.
No; this is a totally new technique, with new possibilities, certainly, but also new consequences (which we don't know anything about) and new dangers. You can't just shrug those of with claiming, falsely, that we've been using those techniques for millenia. And you can't just merrily test it out in the wild, and see if anything happens.
Apart from that, even purely economically, I doubt it has all those beneficial effects the author claims it has or will have - but more
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
My wife has to follow an intricate renal diet, so we have to squint at all the tiny type on every food label to make sure that none of the ingredients, normal dietary components for everybody else, might be serious problems for her.
So hippie moms, please do not clutter up our nutrition labels with your irrelevant Luddite crap. Your baseless GMO hysteria could literally kill.
It is easy to do correctly, if you have enough space, proper equipment, etc. It's even easier to do it wrong...and for that you don't need much space or equipment.
Also, even if the composting is done incorrectly, I believe that it's still safe if only used on plants whose edible portions never touch the ground. (I'm not *really* sure of this, but I believe it to be true.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
> How do you label a food as GMO? What is GMO exactly?
Really? You're going to try and pull that stunt? All that shows is how utterly untrustworthy ANY GMO is. You're making our arguments for us. You can't be trusted, therefore you deserve even higher scrutiny.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> The problem is the label doesn't help consumers make informed decisions it just helps them make irrational ones.
That is irrelevant. You don't get to base public policy decisions on bullshit like that in a democracy.
Of course your clear an obvious contempt for people just pisses people off, make them more incensed, and make them even more distrustful then they would be otherwise.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So since seemingly all GMO foods are completely safe and have been thoroughly tested by Monsanto and other companies, we can label them in clear language that they are GMO products and a URL to the specific GMO modifications in plain language.
Of course, this is about as likely as simple gun control measures in the US. If there is nothing to hide, let's not hide it!!!
I actually don't mind certain GMO modifications, like making potatoes less toxic. But other things, like adding natural insect toxins and repellents to plants are an issue. It's not that the more benign ones are going to kill you directly, anymore than they are directly killing bees, usually parasites kill the bees because of their weakened immune systems (also weakened by pesticides). Many of these natural toxins are not fatal to humans, but they are mildly toxic to us if you are young and healthy, no problem. If lots of different products make these changes and you add them together, and if you are undergoing chemotherapy or some other weakening condition, you shouldn't be eating stuff with those types of modifications. In the US, how would you know, most of these aren't labeled. If Monsanto admits that some people shouldn't eat certain modified products then people might not buy them, so F*CK you weak people.
When there is nothing to hide, all researchers will be able to test these products and Monsanto and others, will welcome this extra testing. We might even engage in some long term testing of certain modifications on small groups of humans and/or animals instead of the entire population at once.
None of this will change until hundreds of thousands of people are definitively proven to have been hurt by this. It probably won't be something that happens quickly, but only from long term exposure. When it does happen, no matter how many warnings were received by these companies from their own people, no one will be prosecuted. After all, if your a greedy businessman, that is considered normal and it would be uncivilized to hold you accountable.
Thanks for all the GMO fish.
Golden rice has reportedly proven difficult to cultivate. Yams, squash, carrots, kale, spinach, etc. are good sources of vitamin A, and were traditionally cultivated before the push for cash crops...but if you're going to eat the rice, it's not a part of your cash crop anyway.
Also, I'm not certain how much vitamin A there is in how much golden rice. I've never happened to run across the figure. I find it quite plausible that yams are in incredibly better source of vitamin A that is an equal weight of rice (either both or neither being dried).
Since golden rice is (or was) free for non-commercial use, and trial plots were grown by private individuals, if it were a success, then it would have by now become widespread, though not commercial. It hasn't. So the people who grew it didn't find it worth replanting.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Low Acrylamide Spuds
Would anyone care for some uranium-free orange juice? How about feeding your cat with low ash cat food? What about washing your hands with reduced-bacteria hand wash?
Ask me about repetitive DNA
> the key issue here is not your freedom of choosing GMO or not, it's the millions of people who are starving.
That has NOTHING to do with whether or not my food is labeled as GMO. It's a total, irrelevant, red herring.
We have surplus food even without GMOs. We waste a great deal of food regardless of whether it's produced from GMO seeds. Whether or not someone is starving somewhere has more to do with (local) politics than food production.
Besides, corn varieties engineered for Iowa that's meant to be turned into corn syrup or cattle feed doesn't have much relevance anywhere else.
Don't kid yourself.
GMOs are about making junk food cheaper. They have NOTHING to do with feeding the world's hungry. This is just something that Monsanto says so that saps like you will stick up for them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Exactly. And a GMO label will serve the same function. You'll be able to know which products you're paying a license fee to a multi-national petrochemical company that also makes chemical and biological weapons.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But the job of the government in this case is to help consumers, not scare them. GMO labels scare people without reason and it's just another regulation on the food producers for how they make their labels. I imagine after the next wave of scaremongering, we'll get more labels "WARNING: CONTAINS DNA".
We make public policy decisions based on what's best for consumers all the time. I don't think most people were asking for laws requiring seat belts
http://responsibletechnology.o...
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I don’t care how stupid you think the general public is. Food sensitivities are a serious health concerned for a sizable portion of the population. They need to be able to reliably determine what is in their food without fear of cross-contamination and hidden gochas. I believe that this right to know extends to GMO foods on principle.
There’s also a selfish aspect to this. My wife is allergic to corn (either that or one of the molds that commonly grows on corn). Most corn products are NOT LISTED as being corn products in most processed foods. So far, the most reliable way she has to avoid corn is to avoid GMO foods because the number 1 genetically modified food is corn.
Golden Rice has not yet been released to the public due to the super-complicated legislation implemented thanks to Greenpeace. Instead of simply putting the transgene into all local varieties (fast and easy), the original transgenic rice (one transgene event that has passed all tests) has to be crossed with local varieties and then backcrossed. Takes ages and scientifically makes no sense.
I'm sure this headline could be achieved as well: "110 Nobel Laureates Concerned with GMOs, sign letter, blah blah blah"
"There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption"
"Here we document that modified Bt toxins are not inert on human cells, but can exert toxicity, at least under certain in vitro conditions. In vivo implications should now be assessed. Our results raise new questions in risk assessment of food and feed derived from genetically engineered plants." ref
Sounds like the same kind of problems other technologies are having with patents and lawyers. There are real problems there, but they're not specific to GMO's.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
I'm really not sure what you are trying to say, but I would say that I am "lumping" the anti-GMO people in with fear-mongers and posers. And I'm accusing hipsters of being part of the problem, because I believe that they tend to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" when dealing with conventional / popular / mainstream ideals. Something like GMO's are an anathema for most hipsters, not so much because of their superior technical and legal knowledge, but because the reality of feeding people on a global scale is about as counter to their counterculture fantasy as you can get.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Typical. Science people are heroes when they support their views, and shills when they don't.
At this point one has to wonder, it does appear that those SJW wimps pick sides based on what the conservatives support/oppose, and the whole scientific thing is total bullshit.
lucm, indeed.
This seems a bit trollish. Too bad several people who believe in the principle of modifying genes but decry letting a handful of people have control of it got in several posts saying just that before you got your posts in. But I'll bite just long enough to say that. I'm hoping this is just a bad troll and not that you are actually stupid and confused people's promotion of genetic modification for promotion of people having monopolies however limited or not, over the modifications they make.
Ah, so if only there were no latte-sipping skinny greeners with macbooks, there would be no malaria?
That is for the most part correct. Greeners, through direct campaigns or via restrictions bundled with donations to poor countries, have prevented people from using pesticides to fight malaria because of "possible long term side effects". Meanwhile the short term direct effect is a million real human beings dying of malaria every year. But hey, those are simply collateral damage, right? Let the poor die until someone finally Kickstart or Indiegogo a solution for malaria that has no side effect and that can be deployed worldwide in a cost-effective manner.
Have you ever worked in a large organization where higher ups make decisions that have a terrible impact on your productivity or work conditions, but there's nothing you can do because they're insulated from the real effects of their policies? Like cancelling "work from home Fridays" for the sake of teamwork, or removing microwaves from the break room to force people to get out of the office for lunch so they can "get out and reboot their heads"? When greeners fight against imperfect solutions without having a realistic alternative that works right now, they're doing just that. Play with other people's life and remain insulated from the real consequences.
lucm, indeed.
You already replied the same thing in more or less the same words in another thread. Do you by any chance store your answers in the clipboard and browse threads trying to reuse them? I'm all for recycling but this reeks of laziness.
lucm, indeed.
It's interesting to see that the "let's cull the herd" proponents always want to impose their rational solution on other people, not on themselves. It's like seeing union workers voting for a contract with less benefits that only apply to new people, not to existing union members.
lucm, indeed.
Nothing is unequivocally harmless. There is no guarantee that the nongenetically engineered organism won't develop an unsavory mutation or get a gene useful to humans transferred to another organism in such a way that that organism becomes harmful or more harmful to humans. With such loose controls on nongenetically engineered organisms, the safe bet is that this has already happened multiple times. There are no guarantees no matter what you do. However, I think it is best for all intelligent kind to seize control of its future and let the uncertainties be of its own making, correction on its own terms. No matter the timescale, it is both very short and far too long.
We should also modify the weather as long as we have preparations in place to change the weather again where the undesirable consequences make themselves known. Everybody says don't do this, don't do that and never do this, but be prepared to do the other when the undesirable consequences happen. Because do or no do, there are always going to be undesirables.
No, I'm suggesting it's a good thing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
See if the GMO have been introduced to society, then we had a debate and anyone could freely decide to make the research and either eat them or not based on their own judgement, then we would have all these people promoting GMO so their market share increases and we would be saying positive things about them to overcome the fears.
But they were forced on everyone, we cannot even make the choice, the company behind them is just plain evil by almost any moral standards so... the reaction is exactly the opposite. We will keep bashing them and lobby for laws that outright prevent their introduction, until this changes and people won't be forced. You should know this by now.
Almost anything in society is opposed by maybe a 1-5% minority, which is extremely vocal, but will shut up if given a choice to avoid what they oppose.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
So truthfully what countries are requiring labeling and what is the label?
Don't point me to the various groups that mention most of Europe because that is a lie. Living in Europe I use to purchase much GMO products and non were labeled. How did I know they were GMO because they were foods made in the USA by companies they groups only use GMOs and then imported.
GP has a point because literally everything that lives on this planet has genes from other species transferred into it. It happens quite often. The human genome alone has over 100,000 foreign sequences inserted into it, without at least one of which, human reproduction would be much less efficient, and in fact we may have gone extinct long ago without it.
http://www.isciencemag.co.uk/f...
Citation
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The food we've grown since the dawn of time. That plus controlling overpopulation. Maybe we shouldn't be creating technologies which enable overpopulation, using arguments about preventing deforestation to push public acceptance of them?
Let all the extra billions of people on our Planet figure out on their own how to feed themselves.
I don't know that letting people say their food is "GMO-free" is much better as that's kinda implying that GMO is a bad thing. It's like tropical oils. In the 1980's a marketing company, working for the American soybean industry, got foods made with soybean oil (instead of tropical oils) to say "contains no tropical oils", as though tropical oils are a bad thing. They were playing on the fact that a lot of foods already do this for other things. eg. "contains no msg", etc.
Anyway, the FTC shut that down quick:
http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/8621.html
Why post as AC? Cuz you are ignorant.
Care to point me to the ZPG web site?
Not gonna happen.
They disappeared early in the century.
Replaced by a watered-down do-nothing organization.
I'd say get with the times.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Look I am for GMO for a variety of reason, but the first time a kitten get calamari gene through cross breeding, or tomato get human gene through cross breeding, is the first time your argument will be valid. All those genes you speak of are either gained through virus over evolutionary period of time or simply because we had common ancestry and that again speaks of evolutionary time. It is plain misleading and genuinly make people mistrust usd when we try to "sell GMO" that people keep insisting that it is the same mechanism. When I try to sell nuclear power I don't fucking tell people it is the same principle as steam power. Because while superficially it is true, it is obvious to many that the heating element is utterly different. Stop being gits and pretend this is the same as cross breeding by farmer. It is not. But neither it is evil magic. It is just another form of easily transferring gene without spending 100000 of years.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You are wrong. You will likely always be wrong, because that's the kind of stupid you are.
If consumers want labelling, why do they buy stuff that isn't labelled? Such products exist, so it's not because they aren't available. Yet, the overwhelming majority ignore such products. Perhaps you are confusing your wants with everyone else's? Perhaps you shouldn't project so much. Your interactions with real people might improve.
The GMO-free food should be labelled: CONTAINS CARBON.
Considering how many anti-GMO nuts are likely also scared by the idea of carbon, I think it would be a wonderful thing to do to their precious minds.
Don't you know? Democracy is only good when it comes to the same decision you would make. That's exactly how the Left thinks.
What is forgotten by people bashing GMO is that there is no one thing that is GMO. Any modification you make renders something GMO. Some are clearly innocuous, like tweaking the expression level of an existing gene, and some may potentially be dangerous, like expressing an insecticide in a plant. Making blanket statements about GMO foods is never going to cut it.
soylentnews.org
Voluntary labels have one problem: no standardization. Advertisers/marketers already live on the edge of the truth. Some will say
1. "free of artificial genes", so genes of scorpions in rice are fine
2. some saying " no genetic manipulation was done at our farms", so if it is done at someone else's farms , or their own labs , it is OK.
It is not humanly possible to find loopholes in all such claims while shopping in a hurry.
The only solution is to label the exact strain, and mandatorily so that there is no wiggle room. Consumer goods industry spends millions of dollars every year on just deciding what labels to go with what product in what market while going with what advertising and endorsement and PR bullshit , this is really not an onerous requirement.
What if I want the GMO potato with low carcinogens as described in TFS ?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
DDT does have _serious_ short term side effects. Other pesticides are used against malaria mosquitoes, today.
Starvation is in most cases a problem of distribution and intentional denial of food to certain groups for political reasons.
Hint: making things up doesn't make them true.
Could be in response to this 2013 statement by scientists warning of GMO risks?
"Global Scientists Issue Stunning GMO Safety Warning"
http://sustainablepulse.com/20...
A response coordinated by the agtech industry?
"107 Nobel Laureate Attack on Greenpeace Traced Back to Biotech PR Operators"
http://www.counterpunch.org/20...
That Plutonium is good for your health. There is no negative effect.
aaaaaaa
Why is using radiation okay but inserting a specific gene at a specific location not okay?
Because only the latter is clearly patentable. The EULA imposed by GMO plant patent holders tends to forbid saving seeds for replanting, and this is antithetical to traditional sustainable farming. It's the same reason that some people prefer free software.
Take the active ingredient of Vietnam-era Agent Orange and label it as RoundUp weed killer, then genetically modify plants to not die from this poison so that farmers can spray massive amounts ($$$$) of RoundUp on their crop. Only the crop survives. Everything else dies.
Monsanto 'forgot' to genetically modify humans. We are not 'RoundUp-Ready'. So while our GMO food drenched in RoundUp poison survives, we humans are not insensitive to it. Small amounts of Glyphosate are being found in every food ingredient, even in organic food grown close to fields where RoundUp is used. Organic plants also interbreed with GMO plants in the natural way, so 100% organic farmers are sued by Monsanto for what the military terms as 'Collatoral damage'. Organic farmers get sued for illegally using patented Monsanto seed that just blew over from GMO fields. And those farmers cannot pay the legal muscle to fight Monsanto... So everyone pays.
Monsanto is getting rich on poisining our food, racketeering our farmers, poisioning humans.
No, dummy. The point wasn't that consumers want labels on everything, but they clearly want labeling on GMOs. Research shows that up to 90% of consumers want GMO foods to be labeled.
http://www.justlabelit.org/wp-...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I had a child with a corn allergy (thank God she grew out of it...) I get the pain of avoiding corn in the modern diet.
The right answer, however, is proper labeling of CORN as it is a common allergen, though not typically causing as violent a reaction as say, peanuts.
As it stands those with this particular allergy are subject to a brutal game of epi-roulette identifying foods with corn in them.
--- Mercutio was right.
I'll stop bashing GMO foods when GMO foods stop being used as the means to legally ensure that there can be no such thing as self-sustaining food production.
Pfft, that's old thinking. Food is way to plentiful now. Just control the schools and political process. You know, like the crazy left has done in the US. Sprinkle in other bullshit like political correctness. If anything happens, have them focus on some other bullshit like Caitlyn Jenner. Nothing you say? Check out all the stuff you missed.
http://www.conspiracyclub.co/2...
First one is a doosey. All the whining, bitching and moaning over Bush's patriot act and without even a mention we have USA Freedom Act - the patriot act on steroids. I suppose pointing this out is racist or some other BS label the left loves to use.
Before making a fool of yourself, you should be looking for the opposite... ANYONE who says human excrement CAN be used on food crops. You won't find it.
But I can give you a start:
You'll find mostly the same restrictions, in almost every state.
Federal rules are... less concise. They require permitting, long time periods between last applying waste and when crops can be harvested, lots of remediation steps, etc., etc.:
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In which country? It was my understanding that it had been grown privately by small groups in India and China. True, this was as a test, but if the farmers had thought it worthwhile they would have kept seeds.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Voluntary labels have one problem: no standardization.
That's not true. There are various governmental and non-governmental standards for certifying that a product is GMO-free. I have no objection to government being involved in that certification, and in preventing fraudulent labeling.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I'll believe, either way, after I've read the notes, tests and publications of the Scientists who are responsible for these innovative alterations.
Vitamin pills, homeopathy and feng shui are just a few examples of irrational things that lead people to spend their money unwisely. In a free society, that's just part of life's rich tapestry. If a sufficiently significant proportion of the population wants labels, they should have labels. Your definition of irrationality is irrelevant.
No. Required labels should be for things that have demonstrable consequences for the consumer - anything else turns a useful tool for protecting customers into a political circus.
What's next, natural foods must be labeled "non-fortified"? Regular medicine - "non-homeopathic"? Houses that haven't been checked by charlatans have to be advertised as "potentially haunted" and have a "feng shui" rating?
Various? The problem of plenty, with standards? You are making my point for me.
Even then, following those standards cannot be mandatory if the labeling itself is voluntary.
The examples I gave for "labeling" GMO free are NOT fraudulent legally. They are just misleading. They can be completely true, yet mean nothing, or worse - mean something other than what will be understood by most people.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Various? The problem of plenty, with standards? You are making my point for me.
No, I'm not. You're being ridiculous.
Even then, following those standards cannot be mandatory if the labeling itself is voluntary.
No. If you want to display a label indicating that the USDA has certified your product as non-GMO, then there is a mandatory process that you have to follow. Same if you want to use the "Non-GMO project verified" seal. Displaying one of those logos without going through the standard certification would be fraud. So if you're really concerned about somebody playing the sorts of games that you're pretending to be afraid of, then you should look specifically for items that have been independently certified by a process that you trust.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
No. If you want to display a label indicating that the USDA has certified your product as non-GMO
What if you don't? You just want your potential customers to think that your product doesn't contain the ghosts of GMO. So you put "no genetic manipulation performed at our farms.".
This is better than "Non-GMO project verified" seal, for 2 reasons :
1. You can word it to more directly access some emotions of you potential customers than the requirement of fact based labeling. In getting people to act, emotions are known to be much more effective.
2. You can perform the said genetic manipulation at your labs and yet never be convicted of fraud for this.
Moreover, it is not even very informative. Some GMO potatoes have the low carcinogen content, but not all. What if I want the low carcinogen GMO potato, but not any other kind of potato?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I know there'll be flames, but I reject this message.
To get approval for a gmo, corporations like Monsanto have to submit 2 reports to the FDA saying the thing is better. Nobody cares if they (as is done) don't publish 5 or 10 unfavourable reports. That passes for "science." It's worth noting that approving GMOs as essentially the same as normal foods was done by an ex-Monsanto head of FDA against the advice of FDA Scientists. What do they know?
The soil degredation evident over 5 - 10 years with monoculture GMO crops is evidence that they're not the panacea they're cracked up to be. Instead of balanced natural soil diversity, repeated ploughing & spraying leaves the soil impoverished, the farmers with the expense of weedkillers, fungicides, pesticides, fertilisers and the food poisoned; the essential microbes & fungi in the soil are wiped out,. & worms greatly diminished. In some places, the workers on the breadline end up poisoned too, but have no choice but to continue.
Are they harmful to humans? Physically, I don't know, but I don't like where some genes inserted in foods are said to come from.
Economically, very often. All that Amazon rain forest cleared for GMO Soy & Corn has not brought wealth to the locals, but it degrades by the year.
But isn't urine generally sterile?
No. That is a myth. Urine is effectively sterile for your own body. But it can contain pathogens, and you should avoid coming in contact with other people's urine unless you're already coming into contact with their other bodily fluids and it doesn't matter. Even saliva is more dangerous than urine, unless it has blood in it, but that happens sometimes too.
What's not a myth is that composting toilets work, and they work fine. There's a shitload of them on the market, pun intended. You can also simply build Lengen's Bason Toilet or similar; the short form is that it's a concrete box trivially built on site, with a rebar crank in the bottom of the vault which is used to stir the contents in order to speed up composting. In less than a year, feces becomes soil that can be directly applied to your garden by hand without risk. Odor is managed by the use of an external exhaust which is piped above the dwelling, and a sealing seat. But here's what's interesting in light of your comment: urine is ideally separated. It can be used as high-nitrogen fertilizer after settling for twenty-four hours or so.
Here's the real rub: a decentralized fecal waste infrastructure like this, when used as the basis for fertilization of one's own food, is utterly and completely safe and saves significant amounts of energy. It is, in fact, the basis of real (Not "USDA certified") organic farming; a cyclical system that promotes personal health by promoting soil health. The closest thing to that with a certification label is "biodynamic" gardening, but that's also mixed up with some mystical claptrap that will probably keep it from ever becoming mainstream.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No. If you want to display a label indicating that the USDA has certified your product as non-GMO
What if you don't?
Uh -- then you don't put it on your label. That's why it's called "voluntary." And if you're so scared about this scenario that you've invented, then you can refuse to buy anything that isn't appropriately certified.
Let's retrace this conversation. To start out, you said that the problem with voluntary labels is that there's no standardization -- which we've conclusively demonstrated is false. I don't even know what you're trying to argue at this point.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
There are mandatory parts of it that you specified later, so what you're talking about is not entirely voluntary either.
The part of it that is voluntary, benefits no one. The manufacturer gets no benefit from a dry announcement when it can use far more moving text/design of its choice to influence more and more customers while legally promising almost nothing. The potential customers don't derive the benefit of knowing the exact strain so other than a very weak attempt to discredit all GMO, such labels achieve nothing.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I have to concede, you're right.
Now to move the goal posts: Anyone who won a Nobel prize for something they did.
That is not how "demand" works. Scientists need to make their case to consumers. Consumers have a right to demand the labels, full stop.
How's that working for you, full stop. Clue: It's not, full stop
Just another day in Paradise
Which is one documented problem with GMO's such as Round-Up-Ready. The changes pass to the weeds they are supposed to fight, (or the weeds naturally become immune to Round-Up) creating weeds that are harder to kill.
They're not harder to kill, just harder to kill with roundup.
Many GMO foodstuffs are modified so that they tolerate far greater levels of pesticides, herbicides, etc. Those GMOs may not be harmful, but the elevated levels of 'cides means elevated levels in our meals That cannot be good.
Many others are modified so the pant produces pesticides, etc themselves. Again, that cannot be good.
Some people have food intolerances or allergies. New chemicals in their food can set off new intolerances and allergies.
Many GMO foodstuffs have been shown to NOT improve the productivity over time of a farm.
Many 'cides have been shown to kill off the organic productivity of the soil, so that the farmer is more and more reliant on chemical soil boosting, to make up for soil impoverishment.
There are far too many downsides to a lot of GMO, and unproven upsides.
It's all a scam.
wake up and hold your nose
Anti-GMO. The people pushing to prevent technologies that would allow people in third world to continue to live. If we start having food shortages you can bet it won't kill people in North America or Europe, at least not until most of the third world is completely wiped out.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.