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Feb 1, 2013 at 2:15 pm
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Glad I got to sign for this initiative, and hopefully we can start what California wasn't able to!
"I understand that applying science and technology to food production is vital to the progression of humanity and while certain organizations abuse this technology abhorrently and should be stopped and punished; I recognize that it is anti-intellectual and irrational to oppose all genetically modified food on principle."
?
@3) I appreciate your point, but this initiative doesn't require the state or food producers to "oppose all genetically modified food on principle." It requires them to label it.
@8: There's a difference between
"This product contains _____", and
"This product contains ____, which crazy people think ____ about".
Hopefully this initiative leans toward the former.
Did you see Paul's post covering this, Dominic?
http://www.marklynas.org/2013/01/lecture…
Is it about people being able to make the informed choice to avoid GMOs? Because the evil corporate food processors are actually right, you know: if you want to avoid GMOs, you already can with the organic label.
We already voted on a measure like this in CA. It failed because Monsanto shoved lots of money at it to defeat it. I think Monsanto is obnoxious and sues too many people and often acts against consumers' interests. And you know what? They were still right on this anyways. Stop forcing me to be on their side with these misdirected attempts at legislation. I really hate that.
But don't worry, Monsanto says that pesticide is totally safe when it gets to the consumer. How could I not trust them? They don't have anything to gain, right!
Labeling is just information - I thought all those free marketers loved market participants to have information to make rational decisions.
"Contains GMOs" is a fundamentally meaningless label.
How about we label vaccines with the many side effects they've been proven to have? Oh wait. We do.
I don't know. How about you prove how it's not different? Let's say a company splices together corn with poison ivy. You don't think something in the hybridization could cause discomfort to humans?
Amazing how fast people jump from asserting something to refusing to defend it.
Moreover, what is to be gained from taking your poison-ivy corn, lumping it into a category with loads of other strains of corn generally accepted as benign after extensive study, and demanding we label them all with the same meaningless phrase? It just doesn't tell you anything that matters.
While the risks of genetic engineering have sometimes been exaggerated or misrepresented, GE crops do have the potential to cause a variety of health problems and environmental impacts. For instance, they may produce new allergens and toxins, spread harmful traits to weeds and non-GE crops, or harm animals that consume them.
At least one major environmental impact of genetic engineering has already reached critical proportions: overuse of herbicide-tolerant GE crops has spurred an increase in herbicide use and an epidemic of herbicide-resistant "superweeds," which will lead to even more herbicide use.
How likely are other harmful GE impacts to occur? This is a difficult question to answer. Each crop-gene combination poses its own set of risks. While risk assessments are conducted as part of GE product approval, the data are generally supplied by the company seeking approval, and GE companies use their patent rights to exercise tight control over research on their products.
In short, there is a lot we don't know about the risks of GE—which is no reason for panic, but a good reason for caution.
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agricultu…
multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto, have fought independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they've set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.
In 2009, 26 academic entomologists wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that because patents on engineered genes do not provide for independent non-commercial research, they could not perform adequate research on these crops. "No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions involving these crops," they wrote.
A Purdue University entomologist who signed the letter put it more succinctly to a reporter for a scientific journal: "Industry is completely driving the bus."
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agricultu…
Many GMO critics point to what they see as undue industry influence over what gets studied and published, as well as a regulatory system that they say bends to industry's wishes. In general, a 90-day animal study is all they need to win approval of a new genetically modified crop. But in Seralini's study, rats only started developing tumors after four months.
"If we learned anything from this new study," Malkan said, "it's that there are legitimate questions that need to be answered with legitimate research."
Margarida Silva, a biotechnology expert at the Portugese Catholic University in Porto, published a review in 2011 reporting a link between favorable outcomes in GMO studies and author affiliation with industry.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21…
And the very simplest health impact of GMO's is to go to a chain grocer and look at how nearly all cheap junk food is made of corn and soy derivatives - GMO's make them so cheap it lowers supply and drives up cost on real food. Not to mention crappy, cruel factory farms that stuff animals full of GMO corn and soy.
"experts, such as the hundreds of international scientists that contributed to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)—a report supported and endorsed by several UN agencies, the World Bank, and dozens of countries—have said that non-GE approaches that cost less and are more effective should be prioritized."
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agricultu…
As far as making food cheaper somehow being a bad thing, I'm baffled as to what you're getting at. Cooking from fresh is dramatically cheaper than buying processed anything.
Benign for the environment and developing economies? I'd say no. I'd claim beneficial. Sufficient food is critical to developing economies and the best thing to do for the environment with regards to agriculture is to chop down as little of it as possible and make the most food on the least land we can. Small farmers, it's probably close to neutral since their yields improve along with everyone else's so while prices may be lower (good news for everyone but farmers) they should have more to sell.
I meant GMO's are obviously different because, by definition, they are intellectual property owned by a company. If a small farmer takes a GMO seed without paying Monsanto or whomever, they are breaking the law.
And GMO's don't make "food" cheaper, they make corn and soy byproducts cheaper. They make up >99% of GMO foods here.
IAASTD Global Report:
But in any case, the issue of intellectual property concerns (which I tend to share) really doesn't have anything to do with labeling requirements anyways?
Look, I may be pro-science, but I'm also pro-GMO-labeling. Just because you can alter genomes, through selective breeding (animal or plant husbandry) or through scientific alteration including the addition of OFF switches that respond to the lack of a corporate-supplied additive (as Monsanto loves to do), doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Prion disease is merely genetic modification, but we don't allow that, and we screen for it. We didn't use to, but now we do.
Consumers should be entitled to feedback. Non-GMO food tends to have lower pesticide usage, which is linked to various things, like Parkinson's, but the FDA is not permitted to research the impacts on humans, so labels allow us to make an informed choice.
An informed choice like "Sure, no prob" or maybe "No way, Jose".
Obviously, farming innovations should be tested for safety and regulated to prevent tragedy of the commons. But GMO foods are already subject to testing. And while personally I would support stricter regulation on herbicide/pesticide use to prevent resistance from developing, labeling does nothing to further that goal.
Every choice we make has a cost. So the question is if the benefits from labeling exceed the costs? Organic foods already are GMO-free, so provide a choice for someone who wants to avoid GMO products. Who is the consumer that desires conventional (pesticide/herbicide grown) food that's not-GMO? Because that's the only person this law would benefit.
But I suppose we could always just buy all the quinoa and send our cheap GMO foods to the Peruvian farmers. Never mind the incredible benefits in soil management and yield increases the technology has facilitated and the fact that the growing human population will almost certainly need genetic modification and other technology to ensure everyone has food to eat, especially in the face of climate change.
Labeling will allow consumers to vote with their feet and put pressure on the industry to accept greater regulations or do you expect the former Monsanto executive-run FDA to do it voluntarily? Setting up their own rules without consumer pressure is the reason why the industry doesn't want labeling.
Implying that pitfalls of conventional agriculture make pitfalls of GE agriculture acceptable (your last paragraph) doesn't logically follow.
@48 - Endocrine disrupting pesticides have been in use much longer than GMO's and we are still sorting out what they do. Uncontrolled experiments, however lengthy, won't tell you much about the safety of GMO's for human health.
And it's not because I'm afraid of foreign-made shoes making me sick, or because the quality is worse. In fact, shoes from China are indistinguishable from US-made shoes. Except for the label, which says "Made in China."
Without that label, I'd be unable to make the choice to support US workers and US industries. Is that labeling unfair to China? They probably think so.
But if I don't like the business model of the GMO industry (which is more of a what-if than my actual position), I have no similar options. Not every food product is available in organic form, and don't try to tell me that all non-organic foods are genetically modified. At least not yet.
I don't see how someone can support zero labeling on GMO due to its being nutritionally identical or as-safe or whatever, and yet support the "Made in China" label on shoes.
Might as well say, "Why should anyone care where the shoes are made. They're the same."
All that aside, did anyone at Food, Inc, proofread the "consumers can avoid GMO's by buying organic" line of argument? How do we know if food is organic? BECAUSE IT'S LABELED. Case closed.
I-522 passes in a walk.
The way @50 describes it, label requirements are just a slower, less effective way to achieve this.
@54 _ Do you also remember him supporting the invasion of Iraq as late as 2010?
The only-GM-agriculture-can-feed-the-world myth is going to be freely regurgitated over the next few years. Better be ready for it. See my post @36.
So excuse me if I don't believe Monsanto telling me everything is wonderful out of hand. I see a lot of news of more and more physical and mental disorders. Could be just more reporting, I don't know. People in India are still living with the effects of a spill by Monsanto decades ago. And Monsanto has spent a lot of money denying it. And I'm supposed to believe they have my best interests at heart? Really? Just because they provide jobs?
I don't know that I can even trust the "organic" branding. I mean, I don't visit the farm. I don't know for certain they don't use Round-Up or buy their seed from Monsanto.
Nothing wrong with labeling. If a can of corn on a shelf says "improved by dinkering", and the one next to it isn't, I'll err on the side of caution.
And living in Washington state, I will be voting for the labeling.
Hybridization is not genetic engineering of GMO's. It's very different, and you should do the research and understand why. It would take you about an hour or two. Encouraging traits beneficial to agriculture through selective breeding is very different than splicing plant DNA for herbicide resistance.
And it hasn't been thoroughly tested. The FDA didn't require any testing of GMO ag products. The producers of these products have tested them to make sure they do what they want them to do, but there have been no tests on human safety, unless you count this study on rats that showed their filter organs degraded rapidly over 90 days in the study compared to rats on a non GMO diet:
http://www.biolsci.org/v06p0590.htm
But what is more important, is this bill is not about the negative impacts of GMO's on our bodies or farm practices, it's about labeling GE foods. So if you trust Monsanto's propaganda, eat all the GMO corn syrup you want, but let me make the decision for myself.
Check out this article regarding the increase in acute kidney disease over the last ten years. We are seeing the effects, we just can't directly correlate data because we are all tests subjects and we have no control group.
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/12/13267/s…
We are seeing "the effects", but until the "of what" is defined, assigning these arbitrary factors is irresponsible.