There actually is a scientific consensus that GMOs are safe for human consumption. But hey, why bother listening to groups like the National Academy of Sciences or European Commission when I can instead have a PCC board member tell me differently.

If he wants GMO crops that do good things, then he needs to support public finding of GMO research, not assume that Monsanto is going to give a shit about anything non-shareholders want to say.

Not to get too ad-hominem, but the author sits on the board of grocery chain that pedals enough snake-oil to choke Don Lapre, if he hadn't already... er.. yeah.

It won't be the end of the world to label GMOs in Washington, but it will be a depressing victory for the superstitious and willfully obtuse. This is prayer in schools for hippies.

Thanks for explaining the environmental side of this issue. To many people are getting hung up on the confusion about whether GMO food is healthy or not. It's much easier to see the damage GMO farming practices are having on our environment.

I'll be voting for labeling, because more info is always good.

But to find myself voting the same way as this scare-mongering charlatan sure has given me pause.

Solk512:

Please at least read this section of National Academies Press on the Safety of GMOs:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_i…

"All evidence evaluated to date indicates that unexpected and unintended compositional changes arise with all forms of genetic modification, including genetic engineering. Whether such compositional changes result in unintended health effects is dependent upon the nature of the substances altered and the biological consequences of the compounds. To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.

Recommendation 1

The committee recommends that compositional changes that result from all genetic modification in food, including genetic engineering, undergo an appropriate safety assessment. The extent of an appropriate safety assessment should be determined prior to commercialization. It should be based on the presence of novel compounds or substantial changes in the levels of naturally occurring substances, such as nutrients that are above or below the normal range for that species (see Chapter 3), taking into account the organism modified and the nature of the introduced trait."

You have taken the following statement and jumped to a conclusion that is not stated here: "To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population." That does not automatically mean that we've determined that they are safe for human consumption. To say that means you completely do not understand the basics of science. Just because there is no evidence for something, does not automatically mean it is safe. Why? Because we have not done enough testing. That is what the National Academy of Science ultimately concludes here - we have not done enough testing to make that conclusion.

Another recommendation they make: "Use of data collection programs, such as the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), to collect information, prior to commercial release of a new GM food, on current food and nutrient intakes and exposure to known toxins or toxicants through food consumption. The information collected should be used to identify food consumption patterns in the general population and susceptible population subgroups that indicate a potential for adverse reactions to novel substances or increased levels of naturally occurring compounds in GM food." AND "Develop a database of unique genetic sequences (DNA, polymerase chain reaction sequences) from GE foods entering the marketplace to enable their identification in postmarket surveillance activities."

^^ We do not do this, nor can we do this without labeling. With labeling, we can finally do post-market analyses of adverse health effects. We can finally do independent and meaningful research on the impact of GMOs.

And to your last point - when the corporation patents the seeds that they sell, they can decide who gets to conduct independent research on their product. So you can say that we should support public funding for more research, but that tells me you lack an understanding of the research, regulatory, and business practices surrounding GMOs.

@7 How about this for you...http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2012/m…

@1

Link that hopefully works, otherwise, use your internet powers to do your own research:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_i…

There is a scientific consensus that the GMO foods already on the market are safe for human consumption and that the technique used to create those foods does not inherently render them unsafe. But blankly assuming a food is safe because it is genetically modified is as stupid as assuming a food is unsafe because it is genetically modified.

What is true is that genetically modified foods are novel. They are created using different techniques than those used by farmers for thousands of years. These foods deserve extra scrutiny and a label will simply allow consumers to pay them that extra scrutiny if they desire.

It's no different than labeling apples, tomatoes, or onions by variety and source. If I'm buying Golden Delicious apples I expect them to be from trees of the appropriate species. If they were grown using organic methods I'd like to know that. If they are from Washington or Brazil I'd like to know. If they are Golden Delicious plus a gene which gives them resistance to Roundup I'd like to know that as well. The GMO tag will allow me to find out about that last one.

This entire article speaks entirely to Monsanto's RoundUp GMO products. Almost everything studied today has been to evaluate whether or not that these crops are safe.

I get it. They might very well be dangerous. That does not mean they speak to the dangers of genetic modification. They speak to using a different pesticide.

Furthermore, the studies establishing toxicity have come under quite a lot of criticism. Even so, they're confounded with the problem that Roundup is still in the mix.

Again, I get it. We all hate Monsanto. Please, try to fight Monsanto. Don't beat down scientists. I get that everyone hates scientists. We're really not making vaccines that control your minds and give you autism, stem cells to kill God, or GMO foods to slowly dissolve your insides.

As is stated in this letter the “science” that “proves” GMO’s aren’t safe are done by industry backed scientist. This is the same sort of science that proved that smoking cigarettes weren’t harmful. This is the same sort of science that has stated that global warming is not caused by human activity. Industry backed studies have a remarkable ability to back the funders preexisting opinion.
Just as you have every right to glom down all the GMO packed goodies you want, I have the right not to. Labeling is good for everyone.
It’s a shame that our Congress is so bought and paid for by Monsanto that this is even an issue at the state level.

@8

Sorry, but your AAAS folks are not reputable. I don't consider anyone who sits on Monsanto's Board of Directors reputable. The AAAS Board Chair also sat on the Board for a huge Chemical company. Monsanto also sponsors AAAS's annual gatherings. Love it when they are in bed together. Makes for good science and research.

People will point to this and say "Hey look! We did something about GMO!"

Sure you didn't address any of the ACTUAL ethical issues or problems that come with GMO but you did satisfy the scare-mongering hippies.

GMO needs to be regulated. It needs to be approached very carefully and the public should have an honest, open debate about it. But none of that is happening with I-522.

I work for a small company that has recently had to relabel products specifically for California and it cost us $10,000. It was an expense we could ill-afford and now we will have to do the same for Washington. But I guess it's our fault for using Sucralose because we wanted to avoid Sugar Cane/High Fructose Corn Syrup that has actual evidence of Killing us.

It seems like you're punishing the wrong people with this bill, but whatever. It's going to pass and everyone will pat themselves on the back for beating the corporations. The ones that can easily afford to relabel, and keep on producing GMO products in ways that are actually hurting the American Economy/Environment.

I support labeling, but I do need to call out a bullshit arguing tactic:

Twenty years ago, we were promised that genetic engineering would confer drought tolerance, improve the nutritional profile of our food, increase crop yields, and reduce farmers' reliance on chemical inputs.

You suck for making an uncited "we were promised" argument. This is intellectual laziness and one of the lowest types of strawman arguments. You are a lawyer. You should know better, for fucks sake.

@14 why did you label California products differently?

@13 and that tells me everything I need to know. The chairman of the board of AAAS is a PhD physicist, former chair of Harvard Astronomy etc.. The AAAS president shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work in molecular biology. I think these folks are a little more qualified and yes, trustworthy, for these statements than a shill for PCC.

If 522 passes, this will be so not awesome watching the anti-vaxxers multiply, herd immunity be even more compromised, and the rest of the country will think we're more screwed up than California.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Document…
Woohoo.... let's let King County's 5.3% exemption rate match Jefferson County's 20% and we'll see more kids dead from something other than guns.

Holy shit, folks are actually discussing the issue and presenting sources and stuff!

@4 You took the words right out of my mouth. I don't care about the labelling, but rather all the anti-science bullshit that goes with it.

@5 The environmental issues with monocultures, pesticide/herbicide use are endemic to modern large scale agriculture, not the fact that it's genome has been genetically modified.

@7 First off, excellent source. I wish more people know about the NAS and their publications. Understand that I only sited the NAS as a representative of a sample, not as a whole. There is plenty of other research out there that supports the idea that GMO crops are perfectly safe to consume. And yes, there is never any such thing as "enough research", but like many topics out there, if everything is saying a similar story, then you will need extraordinary evidence to overturn everything previously known.

@10 I'm not making that assumption, and I hope I wasn't implying it. I'm sure there are plenty of ways a GMO could be designed to be harmful, but that's based on it's design, not the technique used to alter the genome.

@15 The argument of the "false promise" is no different than when climate change deniers whine and moan about "well in the 70's I heard once that someone mentioned "global cooling!1!". It's a bullshit argument when climate change deniers use it, and it's a bullshit argument when snake oil salesmen use it too.

@19: Maybe I'm stupid, but what does GMO labeling possibly have to do with vaccines?

I'm just trying to connect the dots. Fill it in for me:

1. I-522 passes
2. GMO foods will be labelled
3. ???
4. Kids die because they didn't get vaccinated.

@16 A multi-vitamin supplement we used in our product contained a type of calcium that California required us to mark. Eventually we just changed our multi-vitamin, but it's not something we can do about the Sucralose.

@21,
The GMO ban in Europe was not founded by any science showing harm, it was just a more agitated activist mentality that was able to demonize the genetic revolution in its infancy. Slapping labels of "Genetically Engineered" on the front of products without indicating what the modification is or what ingredient invites the reader of the label to simply imagine the worst thing they've ever heard of as a GMO (true or not).

My impression thus far of the anti-GMO crowd is that they're far more likely to be anti-vaccine.

@22 - Interesting, thank you.

@17

Sorry, I was actually talking about Dr. Fraley, who is actually a fellow with AAAS and is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Monsanto. I am getting my people confused. Hard when everything is revolving door in those areas. The statement also came out, conveniently, when Prop 37 was introduced in CA. They absolutely misquoted the WHO as well. I don't understand why it even matters to people if GMOs are safe or not when it comes to labeling. Vitamin C is totally safe and good for us and yet we have it on the label. 20 years ago we fought like crazy just to put ingredients on our food labels. I think it's absolutely crazy to not give people the choice. I support labeling for the very reasons in this article, not to mention the awful things the pesticides used on GE crops are doing to other countries. I don't want to support businesses who think those practices are ok, and I should have a right to do that. Food manufacturers should be producing food that *we* want to eat, and the only way to tell them what we want is to buy more or buy less of something, especially when companies get so big that they could care less what we actually have to say to them.

@19

They don't. It's really unfortunate that those people stand out like that. I support GE labeling and strongly, so strongly support vaccinations. We are the majority. I swear.

I spotted lies at the 2nd paragraph so I stopped reading.

I wish so much that the anti-GMO crowd would move away from fear-mongering. It makes them look highly anti-science. I am anything but. Hell, I work in clinical research. Not just that, but regulatory oversight of clinical research. Sigh.

@23: You disagree with a diverse range of people on this subject and then group them into the stupid box. Another group of people in your stupid box already were anti-vaxxers. Illogically, you equated them. Think harder and use actual reasoning please.

What @1 said. God I wish that complaining on the internet paid my bills instead of doing science, but what a load of shit. I voted yes on 522, but only to stick it to GM.
>human health effects haven't been fully studied
What does this mean? What does "fully studied" mean. Like raise a group of 1000 humans on only GMO food for 70 years and compare to a perfect control group? What do you people want?
>There is no scientific consensus that GE foods are safe.
Yeah that link with all of 90 signatures. Reminds of grobal warming denialist banding about a list of 80 "concerned" scientists
>Food and Drug Administration neither conducts nor requires independent safety assessments of GE foods, so market approval for GE crops are based on industry research alone.
Like all thousands of items that only get industrial research. I see these anti-GMO activists give no thought to downing 1-20 untested "suppliment" pills each day, eating untested quinoa, kale, brocoli, 2nd gen hybridized grains, etc
>Most of this research examines only nutritional equivalence—calorie, fat, and vitamin content, for example—not toxicity to consumers.
What "toxins" are they not looking into? Does the author suggested that GMO plants taken in extra heavy metals from the soil or produce posious alkoliods?
>Until reliable data from improved testing are available, it cannot be claimed that GE foods pose no risk to human health.
Still waiting to hear what this magic testing is looking for and how it is structured differently then what we have?
>Twenty years ago, we were promised that genetic engineering would confer drought tolerance, improve the nutritional profile of our food, increase crop yields, and reduce farmers' reliance on chemical inputs. Not one of these benefits has materialized
You know, besides golden rice, bacteria resistant oranges, and this graph which shows how Evil Monsanto's BT corn has dropped insecticide use by a factor of 100 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk…

>The overuse of these crops, and the industrial farming practices they both represent and promote, have damaged the environment. They have harmed pollinators and wildlife, reduced biodiversity, compromised soil health, and contaminated groundwater, streams, and rivers.
Yeah, if only someone could design plants to fixate their own nitrogen and fend off fungus/insects/plants, then we wouldn't to destroy our planet making fertilizer and various -icides.
>GE crops have also harmed our economy
Stupidity also harms our economy. These are all cases of other countries banning GMOs. Stupidity is not an exclusively American trait
>In 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that the farm-level economic impacts of GE agriculture were “mixed or even negative.”
To quote two sections of that decades old report:
"
Because the economic benefits from Bt corn are tied
to the level of ECB infestation, studies in some areas
have found that the value of protection from Bt corn
is not likely to exceed its cost..A primary motivation may be the simplicity and flexibility
of the herbicide-tolerant program (Carpenter and
Gianessi, 1999), which allows growers to use one
product instead of several herbicides to control a wide
range of both broadleaf and grass weeds, and also
makes harvest “easier and faster” (Duffy, 2001). 23
Herbicide-tolerant crops also fit into ongoing trends
toward postemergence weed control, conservation
tillage practices, and narrow row spacing. In addition,
the window of application for glyphosate is wider than
for other postemergence herbicides, allowing growers
to treat later with less concern about getting poor weed
control or injuring the crop. Because glyphosate has
no residual activity, carryover restrictions are not a
problem, giving growers more rotation options.
Glyphosate is also effective at controlling weeds that
are resistant to other classes of herbicides"
Hmm, so great seed costs results in lower ROI, yet farmers use GMO seeds becuase they are easier to use and reduce the cocktail of herbicides used on fields

Man I wonder if anyone read of all this, or if I just wasted my time.

@25 Or we could be advocating for publicly funded GMO research. We don't have to always rely on a market solution to solve our problems.

@29, sorry, I think I caught the stupid after reading one too many of this guy's anti-GMO posts as someone's "reference".

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articl…
By Dr. Mercola

If you've ever had qualms about eating genetically modified (GM) foods, you'd likely be deeply concerned about receiving a GM vaccine as well.
Important Movements on the Horizon for Both GM Foods and Vaccines

It's important to get all the facts before making your decision about vaccination; and to understand that in many state public health laws you still have the legal right to opt out of using a vaccine that you or your child do not want to receive. At present, all 50 states allow a medical exemption to vaccination (medical exemptions must be approved by an M.D. or D.O.); 48 states allow a religious exemption to vaccination; and 17 states allow a personal, philosophical or conscientious belief exemption to vaccination.

@31

Again, how can we advocate for publicly funded GMO research when the producers of the GM seeds have a patent on them? I don't disagree but there are plenty who have wanted to do more independent testing (doesn't necessarily mean "industry") but the seeds producers get to say "No". Before we could even discuss the ethics behind being able to essentially patent life, it was already done. I'm not sure why it's so impossible to believe that a corporation would not want more research done on their product.

The only way to even do post-market testing (since we've pretty much failed at pre-market testing) is to keep track of what people eat and what is happening to them in terms of their health. And the only way to know what people are eating is if we label our food...

@33,
what are you talking about ? While the true parent seeds prior to a GMO may be unusual lab strains of corn, etc, there are already experimental use exemptions to patents. That's not holding back experiments into GMOs.

http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewc…

My theory is that global warming increased yields.

More heat, longer growing season, more crops.

Once again, I-522 isn't about whether GMOs are safe or not, it's about transparency in labeling. ChefJoe, Solk512 and all the rest of the shill crowd can do their best to try and make it about something it's not (science!), but the bottom line remains that we have a right to know what ingredients go into the foods we eat, whether that be sodium or peanuts or potentially GMO laden ingredients.

@33 By publicly funded research, I mean to say, "We should be funding GMO research to develop crops that are in our interests, not the interests of the shareholders of a particular corporation."

Right now the only major players are Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer, and by using our vast bank of agriculture research programs, we could not only develop more sustainable alternatives to what the big three produce, but who else knows what we could come up with when profits aren't the only goal.

Look at local/sustainable food movement. We (the public) should be funding the everliving fuck out of our agricultural laboratories to create foods which are better for the environment while being resistant to local climate/pest conditions and increasing yields. But as it stands now the movement is turning it's back on an incredibly useful tool and letting Monsanto/Syngenta/Bayer be the only significant players in the game.

The main reason it costs so much to make a GMO whatever is the regulatory approval to actually make it a commercial product. The GMO salmon project has been ongoing so long they've had to get more investors many, many times. All the "science showing they're safe" is exactly why only big ag is taking the projects on.

The Seattle Times did a good job today of giving pro and con a platform, doing Q&As with a supporter and a detractor of 522. The con was a GE researcher afraid consumers would misinterpret labels. The pro-522 was UW emeritus Phil Bereano. His Q&A began:

Q: What do you hope labeling would accomplish?
A: Labeling will accomplish empowerment of consumers to decide what they want to put in their bodies — parallel to a woman’s right to control her body. It’s an issue of human autonomy.
The second thing is, frankly, if the companies really want to stand behind what they are doing, it may require them or the government to do adequate testing.
And if Washington state passes labeling, I think there’s a good chance other states will pass it and eventually there will be federal labeling of GE foods.

Q: Who benefits from GE crops currently on the market?
A: The only people who have really benefited have been the agrochemical companies.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…

@38 I'm not commenting on the labeling issue because I don't care if it passes or not. What I do care about is the utter lack of scientific literacy in this state on this and other issues.

Telling me that "science isn't the point" is simply not true. Much of the call for labels is fear-mongering and utter lies. Even supporters of labeling acknowledge that the scare tactics aren't helping any.

If this were a thread about promoting creationism or climate change denial or anti-vaxxer bullshit, I'd be posting just as heavily. You guys want more information, so what's wrong with learning a little bit of science?

I'm pressed for time right now and this article is such utter bullshit that I'm just going to cut and paste a previous comment I've made.

As a scientist the frustrating thing to me is that people are making some really weird choices in who to trust for their information on GM, choosing to trust obvious activist groups (Mercola, Jeffery Smith, Greenpeace, Natural News, PCC etc) while totally ignoring expert opinion (WHO, AAAS, NAS, AMA, The Royal Society of Medicine, The European Commission, The American Council on Science and Health, The American Society for Cell Biology, The American Society for Microbiology, The American Society of Plant Sciences, The International Seed Foundation, The International Society of African Scientists, The Federation of Animal Science Societies, The Society of Toxicology, The French Academy of Science, The Union of German Academies).http://files.vkk.me/images/cce3cffc1f201…

The scientific opinion on GM technology is that there are no dangers from the technology per se, but it is a powerful tool and that the risks of any use of the technology must be examined on a case-by-case basis. That is, the final product needs to be reviewed, not the tool that was used to make it. This has been the opinion of the scientific community since the late 80s and it is still relevant today. And it means that a “contains GMO” label is utterly pointless and does not communicate anything of use to the consumer. And it will create more expensive food for consumers. And it will not save a single life or stop a single visit to hospital.

@1 I think you're confusing the first and second Green Revolutions with the Incorrect statement that "all GMO foods are safe and have been tested for human consumption.

They haven't.

Labeling works

@36

I'm assuming by publicly funded you mean government funded. And if that's the case then you are not understanding how research works and who actually controls what gets funded.

Government funded research is only "funded" if they can get the pharmaceutical companies to provide their drugs for the trials. The government does not just tell them to offer their drug up for a clinical trial. The pharmaceutical companies decide what their drugs get used for in trials. You can demand all you want that they study a breast cancer drug for diabetes but that doesn't mean it will happen. So in this case, we can demand that Monsanto gives up their seeds for more testing but we have no regulations regarding post market testing for GMOs, so they can keep it to themselves.

I would offer more sources but I'm on my phone on a lovely crowded bus, so I'll just say I've been working in cancer clinical trials for 5+ years, most of which was government funded.

I hate that this topic is so incredibly complex that you practically require a Master's degree in Genetic Engineering to be able to debate it effectively.

How can normal people without the time delve into the topic sufficiently have any solid idea whether GMOs can be good, or bad, or under what conditions either might be true? Let alone the greater ramifications, such as the potential/actual increased used of glyphosate, other environmental impacts, or any economic impacts.

My current concerns involve the belief that government doesn't have effective oversight of corporate activities, thanks to decades of privatization. Corporations are beholden to their bottom line, that is their primary ethic, unless they are forced (by gov't) to be more careful. We were told that DDT was safe, that Thalidomide was safe, that bottle-feeding babies was better, that polycarbonate was a-ok for food storage, that wide-spread antibiotic use in livestock was a great idea, that the 'Terminator' gene was a smart move (since abandoned, allegedly)... Why should I believe now that GMO crops are fine?

They haven't stood the test of time, in my opinion. Two to three decades is not long enough by half. We don't know enough about lateral gene transfer between humans and plants (or even tomatoes bearing fish genes), nor about epigenetics, let alone the makeup and requirements of our own gut flora.

Unfortunately, with the borderless nature of pollen and gene transmission no one has the ability to opt out of this project.

I fundamentally disagree with the fact that we have no choice --at all-- in the decisions that a few are making --have already made-- on the behalf of everyone on the planet, for largely economic reasons.

@47,
only the EU (and I think Canadian) scientists thought Thalidomide was safe. The US FDA said more testing was needed before they'd approve it here.

@41 - Thanks for the link. Another fascinating interview of Phil Bereano about GE technology: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingth…

@49, if anyone is a shill for anti-GMO.....

Phil Bereano, professor emeritus of technical communication at the University of Washington, is an expert on the ethical and social aspects of technology, and co-founder of AGRA-Watch, which opposes the Gates Foundation’s work on genetically engineered crops in Africa.

@37

If anyone knows of good current GMO modifications, now's the time to speak up.

Papaya: Modified to resist ringvirus. You would likely not be able to buy papaya otherwise.

BT cotton: (most cotton grown in China) Pesticide use has halved since it's introduction, which doubled the number of natural predators (spiders and birds) feeding in the croplands.

There was an article a while back about GMO saving the US orange crop, but oranges are a strange example being that they don't occur naturally anyhow, so that's another layer of complexity.

I hate to keep hammering away on this, it's not a simple issue, but those first two are very tangible examples (farm industry journals says GMO has brought yields are up 10–15% using less land, but I'm sure that's contentious) .

@47 It's a tough issue, but I've found these sorts of guides to be a great way to sift through pseudoscientific garbage.

Carl Sagan's "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" (http://tinyurl.com/3dqzda)

Emily Willingham's Ten Questions to distinguish Real from Fake Science:(http://tinyurl.com/b9ntzns)

TEDx Blog post on vetting scientific speakers: (http://tinyurl.com/au8l8vh)

@49 - I note that you have no comment about the content of the interview itself, which isn't entirely surprising since you had no comment either the numerous times I brought up the same topics.

@51 -

Despite the claims that GM might be needed to feed the world, we found no yield benefit when the United States was compared to W. Europe, other economically developed countries of the same latitude which do not grow GM crops. We found no benefit from the traits either.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1…

@53, did you mean me, or yourself ?
I'm not sure you ever actually read any links I post either. I read scientific papers (even the bad ones), and generally skim interviews by non-scientists with activst nonscientists about GMOs, if that.

This guy says "Golden rice won't be all the Vitamin A you need" and "the villiage plowed out their Vitamin A producing weeds that they had sometimes eaten".

Ok, well, get the farmers to eat the rice they want with some extra vitamin A in it (even if it's not everything) because I dounbt they plowed over the weeds they enjoyed eating. Also, my recollection is that the vitamin A levels have been boosted since the product was first tested.

Also, I produce GMO e coli on a regular basis in the research lab. In an already equipped lab, I could probably make a GMO plant for under $1,000 (that I wouldn't be able to test for any safety, mind you, because that costs many millions to prove before commercial products are sold). It's complicated to do exactingly right, but it's not that difficult to setup a simple experiment. Food democracy ? wtf.

@35, Gotta add the SLOG obligatory "Bailo, you are the dumbest motherfucker" to this thread.

(And @4, spot on!)

@55 - Take the blinders off. The GE issue isn't solely a scientific issue. You have done your best over the last few months to ignore that it is also about development, food sovereignty, democracy, etc .., which makes it reasonable for a non-scientist to discuss the use of GE tech. In fact, due to this considerable and persistent blind spot you are showing, perhaps you are the one who isn't qualified to discuss the issue.

@54 - that's why I said it was contentious and was only sceptically mentioning it. I don't personally have the wherewithal to argue that point, or even the wherewithal to contextualize your pull-quote. The paper you sited knows better than I, I can't argue with that.

@56 Did someone say Tater Tots?! NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION. Potatoes are nature's (and Mormon's!) perfect little specimens, but should they ever be threatened with extinction, I'm taking an official WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep the tater tot crop alive and well. Fish genes, microwaves, necromancy—everything is on the table.

This is all about science. What if someone proposed labeling that clearly, even to most of the people here, had nothing to do with science. For instance, requiring labels saying if anybody Jewish had something to do with the production of the food. (Let's face it, in many parts of the world that would be voted in easily.). Very few of us would be saying things like , "more information is always better." We would rightfully reject it as an attempt to grind some personal axe. This is not about food safety, this is about people objecting to the way Monsanto does business. I'm not about to defend Monsanto, but if you can't make your case about the business practices these articles are exactly like the methods employed by the global warming deniers and the anti-vaxers.

@59,
they're having pretty good luck fighting potato blight with a gene from a not-able-to-interbreed-naturally plant of the potato/nightshade plant. Who knows, maybe they won't have to spray 15x a year to fight potato blight.

@58,
so now it's not just a label with no harm, it's a way to completely shake up the food supply and stop farmers from planting what Monsanto sells them ?

http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/09/08/2012…

What exactly will labeling "empower" me to do? A simple choice to buy or not buy something is not empowerment, especially when that choice will be made with absolutely no rationally-based information.

"GE foods have significant environmental, economic, and social impacts that consumers should consider."

Fuck consumers, we should REGULATE the agribusiness industry more then versus pushing this Tea Party "personal responsibility" fetishism.

If there are significant environmental, economic, and social impacts, that is.

@1 "There actually is a scientific consensus that GMOs are safe for human consumption. But hey, why bother listening to groups like the National Academy of Sciences or European Commission"

Europe imposes the traceability, with special secure handling of GMOs and the labelling of all human and pet foods countaining GMOs since 2003. And France doesn't allow the commercial growth of GMOs on its soil.

But hey, why bother listening to groups like the European Commission ?

@64 You aren't making any sense. The author's claim was that there is no scientific consensus that GMOs are safe. I and several other posters here have challenged that claim with strong evidence.

The fact that labeling and traceability are required in the EU do not counter the fact that the European Commission (along with several other reputable organizations) have said repeatedly that GMOs are safe for human consumption. Hell, I'm in full support of total traceability because I spent several years working in a food safety laboratory where we tracked disease outbreaks.

Seems like we commenters have not reached consensus on whether scientists can be said to have reached consensus.

@65 - "The author's claim was that there is no scientific consensus that GMOs are safe. I and several other posters here have challenged that claim with strong evidence. "

and you are wrong. There appears to be consensus that approved GMOs are safe, which is significantly different than what you are saying. Numbers of the institutions you mentioned made clear that the safety of GMOs or any other new food has to be considered on a case by case basis, which calls for significant regulations. Science demands rigor ...

@65

I may not make sense to you, but strong evidence or even any evidence of what you claimed in #1 you haven't provided, pal. But hey, nice to aggregate yourself to those posters who did provide evidence ; I'm sure they're charmed to be in your company.

One more time.

This article is about labeling GMO human food. In such an article, you commented to advocate listening to the European Commission. The European Commission does label GMO human and pet food (strong evidence here).

Because of your post #1 YOU have now to vote yes on I-522.

Regardless on whether GMOs are generally safe, or just safe for human consumption, which you happily confuse ; regardless on whether there exist a scientific consensus on GMOs in Europe or in any part of the world.

Now do listen to the European Commission about GMOs labeling laws, or quit the playground.

@66 You are comparing research scientists will Wall Street bankers and in doing so make a fucking terrible equivalency argument.

@68 No one, not the author, myself or anyone complaining about the safety of GMOs is discussing anything other than GMOs which are commercially available. It was understood and a given.

@69 I'm not sure why you're so upset with me. I've provided that evidence several times before, and the fact that others provided similar evidence does not take away from my point in any way. I listed two agencies in particular, but that's not an extensive listing.

Why does listing the European Commission mean that I must support I-522? The labeling requirements are different and there's no traceability requirement.

I realize the last time I added this link I fucked it up - this one should work:
http://files.vkk.me/images/cce3cffc1f201…

It's a good summary of the scientific consensus that the risks associated with GMO are no greater than the risks associated with other techniques. This is from actual scientific agencies, as opposed to activist groups.

I really do think that labeling regulations should differentiate between GMOs in general and those that are transgenic.

@72: Your distinction is lost on the "GMO advocates".