Feel free to invoke corporate malfeasance when it trumps the 2000+ research studies validating GM food safety (many of which are independent of industry). But nothing in your post addresses this. “We can’t trust Big Whatever” is sloganeering without substance.*
Continued mischaracterization of my position (along with playing the corporate shill gambit) doesn’t improve your credibility. My support for biotech has never been “unconditional”. It’s a valuable tool in agriculture, with benefits that have greatly outweighed drawbacks. Attacks on it which are not based on good science and practical applicability are worthless.
While fearmongering over corporate influence is a hallmark of evidence-challenged left-wing anti-GMOers, it is not exclusive to them. Far-right faves like Alex Jones and Mike Adams (of NaturalNews fame) have hopped on that bandwagon too. And here’s a stirring anti-corporate anti-GMO diatribe* from the good folks at Liberty Beacon (who also warn against vaccines, “psy-ops”, the Russians creating Hurricane Harvey, cellphones causing sterility and brain cancer etc.etc).
Personally, I’d find it embarrassing to have bedfellows like that. But if you don’t mind, hop on over and give 'em more of the blankets.
**For those who believe the trope that GMOs are bad for Africa because of Big Corporate, it’s far more the case that well-off anti-GMO Westerners are doing the exploiting. And a lot of biotech projects are being developed in Africa, by Africans.
I don’t agree that it’s necessarily fearmongering. This is reminding me of the debate over “no rBST” labels on dairy products. I don’t think milk produced from rBST-treated cows is going to cause me any harm, but I appreciate the labels and the consumer pressure because I simply don’t agree with the practice. Free market types are always saying that if we disagree with certain practices or conduct, we should vote with our wallets. But our ability to do so requires information.
The folks who want your business are free to provide that information.
Labeling should be forced when it addresses a real public health problem. There are any number of voluntary certifications available.
What the hell is radiological modification? Radiology/irradiation, AFAIK, may be used to eliminate harmful microbes. Other than that, how is it used to modify crops/livestock/products?
That might have been plausible, were the movement not using fear-mongering articles, fake-scary science ‘stidues’, and all-around scare tactics to support its position. But they do, so it is fearmongering.
The people who want to mark their proucts ‘No-GMO’ are free to do so. Do not force the ones who do use GMO somewhere in their process to apply a scarlet letter because of the fear machine.
So would your position change if people changed their behavior? Because it sounds like your real problem is with “the movement” and not the actual issue itself.
They absolutely get to know. It’s the one foundations of the free market.
And many of the people in my circle of friends are equally outraged that the term “organic” doesn’t legally mean what it obviously seems to mean to the average consumer. Whether they are consistent about it or not, most people are concerned about what they put in their bodies. A friend of mine quit buying canned tomatoes when she found out they were peeled with lye.
The average consumer has been led to believe that the food they eat is not just safe - but natural. The fact that it’s not (and hasn’t been for a long time) is infuriating to many and they want to know “how the sausage is made!”
One of the stated problems with GMO labeling is difficulty and expense for the makers of processed foods.
Duncan Hines, for example, buys things like sugar and flour in bulk. Presumably they regularly change suppliers based on price and availability. Everytime they changed suppliers they’d have to somehow ascertain whether or not any of what they are buying contained anything that originated from GMO crops.
The suppliers of those bulk products probably get their raw sources from numerous and varying suppliers, based on time of year, weather, pests, etc.
So these bulk materials currently may be a varied mix of GMO and non-GMO products.
So all of that will have to be sorted out all of the way down the supply chain and box labeling will have to change depending on what’s available. This adds extra costs for everybody, even those without unscientific fears.
Also, I suspect it would require renegotiation of trade treaties to somehow assure that we know the status of imported goods, and can we ever realistically know for sure?
Sellers might simply label everything they’re not sure about with “may contain GMO products” but that kills the whole point, and you can bet that there’d be people raising hell about how there should be better labeling.
It is worth noting that opposition to GMOs and vaccines is not really indicated by a left or right political ideology. Both groups have strong strains of opposition to these albeit for different reasons (usually).
Radiation is commonly used to induce new genetic mutations (in a random/undirected fashion), and the small subset of these mutations which are beneficial can then be selected to form new cultivars.
They are free to find out, by all means, but that doesn’t mean one sausage maker is forced to put graphic photos of the process on their packaging while the other maker has no such obligation.
IIRC, similar labels were in use in California several decades ago (“may contain carcinogenics”). Consumers viewed the uselessness of such labels as more of a joke than a serious problem.
If some group of consumers are willing to pay a premium for foods that do not have a “may contain GMO’s” label, I don’t have a problem with that free market. Even if that group is large enough to reduce the economy’s overall nutrition/cost ratio, it would just be another of a variety of inefficiencies due to consumer ignorances.
The question is whether or not it’s a valid reason. I would maintain that it is when you’re talking about something that’s being done to assuage baseless fears.
It’s not the same as soy, lactose, and gluten. We know which foodstuffs contain those things. Soy contains soy. Wheat and some other grains contain gluten. Milk contains lactose. A manufacturer knows if he’s adding any of those things. Plus, I’m pretty sure that all of those things can be detected by lab tests. There is no general test for GMO.
Flour, sugar, grains, etc. may or may not be GMO and, since highly processed products like flour and sugar contain no genes, there’s no way to know other than to take the word of the supplier, who has to take the word of his sources, etc.
“Bedfellows”? I’ve never heard of Mike Adams and I’ve never quoted Alex Jones on anything except maybe to ridicule his complete insanity, so your claim that they are “bedfellows” of mine is false and ridiculous. You, OTOH,just recently quoted Bjorn Lomborg who you must regard as a sterling source of impeccable credentials. You quote him waxing with enthusiastic praise about the introduction of genetically modified golden rice in the Phillipines, and castigating GMO opponents for all the delays, a claim which is almost completely false. You forgot to mention that Lomborg is also a climate “skeptic” and borderline denier who has ranted against climate science using false and specious talking points from the worst of the right-wing playbook; that he actually knows no more about climate change than he does about biotech; that he’s a business prof with a lucrative sideline as a corporate shill; that he’s a proven liar who was hauled in front of a Danish government committee on charges of scientific dishonesty.
With all respect, I think you should pay closer attention to your own actual bedfellows before trying to smear others with allegations about non-existent ones. Some of the statements I’ve made about prudent GMO regulation are mild compared to what’s actually being done in Europe, and some are practically verbatim from the report of the Royal Society of Canada on the regulation of food biotechnology. Neither the EU nor the Royal Society of Canada nor Health Canada to which the report was submitted are followers of Alex Jones, as far as I know. :rolleyes:
Oh, I don’t specifically invoke it unless I see actual instances of it. At present, I’m just criticizing your misleading attempt to portray it as nothing but a quaint archaic practice that has no relevance to today’s world.
