If GMOs are so safe and so healthy...

[leftlibdem420]

Why are they being pushed in secret and with no warnings to consumers. How is knowing that any different than knowing how much salt or fat is in the food that I eat?

[Berlum]

1. GMO = occult Genetically Mutant foodlike crapola

[bluestate10]

8. That is an over statement. We have had GM crops for centuries.

You can't eat a tomato, or ear of corn, or soybean, or wheat product that doesn't have GM in it's lineage - regardless of where you buy it from. What past practitioners did that current one are resisting is explain how and why their crops were modified. There have been some noble reasons for modifying crops, in several cases doing so prevented or stopped mass death from starvation.

[Cleita]

12. If they are so wonderful then, why do Monsanto and Dupont et al

fight every attempt to get GMO crops and seeds label as such? We wanted such a law in CA and they spent millions convincing Californians that it would hurt the small farmer, which is not true.

[Berlum]

16. For centuries? Bwaa ha ha ha. That's the standard corporate spin on mutant food

No one who has been paying attention to what Big Ag is occultly doing to 'food' to would swallow corporate line of disinformation -- long ago debunked as PR piffle.

"LIE #2 - GMO FOODS ARE SAFE.

Prop. 37 is airing ads produced by the same companies that told us DDT and Agent Orange were safe ...

Now they are telling us GMOs are safe. They say "The World Health Organization, American Medical Association, National Academy of Sciences and other respected medical and health organizations all conclude that genetically engineered foods are safe.”

This is an absolute lie.

The American Medical Association and World Health Orbanization/United Nations have said mandatory safety studies should be required -- a standard that the U.S. fails to meet. Despite scientific warnings, the U.S. federal government requires no safety studies for genetically engineered foods, and no long-term human health studies have been conducted.

A National Academy of Sciences report concludes that products of genetic engineering technology “carry the potential for introducing unintended compositional changes that may have adverse effects on human health.”

http://venice.patch.com/blog_posts/debunking-the-big-money-lies-about-labeling-gmos-genetically-engineered-frankenstein-food-prop-37

[laundry_queen]

17. GMO in this case means direct DNA manipulation which didn't exist until the 70's. JFC.

That is the most commonly understood usage of GM. Equating modern GM crops to hybridization is ridiculous. BTW - there is some research that hybridization and lack of genetic diversity LED to a lot of those mass crop failures. Don't think it won't happen again, with less genetic diversity in our crops than ever before.

[KT2000]

2. Remember Anderson

the consulting firm that got into trouble? They designed the business plan for Monsanto. Flood the market before people object.

Also - why will no insurance company cover the industry? There are too many unknowns and the risks are high. Therefore the US taxpayer has become the insurer.

[leftlibdem420]

3. In theory, I have no problem with GMOs.

It's just a more radical form of the crossbreeding that has been done to create many of the vegetables that we (hopefully) eat on a regular basis. I just don't like that it's being done without the appropriate consumer advisories and regulatory processes.

[bluestate10]

6. I am close to you camp. GMO crops have been in our food supply for centuries.

But past practitioners publicly owned up to and explained how and why they modified a particular crop.

[Occulus]

15. You are intentionally being disingenuous and purposely trying to confuse the issues

Selective breeding IS NOT the form of genetic modification under discussion and you know it.

[peacebird]

7. Cross breeding plants is one thing, splicing animal genes into veggies is another. I do not

Trust monsanto. I want to know what I choose to feed my family is gmo free.

[byeya]

11. Many seem to be conflating GMO with cross breeding. Misleading and probably dishonest.

There's no way I am aware of to get animal DNA into a plant crop by cross breeding.

Teosinte is the wild origin of Corn(Indian maize) and it had traits that were selected for by the original Americans so that it became the food and silage we are familiar with. Popcorn was even developed. But there was no extraneous genetic material injected into the genome at any point. That's genetic modification by modern science and not traditional breeding for desired traits.

[roody]

4. Monsanto & Co. should be extolling

GMO food in slick advertisements.

[bluestate10]

5. Part of the reason may be tradition.

Crops have been genetically modified for centuries. It is impossible to find a food crop today that doesn't have genetic modification in it's lineage, that includes so called "organic" seeds.

But historical genetic modification involved transfer of pollen from one variety of a plant to another. This is how the first drought resistant corn was produced, and how every type of tomato that is sold at the grocer or farmer's markets were produced. Transfer of pollen resulted in genetic modification in the resulting plant, by adding a gene that it didn't have or adding a gene that caused suppression of one or more genes.

What is new is gene splicing where scientists actively alter genes in a matter of seconds.

I am not one that get excited about GMO crops, mostly because some version of what is being done has happened for a long time and the results are part of our food supply. What I do think is important is companies that are buying genetically modified seed state that as part of the information available on the labels of the products they they ultimately produce - in this case, people that don't want to consume newly genetically modified crops can instead choose from the many that were genetically modified centuries or decades ago.

[Cleita]

13. Then why are GMO crop producers afraid of being labeled as such? n/t

[byeya]

14. I don't think so. Creating a plant that is resistant to a herbicide by either adding genetic

material from an unrelated organism or my gene splicing is not breeding for selected traits. These new, commercial, traits would be impossible to have expressed in a mature plant through selecting the best cultivars for propagation.

[Igel]

9. I assume this is salmon related.

It's taken a couple of decades, give or take, to get over the regulartory hurdles.

The recommendation to approve the fast-grow salmon was written and submitted well over a year ago. All the scientific info, safety info, etc., etc. All the science-based ts were crossed and is were dotted. What was left were the politics.

For the last 30 years I've disliked when politics gets in the way of science. I can understand it when there's a bit of regulation and it's an important campaign issue or when there's a huge outcry over it because regulation in a democratic society ultimately has to serve social goals, even if it does need to be weighed against private interests.

I haven't seen this in this case. Instead I see people in the same party that decried political manipulation of scientific reports when it suited them and demand scientific manipulation of scientitif reports when it suits them. (As opposed to before, when the other party demanded manipulation of scientific reports because it suited them, but now decry political manipulation of scientific reports because it suits them.)

[Nye Bevan]

10. When I was a kid the only seedless grapes were tiny and green.

Now you can get huge seedless grapes, and red ones too.

Is this GM food? Are you worried that these grapes could cause cancer?