Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

There is nothing more dangerous that screwing with our food supply without appropriate caution.

We've... been doing this since basically day one, poke thing with stick till blood comes out. GMO stuff isn't even a particularly notable thing regarding the amount of ways we [have screwed, screw, will screw] with our food supply without appropriate (or any, nevermind appropriate) caution. Small fish, really...

I'd say it hasn't killed us yet, but all those lovely signs showing things are ramping up to give a go at doing just that and, well. Yeah

Which isn't to say throw caution to the winds or whatever, but singling GMO stuff out when all the other crap we do doesn't get similar scrutiny just. Smells funny? I guess. Unless it's part of a wider "stop fucking with things like idiots" program, which yeah, I can get behind that.

[Baffler]

I am generally okay with genetically modifying plants and livestock (humans are another matter). And companies like Monsanto have been pretty predatory in their business practices. But the problem is, they are not entirely in the wrong. These things aren't exactly cheap to develop, and they won't do any more research into them if they can't make money on them: they are a business at the end of the day after all. Now, GMO's will be necessary to feed everyone sometime in the near future, whatever opposition may exist now. If people don't trust corporations to do the work on these things governments will probably pick it up sooner rather than later. I, for one, don't think that the future of the world's food supply should be entrusted to the fickle whims of Congress.

I never thought I would find myself defending Monsanto... I've got some thinking to do.

[10ebbor10]

It's a defoliant, not a pesticide.

Could qualify for herbicide, I suppose.

Point is, there's no reason to assume that GMO's will have significant health effects. Natural mutation happens all the time, and humans are pretty good at manipulating plants. Genetic engineering is just an way to speed that up. Besides, it's been proven that the current way of farming is pretty bad for the environment (100% organic would be worse). GMO's could be part of the solution.

There is a reason to assume that GMO's may have significant health effects when they are splicing pesticides into our food supply.

Note: The same organic pesticides that can be found in many ground bacteria, and are used on bio food and the like. You can't splice in artificial, chemical pesticides, because well, ... ((Besides, there are many GMO plants that don't involve pesticides))

There is reason to assume that GMO's may have significant health effects when they add human hormone analogs to staple food supplies (this also goes towards natural organisms, like the overuse of soy). It is dangerous in the extreme because the long term effects can take years or decades for the negative effects to manifest after the entire human population has been exposed.

Doesn't count for GMO as a whole though. Which is a problem I have with many of the anti-GMO crowd. They take a problem that is part of the modern farming agriculture, and can be applied to GMO's, then blame the technology.

There is nothing more dangerous that screwing with our food supply without appropriate caution. Such products must be labeled for informed consent. Such products can not be allowed to infect natural stocks. Such products can not be weaponized for intellectual property extortion.

They can't infect natural stocks. The most popular GMO technology is hybridization. Side effects are that second generation seeds don't have the effects of the first generation seeds. (Ie, they can't infect, and they can't be reused.) Intellectual property is not a problem of GMO's.

I'm not suggesting banning GMO food, but it needs to be as stringently regulated as medicine, perhaps more so because the potential number of people being exposed to risk is the entire human population instead of a select group suffering from an already harmful condition.

Medicine isn't regulated. At all. With the amount of money going around there, they just throw studies at the wall till they got the results they want.

((Also, GMO's are heavily regulated. Why do you think they do all the tests.))

[GlyphGryph]

There is a reason to assume that GMO's may have significant health effects when they are splicing pesticides into our food supply. There is reason to assume that GMO's may have significant health effects when they add human hormone analogs to staple food supplies (this also goes towards natural organisms, like the overuse of soy).[...]
I'm not suggesting banning GMO food, but it needs to be as stringently regulated as medicine, perhaps more so because the potential number of people being exposed to risk is the entire human population instead of a select group suffering from an already harmful condition.

I think treating GMO as some huge mono-product is ludicrous. There are more and less dangerous things that can be done with GMO - it would be like someone advocating that a new type of candy made out of well understood ingredients needs to be regulated as well as schedule II drugs. It's incredibly ill-suited to effective discussion of the topic at hand. The rice destroyed had none of the potentially dangerous concerns you listed, they have a single well understood change - why should they have to undergo such strict limitations? Why does it matter so much, in this particular case, that this follow all of the regulations you prescribe?

What does labeling it "GMO" actually accomplish other than stigmatizing food products that are safer than their organic cousins in many situations? Wouldn't we be better off labeling it based on the actual risk? So this one might be "Genetically modified to produce non-harmful vitamins" or "naturally resistant to certain species of insect, dangers to humans unlikely but possible in long term" while organic food would have to be labeled "uses excessive amounts of pesticide to grow known to cause health problems in humans".

A "GMO label" is idiocy - if you're going to label things, label them based on the actual risk involved with what's happened, don't label them with a meaningless stereotype irrelevant to the actual risk involved - and don't make exceptions for foods that are poisoned 100% "naturally" either.

[Frumple]

I never thought I would find myself defending Monsanto... I've got some thinking to do.

Ehn. Just decouple Monsanto (The Legitimately Evil) from the potential benefit of GMO in your head. GMO can be good without making M(TLE) less scum. You can fund GMO research and run GMO companies without being most of the downsides of capitalism distilled into a single entity. Pretty sure there's a fair few trying just that, really.

As for th'government control, well... better fickle than outright malicious, perhaps? Monsanto (TLE)'s the kind of corp I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see breed specific diseases into their product and then monopolize the cure (or some equivalent thereof). Bloody bastards really do try pretty hard to make themselves a caricature, some days

Though I guess M(TLE) being what they are is somewhat tangential to the larger GMO subject. Eh.

[XXSockXX]

A "GMO label" is idiocy - if you're going to label things, label them based on the actual risk involved with what's happened, don't label them with a meaningless stereotype irrelevant to the actual risk involved - and don't make exceptions for foods that are poisoned 100% "naturally" either.

We may be the masters of excessive food labeling, but I really don't see why you wouldn't label GMO based food as such.

[GlyphGryph]

Because it's not informational. Most GMO is the same exact stuff that would NOT be labeled GMO, just be far more expensive to produce without the label. The end result is identical, because the vast majority of GMO is very mundane applications of what used to be done with targeted radiation, breeding and hybridization.

When you can have two products, identical in every way, but one would require a label and the other would not, I would call that a pointless label - the label should clarify any actual issues that might exist with the food (like if it's been crossed, either through GMO or classic hybridization, with a plant that can cause allergic reactions, and there's a risk the result might cause the same in this new product).

In fact, a GMO label would be actively harmful in informing the public, because most of the public doesn't understand GMO. It would be like labeling organic food as the product of extended exposure to nuclear radiation - true, but you're conveying things that will led the public at large to draw false conclusions.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah, I agree.  The term GMO doesn't really say much, but carries all these connotations.  It's pretty annoying.

[GlyphGryph]

If you're going to require labeling, require labeling that is actually clear and relevant, not labeling that spreads faleshoods.

(Of course, if it weren't for all the lies certain groups spread about GMO, a GMO label wouldn't be a problem, but most of the stuff they say, just like most of the stuff Nadaka has said, don't actual apply to the bulk of GMO foods)

[XXSockXX]

Actually I just saw that we do have a label for non-GMO based food. It is not mandatory (yet) though. I knew it  . We have labels for everything. I can basically tell if the hen that laid my egg had a bad day or not...

[GlyphGryph]

But what I'm saying is, if you're going to have labels, it's probably best to use labels that convey actual legitimately useful information that people can use to make wiser decisions. A GMO label fails at that - if you can have identical products, one with the label and one without, you're not using a label that conveys actual information.

It's about maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio - adding more noise weakens the signal and leads to less-informed consumers.

[XXSockXX]

You're right. Just where I come from basically nobody would question the need for such a label. We have so many labels I doubt anybody reads all of them. And how useful the information is is also debatable. A few years ago we almost got an ample sign label to indicate how (un)healthy the food is...

[Nadaka]

http://news.yahoo.com/u-rights-group-urges-nobel-peace-prize-wikileaks-143943786.html

I approve.

[alway]

You're right. Just where I come from basically nobody would question the need for such a label. We have so many labels I doubt anybody reads all of them. And how useful the information is is also debatable. A few years ago we almost got an ample sign label to indicate how (un)healthy the food is...

Pretty much. If we really wanted maximum consumer awareness of what they were purchasing, we would put everything in identical grey tins with nothing but a serial number to tell the milk from the Drain-o. Then everyone would do their research before going to the supermarket.

As it is, the easiest way to tell if something is unhealthy is to look for 'BUY THIS BECAUSE IT IS HEALTHY' monikers. Because those are usually way worse than all the food surrounding them. To find overpriced stuff, look for the label 'ORGANIC.'

[Solifuge]

http://news.yahoo.com/u-rights-group-urges-nobel-peace-prize-wikileaks-143943786.html

I approve.

Agreed. It's not only a good move for the Nobel committee from a PR perspective, but might help to counter the whole Police State mentality the states have been shifting ever closer toward.