Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food 334
gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times:
"For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated. The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a probable November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture. Tens of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on the election showdown. It pits consumer groups and the organic food industry, both of which support mandatory labeling, against more conventional farmers, agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto and many of the nation's best-known food brands like Kellogg's and Kraft."
It is labeled if you know what to look for (Score:4, Interesting)
It isn't all that hard to tell if the food you are eating contains genetically engineered ingredients. Corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya are the only crops that have been genetically engineered, Due to the way bulk amounts of commodity crops like corn and soy are processed, if something has them one of those ingredients in it and was produced in a country that uses GE crops (like the US, Canada, Argentina, or Brazil), and is not labeled otherwise, then it is a very safe bet that it is GE. This is not very hard to remember.
The problem with mandatory labeling in many. While it is easy to claim 'right to know' the reality is a bit fuzzier if you take the time to think about it. First, we should not require regulations based on who screams the loudest, or based on simple wants. Millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, vegans, ect. have dietary restrictions, but rather than demand that food processors cater to them, they go through the market, create demand for food labeled kosher or halal or vegan, and buy that food, or simply do their homework, for example, calling to find out if the gelatin in a product came from pigs, or if the 'natural flavors' of a product were animal based. There is nothing wrong with them doing their thing, but they do not try to impose their beliefs on others either.
the second problem I have with it is that it is inconsistent and uninformative. If I say I modified my computer, what does that tell you? Nothing. If I say something is genetically engineered, what does that tell you? Does it tell you how it was changed or what gene was inserted? Nope. Furthermore, there are many ways that we alter the genetics of crops. Selective breeding, hybridization of inbred lines, marker assisted breeding, wide crossing & embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, mutagenesis, induced polyploidy. There's also ways that modify the plant without affecting the genetics (grafting and tissue culture) and a host inputs that are applied to plants that you could inquire about (including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, and various plant growth regulators). To single out one thing is very inconsistent.
So, where is the 'right to know' if something was produced with mutagenesis, or to know if rice has the sd-1 gene or a tomato has the Ph3 gene, or to know if something was treated with a synthetic plant growth regulator to thin the fruit? Fact is there are too many things to possible be listed that you could know, so only important thing (like ingredients and allergens) are labeled. You want something else labeled? that's fine, do what the Jews, Muslims, and vegans do and create a free market demand for it (rmember, there is the organic label, and certification from the Non-GMO Project), but if you can't create enough market demand, don't go to the government demanding special treatment. Could you imagine the torches and pitchforks if a Muslim group said that they could not be bothered to read the Quran and find out what was Halal and Haram so they demanded mandaotry labeling?
What this whole thing really reminds me of is the 'Evolution is only a theory' stickers you see people push for in textbooks. Sure, it is true, evolution is 'only' a theory, just like a 'Contains GMOs' sticker would be true, but you know damn well that the purpose of such stickers is to case doubt on legitimate science by preying on the general public's misunderstandings and ignorance for political or ideological reasons, not to educate.
Lebel everything genetically modified (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with labeling things genetically modified especially with processed foods like pretty much anything that comes in a box or can... is that it tends to be mixed up from lots of sources. So some of it is modified and maybe some of it isn't.
So here's the solution. Write on the side of the can "may contain genetically modified goods"... that would have to put on the side pretty much everything. And that's fine. We can put that next to the nutrition chart.
Then there will be a couple companies that don't use genetically modified food and they'll put a BIG label on the side that says "the reason you're paying 40 percent more for this food is because we used more expensive food and we know we can fleece you for extra"...
Everyone happy now? That is dead simple to arrange and everyone gets what they want and what they deserve. The big companies that are pumping out most of the food we eat don't have to do any extra work. Just put on the label "may include genetically modified food"... and we're done with this stupid controversy.
Re:It is labeled if you know what to look for (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with the situation now is that the FDA has banned producers from labeling their food as GMO-free. Even if a consumer wants to buy GMO-free food, they have no way of knowing because producers aren't allowed to tell them their products are GMO-free. You liken this situation to the specific dietary restrictions of muslims or jews or vegans etc. Well all those groups are allowed to identify products in the supermarket that are labelled as kosher, halal or vegan. This is absolutely not the case with GMO food.
Re:Isn't everything GMO though? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is "natural" GMO acceptable and this not?
1. There are many things they are doing that is not even close to possible via selective breeding.
2. Selective breeding occurs over time, any negative effects (health, environmental) appear gradually (over generations) and can be tracked, studied and mitigated.
Re:It is labeled if you know what to look for (Score:5, Interesting)
Picking corn to use as an example to complain about genetic alterations, now there's an irony. [utah.edu] Do you know how many mutations and genetic alterations are in modern corn varieties (and that's completely ignoring genetic engineering), let alone all the transposons hopping around in there? If I've got, for example, a Country Gentleman sweet corn, a Golden Bantam sweet corn, a Blue Jade sweet corn, and a Ruby Queen sweet corn, just by looking at them you can tell they are obviously genetically different. Is only one corn? By your logic, we shouldn't call anything corn anymore. And why should only changes made by genetic engineering count and not everything else I listed?
Do you know what you get when you add a gene to corn? Corn. It is still corn. It isn't a new species, just a new variety.
Re:Heath effects is a red herring (Score:4, Interesting)
First, genetic engineering is a way of improving a plant. A monoculture is growing all the same thing. these are entirely different concepts. Trying to link the two only makes it look like you don't know the definition of either.
Second, how are Monsanto's seeds wrong? sure, the make Monsanto a profit, but there's nothing wrong with that. The insect resistant ones have feared pretty well, reducing pesticides [pnas.org] and even benefiting farms that don't grow them. [sciencemag.org] The herbicide tolerant ones have, for all their ill will, been environmentally positive [agbioforum.org], having reduced the need for tillage to control weeds (tillage [usda.gov] degrades the soil quality and promotes fertilizer runoff into water systems), reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and replaced harsher herbicides.
Monsanto? Is that why anti-GE groups are protesting the publicly funded Rothamsted GE wheat trial in the UK? Is that why they complain about the Rainbow papaya, Arctic apples, Golden Rice, and BioCassava, or why groups destroyed the GE grapes in French [redgreenandblue.org], GE wheat in Australia [cosmosmagazine.com], GE potatoes in the Netherlands [expatica.com], and GE wheat in the UK [telegraph.co.uk]? It might be true for you, but that is minority thought. You can not play that card while the vast majority of the protest against GE crops is also applied to those that have nothing to do with Monsanto.
Why not create a reverse label? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you cannot force labels on the manipulated foods? Ok, then why not invent a "gene-manipulation free food" label and only grant it to "clean" food? Along with promotion, this can prove to be even more effective since you get to set the standards and make sure that nobody slips past.
Re:Why not create a reverse label? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you cannot force labels on the manipulated foods? Ok, then why not invent a "gene-manipulation free food" label and only grant it to "clean" food? Along with promotion, this can prove to be even more effective since you get to set the standards and make sure that nobody slips past.
Great idea, but that is currently illegal, thanks to the fact that Monsanto basically owns the FDA.
Re:Oh please (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel pretty comfortable calling Leon Kass anti-science, because of the arguments he presented against stem cell research on the President's Council on Bioethics (President Bush, that is). He argued for the "logic of disgust," which was that he could oppose something just because he personally was disgusted by it. Kass also violated the scientific ethos of free and open discussion, by refusing to discuss his ideas in an open forum.
Bush also kicked 2 distinguished scientists off the Presidential Commission, just because they didn't come to the conclusions he wanted. http://chronicle.com/article/Nobel-Laureate-in-Medicine/48714/ [chronicle.com] One of them was Elizabeth Blackburn, who later won a Nobel prize in medicine for her work on telomeres. That's like firing the referee because he didn't give you the calls you wanted, or firing your doctor because you don't like his prognosis. Blackburn was pretty outspoken in denouncing the Bush administration.
Blackburn didn't simply object to the conservative opposition to stem cell research; she objected to the way they did it, by packing a scientific advisory committee and getting rid of the dissenters who disagreed with him. That's not the method of science. Why bother to have a scientific panel if you're going to hand-pick them to give you the results you wanted in the first place?
Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did a lot of things that scientists criticized, and lots of Democrats have a tendency to compromise their principles, but GW Bush was something else. There were editorials in the usually nonpartisan Science magazine about how the Bush Administration's ignorance and defiance of science was unprecedented. It's not often that scientists criticize the people that give them funding. Read Elizabeth Blackburn's articles.