FDA Signs Off On Genetically Modified Salmon Without Labeling (consumerist.com) 514
kheldan writes: Today, in a historic decision, the FDA approved the marketing of genetically-engineered salmon for sale to the general public, without any sort of labeling to indicate to consumers they've been genetically altered. According to the article: "Though the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) gives the FDA the authority to require mandatory labeling of foods if there is a material difference between a GE product and its conventional counterpart, the agency says it is not requiring labeling of these GE fish 'Because the data and information evaluated show that AquAdvantage Salmon is not materially different from other Atlantic salmon.' In this case, the GE salmon use an rDNA construct composed of the growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon under the control of a promoter from another type of fish called an 'ocean pout.' According to the FDA, this tweak to the DNA allows the salmon to grow to market size faster than non-GE farm-raised salmon."
GM producers are shooting themselves in the foot. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm actually strongly in favor of using genetic manipulation to improve foods. But as long as the companies developing the technology continue to treat it as something to be concealed from consumers, how do they expect to win hearts and minds?
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse, there is another issue - the looking in the light scenario:
Cop comes across a guy on his knees under a lamp post. Goes over and asks him what he is doing. Guy says "looking for my car keys." Cop asks "Where exactly where you standing when you lost them. Guy points at a spot 20 ft away, in the dark. Cop says "What are you doing looking for them here?" Guy responds "No way I'll find them in the dark. Here, at least I got a chance.
If you label something, it gives support to the idea that it is important and something to consider. The government has no business doing that for GM foods which it has found to be harmless.
The point is that people use whatever information they can obtain to base their decisions on. If we tell them what is and what is not GM, some people will refuse to buy the GM, even if they are not sure the non-GM is better. Price differentials will create a situation where only the poor get GM food. It might even end up killing the GM industry.
A similar thing has already happened with things like gluten free. 90% of the people buying gluten free products have ZERO issues digesting gluten. They had one bad reaction to a product and some ill-informed superstitious fool told them it was gluten related. So now they avoid gluten. Yes, there are a few people with gluten issues If you don't have celiac disease or at least sensitivity to gluten, gluten is not only fine, it's probably good for you. It's a whole grain and most people don't get enough of that.
The GM people don't want to be pushed into a situation similar to the gluten people - where idiotic superstitious people avoid their product.
The US government is NOT there to help people be superstitious. You want something to be labelled? Prove a negative consequence.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
So maybe they should spend some of the money they're using on concealing GM foods' provenance on you know, marketing all the wonderful properties of GM foods to consumers?
Isn't that how consumer information is supposed to work?
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
The main way that anti-GMO advertisement sways people is the fear of the unknown. All that have to do is say "we don't know it is safe" and they win over any facts that can be brought up. Just look at the anti-vaxers. They have no real evidence that vaccines cause autism but they still sway many people. The main problem is that it is impossible to prove that GMO foods are completely save. The best we can come up with is that all studies show no harm. Proving a negative is very hard if not impossible.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Interesting)
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If a warning label is required for each new bit of technology that tin foil hatted idiots fear in some way, there will be no room left on many packages for the required nutritional statement, weight statement, or ingredients list or the UPC code or even a vague description. A loaf of bread might require a wrapper the size of a 40 gallon garbage bag in twenty years.
Seriously, if every advance in food that someone claims, with not a shred of scientific evidence, is harmful required a warning label, most of th
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
> there will be no room left on many packages for the required nutritional statement, weight statement, or ingredients list
I know that at least the nutritional info and ingredients lists faced huge pushback from corporations that wanted to keep lying about the foods. They pushed back on the transfat labels. They will do anything to prevent you knowing what is in your food. There is no moral defense for that. People have to eat.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Informative)
And I've seen absolutely nothing that makes the case that information should be hidden from consumers. You know consumers, right? They're the ones who pay all the bills for GMOs and GMO research.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4, Informative)
If there is no "substantive difference" between the two products, then how the hell are they awarded patents on them?
Re: GM producers are shooting themselves in the f (Score:3, Informative)
They have proved it. Over and over and over. You stupid motherfucker.
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They don't need to prove anything, just label their produce properly.
It is labeled properly. There is no evidence whatsoever that it is unsafe, and there is no reason for the government to require it to be labeled. Hundreds of products specifically say they do not contain GMO, so any consumer that wants to avoid GMO products can do so. But they have no right to push their anti-science hysteria onto others.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Interesting)
Nor is there any real evidence that it is safe. History is littered with food additives that were assumed to be safe because there was no evidence that they were unsafe, only to find out later, after those products were broadly distributed, that they were causing harm. The difference is that in the rest of the world, the governments protect people from that by demanding safety testing, whereas here, the FDA just adds them to the "generally recognized as safe" list and hopes for the best.
Case in point, sodium benzoate is on the GRAS list, despite breaking down in the presence of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) into benzene, a known carcinogen. And several soft drink brands were pulled from the shelves for this very reason.
For another example, red dye #2 was legal for 70 years before a Russian study and a subsequent FDA follow-up both tied it to cancer risk.
The burden of proof should be on the food industry to show beyond reasonable doubt that all food additives, including genetic modifications, result in food that is sa
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They did show that the genetic modification resulted in food that is safe, to the satisfaction of the FDS.
I've said this before -- if you want labels to differentiate, then add a label to non-GMO food (and obviously, enforce truth-in-advertising laws on that). That's not something that a producer of GMO food can reasonably lobby to prevent.
To justify requiring somebody else to label something on their product, there should be some reason that this information is particularly more important than, say, the p
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Because labeling like this drives up the cost of food for everyone and not just the people who are paranoid. Many people will not buy food with too many labels on them so the less expensive GMO foods will go away.
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No, I don't know if a specific GMO modification is beneficial to the human species and the global environment or not. Yes, some people are absolute party-line types about GMOs (for or against) just as they are about political parties. That's not a reason to avoid giving the rest of us some information.
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We can turn that same argument around and claim that the main way GMO manufacturers are swaying people is by concealing facts. Which of course they are, and anyone can verify that fact. Look at the hundred plus million dollars spent to not label products as GMO in just 2012-2013 (about 30 million in CA alone in 2012). Look at what the big players like Monsanto and Bayer pay for lobbying each year.
People want to believe that Genetically modified foods are going to be a savoir. The companies producing the
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Sorry but I disagree. The only fact GMO producers are hiding is that GMO is in most foods. It is an irrelevant fact as GMOs have not been shown to cause harm and have higher yields which increase supply. The anti-GMO are trumpeting "fear the unknown" There is GMO in that food. They can't prove it is harmless. Don't eat it. "The GMO producers are saying don't fear the unknown. As far as science can tell, and many studies have been done, GMOs are not harmful so labeling them is not required. The positions are
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GMOs have not been shown to cause harm and have higher yields which increase supply.
And with what do they increase the supply? If the soil in which the crop grows has the same level of trace minerals, an increased supply means a decreased mineral content for your GMO product. In some cases, industry documentation has perceived this as an advantage: you'll have to eat more to get your nutrients! You can increase the supply of soup forever if you just add water ... but it's not the same. I want to know how my food was grown to make my own determinations about nutrient content, and if I h
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I'm not seeing a problem here. You give them the information and *they* make the choice about what *they* want to eat.
Hide the information, you're making the choice for them. I guess that's OK though because you're soooo much smarter than them. Or so your
Re: GM producers are shooting themselves in the fo (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. Just what I want - nutjobs deciding what information to hide from me about things I eat. Is it because they know what's best for me? Is it because they will make more money tricking me into purchasing something I normally wouldn't? Or is it because they don't want to upset my feeble brain by causing critical thinking in it?
Treat me like a rational human that is capable of making choices that benefit me or I won't buy any of your stuff.
Re: GM producers are shooting themselves in the fo (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that many people are not "rational humans".
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The problem is that many people are not "rational humans".
Especially the ones who do all the grocery shopping. *ducks*
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
"If we tell them what is and what is not GM, some people will refuse to buy the GM, even if they are not sure the non-GM is better."
Well, some others will choose to buy the GM, even if they are not sure the GM is better. Stupidity works both ways, you know?
I was under the impression that all this fuss about "free market" required "perfectly informed parties", right?
"It might even end up killing the GM industry"
And favoring the GM industry might even end up killing the Organic Foods industry. Didn't know it was some kind of government mandate to favor a side of an industry against any other.
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You were not. Does the food that you purchase identify the conglomerate which entirely owns the folksy subsidiary whos name appears on the product? Does it identify the wage scale of the workers who gathered, made, and/or packaged it? Do your canned foods even say "lined with BPA?"
You never had that impression. You're merely dragging out a trope of long-disproven economic theory in an attempt t
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Interesting)
That is a good point, and in the age of smartphones, we should be able to solve this finally: require food to be labeled with a bar or QR code assigned by the FDA or USDA (whoever is the appropriate regulator), which will be used by independent information brokers and inspectors maintaining a database of all of the information about all of the items. The databases themselves should be curated for correctness, but no valid information should be disallowed. The appropriate regulator should make available inspection information on each product, indexed by the same codes.
With unlimited "packaging space" available, GM products, for instance, should be able to include why the product was GM'd and what benefits or harmful traits it is proven to express.
I suspect people will be more willing to buy genetically modified foods that are more nutritious than their "natural counterparts" and will probably also be happy to save money on foods that have been modified to have higher yields and be less costly to produce.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
"Does the food that you purchase identify the conglomerate which entirely owns the folksy subsidiary whos name appears on the product?"
No. Is that something good for me? Absolutly not. I'd be so much better served if it would be easier to know and track where the money comes from/to. Again, all this fuss about "free market" requires "perfectly informed parties".
"You never had that impression."
Oh, yes, certainly yes! I had so much that impression that I know for certain how far is our market from a free one. I'm not glad for the market to be even more opaque.
"You're merely dragging out a trope of long-disproven economic theory"
Which one? That it's better for me to make my decision in a properly informed fashion than not? When that came disproven?
"in an attempt to require that a food product include a politically-driven disclosure that the producer does not wish to use."
Disclosure, by its very definition, is not something that the producer wants at all. The consumer, on the other hand...
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Does the food that you purchase identify the conglomerate which entirely owns the folksy subsidiary whos name appears on the product? Does it identify the wage scale of the workers who gathered, made, and/or packaged it? Do your canned foods even say "lined with BPA?"
You never had that impression. You're merely dragging out a trope of long-disproven economic theory in an attempt to require that a food product include a politically-driven disclosure that the producer does not wish to use.
You bring up a good point and it's impossible to include every thing that every person might want labelled. The best solution might be to just require truth in advertising. If a company thinks that it is good for sales to say that it is GM or is not GM then they should be able to label it as such so that if it matters to a consumer then they can look for the label. Then consumers can go after individual companies asking for labels like "GM free" or "BPA free" or "made in the USA". Don't require it but r
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Informative)
A similar thing has already happened with things like gluten free. 90% of the people buying gluten free products have ZERO issues digesting gluten. They had one bad reaction to a product and some ill-informed superstitious fool told them it was gluten related. So now they avoid gluten. Yes, there are a few people with gluten issues If you don't have celiac disease or at least sensitivity to gluten, gluten is not only fine, it's probably good for you. It's a whole grain and most people don't get enough of that.
Was with you up until the last sentence. I've still never heard a reason for gluten free being popular among non-celiac sufferers, so for now I'm assuming it's wilful ignorance. However...
Gluten is the combination of two proteins which naturally occur in wheat and to a lesser extent a few other grains (rye, um, can't think of another one actually...) But there's just as much gluten available in highly refined bleached white flour as there is in whole grains. The parts that are removed to make whole grain flour into white flour contain no gluten at all. Oh, and since gluten is the majority of the protein in wheat, removing it leaves you with something which is almost pure carbs. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on which way the trend winds are blowing, I guess.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4, Insightful)
The US government is NOT there to help people be superstitious. You want something to be labelled? Prove a negative consequence.
And yet, it becomes that much more difficult to prove something, if you don't have labels to begin with.
For example, if you want to prove that GM salmons, that grow up more quickly, will actually have accumulated less harmful mercury than other "older" non-modified salmons from the same area. In that case, you could expect the full cooperation and perhaps even some funding from the business who engineered the salmon.
However, now try to study the longterm health effects of GM salmons on real people. Can you survey people about what they eat? Probably not. If those people don't know what they're eating, then they can't really tell you what they ate. And while it may not be completely impossible to create a study where you could control for the fact that GM salmons aren't labeled, it does make it much more difficult to do so in the end.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4)
> You want something to be labelled? Prove a negative consequence.
Man, this is such a fuckdiculous standard it is unreal. Especially because the guys who want to prove it safe have huge financial motivation, and anyone trying to prove the opposite just wants to eat food because they purchased a lifetime subscription to a digestive tract. Gods forbid they know what goes in there, right?
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4, Insightful)
No, innocent until proven guilty is a pretty good standard. Do you have evidence that GE crops are intrinsically dangerous? Because I have plenty of reason to think otherwise. Saying there might be some potential but as of yet unknown unknown is as compelling as warning me about the invisible pink unicorn.
Especially because the guys who want to prove it safe have huge financial motivation and anyone trying to prove the opposite just wants to eat food because they purchased a lifetime subscription to a digestive tract.
Really, you mean to say there isn't a multi-billion dollar organic industry out there, and plenty of professional activists staking their careers on making noise? And you mean to imply all those in academic positions who work with GE are part of some money making plot? That's bullshit and you know it.
That's your opinion and you have a right to it but 'innocent until proven guilty' does not apply to consumers buying food products. If I don't want to eat Broccoli, Tomatoes, etc... or GM crops for that matter I do not need to justify why I don't want to eat them to a judge and jury in a court of law. I just don't want to eat those products... period! What gives you and the GE industry the right to deprive people of the ability to read a label and make the choice not to eat what you are producing for whatever reason seems best to them? I understand your dilemma and the source of your anger, the GM industry wants to make GM food indistinguishable form the non-GM variety by preventing labelling of GM foods from becoming a legal requirement and here are organic food producers voluntarily labelling their foods non-GM and cutting into the GM industries profit margins. That must be frustrating, but calling organic food producers or people who don't want to eat GM foods names is not going to help you, it just makes you look embittered and angry.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
> The problem is that the anti-GM people are not logical.
Doesn't matter. If you have to lie to them, you are in the wrong.
Also, this nation was founded in many ways on religion- even the Deists count to some degree- so we already live in a nation full of irrational people.
There's no law against it. And you certainly can't lie to people because they believe in the wrong sky monkey. So why because they want to avoid GM foods?
If you have to lie, you're in the wrong. It's just that simple.
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Doesn't matter. If you have to lie to them, you are in the wrong.
Nobody's lying to them. The label says salmon, and the package contains salmon. There's no lie there.
A lie would be if they labeled it as "GMO free" when it was not.
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Nobody is trying to mislead anyone here
really?
they don't want to label it because they fear consumers may be hesitant to purchase it, hurting their profits, so their solution is to keep consumers ignorant and prevent them from even knowing whether it is or isn't... ...but that's not trying to mislead someone by omitting a piece of information that may influence a consumers decision?
Once you start relying on FDA.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bisphenol in plastics was only banned recently, while scientists were bringing information about BPA more than one decade. Glyphosates.... Some countries banned Glyphosate (roundup), yet our FDA does not want to piss-off Monsanto. I bet that in ten years Roundup will be announced as cancerogenic, together with the Roundup resistant crops. There were also thalidomides, DDT, mercury based ointments, vaginal mesh, quaaludes, asbestos, Vioxx, and multiple other things where "highly informed officials", having "authority", have subsequently banned products due to real health concerns.
Long story short, FDA is not really good at balancing between corporate interests and their direct mandate (protect health). Let's not get started at the vaccination issues.The FDA problem is minor though.
The problem starts when some people within our own population feel entitled to opine about others and impose their own opinions on others on the pretense that other people are less educated. And such people insist that others follow their beliefs. GMO Salmon is one of them. Irrespective whether concerns are rational or irrational, people have a right to know everything there is to know about the products for one reason alone: if something goes wrong people will not be able to sue the government, and there is little point in litigating fish farm in Panama.
I will personally stop buying salmon.... for 30 years, just to be on the safe side.
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The majority of that is a reaction to companies such as Monsanto who acted in a way to inspire that paranoia and confirm it in a few cases. Sadly the tool is blamed instead of the misuser of the tool so the entire thing is branded as dangerous and those in politics have listened for when it comes to publicly funded projects. That has killed off potentially world-changing projects such as vacc
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The problem is that the anti-GM people are not logical.
Quit building strawmen, please. Also, you're assuming that every company and corporation on the planet that creates GMO foods (and now food animals) has people's best interests first and foremost, and not profit, and you're also assuming that they're utterly flawless and nigh-unto-omniscent when it comes to testing and checking the end product for safety. In the case of this salmon it might be safe, the FDA took 25 years to approve it, and that might be long enough to see if there are any bad effects from t
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That's what I never understood about GMO claims of sterility (terminator gene, etc)... How can they be certain their genes breed true 100% of the time? Individual organisms undergo natural mutations /even/ if they are produced by a genetic engineering process.
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As it stands, I should expect to get something from GM food. The appeal for GM food producers includes better quality, easier to handle, and/or cheaper to produce. In turn, I should get better quality/cheaper food.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, but that would cut in to their *profits!*
The thing to remember here is of course these Salmon will be significantly cheaper to produce.
Will they be qualitatively different? of course! faster grown species are always noticeably different.
Their trick of course is they will market them as the original species, which they now are not. Just require them
to be marketed under a new name...
Oh, and if you think GM labeling will ever get anywhere in the US, good luck with that, it would cut in to profits.
The dream of the GM growers is lower production costs for the same selling prices, nothing more, nothing less.
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Fixed that for you. As if it was ever any different in farming, light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, or even services.
The price of a thing is not proportional to production costs. The price of a thing is established by a balance between supply and demand. If you as a producer can cut your costs, you still charge what the market will bear. The only thing that will drop what you charge is gr
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
I see where you wanted to go, but I have to nitpick a bit.
The price of a thing is established by a balance between supply and demand.
I'm not sure where you live, but there are absolutely zero free markets on planet Earth. Over the last 40 years prices have moved further toward taking people for everything possible and giving the least possible. That is what monopolization and deregulation (legalizing bribery) has done. If you believe you live in a free market, you have never attempted to own a business. In fact you have no idea about the history of Microsoft, BP, Standard Oil, Chiquita, Dole, Monsanto, etc.. etc...
You're not going to create a "new species" by inserting one gene and a promoter.
I find it really odd that people have such selective memory and comprehension ability. When it suits people to call it a new species they do, but in this case people play dumb. How many birds have such a minor difference from a relative that you can't detect it without DNA but we call them different species? Oh, we have lots of those. Then there is this thing called the "Killer Bee". You may have heard of it, but then again... The original intent was to make farming honey very effective and efficient, safer and more profitable. That was not even genetic modification, but cross breeding which caused that one. Even though the intent was altruistic, look what happened?
You want to tell me that the Frankenfish is safe (sorry, I heard the "News" call it that and got a laugh) I'll agree. For now it's safe. We generally don't find out otherwise until decades later that things we did were harmful. That's the way progression works. You don't have to like it, but to deny reality is idiotic.
Just like differences in farm raised versus wild, frozen versus refrigerated versus fresh etc., none of which are required to be labeled, it's all sold under a name
Reductio ad absurdum, and a flat out lie. If I buy ice cream and it has peanuts in it, the label has to have peanuts included in the ingredient list (and in many cases a big ole warning label). If it does not, the manufacturer will be shut down and sued. If I purchase sausage and it's 20% pork 80% beef, it's labelled that way. See the previous. Nobody has said we need GM fish to label itself for anything other than what it is. It is not a Coho Salmon, it's a genetically modified Salmon. Give it a fancy name, like Bob's Salmon if you want. It should however be distinguished from the natural fish.
It is a fact that bad things happen, even with the best intent. Why the hell would anyone attempt to hide what this is? Why the hell would anyone not demand such labeling. Look, if you want to be the first guy eating that cool looking Mushroom we just found, more power to ya. I'd rather make sure you are not dead after a few meals before I try it.
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Ah, but that would cut in to their *profits!*
The thing to remember here is of course these Salmon will be significantly cheaper to produce.
Will they be qualitatively different? of course! faster grown species are always noticeably different.
Their trick of course is they will market them as the original species, which they now are not. Just require them
to be marketed under a new name...
A new name for faux salmon? May I suggest salmonella?
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then subsidized prices of goods to cut through the FUD
That has worked so well on the vaccine front where people are literally dying because they believe the FUD. /sarcasm
Where will this subsidy money come from?
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I'm actually strongly in favor of using genetic manipulation to improve foods. But as long as the companies developing the technology continue to treat it as something to be concealed from consumers, how do they expect to win hearts and minds?
If any medical effect whatever from genetic modification were to show up in the fish, it would be labeled, just as we label for salt, sugar, and allergens.
Re:GM producers are shooting themselves in the foo (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm actually strongly in favor of using genetic manipulation to improve foods. But as long as the companies developing the technology continue to treat it as something to be concealed from consumers, how do they expect to win hearts and minds?
I don't see what all the hoopla is about. We don't need GMO labeling when there's already a free, voluntary alternative: NON-GMO labeling. When I go to the store, I pretty much assume that any product I buy contains GMOs unless a product specifically says on the label that it doesn't contain GMOs. Crazy, I know. What the anti-GMO crowd is hoping to do is scare people who don't know and most likely don't care if food is GMO or not.
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When I go to the store, I pretty much assume that any product I buy contains GMOs unless a product specifically says on the label that it doesn't contain GMOs.
Actually, only a minority of the species in cultivation are genetically engineered. Corn (mostly field corn, but some sweet corn, and no popcorn), soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, papaya (from Hawai'i only), summer squash, certain apples if you can find them (labeled as Arctic apples), and soon potatoes (labeled as Innate potatoes). In terms of processed produces, most things have some form of the above in them, however,
This is what gets me about the push for labeling. I just told anyone who wan
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[Citation] [lmgtfy.com]
Was that meant to be helpful, or misleading or a very subtle but clever statement about the GM debate?
The top two hits are in order: ... [naturalsociety.com]
FDA's new regulations won't allow non-GMO, GMO-free label [non-gmoreport.com]
Huge Victory: USDA Introduces Official Non-GMO Label
The top hit is a 2001 article about something that never happened. The second hit is of course correct - there is even a seal [nongmoproject.org].
It's truely amazing the non-GMO nutters have managed to keep that first hit at the top for 14 years. They must want it to be true so muc
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What regulatory body enforces what "Non-GMO" means and what the punishment will be for mislabeling?
The FTC under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The USDA regulates the meaning of the word "organic," so they might have authority to regulate "non-gmo" but I'm not entirely sure on that.
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"They might".
They also might not care until there are enough complaints, and there is almost no way to tell if something labeled "Non-GMO" really is, and if there is no current law on it, doing so in seemingly good faith has no consequences. Plus, it is doubtful any government agency is going to go out and look for extra work. Don't hold your breath on the FTC doing anything.
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What regulatory body enforces what "Non-GMO" means and what the punishment will be for mislabeling?
The FTC under the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act. The USDA regulates the meaning of the word "organic," so they might have authority to regulate "non-gmo" but I'm not entirely sure on that.
The FDA's current guidance in this area is for companies to avoid a "non-GM" label unless the product can be guaranteed to not have components that were produced using any type of genetic modification *including hybridization or selective breeding*.
Instead the FDA recommends that companies use fully defensible statements like "not produced using bioengineering" or "not genetically engineered" to avoid potential future mislabeling consequences of a non-GM or GM-free product assertion, although they are not c
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Won't the issue then be: The FDA doesn't really give a crap about those who incorrectly label their food "Non-GMO"? What regulatory body enforces what "Non-GMO" means and what the punishment will be for mislabeling?
Both the FDA and the FTC should be able to regulate and prosecute deceptive labelling and "Truth in Advertising"
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> Wiki has some info about the changes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nice, was looking for a link to the patch notes.
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GM foods don't get labeled: "It's because they have something to hide."
It doesn't matter which way it goes, people are always going to be distrustful of something they don't understand.
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The thing is, they don't treat it that way. It is one of many techniques used to modify the things we eat everyday. For example, there are tomatoes with Phytophthora resistance genes from wild species, and citrus altered with ionizing radiation, and apples selected from somatic mutations, and watermelons developed by altering the chromosome count.
The problem is, your average person doesn't know about those things, so when the anti-GMO folks make noise about genetic tampering with the food supply, and dema
Easy enough to identify fish that were modified (Score:3)
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Nice FUD.
Sounds like Good News for the Ocean (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the GMO labels cause if the anti-GMO people used science to promote their cause. But they don't instead they appeal the fear with their ignorant Frankenfood arguments.
There's a too many mouths too feed without science to improve sustainable agriculture. In this case the oceans are over-farmed, and if this helps lighten the load, I'm all for it.
With that said, GMO is a tool like selective breeding that can be used for good or bad. This sounds like a good used, where as Monsanto is a disgusting company that embodies all that's wrong with big agriculture. They have technology that could do great things but instead use it to sell more chemical that turn our precious farmland into barren wastelands.
Re: Sounds like Good News for the Ocean (Score:2)
I would like labeling because I can afford to spend a little extra to stick to my values.
I think sterile (in therory) seeds of a monoculture are a long term risk to the food supply. If there was proper labeling, those of us with money could vote against that with our wallets, and at least give the non GMO producers a chance. Without labeling, all of the food will end up as GMO.
Additionally, there's been allegations that weeds are rapidly developing resistance anyway (I haven't seen anything that credible ei
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Then buy a product labeled "GMO Free."
But can you explain why they should have to label it as a GMO product, and more to the point can you explain how that reason relates to a significant property of the item iteself rather than the political considerations that you are raising?
The problem you face is that the FDA cannot identify any significant difference in the item itself.
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I think sterile (in therory) seeds of a monoculture are a long term risk to the food supply.
There you go spouting a falsehood. No Monsanto seeds have ever produces sterile crops [npr.org]. Monsanto just does not allow the fertile crop to be planted without a license.
If there was proper labeling, those of us with money could vote against that with our wallets
So you would vote with your wallet based on false information.
Additionally, there's been allegations that weeds are rapidly developing resistance anyway (I haven't seen anything that credible either for or against this), so in the end we end up using tons more herbicides (allegedly).
Would you base your decisions on allegations rather than reality?
I'm not anti-GMO, and I eat corn products, so I definitely eat it, I still think it should need to be labeled.
You seem like a smart person who has actually looked into the issue and even you are acting on false information. How do you think that most people who do not take this time will think when they hear "GMO bad, Big busine
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> There you go spouting a falsehood. No Monsanto seeds have ever produces sterile crops
Remember the "Terminator Gene"? Monsanto was looking into that. You are correct in your statement, but *IT'S NOT FOR LACK OF TRYING*. The UN banned it a year after Monsanto dealt with the backlash and promised to never use it.
Until that backlash, they were like "oh cool, copy protection for life itself, and a possible way to end humanity if we fuck up a little bit, but we can reduce seed fucking piracy or whatever b
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Do you have any credible references to Monsanto doing this research? I say credible because too many onti-Monsanto sites just spout lies. The only reference I can find is to USDA research [wikipedia.org].
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> . How do you think that most people who do not take this time will think when they hear
I think the lives of most 21 year old college girls would be vastly improved if they started lining up around my block to suck my dick, but it doesn't make it legal, moral, or ethical for me to lie to make that happen.
If you have any product to sell- be it a bunch of gene tweaked fishies, a shiny new car, or my white cock- the fact that "if I told the truth, I wouldn't make as many sales as I would like" isn't an ACC
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I've been specifically rejecting products lately that say "No GMOs", or "Organic" on their labels because I think it's marketing hype that caters to the ignorant masses.
It's getting harder every day to do that though.
I've managed to neatly sidestep the GMO/Organic plants issue is by not eating plants.
However 'organic' cow meat, which I can get in nearby stores, is clearly better tasting than equivalent cow meat from non organic sources. I'll continue to buy it and eat it.
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"There's a too many mouths too feed without science to improve sustainable agriculture. In this case the oceans are over-farmed, and if this helps lighten the load, I'm all for it."
What you mean is that the oceans are over-fished. Our wild catch at sea is unsustainable, with food species after species diminishing in number. If we still hunted and gathered on land like this, we would already be starving to death. We need to farm the fish we eat instead of strip-mining the ocean. If GM helps us grow fish more
I want my pork ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Eveyone raising pigs NOT facing Mecca had better label them as such. So I'll know not to buy their products.
Should be labelled (Score:2, Informative)
because it is relevant information for the customer. I'll wear a tinfoil hat but I don't want genetically modified food for now. I'll wait a couple decades and see what will popup to decide.
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On human consumption? I don't think so...
Wonderful experiment (Score:2)
The FDA has set up a real world test of consumer willingness to accept GMO foods.
All farmed salmon can now be considered to be GMO, because no labeling is required.
If consumers care, all farmed salmon sales will fall. Industry will react accordingly.
Tastes like (Score:2)
Frankensalmon (Score:3)
It's not only GMO (Score:2)
"synthetic colourants canthaxanthin and astaxanthin to give farmed salmon flesh a pink hue" - from there: http://www.farmedanddangerous.... [farmedanddangerous.org]
Maybe they put the coloration into the genes of the salmons to avoid the paint.
Pretty much bull all that stuff anyway. Grow your own food and you know what goes in minus general pollution.
Obstacles: Nee
BORED! (Score:2)
WebMD Article (Score:4, Informative)
Quote: “No information was taken on the amount of drugs or other things that might have to be used to raise them".
Quote: The main change to the salmon caused them to produce more growth hormone, but tests used by the company couldn’t detect how much they were making, according to Hansen. “It was like using a radar gun that doesn’t detect speeds below 125 miles per hour, and from that concluding that there’s no evidence that cars and bicycles move at different speeds,”
Here's the link: http://www.webmd.com/food-reci... [webmd.com]
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They still can't mark them "wild caught" unless they are. I wonder- do they still get labeled as "Atlantic Salmon"?
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They still can't mark them "wild caught" unless they are. I wonder- do they still get labeled as "Atlantic Salmon"?
Not only can they not market them as "wild caught" but presumably they also can't market them as "GM free" unless it is true. Also, presumably, other companies are still allowed to market their product as "GM free" so from this point on if you care about this you should just assume that anything not explicitly labelled as "GM free" is probably not "GM free" or inversely, if you want GM fish then look for companies that do label their fish as such.
Re:Salmon's now on my "foods to avoid" list (Score:4, Insightful)
> Better yet, catch it yourself. It's quite an enjoyable and delicious hobby.
Right, I'll be sure to catch myself a years worth of salmon during the brief period they are catchable here. I'm sure my job won't miss me for however many weeks that takes, if it's even possible. Clearly if I want wild caught fish, or fish that don't have lab tuned genes, I should have to be a subsistence hunter.
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> Better yet, catch it yourself. It's quite an enjoyable and delicious hobby.
Right, I'll be sure to catch myself a years worth of salmon during the brief period they are catchable here. I'm sure my job won't miss me for however many weeks that takes, if it's even possible. Clearly if I want wild caught fish, or fish that don't have lab tuned genes, I should have to be a subsistence hunter.
Having friends on the res works much better.
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They still can't mark them "wild caught" unless they are. I wonder- do they still get labeled as "Atlantic Salmon"?
Fast fact: In the US, Atlantic salmon is considered endangered so cannot be legally be "wild caught" and sold in the US, so nearly 100% of Atlantic Salmon sold in supermarkets in the US is farmed.
This particular GM is to help AquAdvantage increase production of Farmed Atlantic Salmon, and this ruling will basically mean that it will be labeled simply as Farmed Atlantic Salmon with country of origin listed as Canada or Panama.
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I'm not categorically opposed to GMO food. However, I also know that just because we don't see a problem immediately does not mean there is a problem. There is a difference between cross-pollinating an apple to produce a different variant than to replacing specific genes. The fact that the cross-pollination takes hold, means that this could have occurred naturally, so we are just mimicking the natural process. On the other splicing the gene from one species of plant (or animal) to another, that could not
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So you aren't a big fan of science, then?
Science has made many things better for us. Food included.
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Re:Salmon's now on my "foods to avoid" list (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually he should be blaming economics.
But his point is valid. Science is agnostic. You can make a medicine or a poison. Science makes awful things with awful uses, good things with good uses, but mostly it makes things that can be used wisely or foolishly.
Sure, it's incorrect to blame science for the foolishness of fools. But at this point, I wonder if the anti-GM people don't have a point. All the research has turned into so far is another way to change the food supply en masse, while corporations fight for their right to not have to tell anyone what the fuck the food even is. When you see this happen again and again, the luddite view of trying to outright ban it (so as to remove the economic incentive) starts to have a lot of good reasoning behind it.
And no, there's probably nothing wrong with most GM foods. This fish thing will help feed the world- we can't sustain fishing with a growing population, we need badly to farm fish, and this is a solid solution. And I was down with that... right up until they fought to not have to mark their food. That means they have something to hide, it means that they are automatically in the wrong. I'm not a food scientist or a fish scientist or whatever, but I know naked deception and greed when it is presented so openly.
Re:Salmon's now on my "foods to avoid" list (Score:5, Insightful)
The sort of thing I mean was Monsanto suing farmers adjacent to those with GM crops for "stealing" their product via cross pollonation by insects and wind.
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The sort of thing I mean was Monsanto suing farmers adjacent to those with GM crops for "stealing" their product via cross pollonation by insects and wind.
That's not what happened though. The case you are likely referring to, the Schmeiser case, involved the guy intentionally selecting for and propagating GE crops after he was cross pollinated. It would be like if I threw a Star Wars DVD at you, and then you copied and mass produced it for financial gain, and when you get rightfully sued by Disney, you tell everyone you got sued because someone tossed a disk at you.
Re:Salmon's now on my "foods to avoid" list (Score:5, Insightful)
That means they have something to hide, it means that they are automatically in the wrong.
And if they do label, it means there is something wrong with their product. This is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.
Speaking of labels, I've never seen it labeled that oranges are often grafted into Poncitrus trifoliata rootstocks. Does that mean that all orange growers are also hiding something, or do I first have to start a movement convincing people that grafting causes cancer before the orange farmers must either put a scarlet letter on their fruit or become also in the wrong?
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Hey look, its the 'science was wrong before' [rationalwiki.org] argument.
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"Moby Dick was a salmon! If these escape, perhaps it will revive the whaling industry."
No need to grow them up to whale size. A modest shark-size salmon would be OK with me provided they come with head mounted... FRICKIN' LASERS!!!
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I think the best they can do is splice in some sea bass and make them ill tempered.
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So do particularly malignant tumors.
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And here I thought the artist was making a joke [schlockmercenary.com].
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"Ok so they grow faster. Does that mean they eat a proportional amount more in the same amount of time or are they less dense or less healthy then the original fish?"
There is NO WAY they are even worse than current farm-rised ones. They are simply awful.
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"Ok so they grow faster. Does that mean they eat a proportional amount more in the same amount of time or are they less dense or less healthy then the original fish?"
There is NO WAY they are even worse than current farm-rised ones. They are simply awful.
Well they are raised in tanks on land. So there's no way they are better than farm raised salmon.