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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJeffrey Smith admits GMO labeling was never his goal
In a letter sent out yesterday, anti-GMO activist Jeffrey Smith admits what we have suspected all along.
Labeling GMOs was never the end goal for us. It was a tactic. Labels make it easier for shoppers to make healthier non-GMO choices. When enough people avoid GMOs, food companies rush to eliminate them. Labeling can speed up that tipping pointbut only if consumers are motivated to use labels to avoid GMOs.
full: https://foodscienceinstitute.com/2016/07/31/jeffrey-smith-admits-gmo-labeling-was-never-his-goal/
Get over it: GMO-phobia is just as much pseudoscience as creationism, Bigfoot sightings, or astrology.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)The is no science to back up either stand.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)RapSoDee
(421 posts)And celebrating our brand new corporately-sponsored RIGHT TO REMAIN IGNORANT about the food we feed to our children.
alp227
(32,019 posts)katsy
(4,246 posts)How many prescription drugs were declared safe... Until they weren't safe?
Being informed = having all pertinent info & drawing your own conclusions. Science isn't dogma.
alp227
(32,019 posts)And the real dogmatism is with the GMO-phobic willfully ignorant.
katsy
(4,246 posts)Not one so why waste time? Everyone is wrong but monsanto. ROFL
And i think gmos are okay. Maybe it's too soon for environmental conclusions. I boycott them because i dont like monsanto politics. At all. And because it's my right to vote with my pocketbook. Can't stand keebler elves either.
Get a grip. Some people just hate monsanto.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)katsy
(4,246 posts)Majority R & some D
I want huge conglomerates broken up. And i avoid their products like the plague. Because I can.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)understandable and a reason to attempt a boycott. Not sure how successful that would be, Monsanto is a seed company and you most likely eat their products every day.
That's the problem, unless you are a farmer, you aren't one of their customers, you might have better luck boycotting these guys:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000000242&cycle=2016
katsy
(4,246 posts)And i do.
Not that I can affect behavior. I do it because I can. And i encourage others to do the same.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)The vast majority of the organic market is owned by large corporations, and ConAgra has one of the largest organic holdings in the US.
To be consistent with such a boycott, one would have to live off of mushrooms grown oneself in the basement.
PatSeg
(47,418 posts)Agreed, "science isn't dogma".
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)The anti-GMO movement promotes ugly, baseless fear for no good reason. And yet you, a new poster at DU seem quite obsessed with spreading such baseless fear. Why is that?
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)At odds with established science.
I do the same thing with arguments against evolution and global warmING when I be counter them.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)You can still sell it, just lets us know that you've messed with it, and let us make up our mind?
Attempting to conceal is evidence of guilt. If it's good enough for the criminal insanity defense, it should be good enough for what we consume.
If GMOs are safe, why aren't they labeled? Straight answer to a valid question
There's a reason why companies aren't gonna pander to everyone's baseless fears. It's bad enough that Donald Trump is a serious contender for the presidency - the rise of Trump is the consequence of phobia in action.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)It's been pointed out repeatedly that 1) just about every food on the market has been genetically altered in some way, either through selective breeding or more precise gene manipulation and 2) GMO labels for food would either have to be so vague as to be meaningless or so descriptive they go completely beyond anyone's understanding.
"Organic" food makers have been stoking irrational fear of GMOs for years, and now they're trying to cash in on that fear by forcing their competitors to put a worthless label on that does nothing but stigmatize a legitimate scientific field. All of this so you go buy the "organic" industry's overpriced listeriaburgers.
alp227
(32,019 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)alp227
(32,019 posts)Might as well legalize witch doctors and teaching creationism in public schools "because choice">
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)Give people a choice.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Hmm.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)... Wow! That is one amazing link.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Anything that is or contains red grapefruit is derived from mutation breeding. There just simply is no naturally occurring red grapefruit.
So here you have a new age health outlet touting all their "organic", PETA, "ethically farmed" certifications, which no doubt has nothing to do with GMO "poisons" selling grapefruit extract derived from grapefruits produced by bombarding seeds with radiation.
Very telling that.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Undoubtedly Chemtrails!!!!!!
Either that, or psychic BigFoot aquatic dinosauria living in a Scotland Loch.
You choose.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Moliere
(285 posts)Enjoy your pesticidey goodness
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Non-gmo farmers still use pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. And GMO crops may not use glyphosate. So the GMO label gives me zero information on how safe any of that is. Maybe you want all of that listed rather than the GMO label if you want real tranparency?
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)such as caffeine and table salt.
Caffeine is even a pesticide!
TheBlackAdder
(28,186 posts)Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,186 posts).
RoundUp Ready 2 crops are already ineffective, since many of the weeds have become tolerant to it. This requires more and more applications and locks the farmers into a paradigm that is near unsustainable for them. With the increases in temperatures, there will be more virulent strains of weeds that will overcome the current applications, so this methodology is deeply flawed.
From a biosciences part, the human body has been raised to eat local foods, so folks raised for a ten millennia on British isle foods differ from folks who have eaten North American foods for 16,000 years. To Brits and most all Europeaners, corn is quasi-toxic since it is not an indigenous food, introduced only 400 years ago.
When you alter the genetic composition of crops, especially when animal strains are embedded in plant crops, it creates foods that are unknown to the human body. While consumable, like HFCS, there are issues with the processing of them within the body that might take many decades to surface. Unfortunately, most of the the university research labs and corporate biological labs in the US are partly funded by BigAg and BigPhRMA, so their studies always seem to create either confusion, like FOX News does to world events, or supports the corporations almost 100% of the time. Now, as a betting person who sees so many pharmaceuticals fail when rushed into service, this seems to contrast the peer science results from the many studies that preceded their approval.
People who say that RoundUp is a safer herbicide than others on the market are just buying into this corporate branding.
The slow, and sometimes suspicious cross pollination that occurs on farms slowly decreases the variety of plants, which exposes the food crops to a catastrophic event, if some blight were to target specific GMO crops. Biodiversity has always been the key to survival of species. What's worse is that Pioneer is going around to over 100 countries and working out free seed programs, especially targeting poor countries. The people kill off their legacy crops and then seed their fields with the hybrids that require repurchasing each cycle, since the farmer then loses the ability to use 10% of their seed crop to replant. This effectively creates a poverty condition for developing countries, as the US and EU floods their markets with crops 1/4th the price of local farmers to put them out of business and monopolize the industry... all while World Bank and the UN claims to support and help grow these regions.
So, I have an issue with industrial manipulation of both seed crops, specialized herbicides, and subsidized food for developing worlds...
.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:-1px -1px 3px #999999 inset;"]RoundUp Ready 2 crops are already ineffective, since many of the weeds have become tolerant to it. This requires more and more applications and locks the farmers into a paradigm that is near unsustainable for them. With the increases in temperatures, there will be more virulent strains of weeds that will overcome the current applications, so this methodology is deeply flawed.
I will say that herbicide resistance in weed plants is a concern, and effective alternatives should always be researched and developed.
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:-1px -1px 3px #999999 inset;"]From a biosciences part, the human body has been raised to eat local foods, so folks raised for a ten millennia on British isle foods differ from folks who have eaten North American foods for 16,000 years. To Brits and most all Europeaners, corn is quasi-toxic since it is not an indigenous food, introduced only 400 years ago.
This one is just wrong, on so many different levels, first off, if you want to turn back the clock to before the Columbian Exchange, good luck with that. Beyond that, everything in this paragraph is wrong, we evolved on junk diets where variety was the key to survival, not hyper localized food sources with intolerances to foods outside such local sources. If that were true, our ancestors would have gone extinct a million years ago. We actually have the marks in our bodies of our varied, extreme omnivore diets, we are trichromatic, to pick out a large variety of plants to eat, we have developed tolerances, more so than most animals, to alcohol, lactose, and many other food sources etc. The very shape of our bodies, the reason we sweat rather than pant is to run down animals that may be faster than us in sprints, but can never compare to us in marathons.
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:-1px -1px 3px #999999 inset;"]When you alter the genetic composition of crops, especially when animal strains are embedded in plant crops, it creates foods that are unknown to the human body. While consumable, like HFCS, there are issues with the processing of them within the body that might take many decades to surface. Unfortunately, most of the the university research labs and corporate biological labs in the US are partly funded by BigAg and BigPhRMA, so their studies always seem to create either confusion, like FOX News does to world events, or supports the corporations almost 100% of the time. Now, as a betting person who sees so many pharmaceuticals fail when rushed into service, this seems to contrast the peer science results from the many studies that preceded their approval.
Right off the bat, the first sentence is factually wrong, I don't know what you mean by strains, but the fact is the proteins coded are NOT completely novel to human consumption, even when sourced from other kingdoms, such as animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. Genetic engineering does not create novel proteins on its own, at most it may introduce a protein into a food that didn't have it before, but considering the source genetic material is usually a plant or animal we already consume safely that produces the same protein, that doesn't make a food that is unknown to the human body.
As to your second sentence, it's been widely known since the 1970s that overconsumption of sugars, including fructose, can possibly develop problems with obesity and type 2 diabetes, along with a host of health problems. The reason for the focus on HFCS is because corn is the cheapest(due to subsidies) source for fructose, and it's a widely used sweetener. Sucrose is not really any better, at least at the levels that Americans consume sugar. Too much of anything can be damaging, this is a classic example of that.
And, of course, you go straight to the "science is corrupted" by big money gambit, which you have devolved into a conspiracy theory.
Roundup is a safe herbicide because it's been tested as being safer than most other herbicides by every independent test you can think of on the planet.
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left:1em; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius:0.4615em; box-shadow:-1px -1px 3px #999999 inset;"]The slow, and sometimes suspicious cross pollination that occurs on farms slowly decreases the variety of plants, which exposes the food crops to a catastrophic event, if some blight were to target specific GMO crops. Biodiversity has always been the key to survival of species. What's worse is that Pioneer is going around to over 100 countries and working out free seed programs, especially targeting poor countries. The people kill off their legacy crops and then seed their fields with the hybrids that require repurchasing each cycle, since the farmer then loses the ability to use 10% of their seed crop to replant. This effectively creates a poverty condition for developing countries, as the US and EU floods their markets with crops 1/4th the price of local farmers to put them out of business and monopolize the industry... all while World Bank and the UN claims to support and help grow these regions.
This has been a problem since the Green Revolution and predates GMOs by decades, the question is, do you want a few billion people to die off so we can go back to pre-industrial farming? While monocultures are a problem, hybrids and the consistency of the crop dramatically increases yield per acre, which means less land needs to be used to feed people, which helps preserve existing ecosystems. There are always trade offs.
TheBlackAdder
(28,186 posts).
Yeah, some wrong terminology at past 1AM, but you got the gist.
I guess the EU is stupid too, for not renewing the use of glyphosates there.
But I'm sure that's Bayer's fault. Which would verge on a conspiracy theory.
.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)While salt is measured by the teaspoon.
Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)child labor overseas on grounds that the products are indistinguishable from ethically assembled products.
Regardless of whether GMOs are not poison, it is a business practice that seeks to monopolize agribusiness and it recklessly destroys independent farms; here's some interesting reading:
Genetically Modified Crops: Why Cultivation Matters
Induced Nuisance: Holding Patent Owners Liable for GMO Cross-Contamination
Life is Better in the Land Down Under: Australian Treatment of GM Contamination and Why It Should Be Followed in the United States
I prefer non-GMO products for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not the GMOs are poison; I avoid GMOs for ethical reasons, just like I avoid Chick-fil-A, Coors beer, products of apartheid, Walmart, unfairly traded coffee, and conflict diamonds for ethical reasons.
Why are so many progressives opposed to allowing consumers to have information to use as their basis to choose products?
I'm not a vegan, but I certainly have no beef (ha, a pun) with labeling that allows vegans to follow their preferences when choosing food products. Regardless of whether you share my preference to avoid GMOs because I disapprove of the business model that creates them, why can't we agree that I should be entitled to the information necessary for me to exercise my own consumer preference when spending my own money?
Mosby
(16,304 posts)It's like putting warnings on tobacco and alcohol, the consumer will assume there is something dangerous about GMOs if our government requires disclosure on food products.
Even the anti-gmo guy in the OP admits it, it's a process, starting with scary labeling.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Posting bullshit just doesn't help your argument.
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2013/06/the-seralini-rule-gmo-bogus-study.html
bluedye33139
(1,474 posts)Your third source is an article by a law student who interned with Monsanto. He argues that we should not create a legislative fix for GM contamination, but rather continue to use common law to settle disputes with organic farmers who experience damage. Far from establishing the danger of GMOs, the article articulates ways in which genetically modified food products can be a part of a rational and functioning economic distribution system.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Organic wants to be a magic marketing label, so it wants protection that is unwarranted.
bluedye33139
(1,474 posts)According to the article you link to. I should make it clear this is not my opinion and I'm not talking about my views on genetically modified organisms. I'm saying that the article you link to demonstrates how Monsanto views GMOs and organic crops growing side-by-side, harmlessly.
madokie
(51,076 posts)its the reason they are that worries me. Herbicides and insecticides... get it? And a shit pot full of 'em
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,186 posts).
It pulls power from the states and uses a weakened guideline that lobbyists devised.
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/problems/gmos
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/five-things-monsanto-doesnt-want-you-know-about-gmos
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/heavy-price-tag-gmo-contamination
.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)The whole idea of excluding GMO from organic certification is completely arbitrary with no scientific basis to begin with. Mutation breeding is NOT excluded from organic certification. Anyone who is irrationally afraid of GMO probably should do some research on what that is exactly. We are somehow supposed to believe that GMO is the scourge of the earth, while products derived from mutation breeding are sold in organic health food stores. Very telling that.
Crop overseeding is simply a function of modern agriculture. It's been around thousands of years before GMO. So-called "Organic®" is nothing more than a marketing scheme to begin with.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public
This book uncovers the biggest scientific fraud of our age.
...Altered Genes, Twisted Truth provides a graphic account of how this elaborate fraud was crafted and how it not only deceived the general public, but Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and a host of other astute and influential individuals as well. The book also exposes how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was induced to become a key accomplice--and how it has broken the law and repeatedly lied in order to usher genetically engineered foods onto the market without the safety testing that's required by federal statute. As a result, for fifteen years America's families have been regularly ingesting a group of novel products that the FDA's own scientific staff had previously determined to be unduly hazardous to human health....
https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Genes-Twisted-Truth-Systematically/dp/0985616903
Archae
(46,323 posts)His book is too.
In fact you know what Steven Druker does when he's not writing these bullshit books?
He helps run the UNaccredited "college," began by the Maharishi Yogi.
There he teaches students how to bounce on mats and calls it "flying."
"a book on GM by Maharishi Institute executive vice president Steven M. Druker, who also has no scientific training"
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2013/03/29/anti-gmo-writers-show-profound-ignorance-of-basic-biology-and-now-jane-goodall-has-joined-their-ranks/
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Neither have any scientific background.
PatSeg
(47,418 posts)The book points out that if the FDA had heeded its own experts advice and publicly acknowledged their warnings that GM foods entailed higher risks than their conventional counterparts, the GM food venture would have imploded and never gained traction anywhere.
It also reveals:
Many well-placed scientists have repeatedly issued misleading statements about GM foods, and so have leading scientific institutions such as the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the UKs Royal Society.
Consequently, most people are unaware of the risks these foods entail and the manifold problems they have caused.
Contrary to the claims of biotech advocates, humans have indeed been harmed by consuming the output of genetic engineering. In fact, the technologys first ingestible product (a food supplement of the essential amino acid, L-tryptophan) caused dozens of deaths and seriously sickened thousands of people (permanently disabling many of them). Moreover, the evidence points to the genetic alteration as the most likely cause of the unusual contamination that rendered the supplement toxic.
Laboratory animals have also suffered from eating products of genetic engineering, and well-conducted tests with GM crops have yielded many troubling results, including intestinal abnormalities, liver disturbances, and impaired immune systems.
Numerous scientists (including those on the FDAs Biotechnology Task Force) have concluded that the process of creating genetically modified food radically differs from conventional breeding and entails greater risk.
There has never been a consensus within the scientific community that GM foods are safe, and many eminent experts have issued cautions as have respected scientific organizations such as the Royal Society of Canada and the Public Health Association of Australia.
http://sustainablepulse.com/2015/03/04/jane-goodall-steven-druker-expose-us-government-fraud-gmos/
High praise for the book from:
-Richard C. Jennings, PhD Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
-David Schubert, PhD molecular biologist and Head of Cellular Neurobiology, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
-John Ikerd, PhD Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri
-Stephen Naylor, PhD Professor of Biochemistry, Mayo Clinic (1991-2001)
-Joseph Cummins, PhD Professor Emeritus of Genetics, Western University, Ontario
-Frederick Kirschenmann, Phd Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, Author of Cultivating an Ecological Conscience
-Belinda Martineau, Ph.D., a co-developer of the first genetically engineered whole food and author of First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods
-Allison Wilson, PhD molecular geneticist, Science Director, The Bioscience Resource Project
Rex
(65,616 posts)How do you avoid GMOs? Everything we eat is modified in some way if it comes from a company. He must be stupid to think that would kill off a huge company like Monsanto.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)If you don't know what yogic flying is, when you google it be prepared for a giant belly laugh.
Rex
(65,616 posts)NOBODY can predict when one of them will reach 'stage 2'. BUT ANY DAY NOW!
Thanks that was a good laugh, Sir Issac Newton...HA...what did he know!?
Gravity is for losers!