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that requires home sellers to disclose murders or paranormal activity that has happened in the home to prospective buyers, even if it doesn't effect value of the property? This sounds crazy but the legal term used for this type of actions is a "reasonable persons standard" what is reasonable? Is it reasonable to disclose the locations of sexual preditors even if they don't reoffend? Is its reasonable to disclose murders or paranormal activity to prospective buyers of homes? Is it reasonable to disclose safety tests results for cars etc. So is it reasonable by a reasonable persons standard to disclose how your food was made?
But i will be first to admit i know very little about this issue because i love my lunch plate specials and malasadas to much to eat organic etc.
Here's the thing.. you can disclose anything you wish to voluntarily. But as the 1995 court decision that set this precedent said, nobody can require you to disclose your cow's name or what it ate for breakfast or anything else that the public might wish to know for any reason without scientific proof of the need, because there's no compelling reason to do so, and requiring such disclosure could harm the food producers' sales, for no good reason.
Ironically it was decided in the same court in which the new Vermont Law requiring GMO labels is being challenged, on exactly the same Constitutional grounds on which the precedent was set.
Like I said, the only real winners in all this will be the lawyers, who will make fortunes from this and similar cases.
Couldnt you make the same argument for any type of law that requires disclosures to protect the consumer or to inform of potential or possible harm? Just wondering? What makes the food industry and this situation any different then lets say the laws requiring car builders to disclose the results from crash safety tests? Wouldnt the same argument apply to this discloser that it could possiblely hurt sales if not shown to be the best rated car? But studies show that cars don't cause crashes bad drivers do? Or lets say the simple toy that a young child plays with that has a simple warning of "may cause choking if swallowed", then a parent decides not to buy that toy? The toy doesn't cause choking, the swallowing of it does. Then Is it reasonable to believe that our science can't answer every question?
We once believed smoking was ok and im sure before science said it was bad that people figured it out when they startted seeing the effects of cancer from smoking! Just thinking outloud.
Couldnt you make the same argument for any type of law that requires disclosures to protect the consumer or to inform of potential or possible harm? Just wondering? What makes the food industry and this situation any different then lets say the laws requiring car builders to disclose the results from crash safety tests? Wouldnt the same argument apply to this discloser that it could possiblely hurt sales if not shown to be the best rated car? But studies show that cars don't cause crashes bad drivers do? Or lets say the simple toy that a young child plays with that has a simple warning of "may cause choking if swallowed", then a parent decides not to buy that toy? The toy doesn't cause choking, the swallowing of it does. Then Is it reasonable to believe that our science can't answer every question?
We once believed smoking was ok and im sure before science said it was bad that people figured it out when they startted seeing the effects of cancer from smoking! Just thinking outloud.
The difference is proven hazard... car crash info, toys that are known to be a choking hazard... vs. unproven allegations, where the proof of safety is actually well documented.
I knew this would be a hot topic thread when I saw the OP. I chose not to chime in until many opinions/facts were presented. At first, my knee-jerk, anti-science leanings wanted out. (If I had MY way, we would simply "turn everything off!". 80-90% of the world human population would die in the 1st 2 weeks, just from a lack of refrigerators and microwaves!!) But k-j, a-s rhetoric fails miserably in the face of facts.
You don't want to eat "genetically modified organisms"? Then you must stop eating... period. Long before 'scientists' w electron microscopes and gene guns started expediting the proccess, farmers and hobbyists have been 'genetically modifying' foods/flowers/etc. through hybridization and selective promotion of desirable traits.
The oranges you know did not exist in days of yore, of tall ships and 80% infant mortallity. Oranges were much smaller, w a taste similar to a grapefruit, mostly green w just a few spots of orange color at ripe stage. Over many generations, they were selectively 'genetically altered' to give us the fine, sweet, ORANGE orange we love today. Almost every other food, from beef to beets, has undergone similar adjustments.
When I was still in school, approx. 40 yrs ago, I read an article promoting the wonders of science. (sorry... I can't supply source info.) This article predicted apple trees which would produce a harvest, pick thier fruit for you, then uproot and 'walk' onto a train to be shipped to another region to produce another harvest.... and cacti one could plant around one's home which could be 'trained' to recognize unauthorized persons, and fire thorns at them.
When apple trees start throwing fruit at me or cacti chase me around shooting at me, I will once again be concerned. Until then, I will make the best of what is.
(As an aside... I haven't been around here long, but I was also taken aback seeing two such normally diametrically opposed members on the 'same side'...)
My take on the whole GMO bit is this, If the food industry and its scientist are so proud of their innovations through GMOs, then why not label it? Why would the food industry deliberately try to hide the fact that their products contain GMOs, if they are so safe? Why would the food industry spend millions of dollars to prevent telling the public what they are eating? Europe doesn't allow this kind of nonsense. Even Russia has stood up and said no until more research has been done. One can present all kinds of arguments as to why Food companies do not want to label GMOs but it boils down to some simple concepts. The food industry does not want to give you a choice in the matter to eat GMOs or not. Since they dictate the entire food industry along with policies from the FDA and USDA along with most of our legislators its no wonder we do not have sensible labeling to keep the public informed. I have read the studies and the findings from the government agencies showing the so called safety of GMOs. My question is this, who in name of rational thinking would believe anything these agencies tell us? As a comparison, check the ingredients of most foods from other countries, then check the foods in the U.S. The food industries here load the products down with cheap ingredients and chemicals to make a fine presentation to the eye regardless of the long term effects on the body. All this is supported by our legislators and government agencies who are in the pockets of big corporations. Anyone who can't see this has been induced into a Kool Aid coma....
You don't want to eat "genetically modified organisms"? Then you must stop eating... period. Long before 'scientists' w electron microscopes and gene guns started expediting the proccess, farmers and hobbyists have been 'genetically modifying' foods/flowers/etc. through hybridization and selective promotion of desirable traits.
Thanks for the intended support, but I'm committed to truth above all, and I don't want to sugar coat anything. When we talk about Genetically Modified Organisms we're talking about a biotechnical process as opposed to traditional cross breeding techniques which humans have been using for perhaps 100,000 years. In those conventional techniques genes from organisms closely enough related to fertilize and reproduce are artificially brought together, but the reproductive process is more or less natural. In biotech, however, genes from different species are mixed artificially, often to turn an innate characteristic on or off in the target species.
This is what happened with the UH Rainbow papaya, in which an innate but unused ability to innoculate itself from viruses was turned on. So a couple of genes were artificially changed out of a total of over two million that make up the total of what produces a papaya. Hence the very defensible statement by Dr. Gonsalves that "it was a papaya before, and it's still a papaya"
As to where the genes came from, that's totally irrelevant, because at this level it is literally like cutting a small bit of computer code from one program to another. Copying a few lines from a computer game into an industrial control program isn't going to turn a packing machine into a shoot 'em up game console. It's still a packing machine after, with some (usually) tiny added function.
Pretty much the same happens with biotech, in which electron beams or viruses can be used to transfer selected genes into normally incompatible hosts. It's a tiny change, which simply enables the host to display different, desirable characteristics. That's the same goal as traditional breeding programs have, but there's more range to what's possible.
My take on the whole GMO bit is this, If the food industry and its scientist are so proud of their innovations through GMOs, then why not label it? Why would the food industry deliberately try to hide the fact that their products contain GMOs, if they are so safe? Why would the food industry spend millions of dollars to prevent telling the public what they are eating?
It's helpful if you read the whole thread, because this has already been answered several times.
Had this been proposed back at the beginning, when GMO was still a neutral, descriptive term, it might have happened. But instead the activists turned the term GMO into a modern equivalent of the skull and crossbones poison label, and food producers cannot be compelled to use them as a result.
Meanwhile most sources say that GMOs are in about 80 of the items in a modern supermarket, and Organic labels mean "no GMOs over 5%" so a voluntary "Non-GMO" label would logically be far simpler to implement and put the extra expense where it belongs... on the people who refuse to believe the science and instead believe they need to avoid GMOs. And the rest of us can just go on living our lives as we have been doing without being sucked into the hysteria.
Quote:
Europe doesn't allow this kind of nonsense.
Europe doesn't have the American Constitution, nor our guarantees of Freedom of Speech. But yes, it does allow GMOs - 18 kinds at last count.
@OD
Call it support if you wish, but that was neither implied or intended. Just my 'take' on the issue. I'm not trying to say that hundreds of years of selectivity is EXACTLY the same as gene splicing... I am well aware of the difference. I am saying that latching on to a word or phrase and demonizing it w/o knowledge is... pardon the pun... fruitless. It may prove true in 100 yrs that GMO's will be our downfall... it could also be shown in that time that we were just helping life in general get past the many things we've done wrong to this our home planet. Who is to say that, minus our pollution and pesticides and fertilizers and falderawl, that thise plants and animals wouldn't have been able to change thier own pants... one leg at a time? (pants = genes... duh)
@OD
Call it support if you wish, but that was neither implied or intended. Just my 'take' on the issue. I'm not trying to say that hundreds of years of selectivity is EXACTLY the same as gene splicing... I am well aware of the difference. I am saying that latching on to a word or phrase and demonizing it w/o knowledge is... pardon the pun... fruitless. It may prove true in 100 yrs that GMO's will be our downfall... it could also be shown in that time that we were just helping life in general get past the many things we've done wrong to this our home planet. Who is to say that, minus our pollution and pesticides and fertilizers and falderawl, that thise plants and animals wouldn't have been able to change thier own pants... one leg at a time? (pants = genes... duh)RC
Thanks, I get it.
And I get that much the same arguments, some almost word for word, were used to condemn hybrid corn when it was first released to farmers by the University of Kansas in the 1930s.
"Unnatural" "Demonic" "Violates natural law" "Unhealthy" and worse. And they couldn't save the seeds, because they didn't breed true! But farmers noticed their crop yields went up and they made more money with hybrids, at a time when making more money could mean the difference between survival and not.
When you see the precursor to corn, called tiosinte, and what the native Americans in what we now call Mexico turned it into with selective breeding, changing only 5 genes in the process, it adds a lot of perspective to the simple truth that there are almost no agricultural plants that are truly "natural" today.
No, OpenD, you got it wrong again. This is not about scientific research facts.
It's as hawaiianbyheart describes it: Scientific facts are irrelevant when the majority of people again and again want GMO labels. You try to discourage consumer choice--how unAmerican is that! GMO corporations and the GMA doing what you try to do here on this board: Fear tactics with propaganda on a massive scale, with a generous dose of arrogance.
Talking about rep points as a reassurance? Man, I got plenty of those and so many encouraging private messages regarding your attitude that I stopped answering them.
A bit of unasked advice: When trying to defeat the GMO crowd, don't use fear tactics. EVER. Envision a generic argument with your wife. Don't give cross links to studies and facts, but try to understand her issues. Listen. Listen more. Try to repeat what she says in your own words. Do it again when you fail the first time. Then listen more. (OK, I lost you already but I write this to get more reps ;-) Especially listen if her argument is driven by primal urges for i.e. honesty, authenticity, a saner world, simplicity, health, security, warmth, trust, her fears, family, touch, all that stuff where guys get iffy. Where she may at best get a "Yes, dear." answer, but the man doesn't really care and she knows it.
Now females are still the prime consumers and shoppers. Yes, many have jobs, but every advertising campaign, every package design, every supermarket layout is still focussed on women. Now wait till these women have children and how they turn into lionesses when it comes to what they put in their families bodies. THAT you have to understand.
You think you can whittle me down to your line of arguing by relying on cross links and paid studies?!? Then selfdeclare yourself a 'winner' in an online debate. You lost already because it is not about winning! You know zip, zilch about the psyche what drives the GMO debate: Women.
Yes, women will bring the GMO industry to a fall if they don't get their labeling. Watch the The View, Oprah, Ellen, QVC, HSN, etc: Just wait till those media juggernauts pick up the conversation about GMO free food. No lobbied politician can stop these maverick waves demanding labeling. And as a farmer growing unlabeled GMO foods, I would be screwed and lose my business and land within months.
Yet with every answer I give you, you could, in theory, learn to argue more efficient. But I am not worried about that. You'll probably post a scientific cross link again anyways or declare me as defeated.
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