I hope it does!

- Screw you and your lawyers too!

K&R

[center]America's premier POISON MAKERS.




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I haven't seen this much hysteria since Johnny Carson made a joke about there being a shortage of toilet paper.

Anyone else you wish to apologize for?

Bayer makes anti-pest poisons.
They also makes children's aspirin.

There are many other companies who make poisons to deal with invasive weeds and/or bugs.
At the same time making normal NON-poisonous chemicals.

This is "Monsanto can do nothing right" hysteria brought on by web sites like "Natural News."

"Natural is good!"
(Unless it is poison, like certain mushrooms...)

"Artificial is bad!"
(Bananas can only be grown with human help...)

In your posts.

You mean the monoculture bright yellow seedless cultivars that humans developed, as opposed to all of the bananas that grow just fine without humans, I take it?

Yes, humans have used selective breeding for millennia to 'goose' evolution into high gear until they got what they wanted, and then to stop further variations from occurring. I'm quite happy with my beagles, rather than having wolves in my house.

Has Monsanto made products that aren't overtly harmful? Probably. They just seem far more interested in making money off of various poisons.

opt out?

When the label is 25+ pages long?

And reads like one of those handouts from prescription drug makers?

handle that. And I have the right to decide what I will eat and what I will not eat. Any industry claims otherwise is BS.

"Gluten-free"

"Organic"

"Natural"

Next up, "Non-GMO"

the fucking food industry which wants us stupid about our food. You don't add to this conversation by implying how stupid people are to give a shit about what others expect us to swallow no questions asked. Organic, natural should mean something. Gluten free does mean something but wouldn't have to mean anything except for GMO alteration of US wheat that precludes it in the EU among other places. Funny how little gluten intolerance there is in Europe.

Answer the little question: why can I not have a GMO listing on the box/can? Where does it stop? When they quit feeling the need to avoid being forthcoming with the crap they feed us. Explain bromided oils and "caramel" coloring. If they want to hide the problems with that crap, I have to really worry about the fight to keep from disclosing GMO status of what I am eating. Its one thing to cross varietals, it another to create Frankenfood by gene splicing from animals from plants that can not be introduced any other way except on the molecular level in laboratories.

I am done with this. Particularly since your argument isn't about GMOs only how silly and stupid one must be to question eating GMOs no questions asked.

There is quite a difference between cross-pollinating plants and "breeding" them in the same sense that might happen in nature vs. splitting DNA in a lab on a microscopic level. One instance occurs rather naturally. The other instance is frankenfood.

If there is no problem with the frankenfood then why, exactly, are the manufacturers so afraid of it being labeled?

Acetaminophen, I am told, is DDT. We ought to be Informed about What is in the Foods and Medicines we put in our bodies so WE can decide whether or Not we want to consume these "things".

I choose not to...if you want to and are not concerned about the short and long term effects after weighing Benefit VS Risk? Then by all means go for it--just don't ridicule and deny My choice(s).

Last edited Sat Jun 14, 2014, 10:00 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm going to have to steal "Monsatan." That's a good one!!!!

I guess when all the bees are gone and we have to use drones to pollinate our crops so we can have food to eat people might, maybe, wake up. Probably not until their own personal lives are impacted though. As a nation, we have undeniably bad habits of lack of memory, remorse, and being able to see beyond our own nose.

...who saw the connection between Evil and it's offspring. You can right-click these babies and spread them far and wide!!!

- Enjoy:

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"...there is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods, as a class, and that voluntary labeling is without value unless it is accompanied by focused consumer education." --American Medical Association

I have yet to see a scientifically sound case for labeling presented by those who advocate such. They failed to meet the burden of proof, and when challenged on that point they get evasive and throw the burden on the food companies.

The issue for the court is not safety. If the products are proven unsafe for consumption then a label would hardly seem the appropriate response. Consumers are demanding labeling so that they can make a choice. Period.

There is plenty of other labeling throughout retail. For example gasoline containing ethanol is labeled as such right on the pump -- no one is saying that ethanol is unsafe. Sugar free, gluten free, low salt -- none of those mean that sugar, gluten or salt are unsafe.

Your post claims a "burden of proof" which not part of the current case for either side. It is not necessary nor material for either plaintiff or defendant to establish that GMOs are safe or unsafe for human consumption.

The word "unsafe" appears nowhere in the law:

http://www.vtrighttoknowgmos.org/labeled-gmos/

And your plaintiffs allege re: safety in point 4 of your lawsuit "The State does not purport to share those views" thus your own suit acknowledges that there is no burden on the State of Vermont to prove that GMOs are either safe or unsafe.

The suit as filed:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/229432405/PDF-Lawsuit-vs-Vermont-GMO-law

....but we still have a right to know how much or how little of them are present in our food. The same logic holds for GMO content. It's a few additional words, so the cost of compliance is negligible. So what are grocers and food producers so afraid of?

If they're safe, they have no reason to worry. What ARE they afraid of?

The food producers are the only ones with a burden of proof. They need to prove both to the government and to consumers that their products are safe.

Sodium and fats are 2 examples. Sodium and fat are perfectly safe to eat unless you are on a restrictive diet. But they are on almost all food labels even milk. So why can't GMOs be labeled? What are GMO corporations hiding?

Here let me spit on your sandwich without telling you. It probably won't hurt you, so what difference does it make?

If this stuff is so goddam safe, what are they afraid of?

Let the Consumer decide what product they want to buy.

But they don't want to do that...they want us to consume any old crap that they patch together for PROFIT...they're not in business for the fun of it!

Soylent Green may not be science fiction forever.

...to change the copy on labels for purely promotional purposes. Adding a few more words is damn near non-existent in comparison.

in a TV or Radio AD?

Not much, I imagine.

Corporate AG has a lot of money invested in GMO and Chemicals. They don't want to see Mom and Pop organic farms cutting into their revenue streams.

http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths-and-truths

The GMO industry is built on myths Author Claire Robinson said: “Claims for the safety and efficacy of GM crops are often based on dubious evidence or no evidence at all. The GMO industry is built on myths.

“What is the motivation behind the deception? Money. GM crops and foods are easy to patent and are an important tool in the global consolidation of the seed and food industry into the hands of a few big companies. We all have to eat, so selling patented GM seed and the chemicals they are grown with is a lucrative business model.

“GMO Myths and Truths offers a one-stop resource for the public, campaigners, policy-makers, and scientists opposing the GMO industry’s attempts to control our food supply and shut down scientific and public debate.”

The authors of GMO Myths and Truths are not alone in doubting the safety of GMOs. In late 2013, nearly 300 scientists and legal experts signed a statement affirming that there was “No scientific consensus on GMO safety”.[1] - See more at: http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths-and-truths#sthash.LFaPIiCS.dpuf

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To the naysayers claiming there is no question about GMOs. You are science deniers, not promoters of science, plain and simple, the prove it crowd denies science. Orwell lives at DU, and those claiming GMO's are safe are extremist fools.

search reveals what science knows to be true, NO studies are being allowed to expose the GMO great experiment upon humanity.
The money trail does not allow for science & study, NO, NO, NO, profits trump all.

http://commonsensecanadian.ca/gmo-whistleblower-canadian-federal-scientist-speaks-out/







Former Pro-GMO Scientist Speaks Out On The Real Dangers of
Genetically Engineered Food
http://preventdisease.com/news/13/050613_Former-Pro-GMO-Scientist-Speaks-Out-On-The-Real-Dangers-of-Genetically-Engineered-Food.shtml
I don't know if I was passionate about it but I was knowledgeable. I defended the side of technological advance, of science and progress.

I have in the last 10 years changed my position. I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.

I refute the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat.

There are a number of scientific studies that have been done for Monsanto by universities in the U.S., Canada, and abroad. Most of these studies are concerned with the field performance of the engineered crops, and of course they find GMOs safe for the environment and therefore safe to eat.

Individuals should be encouraged to make their decisions on food safety based on scientific evidence and personal choice, not on emotion or the personal opinions of others.

We should all take these studies seriously and demand that government agencies replicate them rather than rely on studies paid for by the biotech companies.

The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety? Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.

There are no long-term feeding studies performed in these countries to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe. All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely.

These studies show that proteins produced by engineered plants are different than what they should be. Inserting a gene in a genome using this technology can and does result in damaged proteins. The scientific literature is full of studies showing that engineered corn and soya contain toxic or allergenic proteins.

Genetic engineering is 40 years old. It is based on the naive understanding of the genome based on the One Gene - one protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein. The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong.

The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding. Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins. Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic.

They have in the past and they will in the future if we let them.

I would label my product as having no GMO ingredients. I would not wait for the government to enforce labeling rules on the GMO food products. If enough food makers did that, the consumer would begin to assume that it the product didn't have the no GMO label on it, it contained GMO ingredients.

They-- along with anti-vaxers-- are the creationists and climate change deniers of the left. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that GMOs are not inherently unsafe or materially different from non-GMO foods, yet the anti-GMO Luddites completely ignore that consensus because it contradicts their irrational fear and misunderstanding of genetic engineering. They've made a cottage industry of posting "proofs" that GMOs will do every bad thing from rotting your teeth to corrupting your soul on shameless advocacy websites, even to the point of spawning sciency sounding fake journals to publish their pseudoscience, just like creationists do.

In all my years as a liberal I've never seen such shockingly persistent anti-intellectualism from the left.

First, there is all sorts of scientific evidence that vaccines are incredibly helpful in controlling disease, and therefore are beneficial to human health. There isn't a single study to show that not eating GM foods endangers anyone else around you, and I know of exactly zero studies that show that GM food is any more beneficial to human health than non-GM foods.

Thus, people not wanting to eat GM foods (or indeed, merely wishing them labeled) are more akin to 'people who don't want to eat okra' for instance - or 'people who don't want to eat Chick-fil-A'. They have a preference to choose what they eat, and don't eat. And they want the free market to give them the tools to support that choice. Thus, just as various laws enable me to know what foods contain okra, or what paper towels are made by companies owned by the Koch Brothers, it would be useful to me as a believer in market forces to be able to predicate my purchases on knowledge of what is actually in the products I purchase, or who made them, or where they were processed or grown. So that if I don't want my food dollars to subsidize farmers who use Monsanto products, I actually have that choice.

And you don't have to be 'anti-science' to want labeling. Plenty of people who work in science don't care for the side effects upon the environment of GM foods engineered to be resistant to specific herbicides.

Erich S Bloodaxe, PhD (Geology), MS (Systems Analysis), BS (Mineralogy), BA (Geology), BS (Nursing), AD (Nursing)

...to punish farmers and food producers who grow GMOs that are safe and marketable otherwise. That's the essence of the "we only want labels" argument. We only want labels so we can engage in an irrational boycott based on fear and misunderstanding of genetic engineering.

In an ideal world, where people make rational decisions based upon critical examination of the evidence, I'd agree with you. But half the bloody left seems to be falling easy victim to scientific illiteracy from sites like Natural News and Mercola.com, so I don't think they're demonstrating much capability to act rationally. I've spent much of my adult life trying to educate people about biology and related life sciences. It breaks my heart to see such anti-science and anti-critical thinking dominate the discussion about GMOs, especially among otherwise well educated liberals.

I just nipped over for a look at Natural News, and one of the latest stories was about how "they are still poisoning us" with chemtrails. Really? Chemtrails? Those are the same people who are driving much of the absolutely unwarranted hysteria about GMOs.

Some people would like real food and real science, but science denial is rampant amongst the corporate shills.

I'm a working academic scientist with a doctorate in entomology and specialization in insect ecology. I get really tired of being accused of not knowing what I'm talking about by people who really don't know what they're talking about. I teach this stuff to undergrads and grad students year in and year out. All of my research funding comes from the U.S. government (Forest Service, mostly) and conservation groups-- I have never, in my entire career, taken a dime from any commercial corporation (other than 501c non-profits, which many conservation organizations are incorporated as).

In fact, we have a difference of opinion, you and I. Mine is informed by 20+ years of research in ecology and pest population management, although the latter is admittedly tangential to my core research interests.

You've accused me of not understanding "real science" and of being a "corporate shill." You, my friend, have no clue whatsoever. Every now and then you run into people on message boards like DU who don't just play scientists on DU, but who are really experts in their disciplines. I'm not offering an argument from authority-- my entire career has been one long unraveling of old dogma followed by revelation of new ideas, but at least it follows a logical and rational process that doesn't include dismissing things you don't understand as not "real food" simply because you have irrational fears about them.

I honestly don't know who these "countless whistleblowers" are that you've mentioned. That many? Molecular biologists who were involved in genetic engineering but who went public to condemn it? There are a very few of those, just like there are a very few climate scientists who deny global climate change, often for reasons that are unrelated to their scholarship. Most of the people whom I suspect you're referring to are not whistelblowers by any stretch of the imagination-- they're simply opponents of genetic engineering, most of them poorly informed and repeating the same misinformation that makes the rounds of anti-science web sites. Some are much worse than that-- there really are advocate scientists who foster the creation of fake, pseudoscience journals to publish their fake research condemning genetic engineering, threatening to undermine the culture of detached honesty that is the very foundation of "real science."

If anything, chemtrails nuts make the rest of us look bad.

But I don't want to 'punish' any farmers. I want to 'reward' those who plant the sort of things I actually want to eat, by buying their products. So, as I noted, by your lights, I'm constantly 'punishing' okra farmers by not buying their products, because I don't want to eat okra. I 'boycott' okra, because I don't want to eat it.

I'd also like to have the information I need to boycott farmers who use various sorts of herbicides and pesticides, because from what I can see, they're damaging the biodiversity across enormous swathes of the countryside, which I happen to value.

Am I opposed to genetic engineering? Hell no. Let's use it to bring back extinct species. Or to allow people to have 'chlorophyll tattoos' that give you a boost of added energy when you're in the sun. Or all sorts of fun things.

But I am opposed to using it to make specific plants immune to poisons so that millions of acres of land can be sprayed with those poisons and turned into essentially sterile patches upon which absolutely nothing but the chosen engineered plants can grow. And that seems to be the chosen use for the vast majority of GM out in commercial use.

However, I don't see banning or otherwise discouraging GMOs as the proper solution to that particular problem. Instead, we need to update regulation of herbicide overuse. Recognizing that agribusiness corporations abuse the current regulations to increase their profits on both seed sales and herbicide sales suggests that the real problem is herbicide overuse rather than genetic engineering per se, although it's worth pointing out that many growers do feel like the trade off is worthwhile, since they perceive the need to improve cultivation by whatever means they can.

You're partly correct about what the "majority of GM out in commercial use" is designed for, i.e. proprietary herbicide resistance (the other major GM is insect resistance, e.g. Bt expression). However, that's a practice that should be regulated independently of GM. The current atmosphere-- particularly on the left-- is to demonize genetic engineering itself. We constantly hear products touted as GMO free, rather than as "responsibly cultivated." It's clear that for much of the anti-GMO movement the bogey man is the molecular biologist who uses genetic information from one organism to solve problems encountered by a different organism, not the agribusiness practices that concerned environmental citizens should really be questioning.

I'm a biologist (and an entomologist in particular, so I've worked in research departments with colleagues who did considerable genetic engineering, including some of the original work on Bt expression back in the late 80s and early 90s). I see much of the anti-GMO movement as being essentially anti-science, and certainly opposed to the scientific method. The overwhelming consensus of scientists knowledgeable about GMOs is that they are not inherently unsafe, yet in threads like this we routinely hear those scientists dismissed as "corporate shills" and GMOs as "poison." That's either totally unuseful hyperbole or, more likely, just plain ignorance. Unfortunately, ignorance is not a good basis for informed public policy, but the Luddites are swarming and folks who actually know how GM is done and what it might be used for are being drowned out by the anti-science mob.

I still have a landline, not a cell phone, and use desktops rather than mobile devices. And I far prefer heritage varietals in my garden to the standard cultivars that pop up on most grocery shelves. I want fruit and veg with taste, not the ability to stay nice looking forever while being trucked around or sitting on shelves.

And I do prefer very long longitudinal studies on newer tech in many fields before it goes into mass production, even as I understand how badly underfunded the sciences are. I've seen too many drugs get yanked from the shelves after years or even decades of supposedly 'safe' use. So I prefer to let other people play guinea pig, rather than to do so myself when it comes to sticking things in my body.

I'm not looking to ban anything - I actually don't even need 'GM labeling', as long as I can get voluntary 'GM-free' labeling available without the sort of legal battles that occurred when some milk producers wanted to be able to label their milk as being from cows on which no bovine growth hormone was used.

And I'd love to see you come out with something you could splice into ash's to make them unpalatable to the emerald ash borer.

(Btw, since you're an entymologist, how truly dire is the monarch situation these days? Is there any use in planting red milkweed if I can?)

It's clear that monarch populations have declined significantly, especially the continental populations that overwinter in Mexico, but the extent of the decline is hard to measure. The best long term data are from overwintering population estimates, but it is currently not clear how well those data reflect actual population trends, since only a fraction of each year's monarch population reaches overwintering sites. Some of the current panic over monarch status results from recent overwintering surveys, which suggest very dismal prospects, at least in the short term. But again, we are only just beginning to accumulate recent population data from other sources, like Monarch Watch.

Loss of larval feeding habitat and encroachment on overwintering habitat are the two greatest challenges facing monarch butterflies. Agricultural pesticide use is another problem of course, but monarch populations seemed to tolerate widespread pesticide use reasonably well for decades, probably because they don't primarily feed in agricultural fields. But conversion of road dividers and margins, hedgerows, and marginal farmland from natural habitat-- weedy natural flora-- has dramatically lessened the amount of larval habitat available for population recruitment.

I tell everyone I can: plant milkweeds and adult nectar sources like butterfly bush. Bring back native floral landscapes.

In fact labeling is pro-science because then you can make decisions about what you eat with all the information not just some of the information.

If GMOs are just so wonderful, a label identifying them should make them just fly off the shelf.

alongside "may contain traces of nuts"?