Four more years!

[Dunderhead]

I'd vote for Bruce

[Jason]

Government mandates labels on harmful products like tobacco or alcohol. GMOs should not be in the same category.

While some GMOs are harmless to people, they do have the potential to be very dangerous. People have the right to know what they are eating. The information is out there, but the average American has no idea where to look. Giving Americans the tools to educate themselves about their own health will empower them to make better choices if they care to, which benefits the whole country in the long.

Besides, since the FDA doesn't allow any testing on humans, we really don't know what the long-term effects of GMOs (or basically, any other food additive) will be until it has already been introduced to the population. The changes that American consumers should be fighting in regards food labeling start with the loose FDA and USDA regulations and loopholes that put lobbyist interests in front of consumer concerns.

Your post also seemed to imply a concern for how GMO labeling would effect the market, and there have been studies that show that labeling GMOs do not either help or hinder product sales. About 5 years ago a study was published in the UK (where as Hypehat mentioned, they do label GMOs) where they actually overstated the dangers of genetically modified canned tomatoes and it had no effect on that products sales.

I dunno, when I see what we're still a country where half the population still doesn't support evolution, I find it hard to be optimistic about people going out of their way to spend time to find unbiased, scientific sources regarding the safety of GMOs.

We've been genetically modifying foods since the dawn of agriculture, albeit through more primitive cross-breeding methods. Genetic engineering of plants essentially accomplishes the same goals, higher yields and longer shelf lives, just without the hassle of having to wait many generations for results. We've been at that for decades now. I've eaten GMO-containing foods all my life with no negative health impact, as have many others here. I haven't read up on how the FDA regulates GMOs, but from a biological standpoint, I don't see how making a crop resistant to herbicides would ever impact its safety. I'm not against rigorous testing of GMOs, I just fear that labeling them would result in a knee jerk reaction from a public that so often doubts science (global warming, anyone?).

Want to label your food as organic? GMO-free? Sure, be my guest. I just see mandatory GMO labeling as doing more harm than good, especially in an era where GMOs may be necessary to tackle the rise of global hunger.

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

[Jason]

I'd vote for Bruce

Bruce Historical Pistol-Whippin' Johnston and Michael E. "Thug Life" Love for President/Vice President! Because it's a LOVE THANG.

[RadBooley]

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

...but then we'd be back to the days of late 19th century patent medicine where companies could promise anything and everything. Without any safety or quality standards, how are people supposed to make informed choices? Waiting until a whole bunch of people are harmed by misleading advertising before the free market kicks in and makes the company go bankrupt is not an acceptable alternative.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I'd vote for Bruce

One hour of Michael E Love-led meditation each morning via the family telescreen

[Jason]

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

...but then we'd be back to the days of late 19th century patent medicine where companies could promise anything and everything. Without any safety or quality standards, how are people supposed to make informed choices? Waiting until a whole bunch of people are harmed by misleading advertising before the free market kicks in and makes the company go bankrupt is not an acceptable alternative.

It's not the government's duty to save people from themselves. If people are going to poison themselves no amount of government regulation will stop it from happening. The market can self-regulate and produce results. Read about Underwriters Laboratories, or UL for short. Classic example of the market self-regulating and allowing for quality control without government oversight. There's no reason a similar group can't regulate food, water, drink, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

...but then we'd be back to the days of late 19th century patent medicine where companies could promise anything and everything. Without any safety or quality standards, how are people supposed to make informed choices? Waiting until a whole bunch of people are harmed by misleading advertising before the free market kicks in and makes the company go bankrupt is not an acceptable alternative.

It's not the government's duty to save people from themselves. If people are going to poison themselves no amount of government regulation will stop it from happening. The market can self-regulate and produce results. Read about Underwriters Laboratories, or UL for short. Classic example of the market self-regulating and allowing for quality control without government oversight. There's no reason a similar group can't regulate food, water, drink, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

Should we have allowed polio to just self-regulate itself into good behavior?

[RadBooley]

Honestly, I believe it is outside of governmental authority to regulate consumables. Food, water, alcohol, tobacco, drugs...you name it.

...but then we'd be back to the days of late 19th century patent medicine where companies could promise anything and everything. Without any safety or quality standards, how are people supposed to make informed choices? Waiting until a whole bunch of people are harmed by misleading advertising before the free market kicks in and makes the company go bankrupt is not an acceptable alternative.

It's not the government's duty to save people from themselves. If people are going to poison themselves no amount of government regulation will stop it from happening. The market can self-regulate and produce results. Read about Underwriters Laboratories, or UL for short. Classic example of the market self-regulating and allowing for quality control without government oversight. There's no reason a similar group can't regulate food, water, drink, alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

...it's definitely the government's duty to keep people safe. That's... why we have a government. Y'know, that whole "promoting the general welfare" thing. Kind of a principle we founded the country on.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

TRBB, do you remember the Jalisco Cheese disaster in LA of 1985?

62 people died before CDC of Los Angeles tracked it down to a single manufacturing plant that was not pasteurizing milk for their cheese. These people died from Listeria monocytogenes via an outfit that was simply not self-regulating. And even when caught they denied any wrong doing..... So, what would the difference be to you if some private company found this out and told you "Sir, you might want to consider NOT eating that cheese because you will die" or if the Government told you? And was it an insult to the free market to then pull the contaminated cheese from stores so that no one else could consume it and die or should consumers have been left to make their own informed (or uninformed) decision?

I'm just trying to get to the root of this.

And if it's not the Government's job to do a single damn thing, may I please have my taxes back? Thank you!

[Amanda Hart]

I dunno, when I see what we're still a country where half the population still doesn't support evolution, I find it hard to be optimistic about people going out of their way to spend time to find unbiased, scientific sources regarding the safety of GMOs.

We've been genetically modifying foods since the dawn of agriculture, albeit through more primitive cross-breeding methods. Genetic engineering of plants essentially accomplishes the same goals, higher yields and longer shelf lives, just without the hassle of having to wait many generations for results. We've been at that for decades now. I've eaten GMO-containing foods all my life with no negative health impact, as have many others here. I haven't read up on how the FDA regulates GMOs, but from a biological standpoint, I don't see how making a crop resistant to herbicides would ever impact its safety. I'm not against rigorous testing of GMOs, I just fear that labeling them would result in a knee jerk reaction from a public that so often doubts science (global warming, anyone?).

Want to label your food as organic? GMO-free? Sure, be my guest. I just see mandatory GMO labeling as doing more harm than good, especially in an era where GMOs may be necessary to tackle the rise of global hunger.

But if we make the information easily accessible, people won't have to spend a bunch of time researching it. If people choose to ignore the information that's right in front of them, that's their business. Same if they choose to only listen to the information that they like, which is what most people do when it comes to their health or any scientific matter. The only responsible thing for the people in leadership positions to do is make the information available and allow the people to make their own informed decisions. Keeping people in the dark does not help us move forward.

Clearly there are benefits to GMOs and I am not against modifying crops to get a higher yield or increasing the nutritional value. There are potential physiological problems these crops could present, however. Let's look specifically at increased shelf-life. Changes made to foods to increase self-life are at their core, processes that stop the degradation of carbons in the presence of oxygen. The breakdown of carbons are what we need to produce energy and the same processes that cause foods to breakdown on the shelf allows food to breakdown in our body. At the very least this will slow down the enzymatic process of converting calories to usable energy, which could have implications at all stages of metabolism, to at it's most extreme, result in calories that we can take in but cannot use. What good is food to the population if it cannot be used as fuel? Calories we don't breakdown either leave our bodies as waste or they get stored as fat, and I don't think any Americans need more opportunity to increase their fat mass. I typed out 2 other physiological implications, but probably no know else cares enough to delve into all the details of bio-availability.

The scariest parts of GMOs are things like what the WHO proposed in 2005; planting crops in Africa genetically modified to produce antibiotics. Or, in a closer to home example, genetic modifications of cows allowing them to produce milk earlier. That practice combined with an increase in bovine hormone injections has been linked to the early onset of puberty seen in American children over the last 15 years. The mean age for a girl to start her period has shifted from 17 a generation ago, to the current average of 11. Again, since we aren't allowed to test on humans we have no idea what this shift in maturity could mean to our population as a whole.

You say that you haven't had any ill effects of eating GMOs, but do you really know whether you have? If that's all you've even known, it is your normal and may not reflect what your body's peak performance could be. Like you said, most people don't care enough to seek out scientific information, so in that case, those same people probably won't care about GMO labeling either. People flipped out over pink slime but it didn't hurt any fast food restaurants.

[Jason]

Should we have allowed polio to just self-regulate itself into good behavior?

Well, that's a ridiculous question.

...it's definitely the government's duty to keep people safe. That's... why we have a government. Y'know, that whole "promoting the general welfare" thing. Kind of a principle we founded the country on.

Government has proven woefully inadequate and frighteningly wasteful when it comes to "promoting the general welfare" to the tune of trillions of dollars of welfare and warfare. I think the private sector can do it better and cheaper.

TRBB, do you remember the Jalisco Cheese disaster in LA of 1985?

62 people died before CDC of Los Angeles tracked it down to a single manufacturing plant that was not pasteurizing milk for their cheese. These people died from Listeria monocytogenes via an outfit that was simply not self-regulating. And even when caught they denied any wrong doing..... So, what would the difference be to you if some private company found this out and told you "Sir, you might want to consider NOT eating that cheese because you will die" or if the Government told you? And was it an insult to the free market to then pull the contaminated cheese from stores so that no one else could consume it and die or should consumers have been left to make their own informed (or uninformed) decision?

I'm just trying to get to the root of this.

And if it's not the Government's job to do a single damn thing, may I please have my taxes back? Thank you!

Jalisco had an unlicensed technician monitor and pasteurize the cheese. The technician wasn't certified by anyone. Jalisco was clearly in the wrong and the families of the 52 dead had every right to sue for damages. That's not a failure of the free market, it's just a bad company.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I hear you, but that doesn't answer my question.

Not that I'm saying the government has a sterling record here, but in theory, wouldn't the free market or private enterprise have an even worse record since they wouldn't HAVE to do anything?

[Jason]

They can be held accountable by the customers. It's as simple as that. Think like a class action lawsuit.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

They can be held accountable by the customers. It's as simple as that. Think like a class action lawsuit.

But who would be in charge of getting the information out there?

What good is a class action suit if you're dead?

But I do think we're getting somewhere here.

[Jason]

They can be held accountable by the customers. It's as simple as that. Think like a class action lawsuit.

But who would be in charge of getting the information out there?

What good is a class action suit if you're dead?

But I do think we're getting somewhere here.

Who would be in charge of getting the information out there? Either people within the company or the customer base. The customer base can boycott the company until they come clean. The threat of going out of business due to no revenue will make any company cooperate. A class action lawsuit could be filed by surviving members of the families of the deceased.

[RadBooley]

They can be held accountable by the customers. It's as simple as that. Think like a class action lawsuit.

But who would be in charge of getting the information out there?

What good is a class action suit if you're dead?

But I do think we're getting somewhere here.

Who would be in charge of getting the information out there? Either people within the company or the customer base. The customer base can boycott the company until they come clean. The threat of going out of business due to no revenue will make any company cooperate. A class action lawsuit could be filed by surviving members of the families of the deceased.

How about we have someone set standards before a tragedy happens, hmm?

[Jason]

The private sector can still do that.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

The private sector can still do that.

Perhaps, but the private sector has little interest or motivation. Like I said, a private company would rather allow a tragedy to occur if preventing such a tragedy would mean spending more money.

This happens on each and every conceivable level. I  mean, a supermarket that's open 24/7 will happily let people stand in one single massive line because having an extra cashier on hand would cost more money. They figure the amount of angry customers who'll give up and leave will ultimately cost them less and their billions spent on keeping the store's image intact via advertising will keep them in the green. There is ultimately no accountability in the private sector. At least no willing accountability.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The private sector can still do that.

In fact, the private sector is compelled to put profits ahead of all else. The reason why government regulations were put in place in the first place is precisely because private companies were not regulating themselves nor was there anything that compelled them to - certainly not the ol' loss of profits chestnut that libertarians like to pull out. The EPA was created in part because private companies dumped so many toxins into the Cuyahoga River that it caught fire. Repeatedly. To pretend as if corporations would regulate themselves is a fantasy that depends on flat out erasing any and all history that exists before the implementation of regulations.

[stack-o-tracks]

People like to know what they're eating? It's been standard practice for years over my end.

I can understand that, but virtually everything we've been eating here has been genetically modified to a degree. While I'm no fan of Monsanto or similar patent-happy agricultural conglomerates, the foods produced by GMOs have no negative impact on human health.  Mandating a label on foods that contain GMOs (which is a LOT of them) would send the message that they're somehow dangerous compared to organic foods.

Government mandates labels on harmful products like tobacco or alcohol. GMOs should not be in the same category.

wrong wrong wrong. they have no idea what happens long term when people eat genetically modified food regularly. less than a generation has passed since they started feeding people that stuff.

these plants easily cross pollinate with the naturally occurring varieties and will pollute their gene pool.

nature has been doing its thing for billions of years and people think they already understand the processes enough to f*** with them. we're literally ruining every single thing possible to ruin. turning the land into deserts, acidifying the ocean, killing plants and animals, and then doing frankenstein type experiments on the ones we havent managed to kill off yet. the sooner i can get off this planet or everybody goes extinct, the better.

[Jason]

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

Is this a joke?

[stack-o-tracks]

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

well, no, they should just not drink milk. though yeah, if it's causing you to die and you dont stop drinking it, you probably should just die, because intelligence.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

well, no, they should just not drink milk. though yeah, if it's causing you to die and you dont stop drinking it, you probably should just die, because intelligence.

People should die "because intelligence"?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

The idiot who drinks raw milk and isn't fit to digest it is weak and should be eliminated from the gene pool. That's called evolution.

well, no, they should just not drink milk. though yeah, if it's causing you to die and you dont stop drinking it, you probably should just die, because intelligence.

People should die "because intelligence"?

if it's Jan Wenner: yes, he should continue drinking the milk!