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"So why not just label it. Like a pack of cigarettes?"
Perhaps because consuming GMO food is definitely not the same as smoking tobacco? Considerations of tobacco's dangers started a long time before 75 years ago.
"In 1826, the pure form of nicotine is finally discovered. Soon after, scientists conclude that nicotine is a dangerous poison."
http://academic.udayton.edu/health/sylla....htm#begin
In the case of GMO foods we have a great deal of independent scientific review of GMO food safety and are not reliant on profit-focused corporations for evidence of lack of harm. In Hawai'i the state Department of Health refused to administer a proposed GMO labeling law because there has been no evidence of harm to health.
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Funny, anti-GMO and anti-corporation domestic terrorism are becoming material for mainstream entertainment.I recently binge watched the Syfy series "Continuum" on Netflix. There are a lot of nice shots in and around Vancouver BC, if nothing else. It is mainly about a future corporation cop from 2077 that gets caught in the terrorists' time travel plan gone wrong, and instead of 7 years into their past, go back 65 years to 2012 (when the series started).
The main plot is these future domestic terrorists are against all corporations and call themselves Liber8. In 2077, the Liber8 group is under a lot of pressure from the corp cops. It appears in this future, governments have weakened to being symbolic and all aspects of society are under corporation operation and control.
Anyway, all kinds of tangled storylines but there was a short segment of one of the future Liber8 elders on 2012 television, ranting about *Anti-GMO*. It was a LOL moment. He was word-for-word using the anti-GMO chant. The weird thing is this was from a show in 2012, and it is just now being spewed here locally. It's almost like this whole anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, anti-geothermal platform is originating from this TV show -- a mainland TV show.
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
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I'm hoping the GMO people can figure out how to make low fat chicken taste like smoked bacon. I'll be all over that when they do.
Being Easter weekend I think I'll go study my Bible. I'm currently working my way through John again. The lunar eclipses don't concern me but I do hope to have oil in my lamp.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
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Ken, perhaps you missed the more salient point that if you are relying on popular media for your guidance you may be misled. I chuckled at the one ad in your link featuring Ronald Reagan touting Chesterfields! Perhaps a sign of things to come.
The stenography "journalism" practiced these days creates a lot of false equivalencies, as if the scientific basis for the non-harm of GMO is exactly the same as the fear-based campaigns of the anti-GMO crowd. There are good reasons why the forced labeling of GMO foods is a bad idea and some of those have been covered in previous threads. You can look up many others such as "Instead of providing people with useful information, mandatory GMO labels would only intensify the misconception that so-called Frankenfoods endanger people's health..."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...-bad-idea/
Again, people can eat whatever they want to. Beyond the basic misinformation and bad science touted by anti-GMO activists, the objection of the scientific community, where the rubber hits the road, is when legislation is proposed, much less passed, enshrining fundamental misconceptions and outright lies into law. That's the problem here on the Big Island.
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The anti-GM crowd should label their food if they like labelling so much. Don't inflict costs on the rest of us just because you're afraid of scientific progress.
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Paul,
If businesses followed your suggestion; Substances that are safe to handle and/or ingest should be labeled.
Instead we have a system where toxins, and other dangerous substances are labeled as such.
According to you, rather than label gasoline "harmful or fatal if swallowed", we need to label water "Safe to swallow".
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That's the point. GM food isn't dangerous. If it was, it wouldn't even be sold.
You're in favor of labeling food that isn't dangerous. To what end?
If businesses followed your system then food would become prohibitively expensive because every apple would be packaged in a box to contain all the labeling demanded by every pressure group there is, no actual scientific evidence required.
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Yeah, I admit I was off base with the cow thing, my bad. I will truly admit that hay with an herbicide does have an effect somewhere down the food chain, and without store bought veggies and fruits, organic eggs and chicken (know the poor suckers), fish outta the ocean my belly is much happier. Maybe it's all the papaya I eat. I have also eaten moderate portions (hey!!you not hungry???) so overweight hasn't been a problem. Just my experience.
Are you a human being, or a human doing?
