GMO refers to genetically modified organisms.
There is an initiative on the California ballot to label GMOs. The actual labeling is chaotic but quite irrelevant to the absurdity of the proposed legislation.
In the early ‘90s I organized a group called the Project to Label Genetically Engineered Foods. I worked with all of the other groups concerned with this issue and helped start several other important groups related to genetic engineering and ethics. My concern at the time was that genetically engineered foods might have harmful consequences in humans. I was particularly alarmed that advocates for genetic engineering kept arguing that it was just like existing hybridization and plant selection processes.
It is not. No farmer ever got a pig to have sex with a banana. Yet genetic engineering can put pig genes in bananas and they do.
That was my reason for wanting genetically engineered foods to be labeled.
We found the solution in the Department of Agriculture's plans to label organic food. The food people agreed to exclude all genetically engineered products from the organic label. All of us joined together and pushed for this government solution. We won. Overwhelmingly.
The term organic in the United States means there is no genetically engineered component in the organic product.
My concern about detecting long-term harmful human consequences was satisfied. People who buy and eat organic wouldn’t have GMO related health consequences.
Now along came this initiative to label everything with GMO. It is nearly 20 years later and no genetically engineered product has been found to be harmful to humans.
Such labeling today is indefensible. If someone doesn't want GMOs they can buy organic. Everyone else now will have to pay for the cost of labeling in California.
This is sheer stupidity. But more importantly it shows that the environmental and the natural food lobbies are made up of dishonest, mentally incompetent people.
There is an initiative on the California ballot to label GMOs. The actual labeling is chaotic but quite irrelevant to the absurdity of the proposed legislation.
In the early ‘90s I organized a group called the Project to Label Genetically Engineered Foods. I worked with all of the other groups concerned with this issue and helped start several other important groups related to genetic engineering and ethics. My concern at the time was that genetically engineered foods might have harmful consequences in humans. I was particularly alarmed that advocates for genetic engineering kept arguing that it was just like existing hybridization and plant selection processes.
That was my reason for wanting genetically engineered foods to be labeled.
We found the solution in the Department of Agriculture's plans to label organic food. The food people agreed to exclude all genetically engineered products from the organic label. All of us joined together and pushed for this government solution. We won. Overwhelmingly.
The term organic in the United States means there is no genetically engineered component in the organic product.
My concern about detecting long-term harmful human consequences was satisfied. People who buy and eat organic wouldn’t have GMO related health consequences.
Now along came this initiative to label everything with GMO. It is nearly 20 years later and no genetically engineered product has been found to be harmful to humans.
Such labeling today is indefensible. If someone doesn't want GMOs they can buy organic. Everyone else now will have to pay for the cost of labeling in California.
This is sheer stupidity. But more importantly it shows that the environmental and the natural food lobbies are made up of dishonest, mentally incompetent people.