Over 80 percent of Americans support mandatory labels on foods containing DNA

[Alcon]

Over 80% of Americans surveyed by this poll probably assumed that "DNA" referred to modified DNA, thus GMOs.^{I hope}

I'm not sure that many of those Americans could give a more coherent reason for supporting labeling GMOs than DNA, so that's pretty cold comfort.

[Alcon]

You don't seem to understand something can pose no threat when ingested and still wreck the environment and the economy.  Did you read the quote?  The farmers are suing Monsanto because of the economic damage they caused.

OK, so we have an incident of a genetically modified crop being introduced accidentally into the environment, with economic consequences, because some consumers (for almost invariably irrational reasons) don't want to buy the stuff.  That seems like a compelling reason for a civil case, but how do you arrive at mandated labeling from it?

And you like a lot of lay people have a naive Hollywood kind of view of how disasters happen.  As someone who has studied some disaster prevention and management let me tell you most catastrophes are caused by little mundane things that the average person ignores.  It is only in retrospect that the average person goes whoa okay I guess that thing I ignored was God's warning shot across my bow.

The zombie wheat incident illustrated a couple of things.  First of all all that testing in a certain sense is worthless.  Why?  Because zombie wheat demonstrated seeds can circumnavigate the testing and approval process and end up surreptitiously on private property.  The second thing it demonstrated is all the control that Monsanto tells us they have is no guarantee.

You're using incredibly flowery language to say that a supply chain error occurred.  Nothing in the testing process of GMOs somehow protects against supply chain errors.  You're acting like this was some unknown and catastrophic secondary consequence of the technology that somehow requires more than the usual remedies for civil issues, and I have no idea why.

Basically it is like Monsanto had the working ICBMs, centrifuges, and uranium mining equipment.  All they need to do is find some uranium... and they are actively prospecting.  So you would look at Monsanto and say nothing to see here?  Or would you call the IAEA and say let's chat with these guys?  So you see all that but you would rather wait for a mushroom cloud before even doing something as simple as writing three letters on food packaging?  I wish Republicans showed that kind of restraint with Iraq.  You guys have a very weird sense of what people should worry about and take action on.

Unfortunately I got a front row seat to a natural disaster that evolved into a man made disaster.  There was a structure with a completely mind blowingly dumb design flaw.  I had been in and around the structure more times than I can count.  I never realized it harbored this particular design flaw.  Well after disaster struck and the design flaw crippled various facilities and probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars I became aware of it.  I was dumbstruck.  And what was weird was even after the disaster the design flaw was mentioned almost casually.  Well I ranted about it to anyone who would listen.  My family probably got sick of me talking about it.

Well fast forward a few years later.  The Fukushima disaster occurs.  I get a call from a relative.  They tell me the reactor melted down and there were multiple hydrogen explosions because of the design flaw you kept ranting about all those years ago.  I just said, "They never learn."  Actually I didn't say that.  I ranted even more.  Can't believe the design flaw was demonstrated in grand fashion and some jerk running a nuclear power plant on a coastline on the ring of fire just shrugged.  WTF?!  God gives you a nice clean shot across the bow demonstrating for you a flaw in your design or process and all he gets in response is a smart ass on the interwebs.  Trust me seeing a package of food in the grocery store with three extra letters on the packaging is not the worst thing that can happen in this scenario... not even close.

...what?

You seem to be arguing that we should assume there's some massively terrible unknown-unknown at play here, and your "shot across the bow" is a largely conventional supply chain issue.  Hell, it's a supply chain issue that would be exacerbated by manual labeling, since that would increase the ridiculous GMO hysteria, worsening these problems when they occur.

You're basically arguing the precautionary principle, and using an irrelevant supply chain issue and a bunch of metaphorical bluster to make the precaution seem more reasonable in this case.  It's not.

[Alcon]

Uhh...  Did you even read the post you quoted?  The whole point of my post was people are naive when they think most disasters are caused by big complicated high tech faults.  You are agreeing with me, genius.

Yes, I did.  You have not explained why this incident is disastrous enough to require special concern or anything beyond the civil remedy typical of addressing supply chain screw-ups.  That was my point; it was clearly stated, and you did not respond to it.

And the second point I made is even once these simple faults are demonstrated in much smaller scale disasters history is littered with the wreckage of idiots that did not head those warnings... like Monsanto.  After the zombie wheat incident did they immediately coordinate with regulaters to implement a process improvement program... or did they deny the event happened?  If you chose choice B then congratulations you have at least half a brain.

I'm aware of this incident, and Monsanto did not deny it happened.  They suggested it was a malicious introduction instead of a supply chain error.  I doubt that's the case, but so what?  If your argument is that corporations can spin into denial when they might be on the hook for something, that's obviously the case -- and it's the case with virtually every corporation, in virtually every sector, because that's how the incentive structure lines up.  So what?  Again, unless this is some disastrous issue that can't be remedied through the normal processes used to address civil cases, I have no idea why this is unusually significant, let alone what it has to do with mandatory labeling.

Also an interesting point is no one in this thread is suggesting banning GMOs.  The only fanatical hair on fire lunatics are on the don't touch muh GMO side.  Everyone else is saying lets consider writing three letters on the side of the box and use a little bit of common sense restraint in using this new and potential dangerous discovery.  I mean do you really think it is crazy to say maybe the majority of Americans who are overweight or obese should think about eating less vs churning out more GMO mutations at a break neck speed to create high fructose corn syrup for Big Gulps?  Is that really a radical position?

"Potential dangerous" (sic) in what way?  You seem to be arguing from the precaution principle, but your only rationale for precaution seems to be something easily addressed by civil law (the possibility of supply chain issues), and something that would not, as far as I can tell, be helped by labeling anyway.

What kind of ridiculous false dichotomy is "maybe you should eat less high-fructose corn syrup instead of making GMOs"?  You seem to be verging on wrapping up ideas of health, and evidence-based things like limiting caloric consumption, with woo food 'purity' nonsense.

I mean a poster on this forum honestly said we should suppress information from the average American because they can't handle it.

How Orwellian is that?  And worst of all if those nanny state apologists bothered to read what the author they were quoting wrote he debunked that insane notion.  Some of the proGMO fanatics on this forum have lost the plot.  Seriously printing three letters on a box, a bit more government oversight, and a more robust discussion of how much crap we cram in our fat pie holes is not a crazy suggestion.  Take a chill pill folks.

It's not Orwellian.  I doubt he's arguing against banning voluntarily labeling; that would be authoritarian.  He's responding to the argument that commonly put forward, which is essentially, "even if mandatory labeling of GMOs is pointless and arbitrary, why not do it anyway?"  His response is that the consumer demand doesn't reflect a compelling interest -- in fact, it causes harm, so arbitrary labeling is worse than just pointless.  He is (I assume) arguing that the government should pursue evidence-based policy, not institute labeling based on (and contributing to) people's non-evidence-based freakouts.  That's entirely a valid response to "why not just label it anyway?"

Imagine if the government considered instituting mandatory labeling of vaccines simply because some proportion of the population believes, in the absence of compelling evidence, that they're harmful.  Would you not find the scaremongering effects of the label a potentially compelling argument against the label?

Can't live without muh GMO!!!  Gobal food shortage indeed!

I don't think you should be the one accusing others of having apparent emotional over-investment in this issue...

[Alcon]

You think it would be a good idea to not label GMO foods? I completely disagree, for the following simple reason. If you look at some of the old commercials put out by the cigarette companies, you'll see all kinds of claims being made. (Check out the one showing the brand smoked by most doctors, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKLpO9qhOE). So what has changed? Well, we began seeing claims that smoking tobacco causes cancer, so we decided to do the science: the studies were run by looking at people that smoke vs. those that don't, results began to be compiled, and attitudes began to change. Ok, so fast forward to GMOs. Certain people are making one set of claims, others are making opposite claims. Which group is correct?  Well, to do the science like we did with cigarettes, you need to run studies on two groups of people, those that consume GMOs and those that don't. Then you look to see if correlations exist between diseases and consumption of GMO foods. But how can you do this when people don't know whether or not they've consumed foods with GMOs in them? Use of GMOs in our food system is so wide spread and so downplayed that it's going to be near impossible to get any clear answers on the subject, and I suspect that's by design.

There are very, very few scientists, including independent ones, who think this is a legitimate concern.  It's not like we don't understand the basic processes underlying genetic engineering.  If anything, genetic engineering is more precise than the process used in natural hybridization.  I don't think cigarettes and cancer is a good analogy, because we never had consistent medical or scientific consensus that there was no conceptual or empirical reason for concern, like we do with GMOs.  We can't just mandate governmentally-enforced labeling entirely based on what technologies give people the heeby-geebies, which is effectively what this is.

The analogy regarding vaccines is a bit more extreme (since obviously scaring people away from vaccines is more consequential), but otherwise pretty apt.  There are plenty of people who argue we should exercise the same logic when it comes to thimerosal, and demand that we observe control populations over their entire lifetime, and until then apply labeling.  The rationale is the same, as is the lack of empirical or conceptual evidence, and the hyper-extension of the precaution principle.

One solution might be to flip the whole labeling requirement on its head: figure out what specifically would be needed for something to be considered "non-GMO", and allow an appropriate label on only those products that meet the criteria. So the costs associated with the production, monitoring, and labeling of such food items ends up being covered by those working to produce these food items for that portion of the population that want them, for whatever reason (be it extreme paranoia, sensitivity to food allergies, or whatever). This would seem to be a reasonable approach that serves all of the various parties involved, as well as helping to bolster Adam Smith's informed consumer, yes?

I'm definitely totally fine with voluntary labeling regimes.  I think it's a silly personal preference, but I guess I have no problem with the government regulating claims to fact like this, even if I personally think the facts aren't materially relevant.

For what it's worth, "certified organic" labels actually require products to be GMO-free.  That doesn't really make sense, but hey, it's an existing option I guess.

[Alcon]

Or, alternatively, what was the study's threshold for significance?  Statistical significance?  Some unspecified percentage?  A price increase of 5-20%, even absorbed by the company, is "significant" to me.  And you inexplicably neglected to respond to my criticisms of why this is reasonable no matter how slight the increased cost is...kind of defeats the purpose of a debate/exchange of ideas.

[Alcon]

Yes, just a point of clarification: modification of the genetics of a plant do not pose a health issue in and of themselves. The problem is that many of the genetic modifications being done target a plant's response to the use of certain chemicals, either for fertilization or for weed/pest control. It is the widespread use of these chemicals that people object to. People tend to want to over simplify things, getting all agitated about GMO products, when in fact, as you correctly point out, the genetic modifications themselves have no direct involvement in the health issues associated with produce coming from GMO plants. It's the use of chemicals that pose the real threat. I know that if I'm eating a fruit or vegetable off a plant that has not been modified to respond appropriately to the use of these chemicals, that the chances of these fruits or veggies containing residual amounts of these chemicals is quite a bit lower. That's the rational for wanting to draw the distinction between GMO and non-GMO.

Do you have some sort of citation that indicates that the synthetic pesticides that GMOs allow for (such as glyphosate) are more dangerous on average?  This contradicts what I've read.  Even if it were true, why is mandatory labeling of something that indirectly correlates (not even that strongly) with the presence of those chemicals a reasonable solution, especially when people will mistakenly infer they should be concerned about GMOs themselves?  These seems like a strained rationalization for supporting GMO labeling.

Also, any responses to the points made in my last post?

[Alcon]

Do you have some sort of citation that indicates that the synthetic pesticides that GMOs allow for (such as glyphosate) are more dangerous on average?  This contradicts what I've read.  Even if it were true, why is mandatory labeling of something that indirectly correlates (not even that strongly) with the presence of those chemicals a reasonable solution, especially when people will mistakenly infer they should be concerned about GMOs themselves?  These seems like a strained rationalization for supporting GMO labeling.

Also, any responses to the points made in my last post?

Here's one recent article that raises the question: http://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-cancer-1.17181

I'd like to see more science done on the subject; I believe there's enough evidence to justify looking further into the issue. In the meantime, I'd be willing to cover some additional cost associated with having labels on non-GMO products, as I mentioned in a previous post.

Oh, right, sorry, I forgot you were the one who indicated support for non-mandatory labeling.

The IARC ratings Nature refers to address the potential for an entity to be a carcinogen at some dose.  It does not indicate to what extent the entity is a carcinogen, or at what dose.  The IARC uses the same classification for glyphosate as it does for cooked meat and fish, bacon, grapefruit juice, and working a night shift.  It's also at a lower warning level than some other things, including sunlight, oral contraceptives, and alcohol.

After this categorization, numerous independent regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe reviewed the standing evidence and declared glyphosate wasn't a concern for human consumption (here, for instance).

Like a lot of stuff that even vaguely touches on GMO-related topics, it got picked up and heavily decontextualized.