simian

I know little to nothing about the EU market, so my comment is aimed at the US market.

People would also like to know exactly what farm a piece of food comes from. Not reasonable due to the way crops are brought in. Or rather, it can't be done at a reasonable price. Grains are commodities. They are comingled from a variety of place to keep costs down (the alternative is to ship and store in small containers, which would increase costs greatly).

If you want non-GMO, you can buy organic products - by definition they have to be non-GMO.

Simian

Pyrrho

I don't think the standards are adequate. And I do think that all products, whether "natural" or not, when we already know that they increase cancer, heart disease, or other health problems, should be either banned or at the very least labeled.

For more on these matters, see my response(s) to other post(s).

Pyrrho

The remarks in bold in the quotes (for the most part) were originally posted by me.

No, it certainly does NOT mean that they must be unsafe if one prohibits something from being marketed. If we consider, for example, a new drug that some company makes, it typically is prohibited until it is "approved" for use. But this initial prohibition is NOT because the drug is believed to be unsafe, but merely because it is not known to be safe. This crucial distinction is one that most of the people posting here seem to miss. Before something is marketed, there should be sufficient reason to believe it is safe. A prohibition does NOT require any evidence at all that the item in question is actually unsafe. Until one has sufficient reason to believe it is safe, it is reasonable to have it prohibited. There is absolutely no implication that one therefore believes it is actually unsafe.

We can also think of this another way: an infant, to figure out what a thing is like, will often put it in its mouth as a test. Most of us grow up, and prefer some other test before sticking it in our mouths.


You are obviously reading nonexistent things into what I say. To say that something should be prohibited does NOT entail the belief that it is actually unsafe. See comments above.


Your second paragraph is more like what I had in mind. It is also possible to take genes from totally different kinds of things, and create something that could never be created through traditional breeding techniques. Of course, I am NOT saying that one will necessarily create something that is bad by making a major change; if, for example, one started with a tomato, and altered it through genetic engineering to be exactly like a "natural" banana, this would be no more harmful than simply having a banana. (Of course, no one is likely to do such a thing, because it would be far easier and far cheaper to simply grow a "natural" banana; the point is that I am not assuming that something very different from the original must be dangerous—merely that its properties will likely diverge more from the original, and therefore it will be less predictable what its long term effects might be.)

Of course both are possible, but whether it is actual is what really matters. And it would need to be actual in all cases, or we would have something to worry about.

You continue:

No, there is no requirement that one believes that ALL corporations are evil, or even that most of them are. Just a few being evil will suffice to require us to have great care before we trust them. Surely you have enough knowledge of the history of businesses to know that they are not always looking out for the best interests of the community? The existence of a few evil companies is enough to require us to take care with what we allow them to do.

This idea also applies to other things as well. I do not lock my front door out of a paranoid fear that all of my neighbors are thieves and murderers. All it takes is one bad neighbor to make it a good idea for me to take the precaution of locking my door.

If only one corporation is evil (and surely there is more than one), we will need to regulate corporations carefully.


You continue:

The word "most" in your last sentence shows that even you know enough about these matters to know that we must be careful before trusting people.


And is this supposed to comfort us in some way? Do you think there are not a few professors who will do almost anything to keep the money coming in?


Have you forgotten about tobacco products so soon after mentioning that industry? There are billions of dollars that have been made by killing people. The only really important thing for a huge profit is to not kill them too quickly.... So your argument falls completely flat.

Additionally, this one example proves conclusively that the regulatory safeguards that we have in place are completely inadequate to protect us from unsafe products. Major corporations are permitted to sell things that are KNOWN to be extremely unsafe, as well as habit forming. We could easily now take this thread in another direction, and discuss the absurdity of which drugs are legal to use in the U.S. and which ones are not.


I see that I should have been a little more careful in my phrasing. Instead of:

"If some new, radically different item is introduced, we have no way of knowing whether it is healthful or not, particularly with long term concerns, such as cancer."

I should have stated:

"Before it is properly tested, if some new, radically different item is introduced, we have no way of knowing whether it is healthful or not, particularly with long term concerns, such as cancer."

My apologies for my carelessness.

As for many products that are commonly consumed being linked to cancer, not everyone eats the same foods, and some wish to be more careful about such things than others. If food were at least properly labeled, it would make such matters far easier. But the large corporations almost invariably fight against such things. Why do you think that is? Surely, it has to do with profits, and nothing to do with wanting to help people.


Again, you are misunderstanding what I am saying. The more something is changed, the less it is like the original item. Thus, the more it is changed, the less one will know about its properties (prior to independent testing), particularly long term effects of consumption. This lack of knowledge of what the product will do is something that suggests caution.

I have not ever said that the products are actually unsafe. Yet you seem to imagine that I have said such a thing.

When in doubt, I prefer to not stick it in my mouth to test it.


I have never assumed any such thing. You are simply reading nonexistent things into what I state.

In short, my position is this: In the abscence of sufficient evidence regarding the safety of a product, it should be banned. There is absolutely no assumption that the thing in question is unsafe.


And have they all been tested for the effects of consuming them for 20 years (and longer)? If not, then assuming that they are safe is irrational.



However his position may seem to you, it seems to me that he (or she) is merely saying that we cannot simply trust corporations to do the right thing. There are many instances of corporations doing very bad things, so we have reason and evidence that they are not simply to be trusted. In other words, it is unsafe to trust corporations.

Pyrrho

To attempt to be perfectly clear, I basically agree with you when you state:

"The point is that many of the same biological arguments being made against GM techniques also apply with equal force to most non-GM techniques (mutagenesis, forced hybridization) and even to natural mutation and combination processes occuring in existing crops (e.g. the unpredictable effects of novel genetic combinations), and therefore are not very convincing as arguments against GM specifically."

I never intended for my remarks about safety to apply only to genetically modified techniques. Clearly, many "natural" things are unsafe, and before anything is fed to the general public, there should be sufficient reason to believe it is safe.

Pyrrho

You make many excellent points. We are expected to trust people who have been wrong in the past about what is safe. Trusting them now is not merely believing without evidence, but believing against the evidence. In the past, the claims about BSE were made as it was economically practical for companies to do what they did that allowed it to become a problem. Now, they advocate GM products because they are economically advantageous for them. I remember the tobacco companies in the U.S. claiming for so very long that their products were safe, too.

When someone has a motive to lie, then their testimony lacks the force it might otherwise have. Of course, it does not prove that they are lying, but it gives one reason to question the truth of their claims. Basically, it is unwise to trust people who have a financial incentive to say what they are saying. They may be telling the truth, or they may simply be saying it for the money.

Pyrrho

I don't recall ever meeting anyone who ever said that they wanted to know which exact farm everything they ate came from. What people are asking for is information about what the thing is and how it was produced. If you mix grains of different types and from different sources, it is easy enough to say: "This product contains some genetically modified grains." It would not add greatly to the cost of the packaging to put that on it. But it would reduce its marketability, and that is why they don't want to do it.