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I have been following this thread for a while, and I find myself of a different opinion than when I had started. I used to go with the "well, if there's nothing wrong with it, why are they against labeling it?!" crowd in terms of GMO, and thought that organic growing was more sustainable; my view of nuclear plants was also very much of the environmental consensus variety. I am now seriously questioning all of these. More selfishly, I am now wondering whether overspending on organic food provides me with anything more than a placebo effect and a lighter wallet. Is there anywhere to start reading something serious about these issues? Let's say, starting with the latter: which types of organic/freerange/grassfed is actually helpful? I do like the free-range eggs better, and I know that's not what people have discussed in the thread, but I would like to have some information with which to make more intelligent decisions, and then start arguing with my friends, many of which are probably more of the Atomkraft: Nein Danke and No GMO persuasion.
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# ¿ Dec 21, 2013 02:44 |
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# ¿ May 5, 2024 11:58 |
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Hypha posted:Maybe somebody has a better recommendation but from my perspective, there is no nice little approachable book like you find for the anti-GMO crowd. Please note, I am from a grains perspective, so I have limited ability to comfortably talk about anything to do with animals. The pro-literature is more-so in scientific journals and agronomic trials and they don't have the same narrative. Statements like "more parasitic mycorrhizal associations were encouraged in an organic system compared to the conventional control" do not grab audiences but it is from where I get my opinions. Sadly, a lot of these resources are not free to the public. Man, how wonderful it would be if all science was open-source. Yeah, quite a few people around here are into urban agriculture; I haven't had the chance to have an apartment or house where I even have the possibility of doing anything about that myself, though. As for non-free sources, I have some access through my university, so if you have a couple of nice citations, I'll put them somewhere on the back burner for later perusal.
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# ¿ Dec 21, 2013 21:01 |
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As seen in an anarchist infoshop near you: SO WHAT ABOUT BIOTECHNOLOGY??!
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# ¿ Feb 15, 2014 03:24 |
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Because most corn is used for purposes other than to feed people. Still, it would make more sense to grow corn more efficiently so that whole fields can be freed up to either grow other things or allow wildlife to take it over again.
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# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 21:55 |
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karthun posted:So why is Cuba's yield for rice (2700 lb per acre) less than half what the US's is (7694 lb per acre)? Because apparently an improvement from total dependence on import is not the same as improvement from modern high-yield methods.
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# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 23:23 |
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To tie some of these allegedly conflicting views together, it seems that biodiversity is actually very important for making better GMO's, as well as for drug discovery: transgenic properties are usually discovered in wild organisms, rather than invented from whole cloth. The fewer wild varieties and species there are, the less likely you are to find the genes you would want to use to improve crops, whether through the old-fashioned way or through molecular biology. The WWF link here actually explains the history of this quite well.
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# ¿ Apr 6, 2014 18:55 |
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icantfindaname posted:Okay, millions of people would be dying of vitamin deficiency if not for golden rice and other biotech products. Is that better? While looking that up, I ran into this page by Greenpeace: quote:GE 'Golden' rice has been in development for over 20 years. The tens of millions of dollars invested in GE 'Golden' rice would have been better spent on VAD solutions that are already available and working, such as food supplements, food fortification and home gardening. Greenpeace believes that, by combating VAD with ecologically farmed home and community gardens, sustainable systems are created that provide food security and diversity in a way that is empowering people, protects biodiversity, and ensures a long-lasting solution to VAD and malnutrition. What a pile of disingenuous tripe. They encourage opposition to not-for-profit research into Golden Rice and then trash it for not having been tested well enough.
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# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 21:11 |
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I'm not sure this particular harmful scientific monster has appeared in this thread, so I present to you, the ADD-causing, cancer-inducing, kid-hating phenomenon: wifi in schools! Metroland posted:Readin’, Ritin’, Radiation Anyone with any familiarity with the issue want to comment? On the surface it seems ludicrous to connect non-ionizing radiation to cancer, and it seems that even the research they are bringing up mostly has to do with pregnancy, not childhood, but I'm just a physicist in training.
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# ¿ May 23, 2014 20:57 |
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The fear of WiFi couldn't sustain me long, so I think it's time to go back to Monsanto. From an OP in Aljazeera:quote:A recent US Department of Agriculture study of the first 15 years of US experience with transgenic crops concluded that the technology had produced only limited and uneven yield improvements over conventional hybrid varieties of maize. The main benefit, when there was one, came in the reduced need for labour, since insect-resistant transgenic maize reduces pesticide applications and herbicide-tolerant varieties reduce manual weeding by allowing the liberal spraying of entire fields with Monsanto's Round-Up weed-killer. quote:The adoption of Bt crops increases yields by mitigating yield losses from insects. However, empirical evidence regarding the effect of HT crops on yields is mixed. Generally, stacked seeds (seeds with more than one GE trait) tend to have higher yields than conventional seeds or than seeds with only one GE trait. GE corn with stacked traits grew from 1 percent of corn acres in 2000 to 71 percent in 2013. Stacked seed varieties also accounted for 67 percent of cotton acres in 2013. Nope, reduction of labor is the only clear advantage. Another amusing and telling tidbit from the OP: quote:I asked Monsanto officials whether their goal was just to open up yellow maize markets in Mexico to transgenics. It made no sense to me. The seed provider already has the Mexican market for yellow maize seeds; 90 percent of US maize is in GM seeds, and that is the source for Mexico's imports of yellow maize. Monsanto's seed market won't get bigger because some of the seeds get planted in Mexico.
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# ¿ May 27, 2014 19:56 |
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It's been more than a month before I've posted GMO bullshit! Can't have that!quote:GMO Inside has partnered on releasing the film Unacceptable Levels! Your purchase helps us continue our work! http://ykr.be/24b4k9a6x Ed Brown presents, Unacceptable Levels a story of how the chemical revolution brought us to where we are, and where, if we’re not vigilant, it may take us. This film poses challenges to our companies, our government, and our society to do something about a nearly-unseen threat with the inspired knowledge that small changes can generate a massive impact. Buy or rent a copy here: http://ykr.be/24b4k9a6x #food #chemical #contamination A comment posted this other pile of misinformation:
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# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 08:49 |
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How dare I argue with experts! Under a friend's Facebook post (I'm Anderer; Phil Anderer):
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 05:11 |
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Ytlaya posted:You have a lot more patience than me. I would have also gone the "compare with Kosher" route, though I think that after a while you should have just limited your posts to a demand that someone explain the difference; if you say too much stuff it makes it too easy for people to pick and choose what they want to respond to and ignore everything else. I seriously need to fight my urge to ramble and just open myself to attack like this, you're absolutely right. I think I'll stick to "what would be a sufficient testing regime; why is the current regime deficient" and "why is GMO free different from Kosher", depending on which of the two arguments is pursued. ETA: Speaking of rambling, a very long argument in defense of Monsanto, linked from another discussion: The New Yorker posted:Why the Climate Corporation Sold Itself to Monsanto Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jul 4, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 05:43 |
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Absurd Alhazred posted:How dare I argue with experts! Under a friend's Facebook post (I'm Anderer; Phil Anderer): IT KEEPS HAPPENING (Will Power is now Curt N. Call, the rest are new) I'm thinking I'll respond by stressing the comparison to Kosher foods and demanding that if there is evidence for issues with a GMO product, it can be taken off the market, like trans-fats.
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 17:28 |
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Anosmoman posted:Keep asking for evidence and make him back up the claim that transgenic seeds can't co-exist with organic seeds. Maybe point out that mutagenic strains can legally be grown in organic fields and organic companies happily market food that was created with RADIATION as organic with no reference to how they were created. You could also point out that you could probably produce toxic crop strains through selective breeding if you were so inclined so therefore...? But you don't understand, he linked to a book. So now I would have to have second-hand arguments with another source that this idiot will repeatedly misrepresent. It's a losing direction to go.
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 18:01 |
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Martin Random posted:Who wouldn't behave in a bizarre way under such circumstances?
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 20:03 |
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Martin Random posted:Yeah, I think you missed my point. If it were just about having tasty tomatoes, these folks would be growing tasty tomatoes themselves or buying heirloom varieties. But they'renot doing that. They're holding protest, spreading paranoid conspiracy stories about cancer, chemtrails, world trade organization conspiracies, and other crazy poo poo. Sorry for being trite. That discussion left a bad taste in my mouth, and probably mixes in sentiments from the I/P thread. So... I guess I exemplify the problem of which you speak. Deteriorata posted:That's not really his point. People are pissed about the commoditization of food, and can't figure out exactly what the problem is. GMOs became a symbol of this, of a creeping "progress" they don't really want. The problem isn't GMOs, but they've become a convenient scapegoat. Then how am I to respond to reach out to these people? Is that even possible?
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 20:23 |
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peter banana posted:um, wow. Thanks for the info. Glad I was buying certified organic stuff already. Without whining. Certified by whom? I wonder about those organizations. How much oversight do they really have?
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# ¿ Jul 4, 2014 23:50 |
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From my personal experience, after years of buying only "free-range, organic brown" eggs, I switched to regular eggs, and they're both cheaper and look and taste exactly the same. I feel I've been scammed.
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# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 04:06 |
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FuriousxGeorge posted:Well, at least free range generally asserts some less inhumane treatment for the birds. If you care about that sort of thing it can be a useful thing to know. If humaneness has any impact on taste or quality of the eggs? Not that I've ever noticed. Well, according to that link, the USDA-based labels have minimal relevance to how well the chickens are treated. All the "free-" types only seem to indicate no cages, there don't seem to be any other restrictions on how much room they have. I'm not sure if I have access to that which is third-party certified. Although most of those those don't look too exacting, either.
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# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 04:21 |
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Nintendo Kid posted:The current status of study is that we simply aren't sure, there's reports that lean both ways on the issue that are equally robust. Are you certain? Have you updated your conclusions based on the study referred to here? quote:Study strengthens link between neonicotinoids and collapse of honey bee colonies Funny aside, though: neonicotinoids have nothing to do with either GMO or Monsanto!
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# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 19:14 |
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shrike82 posted:Monsanto sells neonicotinoid pesticides. No it doesn't: quote:Eight neonicotinoids from different companies are currently on the market.[7] You'll note that 0 of these are Monsanto. 3 of these are Bayer, though. A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Yes, Monsanto sucks like pretty much every company in the world. But much like pharmaceutical companies being lovely doesn't make vaccines or antibiotics bad, and Google/Microsoft/Apple/whatever being lovely doesn't make the internet bad, Monsanto being lovely doesn't make GMOs bad. Frankly, there is so much bullshit FUDware spread about Monsanto that I don't think I've even managed to encounter a single thing that they allegedly did that proved to really be a heinous crime, as opposed to false accusations and deliberate misrepresentation. Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 6, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 23:07 |
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You thought Seralini's rat cancer paper could be stopped simply by being retracted?! quote:Paper claiming GM link with tumours republished ETA: Poignant comment: quote:Mary Mangan • 2014-06-25 01:24 PM Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Jul 7, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 03:45 |
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shrike82 posted:Sure, I'm perfectly happy to say that neonicotinoids have nothing to do with GMOs. Wait, are you going to excoriate Monsanto for using a specific type of pesticide in what it had reasonably grounds to think would be an environmentally safe way? Because we have not established that it is the lacing of seeds with neonicotinoids which causes CCD, nor that Monsanto has been aware of this while using them. Unless both of those are established, Monsanto is not liable, anymore than anyone else buying Bayer pesticides, which were subsequently found to be environmentally unsafe, assuming that this use of neonicotinoids really is unsafe, rather than at other stages of plant development. ETA: shrike, you missed an important point in the article you yourself linked: quote:Peter Neumann, a biology professor who studies bee health at the University of Bern, Switzerland, said the extent of the bee die-off varied across Europe, but that in Switzerland, 50 percent of colonies were lost in the winter of 2011-12, compared with about 10 percent in a normal year. What you quoted was the process by which neonicotinoids work when they are fully operational. "[they] really have no data" about whether the resulting plant retains enough of them to harm bees. What I linked may be stronger than this, but at worst, it just says that Monsanto should stop using this process. If they refuse to do so, then you may have an argument against them, but then they will face bigger issues from actual regulators, so they are not likely to. That's how proper regulation works. Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jul 7, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 04:43 |
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shrike82 posted:I've been very clear that I'm not singling out Monsanto out but include industry players such as Bayer. If anything, posters like you have been deflecting any criticism by saying "the other guys are doing it too". Fine then. We're done with Monsanto and GMO's. Monsanto is not at fault even if it turns out neonicotinoids in the seeds do lead to CCD, and GMO's are not at all a problem here. Do you have evidence of foul play by Bayer? What are the specific areas where regulation of agricultural production have failed in that instance, and how can they be fixed?
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 04:51 |
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Deteriorata posted:It's one study, one of many. There are others that suggest no link between neonictinoids and CCD. No one study is definitive and none should be focused on to the exclusion of the others. They need to be considered in aggregate, and then judged where the preponderance of the evidence lies. Wouldn't localized banning of neonicotinoids in, say, some EU states while not doing so in others allow a useful comparative study? Similarly for states in the US? We can worry about mechanisms later, but this seems like an experiment that could bring conclusive results about at least one culprit within one or two planting seasons, couldn't it? (I am not an agronomist)
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 05:16 |
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shrike82 posted:To use an analogy from finance, there's been a lot of back-and-forth about the impact of HFT on the markets and whether the liquidity that HFT shops claim to provide are essentially fake. There has been a lot of research published finding evidence that HFT is lovely or that it isn't bad. Regulatory restrictions on HFT have been hampered by industry lobbyists. But I suspect that a lot of posters here would be in favor of regulatory restrictions on it due to distrust of the financial institutions involved. As someone in the finance industry, the lack of "solid evidence" regarding HFT's ills seems somewhat analogous to that of neonicotinoids. Note that I'm in favor of heavy restrictions on HFT. I know people in finance like to pretend that they can apply their expertise to all industries ever (Nassim Taleb is big on this), but this is in fact an entirely different situation. Neonicotinoids, GMO's, all of these new products are researched, developed, and tested in controlled circumstances for decades, long before they come on market. They are then under scrutiny, and removed if and when unforeseeable hazards are found. How much testing was conducted on HFT's? What kind of safety assessment is done on new financial products before they are brought to market? What kind of framework is there of removing individual instruments if they are found to cause harm? If anything, new financial products are introduced exactly where there is no regulation, and no oversight. So I think it's a poor comparison. You're taking a product that is thoroughly researched, developed, and tested, and constantly is under the threat of recall with something that can basically be pulled out of some financial wizard's rear end and only passes scrutiny after it may have caused harm, by which time it's really hard to assess it or separate it from the milieu of other interactions. Apples and shorting virtual orange futures.
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 06:19 |
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shrike82 posted:Are you making the claim that neonicotinoids are unlikely to be an issue because of the agri business's depth of testing?
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# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 06:37 |
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shrike82 posted:I provided further examples of DDT and pharmaceuticals. If you're making an appeal to authority, I figure all of us should stop posting till an agronomist swings by. I think you are missing something really fundamental: when a food is bad or a drug causes harm, and this is found out, they are recalled. This happens frequently, and companies as well as individuals lose money and occasionally run out of business. Their entire business model is built up to prevent this. This has been the case for almost a century now. Can you say anything even remotely close about the financial industry? There are two main reasons that I trust agribusiness more than the financial industry: the former is strictly regulated, the latter is not; the former is amenable to less personalized scientific analysis, the latter is not. I don't think Monsanto or Bayer are any better morally than Blackstone or Bank of America. I expect all of them to be money-grubbing assholes. That is not going to change under a capitalist system. What can change is regulation and liability, that is, the constraints under which they are money-grubbing assholes, and those need to respond to actual problems and actual evidence, not to some vapid unease with new technology, or this gut feeling that "these are evil companies". In that sense, also, the financial industry really has nothing to teach us. ETA: shrike82 posted:Funny how the goalposts have shifted from we need more research about neonicotinoid to they're a "wild guess". If a paper published in Science and precautionary bans enacted in Europe aren't sufficient cause for concern, stop pretending that you're being rational about the topic. moebius2778 posted:The actual paper is here. Have you understood the critique? Do you understand the poster's concerns? Do you have anything to add to that? As for precautionary bans in Europe, if they were not enacted for good reasons, then they provide no good reasons for concern. The EU also bans some GMO's for spurious reasons that have nothing to do with the safety of those GMO's. Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jul 7, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 06:58 |
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This thread has been going on for a while, so I think it might be a good time to take stock. What is the list of things that Monsanto has actually committed, rather than has been accused of? I am starting to think that it is a true unicorn, the one true good multinational corporation, because all of the accusations brought up in this thread (or, really, anywhere) seemed to have been debunked with a little use of google+wikipedia.
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 05:21 |
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Slanderer posted:There are two things going on here: I understand all that. I really do. But seriously there has to be something they did wrong. Really wrong. That they, themselves, really did. I don't know, did they cheat on their taxes? Cheat on their spouse? (Corporations are people, my friend!) Anything!
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 05:32 |
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Slanderer posted:Well, they continued manufacturing Agent Orange long after they had discovered (and reported to the government) that their manufacturing process could produce a horribly-toxic dioxin as a side-product under certain conditions (as far as I'm aware, the defoliant itself was mostly benign, but even a tiny amount of dioxin contamination was enough to cause health problems with people who were exposed).
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 06:03 |
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FRINGE posted:
Yeah, because people like you bring up the Mary Antoinette of Indian agriculture. "Let them eat greens", she says. If that is impractical for hundreds of millions of her countrymen, while Golden Rice would freely make up the difference saving lives and eyesight, who cares? They're probably of lower caste and don't matter, anyway.
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 06:36 |
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FRINGE posted:You didnt even look into who she is did you? I did, though. I wasn't using "caste" just to be a racist anti-Indian shithead. She's a Hindu nationalist and very much into the caste system, as well as misrepresenting her history and qualifications. She makes for a great token third-worlder for upper class Western anti-GMO nuts to use, though.
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 06:48 |
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FRINGE posted:You just pulled an op-ed hit piece from a blog dedicated to GMOs. I'm sorry I'm not up to your rigorous sourcing standards. How about I quote the really relevant portion of her Wikipedia page, so that even the laziest of readers can judge for themselves? quote:For biodiversity I mean, to me it sounds like she is a mendacious, anti-science twit with a PhD in an entirely irrelevant field, who refuses to accept evidence contrary to her views, but, you know, that's just from that crazy pro-GMO source, Wikipedia. ETA: FRINGE posted:In the meanwhile though the FDA is supposed to protect the public health over the "right" of the industry to sell contaminated products. If the FDA is so corrupt and useless, how come it banned trans-fats? That affects many more agribusinesses, after all. It's as if there is only so far you can get with lobbying and regulatory capture! Also, if you nevertheless want to give the FDA a better ability to assess risk, spend more money on public research into GMO's so there is more for the FDA to work with. None of the anti-GMO activists seem to be headed in that direction, though! Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jul 8, 2014 |
# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 07:02 |
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FRINGE posted:Im sure Slanderer will continue to no-effort shitpost in the thread he made hoping to fill the void in his life.
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# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 07:34 |
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FRINGE posted:There are too many fetishists in this thread. Seek solutions instead of satisfaction. quote:Golden Rice has the potential to complement existing efforts that seek to reduce blindness and other VAD induced diseases. Those efforts include industrial fortification of basic foodstuffs with vitamin A, distribution of vitamin supplements, and increasing consumption of other foods rich in vitamin A. Those programs are successful mainly in urban areas but still around 45% of children around the world are not reached by supplementation programs. Moreover, these programs are not economically sustainable. Small countries, like Nepal or Ghana, require about 2 million dollars every year to run the campaigns, in spite of the negligible cost of the vitamin A capsules. A large country like India cannot afford to run country-wide programs, because the costs become prohibitive. There is no guarantee that donors and governments will be able to carry on funding those programs year after year (UNICEF, Micronutrient Initiative). Biofortified crops, like Golden Rice offer a long-term sustainable solution, because they do not require recurrent and complicated logistic arrangements once they have been deployed. That's actually a very peculiar argument, because Ghana's GDP in 2012, for example, was $83.74 billion (Index Mundi), with 5.2% of that being health expenditures (WHO). Makes me wonder why they even need a philanthropist to do a $2 million job. Have to say, I am quite confused. Do or don't the logistics work out?
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# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 04:00 |
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A friend from Vermont started posting these: Imagine how much non-profit GMO research you could fund with the money thrown at this kind of bullshit.
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# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 19:45 |
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Tatum Girlparts posted:The fact that they're calling their enemy 'big food' is telling enough. I think it was a miscalculation by agribusiness to even fight this. They should have just revamped all their products to say "may contain GMO for your pleasure", or something. All of them. Not even bother checking.
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# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 20:00 |
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Mrit posted:When you start labeling GM food, people will avoid it because it will look like a warning label. This will push people away from the product and make stores drop them to look 'green'. Not if they label everything. As in, you go to the supermarket, and suddenly everything says "Oh, this also may have GMO's in it because we didn't bother checking it because there is no evidence it could harm you." Except a few things in the Organic section. Then it's basically business as usual. They just need to own this.
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# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 21:43 |
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# ¿ May 5, 2024 11:58 |
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Strudel Man posted:The food industry is pretty well consolidated, but not enough that this would work. There would be a competitive advantage to having non-GM products under a labeling scheme, and it's not one that everyone would be willing to ignore for the sake of "GM is actually fine" universal labeling. If the following graphic was not pulled out of someone's rear end, then a whole lot of the industry came together against labeling. It seems like basically biting the bullet once and showing it as being bullshit would be cheaper than having to fight and lobby against labeling every single state, every single appeal, etc.
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# ¿ Jul 11, 2014 02:10 |