Re: [pf] Risks, imposed or chosen

by Betsy Barnum

17 December 2000 21:50 UTC

David A wrote:

> There's a fallacy right there--producing GM-free food via a completely
> separate, parallel processing line adds significantly to its cost. Just
> off the top of my head I think I've seen figures from about 7% to 20%
> higher. Maybe you or I could afford that, but not everyone could.

And 10 years ago, maybe even more recently, there was no such problem, back
when there was only "conventionally grown" and "organically grown," and
there was no trouble keeping the two separate! The extra cost of separating
non-GMO food from that which has been genetically tampered is a condition
that *only* exists because the companies that make GMOs have convinced our
regulatory agencies that there's no difference and so they have not
required labeling. In most other countries, this has not happened because
governments have insisted on labeling from the start. Had that been the
case here, you can be sure that the biotech companies would have found ways
to keep the two stocks separate--if, indeed, they found it advantageous to
produce the stuff at all since so many people say they wouldn't buy GMO
food if it was labelled. Returning us to our original discussion of risk,
imposed or chosen.

The biotech companies have also said that they can keep the GMOs not
approved for human consumption, like Starlink corn, separate from
non-Starlink, but they utterly failed to ensure they could do that, thus
their most recent public relations debacle.

GMO-produced food that has become the contaminant, and it should be the
responsibility of the biotech companies to clean that up. At their own
expense, passed on to anyone who wants to buy and eat GMO foods that are so
labelled. Again, IMHO.

Betsy

--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
And I am asking you how many more plucked eyes and wrenched throats
must we pay for in the villages of the poor before we figure out
that Congress does the dirty work of corporations and that respectfully
petitioning those men and women can only be the work of imperial citizens
who are slowly dying.

--Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution