RE: [pf] Risks, imposed or chosen

by David A

18 December 2000 17:10 UTC

Betsy Barnum wrote:
> There are two reasons why I am not satisfied with knowing I 
> can avoid GMOs by buying organic. One is that this doesn't make 
> it available to people who can't afford to buy organic. 

Neither does the added costs of GM-free labeling.

> And two is that the absence of labeling makes
> everyone nonconsensual participants in an experiment with 
> unknown risk and unknown impact on their or their children's health. 

There's been lots of testing of GM foods, which is how the concept of 
substantial equivalency has been developed.

"In 1972 the US National Academy of Sciences requested that scientists 
to consider the various implications of rDNA. A group of prominent 
scientists met to discuss the potential hazards at Asilomar on the 
MOnterey peninsula in 1975. As a result, the NIH implemented a set of 
stringent guidelines (now largely relaxed owing to a complete lack of 
any 'untoward or unexpected' incidents." (McHughen p 47)

Why aren't producers of organic food testing their foods more 
thoroughly? 



This is unfair and puts
> economic benefit ahead of human and community concerns.
> 
> And a third reason is that it has been shown that GMO pollen can 
> fertilize
> nonGMO varieties of seed,  and can even transfer from the eaten into the
> eater, so the genie is indeed getting out of the bottle. Unless this is
> stopped, eventually there will be no way of avoiding GMOs, no 
> possibility of
> certifying anything GMO-free.
> 
> And I continue to maintain that anyone who wants to avoid eating GMOs 
> should
> have that option. I perceive we will only maintain that as an option by
> labeling and/or, my preference, banning genetic engineering altogether 
> until
> there can be long-term tests validating that it is safe enough to be put
> into use. *Not* through risk assessment, by testing on the population at
> large and waiting to see what the results are, as in DDT, thalidomide, 
> and
> so on, but through the precautionary principle, with the burden being on 
> the
> companies that want to make money on GMOs to prove them acceptable.
> 
> Betsy
> 
> --
> Betsy Barnum
> bbarnum@wavetech.net
> http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624
> 
> **************************************
> The Constitution was designed to ensure that the majority of
> citizens (without property) would not have a real voice in
> political affairs and it is no coincidence that that is the case
> today. And the Constitution was designed to ensure that real
> political power in this country would always be held by the
> handful of very large property owners and it is no coincidence
> that that is the case today.
> 
> --Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution