Election: marijuana, climate change, abortion, Obamacare, soda tax, GMOs

  Still going to pot The Republicans won big last Tuesday. But so did marijuana.  Here’s a summary, from Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic: “Oregon and Alaska just became the third and fourth states to legalize the drug. Washington, D.C., … Continue reading »

The post Election: marijuana, climate change, abortion, Obamacare, soda tax, GMOs appeared first on PLOS Blogs Network.

Legal marijuana and cannabis research, Google X health project, Retraction Watch, regulating genetic research

Legalizing cannabis in order to legalize cannabis research?

The New York Times has been running a series of editorials and commentaries and blog posts backing legal marijuana.  Even although it’s been clear for some time that’s where we’re headed, …

The post Legal marijuana and cannabis research, Google X health project, Retraction Watch, regulating genetic research appeared first on PLOS Blogs Network.

A fix for GMO battles? Plus sexual harassment during field research

 

Give us this day a fix for the GMO battles?

Two papers published in the last week were signal events for agricultural genomics. First was the draft of the huge, and hugely complex, genome of bread wheat, the …

The post A fix for GMO battles? Plus sexual harassment during field research appeared first on PLOS Blogs Network.

Nathanael Johnson lets the anti-GMO movement off the hook

For the last six months, Nathanael Johnson has been writing about GMOs for the lefty environmental magazine Grist. The goal of his ultimately 26 part series was to try and bring some journalistic sanity to a topic that has gotten nasty in recent years. As Grist editor Scott Rosenberg is quoted on Dan Charles’ blog:

GMOs “were a unique problem for us,” says Rosenberg. On the one hand, most of Grist’s readers and supporters despise GMOs, seeing them as a tool of corporate agribusiness and chemical-dependent farming.

On the other hand, says Rosenberg, he’d been struck by the passion of people who defended this technology, especially scientists. It convinced him that the issue deserved a fresh look.

I’ve enjoyed reading the series. Johnson has investigated a wide range of issues related to GMOs with a generally empirical eye – trying to find data to help answer questions, while avoiding the polemicism that dominates discussions of the topic. Although I don’t think everything he has written is right, the series is a very useful starting point for people trying to wrap the heads around what can be a complex topic. He has clearly tried to delve deeply into every topic, and to not let dogma or propaganda from either side affect his conclusions.

Unfortunately, if the series has had an effect on what I presume is its target audience – the anti-GMO readers of Grist – it hasn’t shown up in online debates about GMOs. When I and others have pointed to Johnson’s series in response to outrageous statements from anti-GMO campaigners, he is dismissed as either a naive fool or just another Monsanto tool.

So I was surprised to read his concluding piece in the series, “What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters“.

It’s a little awkward to admit this, after devoting so much time to this project, but I think Beth was right. The most astonishing thing about the vicious public brawl over GMOs is that the stakes are so low.

His basic point is that a lot of hot air and political energy is spent trying to decide between two alternative futures that aren’t all that different.

In the GMO-free future, farming still looks pretty much the same. Without insect-resistant crops, farmers spray more broad-spectrum insecticides, which do some collateral damage to surrounding food webs. Without herbicide-resistant crops, farmers spray less glyphosate, which slows the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds and perhaps leads to healthier soil biota. Farmers also till their fields more often, which kills soil biota, and releases a lot more greenhouse gases. The banning of GMOs hasn’t led to a transformation of agriculture because GM seed was never a linchpin supporting the conventional food system: Farmers could always do fine without it. Eaters no longer worry about the small potential threat of GMO health hazards, but they are subject to new risks: GMOs were neither the first, nor have they been the last, agricultural innovation, and each of these technologies comes with its own potential hazards. Plant scientists will have increased their use of mutagenesis and epigenetic manipulation, perhaps. We no longer have biotech patents, but we still have traditional seed-breeding patents. Life goes on.

In the other alternate future, where the pro-GMO side wins, we see less insecticide, more herbicide, and less tillage. In this world, with regulations lifted, a surge of small business and garage-biotechnologists got to work on creative solutions for the problems of agriculture. Perhaps these tinkerers would come up with some fresh ideas to usher out the era of petroleum-dependent food. But the odds are low, I think, that any of their inventions would prove transformative. Genetic engineering is just one tool in the tinkerer’s belt. Newer tools are already available, and scientists continue to make breakthroughs with traditional breeding. So in this future, a few more genetically engineered plants and animals get their chance to compete. Some make the world a little better, while others cause unexpected problems. But the science has moved beyond basic genetic engineering, and most of the risks and benefits of progress are coming from other technologies. Life goes on.

In many ways he’s right. GMOs on the market today – and most of the ones planned – are about making agriculture more efficient and profitable for farmers and seed providers. This is not a trivial thing, but would global agriculture collapse without these GMOs? Of course not.

But Johnson makes several key assumption in arguing that the stakes are low.

First, he says that “the odds are low, I think, that any of their inventions [GMOs] would prove transformative”. The obvious response is “How do you know?”. We rarely see transformative technologies coming. And remember that we are still in the very early days of genetic engineering of crops and animals. I suspect that you could go back and look at the early days of almost any new technology and convincingly downplay its transformative potential. That is not to say that genetic modification will definitely transform agriculture in a good way. Most new technologies ultimately fail to deliver. But the proper stance to take is to say that we just don’t know. What we do know is that there are many pressing and complex problems facing the future of agriculture. And, given that there is no compelling reason not to allow GM techniques to proceed, why take this tool out of the hands of scientists?

Second, Johnson cites “newer tools” are coming along that will render GMOs in the way we view them today somewhat less important. It’s not clear what these tools are – but I’ll assume that they are genome editing and things like marker assisted breeding – both tools that allow for highly efficient creation or selection of traits without crossing the dreaded “species barrier”. But given the vitriolic opposition to GMOs that exists today, does Johnson think these new technologies are going to get a free pass? After all, these tools are being wielded by the companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, etc…) who anti-GMO campaigners see as the root of all evil. Does anyone really think that the future of these technologies is not linked to how the debate of todays GMOs gets resolved?

And this, to me, if the big issue. Yes, as Johnson argues, the fate of the world does not rest on whether or not farmers can grow and sell glyphosate resistant soybeans. And it is also probably true that the world will neither be destroyed nor saved by transferring traits from one species to another. But that is not the right question to be asking.

Johnson tries to frame this question as a question about the role of technology:

People care about GMOs because they symbolize corporate control of the food system, or unsustainable agriculture, or the basic unhealthiness of our modern diet. On the other side, people care about GMOs because they symbolize the victory of human ingenuity over hunger and suffering, or the triumph of market forces, or the wonder of science. These larger stories are so compelling that they often obscure the ground truth.

But that isn’t it either. What is infuriating about the anti-GMO movement to me – and I suspect most other scientists – is not that people are disputing the wonder of science. And it’s not that people are somehow rejecting technology – because they’re not (the same people who hate GMOs are happy to tweet about it from their iPhones while using satellite wifi on a 787). Or that they’re attacking corporations, industrial agriculture or the free market economy. No. That’s not it.

What is most disturbing about the GMO debate – and why it matters – is that the anti-GMO movement at almost every turn rejects empiricism as a means of understanding the world and making decisions about it. The reason GMO opponents have largely rejected Johnson and his series is not solely because they disagree with his conclusion that GMOs are not an existential threat to our existence – but because they reject his methods. They do not appear to believe that the kind of questions that Johnson asks – “Does insect resistant corn reduce the amount of insecticide used on farms?” – can even be asked. They already know the answer, and are completely unmoved by evidence.

The anti-GMO movement is an anti-empirical movement. It relies on the rejection of evidence about the risks and benefits of extant GMOs. And it relies on the rejection of an understanding about molecular biology. And it’s triumph would be a disaster not just because we would miss out on future innovations in agriculture – but because the rejection of GMOs would all but banish the last vestige of empiricism from political life. The world faces so many challenges now, and we can only solve them if we believe that the world can be understood by studying it, that we can think up and generate possible solutions to the challenges we face, and that we can make rational decisions about which ones to use or not to use. The anti-GMO movement rejects each piece of this – it rejects decades of research aimed at understanding molecular biology, it rejects technology as a way to solve problems and more than anything it rejects our ability to make rational assessments of risk and value.

So when Johnson – who has spend considerable time and energy defending the role of empiricism in the GMO debate – throws up his hands and the end and says “Meh – none of this really matters” – he is letting opponents of GMOs off the hook. He is giving them permission to continue demanding that voters and politicians reject reason and evidence and ban a technology based on ill-founded fears and bad evidence – to continue thinking that they are saving the planet while, in reality, they are bringing us closer to its destruction.

Posted by in GMO

Permalink

Nathanael Johnson lets the anti-GMO movement off the hook

For the last six months, Nathanael Johnson has been writing about GMOs for the lefty environmental magazine Grist. The goal of his ultimately 26 part series was to try and bring some journalistic sanity to a topic that has gotten nasty in recent years. As Grist editor Scott Rosenberg is quoted on Dan Charles’ blog:

GMOs “were a unique problem for us,” says Rosenberg. On the one hand, most of Grist’s readers and supporters despise GMOs, seeing them as a tool of corporate agribusiness and chemical-dependent farming.

On the other hand, says Rosenberg, he’d been struck by the passion of people who defended this technology, especially scientists. It convinced him that the issue deserved a fresh look.

I’ve enjoyed reading the series. Johnson has investigated a wide range of issues related to GMOs with a generally empirical eye – trying to find data to help answer questions, while avoiding the polemicism that dominates discussions of the topic. Although I don’t think everything he has written is right, the series is a very useful starting point for people trying to wrap the heads around what can be a complex topic. He has clearly tried to delve deeply into every topic, and to not let dogma or propaganda from either side affect his conclusions.

Unfortunately, if the series has had an effect on what I presume is its target audience – the anti-GMO readers of Grist – it hasn’t shown up in online debates about GMOs. When I and others have pointed to Johnson’s series in response to outrageous statements from anti-GMO campaigners, he is dismissed as either a naive fool or just another Monsanto tool.

So I was surprised to read his concluding piece in the series, “What I learned from six months of GMO research: None of it matters“.

It’s a little awkward to admit this, after devoting so much time to this project, but I think Beth was right. The most astonishing thing about the vicious public brawl over GMOs is that the stakes are so low.

His basic point is that a lot of hot air and political energy is spent trying to decide between two alternative futures that aren’t all that different.

In the GMO-free future, farming still looks pretty much the same. Without insect-resistant crops, farmers spray more broad-spectrum insecticides, which do some collateral damage to surrounding food webs. Without herbicide-resistant crops, farmers spray less glyphosate, which slows the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds and perhaps leads to healthier soil biota. Farmers also till their fields more often, which kills soil biota, and releases a lot more greenhouse gases. The banning of GMOs hasn’t led to a transformation of agriculture because GM seed was never a linchpin supporting the conventional food system: Farmers could always do fine without it. Eaters no longer worry about the small potential threat of GMO health hazards, but they are subject to new risks: GMOs were neither the first, nor have they been the last, agricultural innovation, and each of these technologies comes with its own potential hazards. Plant scientists will have increased their use of mutagenesis and epigenetic manipulation, perhaps. We no longer have biotech patents, but we still have traditional seed-breeding patents. Life goes on.

In the other alternate future, where the pro-GMO side wins, we see less insecticide, more herbicide, and less tillage. In this world, with regulations lifted, a surge of small business and garage-biotechnologists got to work on creative solutions for the problems of agriculture. Perhaps these tinkerers would come up with some fresh ideas to usher out the era of petroleum-dependent food. But the odds are low, I think, that any of their inventions would prove transformative. Genetic engineering is just one tool in the tinkerer’s belt. Newer tools are already available, and scientists continue to make breakthroughs with traditional breeding. So in this future, a few more genetically engineered plants and animals get their chance to compete. Some make the world a little better, while others cause unexpected problems. But the science has moved beyond basic genetic engineering, and most of the risks and benefits of progress are coming from other technologies. Life goes on.

In many ways he’s right. GMOs on the market today – and most of the ones planned – are about making agriculture more efficient and profitable for farmers and seed providers. This is not a trivial thing, but would global agriculture collapse without these GMOs? Of course not.

But Johnson makes several key assumption in arguing that the stakes are low.

First, he says that “the odds are low, I think, that any of their inventions [GMOs] would prove transformative”. The obvious response is “How do you know?”. We rarely see transformative technologies coming. And remember that we are still in the very early days of genetic engineering of crops and animals. I suspect that you could go back and look at the early days of almost any new technology and convincingly downplay its transformative potential. That is not to say that genetic modification will definitely transform agriculture in a good way. Most new technologies ultimately fail to deliver. But the proper stance to take is to say that we just don’t know. What we do know is that there are many pressing and complex problems facing the future of agriculture. And, given that there is no compelling reason not to allow GM techniques to proceed, why take this tool out of the hands of scientists?

Second, Johnson cites “newer tools” are coming along that will render GMOs in the way we view them today somewhat less important. It’s not clear what these tools are – but I’ll assume that they are genome editing and things like marker assisted breeding – both tools that allow for highly efficient creation or selection of traits without crossing the dreaded “species barrier”. But given the vitriolic opposition to GMOs that exists today, does Johnson think these new technologies are going to get a free pass? After all, these tools are being wielded by the companies (Monsanto, Syngenta, etc…) who anti-GMO campaigners see as the root of all evil. Does anyone really think that the future of these technologies is not linked to how the debate of todays GMOs gets resolved?

And this, to me, if the big issue. Yes, as Johnson argues, the fate of the world does not rest on whether or not farmers can grow and sell glyphosate resistant soybeans. And it is also probably true that the world will neither be destroyed nor saved by transferring traits from one species to another. But that is not the right question to be asking.

Johnson tries to frame this question as a question about the role of technology:

People care about GMOs because they symbolize corporate control of the food system, or unsustainable agriculture, or the basic unhealthiness of our modern diet. On the other side, people care about GMOs because they symbolize the victory of human ingenuity over hunger and suffering, or the triumph of market forces, or the wonder of science. These larger stories are so compelling that they often obscure the ground truth.

But that isn’t it either. What is infuriating about the anti-GMO movement to me – and I suspect most other scientists – is not that people are disputing the wonder of science. And it’s not that people are somehow rejecting technology – because they’re not (the same people who hate GMOs are happy to tweet about it from their iPhones while using satellite wifi on a 787). Or that they’re attacking corporations, industrial agriculture or the free market economy. No. That’s not it.

What is most disturbing about the GMO debate – and why it matters – is that the anti-GMO movement at almost every turn rejects empiricism as a means of understanding the world and making decisions about it. The reason GMO opponents have largely rejected Johnson and his series is not solely because they disagree with his conclusion that GMOs are not an existential threat to our existence – but because they reject his methods. They do not appear to believe that the kind of questions that Johnson asks – “Does insect resistant corn reduce the amount of insecticide used on farms?” – can even be asked. They already know the answer, and are completely unmoved by evidence.

The anti-GMO movement is an anti-empirical movement. It relies on the rejection of evidence about the risks and benefits of extant GMOs. And it relies on the rejection of an understanding about molecular biology. And it’s triumph would be a disaster not just because we would miss out on future innovations in agriculture – but because the rejection of GMOs would all but banish the last vestige of empiricism from political life. The world faces so many challenges now, and we can only solve them if we believe that the world can be understood by studying it, that we can think up and generate possible solutions to the challenges we face, and that we can make rational decisions about which ones to use or not to use. The anti-GMO movement rejects each piece of this – it rejects decades of research aimed at understanding molecular biology, it rejects technology as a way to solve problems and more than anything it rejects our ability to make rational assessments of risk and value.

So when Johnson – who has spend considerable time and energy defending the role of empiricism in the GMO debate – throws up his hands and the end and says “Meh – none of this really matters” – he is letting opponents of GMOs off the hook. He is giving them permission to continue demanding that voters and politicians reject reason and evidence and ban a technology based on ill-founded fears and bad evidence – to continue thinking that they are saving the planet while, in reality, they are bringing us closer to its destruction.

Posted by in GMO

Permalink

GMOs and pediatric cancer rates #GMOFAQ

There’s a post being highlighted by anti-GMO activists on Twitter that claims that cancer is now the leading cause of death among children in the US, that the rates of pediatric cancer are increasing and that this is because of GMOs. This is another egregious example of the willingness of anti-GMO campaigners to lie to the public in order to scare them and promote their agenda.

A simple look at data exposes the absurdity of their claims:

1) Cancer is not the leading cause of death among children in the United States

The Centers for Disease Control publishes annual statistics on the leading causes of death in the US broken down by age. These data show that malignant neoplasms are a serious problem – killing over 1,000 children under the age of 14 every year – making it the leading cause of disease-related death in children. But accidents remain the major cause of death by far.

One other thing to note from this table is the top 5 in any age group. This was not always the case, and is almost entirely the result of vaccination, another evil of modern science often highlighted by the same people who oppose GMOs.

2) Childhood cancer rates are not increasing

Another claim cited by the anti-GMO crowd is that childhood cancer rates are increasing at an “alarming rate”. Again, data says otherwise. Here is a report from the National Cancer looking at rates of childhood cancer from 1988 to 2008 that shows that they are virtually unchanged.

Screen Shot 2013-10-12 at 11.50.56 AM

3) There is no evidence that GMOs cause childhood cancer

If GMOs caused childhood cancer, you would expect there to be some difference in the rate of childhood cancer in the US after the introduction of GMOs into the US food supply in 1995. However the rate of childhood cancer has remained unchanged from its pre-1995 levels.

Childhood cancer is a horrible, horrible thing. We should do everything in our power to prevent and better treat it so that cancer, like infectious disease, disappears from statistics on childhood mortality. But it doesn’t do anyone any good to misrepresent the statistics in the name of a political agenda. So please anti-GMO campaigners, stop making stuff up, and stop using false statistics to try to scare people.

Posted by in GMO

Permalink

For patents, against open access: The sad state of university leadership

Quick. Name a leader of a major research university who has taken a courageous stand on any important issue in the last decade. I know they’re out there. They must be. But I can’t think of one.

Instead, I’m left dumfounded reading this amicus brief filed in a case – Bowman v. Monsanto – about to be heard by the US Supreme Court.

The case, which pits a farmer who planted soybeans containing Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” technology without paying their license fees, boils down to a question of how much control patent holders have in their invention after it has been sold.

I am very interested in the issues in this case – I strongly support the development and use of geneticly modified crops, but also believe that our patent laws are completely out of whack. So a line in the NYT article on the case that universities had filed a brief on behalf of Monsanto caught my eye – all the more so because by own University of California had signed on.

The basic arguments put forth by the universities is that ruling in favor of the farmer would “greatly diminish, and add uncertainty to, the value of patents covering artificial, progenetive technologies” and would “devalue the extensive benefits achieved by the Bayh-Dole Act”.

Why are most of the most prominent state universities in the US arguing in front of the Supreme Court in favor of stronger patent laws? Why do they have any interest in who wins the case? The answer is that universities have become major producers and wielders of intellectual property – profiting, in many cases extensively, from patents taken out on inventions made by their faculty.

I have made no secret of my utter disdain for this process. We would all be better off if there were no patents on inventions produced at state universities and/or by publicly funded scientists. Universities don’t support strengthening patent laws because they believe it’s the right thing to do in some abstract sense, they support strengthening patent laws because it makes them money. And thus university administrators – when faced with a choice between the public good and their balance sheet – choose the money.

Meanwhile, as their lawyers were off siding with major corporations against a small-time farmer, universities have chosen to be completely silent on another major issue pitting corporate greed against the public good: providing free access to papers describing the results of publicly funded research.

A bill was introduced in Congress that would require scientists receiving money from the federal government to make copies of their published work available to the public. While many people from universities across the country have spoken up in favor of this bill and its predecessors, the University of California has never voiced its support for this action, and virtually all other universities have been equally silent.

In failing to support this legislation, universities are not just being passive bystanders. They are a major player in this issue, and their silence is widely interpreted as ambivalence or outright opposition, and helped to ensure that previous versions of this bill never made it out of committee.

So we have major public universities in America that see fit to use their resources to defend stronger patent laws, but choose to let legislation that would provide free access to knowledge to the public. There is only one word to describe this: pathetic.

 

 

Prop 37 and the Right to Know Nothing

As we approach election day, my neighborhood in Berkeley has sprouted dozens of blue and orange yard signs supporting Proposition 37, which would require the labeling of genetically modified foods.

The “Right to Know” has become the rallying cry of the initiative’s backers, who meet any criticism of the initiative, its motivation or of the “science” used to back it with the same refrain: “We have the right to know what’s in our food!!”.

It is, of course, hard to argue that people should not have this right. I am a very strong supporter of consumer rights and of providing information, even if people use it stupidly. But, I have closely followed the debate over Prop 37, reading and listening to and occasionally arguing with its proponents. And I have been struck throughout by just how little backers of the initiative actually want to know anything.

The law would require the application of a catchall “Contains GMOs” label to any product containing any ingredient from a genetically modified plant, animal or microbe. This language reflects the belief of its backers that GMOs are intrinsically bad and deserve to be labeled – and avoided – en masse, no matter what modification they contain or towards what end they were produced. This is not a quest for knowledge – it is a an attempt to reify ignorance.

Sure, if you think, as some people do, that moving genes from one species to another is some kind of crime against nature that risks destroying life on Earth, a blanket prohibition against GMOs makes sense. But the bulk of Prop 37 supporters I have heard or spoken to express more rational concerns, primarily:

  1. The specific modifications in common GM crops – the production of insecticidal proteins or of genes for herbicide tolerance – make them unsafe for human consumption.
  2. Whether safe or unsafe for humans, GM crops encourage an industrialized monoculture approach to farming that is unsustainable and bad for the planet.
  3. GM technology is wielded by multinational conglomerates like Monsanto who have little regard for the public interest and produce GM crops solely to make more money, and who use intellectual property in their creations to squeeze farmers and increase their control over global agriculture.

Whether one agrees with these points or not – I disagree with 1, but agree with 2 and 3 to varying degrees – none of them apply uniformly to all GMOs.

If you’re worried that the GMOs you’re eating might kill you, then you should want to know what specific modification your food contains. I don’t think there is any harm in eating food containing the insecticidal “Bt” protein, but even if it were dangerous this would have no bearing on the safety of golden rice.

Similarly, if you are concerned that the transgenic production of plants resistant to certain herbicides encourages the excessive use of herbicides and triggers an herbicide treadmill, then you can boycott crops containing these modifications. But it doesn’t make sense to oppose the use of crops engineered to resist diseases, or to produce essential vitamins. Indeed, there are many, like UC Davis’s Pam Ronald, who believe that advanced development of GMOs is the best way to advance organic and sustainable agriculture. You may disagree with her, but it should be clear that the effect on agricultural practices varies depending on the specific plant and type of modification being considered.

And, while I share much of the disdain anti-GMO advocates feel for the business practices of companies like Monsanto, not every seed company uses the same practices, and there are plenty of academic researchers, non-profits and companies laboring to use GMOs to solve major challenges in global food production, distribution and nutrition. To hamper what they are doing in the name of sticking it to Monsanto – whose questionable business practices extend far beyond GMOs – makes no sense.

Thus the very reasons supporters of GMO labeling cite for labeling GMOs demand more information than “This product contains genetically modified ingredients”. And it’s the central irony of Prop 37 that in backing the bill they are, in tangible ways, working to ensure they do not get information that will be actually useful to them.

Some backers of Prop 37 say that it is the first step towards more comprehensive food labeling. If, in the push to pass the initiative I saw a thirst for real knowledge and understanding of where crops come from and how food is produced, then I’d share their optimism.

But everything I’ve seen from proponents of Prop 37 suggests something else – a lazy and self-satisfied acceptance of an internally incoherent piece of legislation that, rather than giving consumers the “right to know”, will actually protect their desire to know nothing.

Posted by in GMO

Permalink

Posted by in GMO

Permalink

Senators Boxer and Sanders fill Agriculture Bill with anti-GMO nonsense

Anastasoa Bodnar alerted me on Twitter to the following amendment to the Farm Bill which would have authorized states to require the labeling of genetically modified foods. As I’ve said before, I’m not opposed to providing consumers with accurate information about what they’re eating (emphases on accurate). But I am saddened to see this amount of scientific misinformation reach the US Senate, including references to bogus and/or irrelevant studies and a evident lack of understanding of the technology and its value. It didn’t pass, but here’s the text:

SA 2256. Mr. SANDERS (for himself and Mrs. BOXER) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 3240, to reauthorize agricultural programs through 2017, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 1009, after line 11, add the following:

SEC. 12207. CONSUMERS RIGHT TO KNOW ABOUT GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD ACT.

(a) Short Title.–This section may be cited as the “Consumers Right to Know About Genetically Engineered Food Act”.

(b) Findings.–Congress finds that–

(1) surveys of the American public consistently show that 90 percent or more of the people of the United States want genetically engineered or modified foods to be labeled as such;

(2) a landmark public health study in Canada found that–

(A) 93 percent of pregnant women had detectable toxins from genetically engineered or modified foods in their blood; and

(B) 80 percent of the babies of those women had detectable toxins in their umbilical cords;

First of all, several people have pointed out that the methods used in this study are not reliable. But even if they were, there is no evidence that the the natural bacterial insecticide in question has any negative effects on people. This is just alarmist nonsense being passed off as justification for legislation. 

(3) the tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States clearly reserves powers in the system of Federalism to the States or to the people; and

(4) States have the authority to require the labeling of foods produced through genetic engineering or derived from organisms that have been genetically engineered.

(c) Definitions.–In this section:

(1) GENETIC ENGINEERING.–

(A) IN GENERAL.–The term “genetic engineering” means a process that alters an organism at the molecular or cellular level by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes.

Here’s some other things that alter an organism at the molecular and cellular level by means that are not possible under natural conditions or processes: fertilization, weeding, ploughing, mechanical irrigation…

(B) INCLUSIONS.–The term “genetic engineering” includes–

(i) recombinant DNA and RNA techniques;

(ii) cell fusion;

(iii) microencapsulation;

(iv) macroencapsulation;

No idea what this has to do with GMOs. 

(v) gene deletion and doubling;

(vi) introduction of a foreign gene; and

(vii) changing the position of genes.

(C) EXCLUSIONS.–The term “genetic engineering” does not include any modification to an organism that consists exclusively of–

(i) breeding;

(ii) conjugation;

(iii) fermentation;

(iv) hybridization;

(v) in vitro fertilization; or

(vi) tissue culture.

Because that’s possible under natural conditions….

(2) GENETICALLY ENGINEERED AND GENETICALLY MODIFIED INGREDIENT.–The term “genetically engineered and genetically modified ingredient” means any ingredient in any food, beverage, or other edible product that–

(A) is, or is derived from, an organism that is produced through the intentional use of genetic engineering; or

(B) is, or is derived from, the progeny of intended sexual reproduction, asexual reproduction, or both of 1 or more organisms described in subparagraph (A).

(d) Right to Know.–Notwithstanding any other Federal law (including regulations), a State may require that any food, beverage, or other edible product offered for sale in that State have a label on the container or package of the food, beverage, or other edible product, indicating that the food, beverage, or other edible product contains a genetically engineered or genetically modified ingredient.

(e) Regulations.–Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs and the Secretary of Agriculture shall promulgate such regulations as are necessary to carry out this section.

(f) Report.–Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, shall submit a report to Congress detailing the percentage of food and beverages sold in the United States that contain genetically engineered or genetically modified ingredients.

 

Posted by in GMO

Permalink