Obama Signs Bill Mandating GMO Labeling

[THE Bigzoman]

Multiple people have pointed out that big businesses are enthusiastic about this sort of regulation. They took advantage of the superstitious to help create additional barriers to entry in food markets.

Oh, so these dumbfucks are also making food markets more monopolistic?

Again, good job dumbassess.

I don't want to see these people ever complain about anti-science climate change everr again.

[Nurvus]

If you live in the US, you shouldn't. FDA is notorious for making bad calls on food regulations.

It's rarely about making good or bad calls.
Most regulating companies want to make calls that seem good at first glance to shut people up without hurting investors.

[THE Bigzoman]

And no regulation isn't measured by money, it's measured in dead bodies.

As someone else put it; It's fine until Monsanto finds they can save $2 on pesticides by making your broccoli just slightly carcinogenic. And that wouldn't be found out until years later after they reap the profits. And it's those that cry "regulation costs" that would be the ones first in line for a lawsuit due to the cancer that just cost them years off of their life.

Because why should regulatory bodies ever have to justify themselves or their actions? They're just saving lives from imaginary disasters.

[Spectral]

Because why should regulatory bodies ever have to justify themselves or their actions? They're just saving lives from imaginary disasters.

[THE Bigzoman]

Ya know @The Batman?

I find it partictularly ironic that your type (yes, your type. sue me.) always find themselves in the group of legislators/supporters that regulate shit just for the sake of regulating shit.

Your type always rationalize your shit (yes, your shit) by trivalizing the costs of your regulations, even going as far as denying their existence altogether. But when a a single or few firms pull some ergregious shit that harms their consumers, you're usually the first to call for their heads, ironically forgetting that it was YOUR regulation that, in part, enabled said firm/firms to do what they did in the first place.

Now, I know your type (not you specifically) are smug cunts. I know this. I also know that your type (you to a degree) think that putting John Maynard Keynes' dick in and around your mouth suddenly makes your policy decisions economically sound (Hurr, we just need to boost Aggregate Demand guys!)

But let me explain somethig to you that is a basic economic concept; I don't need to wave my bachelor's degree around for this because it's reallyyyyyyyy simple.

1. When you raise the costs of production in a market, you create barriers in said market.
2. When a market has barriers to entry, there's less competition; firms can't endure the costs of entry and profit.
3. When there's less competition, the firms that can endure the high production costs become monopolies.
4. Monopolies have ungodly amounts of market power because consumers have to go to them to get a good/service. They don't have to be mindful for consumers. Fuck them; they'll take what we give them and like it. There aren't competitors that can provide the service we can, so they can't go elsewhere.


Because of this, policymakers should be mindful of the regulations they put in place. They need to make sure that the expense that society endures from a more monopolistic market produces a benefit that exceeds it.

Does a regulation that enables and somewhat validates superstitious bullshit worth yet another barrier in the food market?

The answer is no.


Don't be like the smug cunts.

[Sargerasraider]

I've said it many times across many threads. I have several close family members who are allergic to monsanto GMO corn. Actual allergies, not some kind of emotional aversion to them, but a clinically tested positive reaction to the corn. They're not allergic to heritage corn, but something about my family's genes makes several of my family members allergic to that type of corn.

And when you start shopping for corn free food, you start to realize just how much corn is in fucking EVERYTHING. Corn syrup, corn starch, HFCS, etc. Look at the ingredient lists of your foods, and think of how many have corn. It's really really fucking hard to shop for them.

I really do not want to personally call people out, but either these apparent allergies are overblown, or your family physicians are doing a disservice by not publishing this. There are no credible reports of allergy specifically to GMO corn in the peer-reviewed medical literature.

[Spectral]

I really do not want to personally call people out, but either these apparent allergies are overblown, or your family physicians are doing a disservice by not publishing this. There are no credible reports of allergy specifically to GMO corn in the peer-reviewed medical literature.

I'll call them out more specifically - these family members are almost certainly full of shit. The most recent data shows that a significant number of people that believe they have allergies to things simply don't. It's wildly implausible that the individuals in this case that insist that they totally got a test that showed it's real actually received an IgE test for an allergen that would be present in GMO corn but not in non-GMO corn.

[Shakou]

It's funny how many people feel the need to say something in their post about how GMO's aren't really anymore harmful, but are completely ignorant it seems about the extreme environmental problems created by the agriculture industry.

Industrial agriculture is all around bad for the environment, period. That's just being honest. You can't destroy the environment and be good for it at the same time, it's not possible.

Who cares whether or not GMOs are going to give you cancer? Small potatoes compared to all the water waste, soil erosion, and the damage caused from using pesticides and such.

[THE Bigzoman]

I laughed.

10 char.

[Spectral]

It's funny how many people feel the need to say something in their post about how GMO's aren't really anymore harmful, but are completely ignorant it seems about the extreme environmental problems created by the agriculture industry.

Industrial agriculture is all around bad for the environment, period. That's just being honest. You can't destroy the environment and be good for it at the same time, it's not possible.

Who cares whether or not GMOs are going to give you cancer? Small potatoes compared to all the water waste, soil erosion, and the damage caused from using pesticides and such.

I'm not really sure what your point here is. Yes, feeding billions of people is a large, industrial project that has considerable environmental impact. We should surely work on addressing that. One good way to address that is to decrease the ecological and physical footprint by creating strains of plants that are naturally resistant to pests, higher yield, and provide more nutrition.

Now, if only there was a way to use science to do that. Hmmm... I bet if we tried hard enough, we could come up with rice that produced Vitamin A precursors and prevented malnourished Indian kids from going blind!

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'll call them out more specifically - these family members are almost certainly full of shit. The most recent data shows that a significant number of people that believe they have allergies to things simply don't. It's wildly implausible that the individuals in this case that insist that they totally got a test that showed it's real actually received an IgE test for an allergen that would be present in GMO corn but not in non-GMO corn.

Going after family members? Wow that's low even for you.

They did get the huge panel testing done, at great expense. The one full of shit here is you. It's quite funny that you don't believe anyone in the entire world could possibly have an adverse reaction to any number of the new chemicals present and produced within the corn.

I really do not want to personally call people out, but either these apparent allergies are overblown, or your family physicians are doing a disservice by not publishing this. There are no credible reports of allergy specifically to GMO corn in the peer-reviewed medical literature.

Individuals in a population having allergies isn't that big of a story, even for as big as something as GMO products. It would have to be a much greater trend.

[THE Bigzoman]

It's funny how many people feel the need to say something in their post about how GMO's aren't really anymore harmful, but are completely ignorant it seems about the extreme environmental problems created by the agriculture industry.

Industrial agriculture is all around bad for the environment, period. That's just being honest. You can't destroy the environment and be good for it at the same time, it's not possible.

Who cares whether or not GMOs are going to give you cancer? Small potatoes compared to all the water waste, soil erosion, and the damage caused from using pesticides and such.

So you approve of this just to spite pesticide users?

[Cthulhu 2020]

I find it partictularly ironic that your type (yes, your type. sue me.) always find themselves in the group of legislators/supporters that regulate shit just for the sake of regulating shit.

I am part of the group that wants to regulate shit just to regulate shit? What?

I'll encourage you to show me where I fully endorsed this or defended it. In fact, if you'll look through my posts in this thread... well perhaps you just @'d the wrong person? I dunno, I can't really tell, you talk about the part where I trivialized the cost issue (since yeah, it's trivial, your post does nothing to address that, just attacks me, that's what we call an ad hom) but the rest of it is totally inconsistent with my posting in the past.

See, your whole thing about entry level costs are... non applicable here. You have someone who designs your product's label. They have to now include a bar code or change the name of ingredients. Oh fuck that does jack shit to the barrier of entry.

I guess you get me confused because I dunno, maybe you've subconsciously grouped me in with a league of other people you like to demonize as liberal SJWs? But I've always been against regulation for the purpose of regulation, i.e. regulations with stupid reasons.

In this case? I don't find it to be wholly unjustified. I think people have a right to know what they're ingesting. On the ingredient list give me the specific name of the item, so I can do my own research. But since I recognize the negatives as well, I was neither strongly for nor strongly against this.

[Sargerasraider]

Going after family members? Wow that's low even for you.

They did get the huge panel testing done, at great expense. The one full of shit here is you. It's quite funny that you don't believe anyone in the entire world could possibly have an adverse reaction to any number of the new chemicals present and produced within the corn.



Individuals in a population having allergies isn't that big of a story, even for as big as something as GMO products. It would have to be a much greater trend.

Put yourself in our shoes. You're asking us to believe something that has never medically been reported. Additionally, you're asking us to believe that the physicians who did this testing didn't consider it worthwhile enough to report a groundbreaking finding (which would result in a publication in a major medical journal if verified). The likelihood of this is astronomically low.

Without very specific details on what was tested for and how it was done, it is very difficult to believe.

[Spectral]

Going after family members? Wow that's low even for you.

They did get the huge panel testing done, at great expense. The one full of shit here is you. It's quite funny that you don't believe anyone in the entire world could possibly have an adverse reaction to any number of the new chemicals present and produced within the corn.

Since there's not presently an IgE test that's available that discerns any allergy for GMO corn (but not non-GMO), yeah, I'm saying your family members are full of shit. I know, how dare I notice that they're superstitious and just plain wrong. They're family after all.

On the topic of the actual science, the only plausible potential allergen in GMO corn is Cry1AB, but no actual allergic properties for the protein have been found despite repeated tests (cite, cite, cite). A rigorous effort was undertaken with someone that self-challenged with the relevant StarLink contaminated corn chips and failed to identify any allergic response. There are some moderately credible reports of potential non-IgE mediated allergic responses, but none of these are remotely commercially available testing means that would be found in hospital panel for allergy testing (or in even a big diagnostic lab like Quest or LabCorp).

I will, however, concede that I'm just not sufficiently informed if you can provide a citation for a commercially available IgE test (or other decent allergy-testing method) that identifies this allergy that I'm just not aware of. Failing that, yeah, you and your family are just full of shit about the matter.

[melodramocracy]

Oh goodie, another GMO thread, chock full of people who think that consumers shouldn't be made aware of where their food originates, or how it was processed.

[Spectral]

Oh goodie, another GMO thread, chock full of people who think that consumers shouldn't be made aware of where their food originates, or how it was processed.

As I've been asking people taking this position, do you think that the scan should take you to a page that shows the brands of the tractors used in tilling the fields? Is it necessary to list the state (or perhaps ZIP code) of origin of the ingredients? Should the full hybridization history of the crop in question be publicly available on demand?

If the answer to these question isn't a clear yes, why are GMOs special? What's the compelling reason that companies should be forced to label an ingredient as genetically modified, but not to list the hybridization history?

[Cthulhu 2020]

Since there's not presently an IgE test that's available that discerns any allergy for GMO corn (but not non-GMO), yeah, I'm saying your family members are full of shit. I know, how dare I notice that they're superstitious and just plain wrong. They're family after all.

On the topic of the actual science, the only plausible potential allergen in GMO corn is Cry1AB, but no actual allergic properties for the protein have been found despite repeated tests (cite, cite, cite). A rigorous effort was undertaken with someone that self-challenged with the relevant StarLink contaminated corn chips and failed to identify any allergic response. There are some moderately credible reports of potential non-IgE mediated allergic responses, but none of these are remotely commercially available testing means that would be found in hospital panel for allergy testing (or in even a big diagnostic lab like Quest or LabCorp).

I will, however, concede that I'm just not sufficiently informed if you can provide a citation for a commercially available IgE test (or other decent allergy-testing method) that identifies this allergy that I'm just not aware of. Failing that, yeah, you and your family are just full of shit about the matter.

The allergy test for corn on IgE is for the monsanto strain, which they tested positive for, then many blind tests were done by us and our local clinic when ingesting genetically modified corn versus ingesting a couple of other heritage strains. When there was zero reaction to the heritage strains but expected strong reaction to the common variety... well you tell me what that would imply. I guess they're making it up?

Starting in the 90's, their life began going downhill health wise. They went to so many doctors for various diseases, none of which could figure out what it was. Then once they got the extensive allergy panel and modified their diet, their quality of life greatly improved and they stopped going to doctors.

They did it for attention? I dunno, I guess they got some attention for the few years in which they just couldn't work and couldn't function as a human being, but are now getting back into society.

They did it cause they hate GMOs? I dunno, I didn't know GMO's were all that controversial in the 90's, but I could be wrong. They're not against GMO's though, they don't care about GMO stuff in general. Maybe they have some hidden agenda!

Yeah sure Spectral, they're LYING.

[THE Bigzoman]

I am part of the group that wants to regulate shit just to regulate shit? What?

I'll encourage you to show me where I fully endorsed this or defended it. In fact, if you'll look through my posts in this thread... well perhaps you just @'d the wrong person? I dunno, I can't really tell, you talk about the part where I trivialized the cost issue (since yeah, it's trivial, your post does nothing to address that, just attacks me, that's what we call an ad hom) but the rest of it is totally inconsistent with my posting in the past.

See, your whole thing about entry level costs are... non applicable here. You have someone who designs your product's label. They have to now include a bar code or change the name of ingredients. Oh fuck that does jack shit to the barrier of entry.

I guess you get me confused because I dunno, maybe you've subconsciously grouped me in with a league of other people you like to demonize as liberal SJWs? But I've always been against regulation for the purpose of regulation, i.e. regulations with stupid reasons.

In this case? I don't find it to be wholly unjustified. I think people have a right to know what they're ingesting. On the ingredient list give me the specific name of the item, so I can do my own research. But since I recognize the negatives as well, I was neither strongly for nor strongly against this.

Bra,


It doesn't matter if the cost is actually as trivial as you think it is. It's still an additional production cost in an industry that already has absurdly high production costs. You did nothing to address my point where I said that policymakers need to justify things like this by, at the very least, believing the cost creates a societal net benefit. Then again, this is what mindful policymakers with the best interest of the people they represent would do.


Nothing in my post even said it was only leftists. Only that your type find yourselves in a group that do this type of shit. The group includes conseratives that than cry "hurr free market". They both make me sick.

[Spectral]

The allergy test for corn on IgE is for the monsanto strain, which they tested positive for, then many blind tests were done by us and our local clinic when ingesting genetically modified corn versus ingesting a couple of other heritage strains. When there was zero reaction to the heritage strains but expected strong reaction to the common variety... well you tell me what that would imply. I guess they're making it up?

This isn't how IgE tests work dude. You don't test for "the monsanto strain" and a test isn't done via ingestion. Maybe they did something of a test, but the way you're explaining this is entirely consistent with my position that this is basically nonsense. The actual Corn IgE test isn't for "the monsanto strain", it's just for a typical corn allergen. Here's the paper identifying it.

Starting in the 90's, their life began going downhill health wise. They went to so many doctors for various diseases, none of which could figure out what it was. Then once they got the extensive allergy panel and modified their diet, their quality of life greatly improved and they stopped going to doctors.

They did it for attention? I dunno, I guess they got some attention for the few years in which they just couldn't work and couldn't function as a human being, but are now getting back into society.

They did it cause they hate GMOs? I dunno, I didn't know GMO's were all that controversial in the 90's, but I could be wrong. They're not against GMO's though, they don't care about GMO stuff in general. Maybe they have some hidden agenda!

Yeah sure Spectral, they're LYING.

This doesn't really read any different than a One Weird Trick banner on the internet.

The next time you write about science, I'm going to have to keep in mind that you believe tales from your peepaw about how Monsanto done made him sick without really feeling any particular need to back it with any scientific evidence or plausible mechanism.