GMO Ticking Time Bomb is a fantastic fifteen minute video which helps explain why California polls show overwhelming support for Prop 37 on the November ballot. If passed by voters, the citizens initiative would require mandatory labeling for genetically modified foods.
The film starts by briefly explaining explains how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are created. It goes on to talk about the scandalous corporate interference that put a once and future Monsanto executive in charge of a 1992 FDA decision that GMO crops and foods are safe and don't require testing for potential health hazards.
Filmmakers also discuss a recent recommendation by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (medical doctors who specialize in environmental medicine) that all doctors prescribe non-GMO foods for all their patients. This is based on a wealth of private – and government – studies showing that GMO foods interfere with reproductive and immune function; cause accelerating aging, GI distress and organ damage and interfere with cholesterol and insulin regulation.
The US is one of a handful of industrialized countries that don’t require labeling for GMO foods.
Monsanto’s main argument for opposing mandatory labeling: consumers are too dumb to know the difference.
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Jill Cloutier
cheshyre grin
al mariam
Patrick D Hahn
Jan Sand
Arthur Louis
Salon.com
Comments
I had no idea this was happening in the USA.
Here, as in New Zealand, GMO labelling is LOUD & CLEAR.
Japan has given wholesale food conglomerates the right to mislabel the origins of food, so I don't expect any alerts as to GMO modified foods.
-R-
Let every worker for companies like Monsanto be paid partly with shares in the company so that they have a say in how the company is run. Then let a good part of their pay be in the form of vouchers for Monsanto products so that they'd be strongly inclined to eat that modified food themselves.
That combination of inducing the employee shareholders to eat that food as well as having a say in what the company does, just might bring some responsibility to the company management. Especially if employees of conscience can act as whistle-blowers when the company attempts wrong-doing.
Just a thought......
;-)
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Only by buying organic can a family assure themselves that they are eating FOOD instead of some concoction, whether chemically-laced or genetic mutated.
I've spent more for organic food for over 27 years -- overpriced? Often. Is my family's health worth it? Hell yes. Has it paid off so far? Absolutely, even in my kids' knowledge of how foods work and which ones to choose....and Monsanto has been "The Devil" in all their childhood fairy tales....oh, just a bit of humor at the end there. Although they have definitely heard that from their parents.
I am absolutely in favor of the labeling. But that isn't going to mean a thing to those who don't bother to read labels let alone knowing what the label means.
Large farms feed us. People who live in cities cannot grow their own food, nor do they all have access to farmers markets. I'd say this is a conundrum. More food..maybe not safe....less food that is safe....maybe. Who knows what is under the farmer's field?
Am in favor of labeling. Am in favor of choice. If you want to buy it after that....it is the individual's call.
Sounds like a great idea, Sky. Kind of like a workers cooperative. I think it's really positive that the trend of workers playing a role in running their own companies is definitely upward. Personally I'm hanging out to see Bill Gates eat GMO food on TV.
Andre, you seem to believe Americans are dumber than Europeans. GMO labeling has been mandatory in the European Union for more than a decade. People won't buy it, even though it's more expensive.
I don't agree with the practice of hurting people when you are aware that you are hurting people, and especially not when the sole reason you are doing so is for profit, I simply stated that the argument about American consumers was a correct one.