Forum Post: GMO
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 4:25 p.m. EST by jomojo
(562)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
During a street protest on World Food Day, the question from the public was what's a GMO. I'd like to answer. It's life as we've never known it before. It's a monopoly. It's everywhere, land and sea. It's what you ate yesterday, today, and tommorrow. It's being fed to babies and children. It's forced upon the grocery stores. It's often in food advertised as healthy. It's not listed on the label in the USA. (except for aspartame) It's requires special chemicals to grow it. It's able to reproduce and contaminate organic crops. It's being forced upon other countries. It's becomming too big to fail. It's both food and a registered pesticide. It's a product of corporate greed coupled with dereg politicians. It's the biggest lie we ever ate. "generally recognized as safe. It's the fast way for scientific critics to become unemployed. It's subsidized. It's what we've feared. We are just test rats to Wall Street.
Monsanto's actions puts the actions of these bank scheisters to shame...
Indy4 change, I couldn't have put it better. They are on a first name basis, with each other also.
Monsanto has my vote for the most evil corporation in the world.
Good job, guys! At least 1200 more Indian farmers just committed suicide because of GMO cotton...
It is sad when someone who knows nothing about a subject dismisses it as nonsense. http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/10/food-industry-monopoly-occupy-wall-street?page=1 as stated in the article, Big Food makes Big Finance look like amateurs. Arent we doing such a great job? We have taken such good care of the earth! Enough! I am taking back my earth, my air, my water from these toxic polluters who are sick with greed, they will poison us and stop and nothing for their own gain.
I don't want to wait for their great discoveries to feed the world. They won't. I don't want them to do even greater damage to nature before they go bankrupt. Their intellectual property will become worth what Frakenfood is worth. Stock holders beware.
With respect, you end corporate personhood and political influence, you can do something about GMO. Prioritize and focus the message bro.
my point: do not trust science paid for by those of the 1%, they have made you pay to eat their work, and the world is fed up with being force fed. Healthfood is the answer to affordable healthcare.
In their list of demands the Occupy Wall Street should include LABELING GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS in our food supply.
Crisis? WHAT CRISIS.
Make it simple.
The MESS that our goverment and corporations represent to the world is that Western Man is EVIL. GMO could also be the acronym for Goverment Mandated Occupation.
Freedom is what Goverments, Corporations, and Money Changers steal from the world, to confiscate what they do not wish to sell. Behind every great fortune is a great crime. (intro to "the Godfather")
All is not fair in love, war, and business.
The use of mundane stacks of endless information, expert documentation and legal speak, are barriers to the truth. They need your trust. Even if they have to kill to get it.
The writting on the wall says we have been found unworthy.
DON"T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE ENEMY OF TRUTH.
This overdue movement is giving notice to them: Your happy days of exploitation has created OCCUPY WALL STREET.
YOU danced to the music. Pay the fiddler.
10 reasons to avoid genetically modified food: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/blog/1619
The history of Monsanto: Saccharin, Nuclear Bombs, Dioxin, Agent Orange, PCB's
Internal Monsanto memos show that Monsanto knew of the problems of dioxin contamination of Agent Orange when it sold it to the U.S. government for use in Vietnam.
Agent Orange contaminated more than 3 million civilians and servicemen, and an estimated 500,000 Vietnamese children have been born with deformities attributed to Agent Orange, leading to calls for Monsanto to be prosecuted for war crimes.
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms-mobile/10595-monsanto-a-history
New 30 year long study confirms- Organic farming yields as much as chemical farming, is more profitable and doesn't poison the soil. There is no excuse for GMO's! (Genetically Modified Organisms- also called GE- Genetic Engineering, or Bio-tech) http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years
The purpose of the anti-GMO "Millions Against Monsanto" rallies on Sunday (Oct 16, 2011, World Food Day) was simply to demand labeling of GMO ingredients. We the people demand the Right to Know.
Biotech corporations such as Monsanto began deploying their genetically engineered seed in the mid-1990s, focusing for starters on huge crops such as corn that are processed or fed to animals before being fed to humans. They've just had approved the first-ever direct-to-humans crop. I won't say what it is; you have to be really interested to find out, and that is our point.
Biotech has spent many millions of dollars lobbying the FDA to avoid labeling. Presumably, the absence of labeling serves biotech's business goals. Because presumably, it would cost a LOT more money than that to shove their GMO crop products down our throats if we knew what we were eating.
Don't forget about Big Pharma's edible poisons
I am sorry but you will not find many agricultural scientist who would argue against genetically modified organisms. I find it funny that "progressives" chastise conservatives for their views on evolution or global warming, that defy the scientific consensus. While many of these same "progressives" hold views on genetically modified organisms and nuclear power that they only received from their cloistered political tribe that are the absolute antithesis of the scientific consensus.
Michael Specter: The danger of science denial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OMLSs8t1ng
c0nc0rdance is a scientist and YouTube user and makes very good videos on scientific matters. He has made one very good video on GMO.
GMO: Are we playing God?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzTECVk8tVU&list=PL0D2C833C76701894&index=1
If you want a lot of information on GMO's including some short videos, go to naturalnews.com
Organic crops will not take up more room than Gmo crops. How it works is like this: Gmo seed is genetically altered that it can be heavily sprayed with herbicide and it will not die. But the soil will then be so polluted only Gmo crops will grow there. So farmers will be forced to continue planting Gmo seed and guess who they need to purchase it from? Do you really want the company that produced agent orange tampering with our food? No real science to back up that it will feed more people. Independent studies show dangers.
other living beings are not there for us to experiment on. they are there to live their lives and they have a right. gmos are not part of an inclusive democratic system that take into account the needs of all of the earth's beings when making decisions. we have to kill to live, but this doesn't mean we have to control the direction of evolution, modify the stability of ecosystems, or corrupt the beauty and wisdom of nature to do so. Capitalism should not be allowed into our genes.
.....OR allowed in our Jeans, T-shirts and baby blankets. Cotton farmers are using Monsanto's GMO seeds and Round UP herbicide. The spray winds up downwind and downstream, just like when used on lawns and driveways. India's cotton farmers are in an uproar since GMO seeds arrived there. I've been vegan awhile, and I apoligize for the smear on the nobel rodent family. NO ANIMAL TESTING REQUIRED ON ORGANIC FOOD. Its our right to demand GMOs Label their products, despite their loss of sales. I appreciate your insights rfactor.
a gmo is also the destruction of our sense in the beauty, wisdom, and integrity of nature -- all of life's creatures become infecting with bits of corporate tinkering. we must stand up against gmos in our post-greed world.
we've been tinkering with genetics for 10,000 years.
And don't forget - they get to patent life. How sad is that?
I agree that that is wrong, I guess I just disagree that it is inherently wrong to alter genetic codes. I am reading the sources that have been provided here fyi.
Maybe so - but not when you don't provide people with informed consent (i.e., GMO labelling) and also when you contaminate all organic crops / natural forms of life.
GMO pollen goes in to the air, water, animals - and it is impossible to contain.
Then, on a particularly sick note - Monsanto has a cadre of lawyers sue the organic family farms for patent infringement.
this is simply not true. we have been choosing to co-exist with certain species and those species have chosen to live with us. gradually, artificial selection does occur, but it is not planned and it is still based on an inherent freedom of the living being that is not trapped by humans and does not have to conform, and by an organismic integrity that respects the dynamics by which evolution produces variation. Are you familiar with pleiotropic effects? This might make you realize the significant difference with GMOs. Genes do not operate in isolation, their function depends on the genes that are around them. In a way, there is a "genetic ecosystem" and the role of each of the genes within it is contextually dependent. When they discovered "super-salmon" it was by mistake: the were originally found that flounder fish didn't freeze in ocean salmon farms and thought "if we could take the gene from the flounder that is responsible for preventing them from dying in frozen water, we could create an anti-freeze salmon". They identified the gene and shot it (invasively) into the salmon. But the gene didn't provide anti-freezing. Instead it made the salmon grow faster. The scientists had no way of predicting this effect before they did the experiment. There are countless examples showing how GMO "technology" is ad hoc, opportunistic and driven by a need to make cash quick rather than actually basing anything on science, let alone the rights and welfare of the animals they are abusing.
I think we should die-it.
Thanks MuadDib and US Whatever. Modern ag is not as sustainable as it was before the dust bowl.
I am trying to show how this movement is important to every one that eats, and can't buy gourmet organic, or order from a non GMO country via FED EX, like the Donald Rumsfields, and Alan Greenspans (Monsanto folks).
Sorry to my fellow lefties, but get off this GMO nonsense. The population is projected to be 9 billion by 2025. That means that we need food that can handle more climates than it naturally can. Genetic modification allows this. Fear of GMO food is bred by new agey anti scientific attitudes.
"Organic" food ain't gonna cut it. At most, organic food would only be able to support 4 billion if we completely switched right now.
Oh, and organic farming requires MUCH more deforestation for less produce.
Finally, organic farmers DO use pesticides and fertilizers. They are just very outdated and many times less safe than modern ones.
Check the FACTS mate. GMO's do not increase yields! GMOs need MORE water than ordinary, traditional crops. Genetic modification allows only easier use of pesticides, or it puts the pesticide into every cell of the plant, so you eat more of it.
GMO's were first approved for human consumption in 1994 under Clinton. Since then we have seen skyrocketing rates of food allergies, ADHD, Alzheimers, gastro-intestinal disorders, new infestations of super weeds, and contamination of traditional crops. GMO's are a complete disaster! Good only for easier pesticide use, so greater short term profits. Every good thing you heard about them is a LIE. Go here: http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years or here: http://www.gmwatch.org/
these are all the arguments that corporate scientists make. the most yield productive agricultural systems in the world are tropical homegardens. ease away from the monoculture of the mind
They are arguments that have yet to be properly refuted here.
The corporate scientists that get rich make them. The rest hope to find a job elsewhere.
sounds like you read the memo
So what's wrong with GMO?
It's safety has been approved, but Monsanto's own record proves that it relies on science that it pay for that show its products safe, and conspires to suppress tests that show Monsanto's products are unsafe. Perhaps their monetary influence upon the regulatory bodies, helped get GMO's approved these products used by consumer's bodies. GMO's should be removed from the market and independently retested. I have seen documentation that there have been deaths caused by FDA approved GMO products, that were removed from the market. Thanks for asking your question. I'm not an authority, but I think their products will fail, should the consumers be allowed to have their right to know printed on the nutrition label. They've learned this from experience: GMO sugar substitutes. BTW: Should your children have GMO's in their babies bottles? (regardless of deforestation) Look for your opinions to be supported by GMO work at UC. They just welcomed a new grant, and it's spokesman was emphatic that your message be supported with solidarity.
I agree with the assertion that companies like Monsanto participate in inexcusable business practices, I just don't have a problem with GM foods, as long as the safety is approved by relevant experts. I'm not familiar with the death you're speaking of, but I know that many dangerous infectious outbreaks come from organic farming practices. For example, the e coli outbreak that killed 52 people this year was traced to an organic farm.
hi MuadDib, I don't know what spice you are eating or whether you happily anticipate a desertified landscape stillsuited to MuadDib travels and GMO crop-growing, but are you against labeling of GMOs? And if labeling put the public off Monsanto's feed, would you find that troubling? I'm riffing on your name because I loved the books, but I ask in seriousness.
Well, I have no problem with the labeling, but if it put the public off because "genetic modification" sounds scary, I would find that troubling. I would find it troubling in the same way that most people in the US think the earth is 6-10 thousand years old and many people take astrology seriously. I think that the gut revulsion to gm is rooted in an anti-scientific attitude.
Well said. Farmers have an awesome responsibility. I hope that you're right and I'm wrong, and that it's quickly proven by independent testing. There's a world of people with their reasons to protest in the streets about GMOs coming to their nations. The GMO shipments are important. Economies, health, international relations, and the enviroment are at risk. I think a company's or farmer's history should be considered. Deregulation is not the answer to food safety. I hope my garden skills improve. I eat from it and give it away, but I don't think developers of GMOs do. I pay extra for Certified Organic labeled products, and am aware that claims are not always true. "healthy, natural, and nutrious" are sales pitches. CO labels means the field and its owner have passed minimum standards to try to prevent dangers or GMO contamination. They CAN'T even spray Monsanto's Roundup herbicide on the food. (I don't use it on the lawn either). Organic food sales are becoming an important portion of cash register reciepts, in spite of shoppers going generic. A silk (soy milk) commercial is on tv now. It's $3.28 a half gallon. Much of my information is from a film "The World According to Monsanto". It's in rotation on Free Speech TV (dish network) The UCLA channel has some interesting speakers on their channel. Thanks.
everything! They take genes from one type of life and insert it into another. Very dangerous. FDA's own scientists stated that it was crazy to approve this unneeded technology, so Bill Clinton appointed Monsanto's Michael Tay;or to write new regulations stating GMO's were GRAS- Generally Recognized As Safe, with NO human studies, and dozens of animal studies that are very clear: GMO's are dangerous. Go here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/news.cfm