" The fact that every environmental scare in history has been baseless is lost on them". Yea sure, just like asbestos as an example of a baseless environmental concern or maybe lead as a gasoline additive. Crazy Luddites.

If you don't feel it is safe, then don't eat it. But you have no right whatsoever to say that such things can't be produced or sold, nor to dictate under what conditions it may be sold.

Caveat emptor is a major foundation of capitalism.

Some genetic modifications make sense for nutritional purposes, like the "golden" rice that's rich in vitamin content to protect against deficiencies. I'm not so much sold on pest resistance, as those changes may affect pollinators and grazing animals.

My great grandfather's farm in North Carolina was extremely successful. He practiced crop rotation techniques and planted pest repelling plants in crop fields between the rows he plowed behind his big Percheron draft horse. He never used any chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and his crop production exceeded all of the bigger farms in his area. The farm college at the University of North Carolina had their students make a special study of his farming techniques. Most of those natural production methods have been forgotten, and need to be taught with an idea of how they can be adapted to more automation.

Each year, millions of Americans have allergic reactions to food. Although most food allergies cause relatively mild and minor symptoms, some food allergies can cause severe reactions, and may even be life-threatening.

There is no cure for food allergies. Strict avoidance of food allergens—and early recognition and management of allergic reactions to food—are important measures to prevent serious health consequences.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), which amended the FFDCA requires most foods to bear specific nutrition and ingredient labeling and requires food, beverage, and dietary supplement labels that bear nutrient content claims and certain health messages to comply with specific requirements. Furthermore, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) amended the FFDCA, in part, by defining "dietary supplements," adding specific labeling requirements for dietary supplements, and providing for optional labeling statements. Registrar Corp helps companies modify their food, beverage, or dietary supplement labeling to comply with these and other U.S. FDA regulations. .

The source is a bit like citing PETA on meat processing plants.

What's the bar, eat enough organic tofu and it will kill you, but it wont grow you a third arm.

I do not disagree, but when the same people try to stop a company from stating they do not contain GMO or Bst in milk then I have a problem.

I understand that fully, but propose that scientific methodology could be part of the problem. Studying in isolation is necessary to understand interactions, but the fact is that complexity adds so much to the equation that if we do not recognize them and allow our observations and intuition to raise red flags we may never realize the scientific proof we rely on is missing something. Are we to accept and just move along when we see something amiss?

Almost all of the crops we eat today were genetically engineered over time, cross pollinating and choosing what worked best. GMO engineering is the ability to select desired traits and produce them quickly, the only problem with using GMO's is that if we developed a problem plant it could be created much quicker than the old methods. Not everything that was done with cross pollination worked out for the best. Not everything attempted by humans works, problem solving is our best attribute. If a problem arises then it can be worked on.

It's easy to be against GM food on a full stomach.

Maybe it tastes better? Or perhaps the cows are just messing with you :-)

Keep in mind that none of us has a wide enough experience to make scientific conclusions about how anything affects society. We need actually wide-ranging research with controls and such. Your personal experience will always be limited to your environment, be filtered by the sources you choose to read, and be biased by your own existing prejudices. Scientific research tries to mitigate all of these through very painstaking processes, very few of which any individual can actually accomplish consciously, let alone unconsciously.

Labeling is a liberty and freedom issue. It doesn't matter what percentage of a majority favors something, if it is using force to interfere with a market and it is not to protect the rights of anyone, then it is unethical. In this case, no rights are being violated. You do not have a "right" to easy and ready access to ingredient and production information on the actual packaging of the product you are buying. If you want to know, do research on your own. If you can't figure it out, don't buy it if it's that important to you. But at no point do your buying preferences give you the right to dictate to the seller what information they must provide you about the product.
Of course, if they lie, that is fraud. That is not allowed. But declining to put a big scary GMO stamp on the package is not a violation of anyone's rights.

So if a GMO "food" doesn't happen to grow me a 3rd arm, it's "safe"? Sorry, too thin.

While yes, open labeling would make it easier to tell one type of plant from another, requiring it is fascist and anti-liberty.

Radio_Randy: You ask why the "hazardous" claims are made before the scientific proof is provided. I can answer as to certain "dangers" like cell phones and breast implants. The answer is: Lawyers. The early entrants into the litigation market score big awards or settlements with only junk science to support their claims. When the actual science reveals the original claims were baseless, the lawyers have already made their coin and exited the scene. The trick is to move fast while panic is high and you have a few anecdotes to support your position. If you wait for real scientific evidence you are too late. This is sad but true.

Exactly. The only reason GMOs are controversial is that there are Luddites around, and they are not rational. So they seek to enact the "precautionary principle" to stop all progress. The fact that every environmental scare in history has been baseless is lost on them.

On the contrary, one of the characteristics that GMO makers put into plants is pest resistance.

+1 for maybe the shortest reply I ever gave a +1 to,and it is but a mere question.

Ahh you say please don't bring up "because Monsanto". That's like a proponent arguing for socialism but don't bring up Stalin.
Today, 94 percent of the soybeans and 72 percent of the corn grown in the US are genetically engineered to be “Roundup Ready,” or able to withstand Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide or its generic form, glyphosate. While Monsanto initially marketed Roundup as being “safer than table salt,” several studies have pointed to health risks. A 2008 study in Sweden linked Roundup exposure to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A 2007 study in Ecuador found a higher degree of DNA damage in a population that had been aerially sprayed. DNA damage can ultimately lead to cancer or birth defects. A 2003 study of tadpoles exposed to Roundup in Argentina found a higher incidence of skull, eye, and tail abnormalities. Corresponding to that study, a 2009 study in Paraguay found that women exposed to Roundup during pregnancy were more likely to give birth to babies with skull and brain abnormalities.

It might just be that ingestion of roundup in the minute quantities found in human food is safe. I only know that in higher doses in lifetime studies in rats a large percentage develop tumors. Until we have lifetime studies showing what dosage has no effect, I would choose to not ingest it.
You are also free to make your choice. Open labelling would allow us both to do that.

The creation of new crops through genetic manipulation is something that predates modern laboratory genetic tinkering, Blake noted. She cited the tangelo, which is a crossbreed between a tangerine and a grapefruit.

"Nobody gets upset about a tangelo," said Blake, a registered dietitian and clinical associate professor at Boston University's Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Not the same as engineered to surviving herbacides.

$35 million spent by co.s to not label!
Given that polls show that over 90 percent of Americans would prefer GMO foods be labeled and a majority would avoid GMO foods, it’s clear that the companies with a financial stake in these foods would benefit from keeping their GM ingredients hidden. Monsanto, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and others sunk over $35 million into defeating the measure.
As for the GMO crops themselves, there’s evidence that the new substances engineered into some GMO foods can mimic potent, potentially life-threatening allergens. So basically, we’re introducing new, hidden allergens into foods that will be much more difficult to pinpoint than a standard food allergy, making them deadlier than the average peanut or seafood allergy.

In addition, new research points to the possibility that GMO foods could damage the gut. Bt corn, for example, introduces a protein that pokes holes in the gut of common pests, killing them. While Big Biotech claims that humans won’t experience the same kind of damage, studies out of Cuba and Mexico have found that certain Bt crops do poke holes in the guts of mice. And Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini from the University of Caen in France re-analyzed 17 studies in 2011 and again found statistically significant occurrences of these effects, in addition to liver and kidney damage in rats.

the only problem is that most of the research is funded by GMO producers...and the GMO seeds will not reproduce year after year like heirloom...no the choice of a pepper...