2nd August 2016, 10:02 PM
Weltall Wrote:Oversight, definitely. Government exists, ideally, to regulate large entities and ensure their good behavior when no one else can. But GMO labeling does no good at all. It does not inform consumers or raise the level of discussion in any way. It's just a big "DON'T BUY THIS SCARY THING" label. Genetic modification is a very new science that we are still attempting to understand, and so to label yourself as anti-GMO takes you past the honestly skeptical and into the realm of agenda-driven paranoia.
So it's new and not totally understood... so we should just believe Monsanto and let whatever get into the food supply, even though it's as you say not entirely understood? The first and second halves of your last sentence make little sense together. Going from taking a very long time to slowly turn one plant into something else, to doing that in a matter of months, is a huge change.
On the other hand, the group I trust the most for food safety is CSPI; we used to get their newsletter in the '90s, and I read the site sometimes, and they aren't anti-GMO; they are against a lot of unhealthy ingredients, such as sodium and artificial dyes in food among other things, but not that. And as far as food goes there certainly are plenty of things I'd worry about more than GMOs, but still, with how new the field is, there's no way we know every possible danger.
But even if they are maybe safe to eat, there are other serious issues with GMOs -- as I said before any GM product which exists to make it easier to douse the thing in pesticides is horrible! It increases pesticide usage, which then moves up the food chain into us, doing harm. And on top of that, it ties farmers into a bad cycle of having to buy seeds from Monsanto every year, instead of just being able to use their own... bad stuff.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:No one's fearing cancer by taking a hot bath, so it's unlikely this is a major concernhttp://time.com/4369809/very-hot-coffee-...-says-who/ :p (Yes, I know, not very similar. But what you said made me think of this.)
As for wireless signals and health, I know most but not all studies show no links between cellphones and cancer. It seems like it might not be a problem, but it's still a "might". And as with anything, many studies are useless industry-funded things; those will never be reliable, of course. "Considering how many people use the things now we sure hope we won't have a big problem here in a few decades" probably sums it up?