Why should they. If it is corn in the product, corn will be listed in the ingredients. If it's salmon, salmon will be listed. If you listen to the scientists, the people who actually do the research, there is no problem. If you listen to the folks with an agenda, who speak without any basis in fact, then you probably just shouldn't eat, breathe or drink, because they can find a problem with every thing.

Bob's question is a very good one.

Transparency from both Corporations and Governments would make the world a much better place.

If GM foods are OK why do the companies that make them so vigorously resist putting that simple fact on the [packaging]?

I suspect that's because of all the hysteria and over-generalization. Americans aren't real big on facts and proof. Most of us will take a good catchy slogan or article of faith over actual scientific knowledge any day of the week.

@NSAQ: Bob's question is worse than "where there's smoke there's fire."

#1. Bob in LG - If GM foods are OK why do the companies that make them so vigorously resist putting that simple fact on the [packaging]?

Very good question. I strongly suggest you ask Monsanto (the biggest offender) and other corp's who are vehemently adamant about disclosing their GMO products to the consumer. The fact is that they can sell more product containing GMOs than those grown without; plus, they don't even KNOW whether their product(s) are harmful because in their rush to push these things on an unsuspecting population, they have not taken the time to do the research necessary to determine if this is harmful in the long run. And if it is ultimately determined that GMOs are the wrong way to go, it will be too late because the soils have already been irreversibly contaminated.

Mozzie, your reply is a great example of what Dave in NM is saying. Do you have references to support what you are saying, or are you just repeating the hysterical claims of others?

#1.5 John: I know what I'm talking about, and will find convincing arguments for you so you don't accuse me of making snap judgements against the very powerful Monsanto Corporation. It will take awhile to look through my library. How many references would you like?

How many references would you like?

Just one demonstrating a harmful effect in humans. Thanks

Hey they're just altering the genetic makeup of our food, what could possible go wrong?!

The question is laughable at the surface.

Basically, a good reference would be a blinded, controlled study published in a peer reviewed journal. That is the "gold" standard in scientific research. Better yet, if you could find a meta-analysis of the topic, published in a peer reviewed journal to support your claim, I would become a believer.

#1.7 eric - Just one [reference] demonstrating a harmful effect in humans.

See excerpt from #1.4: They don't even KNOW whether their product(s) are harmful because in their rush to push these things on an unsuspecting population, they have not taken the time to do the research necessary to determine if this is harmful in the long run.

Are you willing to take this risk? I'm not.

Are you willing to take this risk? I'm not.

So firstly, it is clear you have no studies on humans, let alone RCTs. Just wanted to make that clear.

Secondly, plenty of research has been done...it just doesn't support your viewpoint. Here are some examples:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22373855

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22576225

Mozzie, GM crops have been in the global food supply since the 1970's. Yes, global - corn being a huge export. That's nearly 40 years with out one single negative effect to humans or environment. Not one. There is no "rush to push" anything, these products have been around for decades and consumed by millions, if not billions, of people.

You are demonstrating exactly why labeling requirements would cause more harm than good. The general public is uneducated in life science. That is not an opinion, we lag behind almost every other nation in math and science education. Americans simply don't understand genetics, gene manipulation, or even their own digestive systems well enough to make an informed purchasing decision. You make that abundantly clear talking about "contaminated soil" and the idea that Monsanto, an agri-biotech company, somehow sells foodstuffs to the general public. Labeling all GM products (basically, anything containing a corn, soybean, or wheat derivative) would cause knee-jerk reactions similar to the misinformed posts made by you and others on this thread.

This article is 100% spot on. In a world reaching nearly 8billion inhabitants, we need innovative technical solutions to increase the global food supply, not fear mongering from armchair PhD's.

John in NW PA:

----------------

OK, if you say so but let's be honest- aren't some of the scientists who do the research biased for/against the corporations or the non-corporations? The short answer is yes ans the only simple resolution, as Bob has stated, is to list the fact that something is GM + it's ingredients and allow the consumer to fend for themselves on making a decision to buy/eat as they wish.

Makes no sense otherwise and fending for ourselves (doing our research) is where we are at today anyway....

No Gm crops have not been in the global supply since the 1970's, George H. W. Bush was president when Monsanto released it's first frankenfood on an unsuspecting population. Most countries have some kind of ban on GMO's, except the US and Canada who have been infected with conservatism, a diesase which symptoms include, GREED, IGNORANCE, SUSCEPTABILITY TO RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA, AND PLASTIC PATRIOTISM.

caps do nothing to promote your argument; facts do. Lets see some sources--specifically, a "ban" on gmo's by most countries would be a good place to start

So how about this article and their citations:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/23/glyphosate-found-in-human-urine.aspx
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/glyphosate-and-natural-rice/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/roundup-birth-defects-herbicide-regulators_n_872862.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=weed-whacking-herbicide-p

just google -- glyphosate and babies

YES - Roundup [glyphosate] is sprayed to kill weeds, but corn, soy, cotton and other GM seeds keep the plant from dying but IT IS STILL PICKED BY THE ROOTS AND CARRIED INTO THE PLANT ! ! !

The Monsanto and Government connection:

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/monsanto.html

Graph with even more people and position:
http://bostonoccupier.com/monsantos-u-s-government-connections-and-icons/

From googling - monsanto and government connections

From WikiPedia:
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was chairman and chief executive officer of G. D. Searle & Company, which Monsanto purchased in 1985. Rumsfeld's stock and options in Searle were $12 million USD at the time of the transaction.^{[135] -- that is citaion #135 of 313.} --- do you need more??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Public_officials.27_connections_to_Monsanto

Do you sheeple [eric-2573068, John in NW PA] need any more proof ??

Deprogrammer - you are entirely incorrect. Pioneer introduced modified soy line in 1973. Monsanto released its first GM corn product in 1983 (Reagan era). Sales didn't take off until 1987 which is probably why you associate it with Bush Sr.

Anyhow, you are also entirely incorrect about the country ban. Most countries do allow GM food imports with labeling. The EU is the only organization which has "banned" GM foods although they still authorize about 25 GM seed varieties to be grown. The EU also reported about 30million tons of GM food imports this year.

Wap - you bring up glyphosate, a compound which is sprayed on fields as a herbicide. You have jumped from biology to chemistry. Yes there are many, many, many industrial compounds that cause harm to humans. Has nothing to do with the genetic modification of the organism. Please try to stay on topic.

Wake up people:

That is why I want the study to be published in a peer reviewed journal. The review process should eliminate biased researchers.

Wap:

From what I could see, your references had nothing to do with GMO, it was the application of glyophosphate (think Roundup that you kill weeds with) to food plants.

Regardless of one's feelings about GM food, information about what goes into our food does little to stop people from eating unhealthy foods. Most people reading meta-analyses aren't the ones double-fisting McRibs.

I agree why was Prop 37 so heavily funded against it. If there is nothing wrong with the food and no safety concerns just label it. I wanted to also state that it's not just the GMO issues, it is the whole food spectrum, the chemicals, the soil it is grown in, the water used, the growth hormones. It isn't a simple issue of one problem with our food chain it is a whole chain reaction. I prefer to eat a more organic diet and buy locally because then I can actually get to know who is growing my food and what is in it.

For those who care about whether GMO's are in your produce, the PLU (price look-up) code begins with #8 for genetically modified product. So far, this is the only way to tell the difference. Organic produce is labeled starting with #9.

"Just label it". Where would you like it printed on the label? Any of you look at the list of ingredients on most of the foods that you buy? How many are there that are a complete mystery to you, and how many of them are incapable of even pronouncing? How many of those ingredients are already known to cause health problems of all sorts, yet those chemicals and additives are in almost everything. If you all really have so much concern about the foods that your buying maybe you should start by taking notice of all of the nasty stuff the foods you already eat regularly are pumped full of.

What the beef is with gm salmon is the realistic concern of these fish escaping into the wild and crossbreading with wild fish.

braincandy - maybe you should start by taking notice of all of the nasty stuff the foods you already eat regularly are pumped full of.

Some of us have been reading labels for many years. That's the point: some of us are trying to bring awareness to get this stuff OUT of the food chain.

because people like you want to spread nonsense about GM food being inferior, while in fact it's superior. i'd like my tilapia to taste like red snapper while remain as cheap as tilapia, but you'd be against that.

Why? Because many people have an irrational fear and/or hatred of GMO products. I say irrational because, totally aside from the issue of whether GMO stuff is good for you or not, a lot of the people who are afraid of them simply don't know facts on the issue. If they did then they could make an informed rational decision about whether to support them or not, but they just don't know.

Seems to me what you're insinuating is that if they don't want to put GMO on the label then GMO must be wrong/evil/harmful or something, and that is why they are resisting putting it on labels. Reality is, good or bad, putting GMO on labels will stop people from buying them whether there is any basis behind their concerns or not.

Let's put your reasoning to a hypothetical situation here, and tell me what you think. Let's pretend I'm a traveling salesman who sells, say, hand made wicker baskets. These wicker baskets are made by people of all nationalities, but it just so happens a majority of the workforce is African American. I am selling somewhere in the deep South, and I happen to be going through an area which is known to be fairly racist, have KKK meetings, etc etc... I am selling in a small town, and someone asks me, "so, who makes these baskets?" In the interest of making a sale, I might be inclined to gloss over the fact that the baskets are made by a largely African American workforce because I have a feeling the potential customer is rather racist, and simply put, made by black, white, yellow, brown, purple, green, orange, whatever people really doesn't affect the quality of the product. So if I did gloss over the fact that my baskets were made by African American people so I could sell to people who are rather racist - well, what? According to what I think you're insinuating, I'm hiding the fact that black people are making my baskets because there is something wrong with them because of that - rather, because I know it will cost me sales because of the irrational fears and hatreds of a certain group of people.

There is a lot of science showing that GMO doesn't do squat to people, and *far* less, if any legitimate science at all, showing that GMO products are actively harmful. I support GMO labeling because it's important to people, not because it makes a damn difference about the quality of the food. These companies want to hide that food is GMO because they know it'll cost them sales because some people in the flat Earth society want to resist a potentially very valuable way to increase food production in a world that increasingly needs it.

GMO foods don't need to be dangerous to be bad. How is the vitamin content affected? How is the fat content affected? How is the taste affected?

For example, the gene cultivated to fill supermarkets with pretty evenly colored tomatoes, is scientifically linked to lack of taste.

Another example of non-dangerous food that is still less healthy is grain-fed beef. It has far more fat, and far less omega-3 than grass fed beef. Scientists would still consider it safe.

Scientists would consider deep-fried Twinkies safe. (assuming they were still available)

Safe does not equal healthy.

If you want to know why many people are concerned about modified, genetically or otherwise, foods, you may wish to consider the 8 year old daughter who looks more like the 18 year old daughter, the autistic child in an environment in which autism used to be extremely rare, or the rapid rise in the incidence of leukemia, especially near high-tension power lines.

To my knowledge, there are no conclusive scientific studies which clearly indicate why these newly (within the past 30-50 years) occurring changes are becoming more commonplace over the years, yet they clearly are. Is it the food? The water? The clothing? A combination of all or these things or others? Who knows for certain. But there is one thing that is clear. Making additional changes to good old Mother Nature before understanding, and not ignoring, what's happening right in front of our faces is obviously not instilling much confidence in the consumer. Hence, fear of modified foods. Hence, the need to hide this fact from the consumer. Hence, the babble about what the consumer doesn't know regarding non-existent scientific studies should not make them fearful. Pure. Common. Sense.

rob,

1) 8 year old daughter looks 18

rise of childhood obesity. Fat cells contain an enzyme called aromatase which is responsible for the conversion of steriod precursors to estrogen. More fat=more estrongen----->earlier pubescence

2) Autism

increased recognition. This disorder wasnt even known until recently, and has been expanded over the past decade or so to include an entire spectrum of abnormalities. Its likely the actual incidence hasn't changed, but our awareness has

3) Leukemia around power lines:

unproven. There is in fact no strong correlation between the incidence of cancer and location near power lines. Basically a theory that never panned out

It is anything but common sense to arbitrarily assign a problem to an alleged cause with absolutely no data whatsoever. That is dark age science akin to praying to a rock for rain or blaming the plague on witches

It is INCREDIBLY refreshing to see there are those who actually take a reasoned, scientific approach to this debate. Usually these comments tend to be hysterical fear-mongerers preaching to conspiracy theorists, but it appears as though independent thought has finally reached the internet.

increased recognition. This disorder wasnt even known until recently, and has been expanded over the past decade or so to include an entire spectrum of abnormalities. Its likely the actual incidence hasn't changed, but our awareness has

Are there more cases of Autism in adults being retroactively diagnosed since the recognition of it as a disorder has increased?

Someone once asked me that question, and I had no answer for them.

Eric,

1. Nonsense. 55lbs is obese for an 8 year old girl. Really?? "No, honey, according to some guy on the Internet, you're just fat in the wrong place..." Skinny kids are entering puberty just as fast as fat kids, and sometimes faster. Don't know many kids, do you?

2. Then, fortunately, other diagnoses would be dropping dramatically and accordingly. Tell me, if this is so, which ones and by how much?

3. After your well thought out and conclusive assessment of the first two, I would never raise children near high tension lines, and hope you don't either. Two of my friends have it and we're raised within 2 blocks of them in Cincinnati, OH.

Hardly conclusive either, but again, all we're doing is talking consumer confidence here...

rob

1. This is the first time you are mentioning a specific weight. And you can't just pull a height and weight out of your rear. Childhood obesity is on the rise; thats a fact. As far as fat cells promoting estrogen, here's a link for you

http://www.gghjournal.com/volume18/18-2/articles/diamond/diamond.htm

Skinny kids are entering puberty just as fast as fat kids, and sometimes faster. Don't know many kids, do you?

Source or citation?

2. Then, fortunately, other diagnoses would be dropping dramatically and accordingly. Tell me, if this is so, which ones and by how much?

Not necessarily. You are setting up a false dichotomy in which a person is either diagnosed with disease A or autism. Therefore, in your premise, if the diagnosis of autism goes up, with a constant population, the diagnosis of A goes down

However, there is a third option you have forgotten--no diagnosis. Kids in the past who were labelled "difficult" are now, for better or worse, getting a medical diagnosis. So, if you have a kid who in the past would not have recieved a diagnosis, but now is, you have an increase in autism without a decrease in other diagnosis.

Furthermore, there is no reason a patient cannot carry more than one diagnosis. A child who was labelled oppositional-defiant disorder can now carry that diagnosis as well as autism

3. Hardly conclusive is an understatement. 2 patients do not qualify even close to a scientific study. Try 2000 at least

If all it takes is 2 patients to shake your confidence, on what may be a coincidence, i humbly suggest studying the problem more

If you ate Chinook and atlantic salmom then you've already tryed it. Just in different meals.

I exspect people who go around with aluminum hats on to be fearful of GM fish, not rationial people to be fearful.

Dave, you are making a fundamental mistake. You think there is no difference between wild salmon and farm raised salmon. If there is no difference, why is it necessary to artificially color the flesh of farm raised salmon so people will buy it?

I have no problem with farm raised salmon that is farm raised in Kansas and keep thousands of miles away from the ocean so none of those modified fish can escape into the wild and contaminate the wild populations.

There is a significant difference between organically grown food and chemically grown food in the amount of vitamins and other mircro nutrients. Are you aware of the major health differences between grass fed beef and corn raised beef?

I am referring to the ratio of Omega-3 fatty acids to Omega-6 fatty acids. If one eats more Omega-3 than -6, then one is healthy. If one eats more Omega-6 then one gets more heart disease. In the 1960's America switched from grass to corn feed in order to produce beef faster and cheaper. And in the exchange we got more heart disease and cancer. So what little we save on food we spent many times overs on health care. Was it a good choice?

Guess it depends on how much stock you own and whether it is in chemical companies (fertilizer and pesticides), food factories and pharmaceutical companies.

Dave, you are making a fundamental mistake. You think there is no difference between wild salmon and farm raised salmon

Re-reading my comment, I don't actually see where I said that. My premise was more that farm-raised - even artificially accelerated - salmon has got to be better for folks than a McRib. All the available evidence at this time seems to support that conclusion, and all the arguments mustered against it (a) appear to be supported only by assumptions and generalizations, and (b) are conspicuously not comparing GMO farmed salmon to McRibs.

Your information about beef is valuable, and I'm glad to know it, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with the safety of GMO salmon.

The thing is Dave that by design this GMO salmon will be farm raised and the farm raised part is the problem. Farmed fish have a different diet than wild caught and this diet changes the make-up of the meat. Do a bit of research and you will find that some studies show that many types of farm raised fish are bad for you due to the high levels of Omega-6 and little to know Omega-3 as opposed to the healthy wild caught fish. A mistake many people make since they think they are eating good simply they are eating fish, when in fact the meal may be bad for them. That is the point I think Sleepless was trying to make--not so much the GMO--but the farm raised.

DuPont makes paint and fish feed!

The problem with GMO is the motivation behind it. Everything in nature is about balance and compromise to achieve a goal. With GMO, industries will set the goal, which will be entirely focused on growing fast and big, even if nutrition and taste suffers.

(hypothetical example)

If an industry could produce cows 30% faster and larger, at the expense of lower iron and other vitamins, do you think they would hesitate even for a second? No, unless they are forced to label their product as GMO. There WILL be a trade-off, it might not be vitamins, it might be a less healthy animal, which they would counter with more antibiotics. Either way, industry-driven GMO is not in the interest of better food, only cheaper food.

your whole example is made up and hypothetical as you point out. Why not make it higher vitamins and iron? Now suddenly GMO looks great

Thats the problem with relying on make believe instead of science. NO real answers

And this relates to salmon and McRib how?

bob,

1)salt increased bp in hypertensives. hypertension has shown to be a risk factor for heart attacks in the Framingham study

2) that is a good question. It seems like saturated fat causes higher spikes in blood cholesterol than cholesterol itself. However, dietary cholesterol has been observed to raise bad cholesterol (LDL) levels.

Dietary cholesterol is a highly controversial nutrient because it raises plasma cholesterol, especially in those individuals who are not able to maintain plasma cholesterol homeostasis by decreasing absorption in the small intestine or by suppressing synthesis

McNamara D.J., Kolb R., Parker T.S., Batwin H., Samuel P., Brown C.D., Ahrens E.H., Jr. Heterogeneity of cholesterol homeostasis in man. Response to changes in dietary fat quality and cholesterol quantity. J. Clin. Invest. 1987;79:1729–1739. doi: 10.1172/JCI113013.

lol pwned. And contrary to your bet Bob there's more if you bother to some research.

Tripe is the stomach linings, usually of beef.

I'm so glad you have given away all the secrets. AGH!!! I would go near one of them suckers for nothing!!! Bring on the Salmon!!! Deprogrammers rants seem to indicate he's just a little over the top, and really hates in general everything!

Fast food is 95% genetically engineered to begin with. ...[so] eating fast food is worse for you than eating no food at all.

You seem to start from the premise that all genetically engineered foods are automatically bad for you. Is that truly your position, or are you perhaps generalizing? I don't have a position on the issue - I'm hoping to learn, but I have not seen evidence that all genetically modified foods are associated with adverse health effects. Can you list some evidence, or at least point me toward sources?

"You seem to start from the premise that all genetically engineered foods are automatically bad for you. Is that truly your position, or are you perhaps generalizing?"

I start from that position because it is true, and no I am not generalizing, ALL GMO FOOD IS POISON. Monsanto has lied about every product they have ever made, from DDT, to Agent Orange, to Aspertame, so what makes you think they are telling the truth about GMO's? THEY AREN'T.

Please dave, eat all the GMO food you want, stuff your face with it all day long, as well as your families faces. I truly want anyone who supports Monsanto to eat mass quantities of everything they make. I am looking forward to the reduction in population.

Did you know that Michael Taylor, ex Monsanto Lawyer and current FDA vice-chairman only feeds his family organic non-GMO food? As does the CEO of Monsanto, but pay that fact no mind and you just keep eating their corn, soy, sugar beets, canola, etc. Hey did you ever wonder why they chose those foods to modifiy first? like maybe because they are in everything you eat? It's not food dave, it's population control disguised as food, but you don't need to listen to me because I am a tree-hugging liberal who is just out to destroy America.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_gmo_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html

there are no facts in the above post; just opinion and more opinion. Naturalnews is a biased website, not a peer reviewed source. In fact, the author of the study quoted in your website refuses to share his data. Here is a link to a petition of 700 scientists urging him to do so. Care to sign?

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/dr-seralini-please-release-data/signatures

http://enhs.umn.edu/current/5103/gm/harmful.html

http://www.slowfood.com/sloweurope/eng/news/147720/the-s%C3%A9ralini-study-and-longterm-gmo-toxicity-

Now dave every study finding GMO's are toxic to humans and every study linking GMO's to cancer, autism, Crohns, ADHD, Ulcers, etc has been countered by "scientists" who were funded by monsanto and paid to disprove the studies. Now you can believe Monsanto if you want, but they have a history of lying. There internal documents on Bovine growth hormone, which they also produce, were stolen and prove they lied, bribed and covered up. Now I don't know about you but when someone lies to me repeatedly I tend to not believe a word they say. I think George "I'm and Idiot" Bush said it best when he said, "fool me once, you can't get fooled again" or however he mangled that saying, BTW his dad was the one who first allowed GMO's on the market, and Rumsfeld use to work for Monsanto if that tells you anything about how evil they are.

"Natural news is a biased web site" LOL, yes just like everyone who says anything bad about Monsanto and GMO's, we are all biased. That damned liberal media, they are just trying to stop Americans from eating GMO's because they are so damned good for us and those liberals want to kill us all off with healthy food. Yes everyone is biased who doesn't claim GMO's are good for you, just as everyone who doesn't agree with the lies Fox Noise spews is biased.

Eric I could care less if you eat GMO's, in fact I want you to eat them all day long, as much as you can stuff in your face, and don't forget the bovine growth hormone and the aspertame too. Monsanto only has your best interest at heart and cares nothing at all about profit. I am a godless liberal just trying to lead you a stray, so eat up my friend.

deprogrammer: I am a tree-hugging liberal too, but I am also a godless liberal, which means I prefer to base my decisions on logic and evidence. Thank you for the link. I was hoping you could cite some facts of your own, but I will look into this link, and the link eric provided in response, and make up my own mind.

As a fellow liberal, though, I offer some friendly advice. Your positions will be given more weight by others if you are more careful with your spelling and grammar, and if you are not so quick to revert to sarcasm and snark. For example, you say: "I am a godless liberal just trying to lead you a stray, so eat up my friend." That means you are bringing someone a runaway animal and urging them to consume the flesh of a friend of yours?

Sorry - that last was sarcasm and snark. I just don't like it when people make liberals look like lunatics.

again, no facts.

I think the term fringe element or fanatic is more appropriate than the term liberal as applied to deprogrammer. Kind of like when talking about Terry Jones. He's technically a conservative, but the term nutcase is more appropriate.

That makes no sense. The GM salmon is identical to wildtype with the addition of a highly expressed promoter that does not have anything to do with disease resistance. If the wild organism is resistant, the GM organism likewise will be resistant.

To Dave's point: geneticists, biologists, ecologists, all agree the amount of modified genetic material introduced into the wild is miniscule compared to the wildtype information. Basically it will have virtually no effect if introduced into the wild. Think about it this way, GM organisms have maybe, maybe, 300-3000 base pairs of genetic information added or removed. The typical advanced animal has around 3billion base pairs in its genome, and plant genomes are even larger. So really, you are talking about less than 0.0001% change in an organism's genetics. That level of change occurs naturally every day through silent mutations and other abhorrent recombination events.

you are talking about less than 0.0001% change in an organism's genetics. That level of change occurs naturally every day through silent mutations and other abhorrent recombination events.

Sure, but in the case of the salmon, we're talking about a "mutation" - increased growth-hormone production - that is actually (at least potentially) adaptive. I am not opposed in principle to modifying the genetics of our food plants and animals (heck, I'd like to see them grow only the organs that taste good, not the gross parts and the brains), but I would draw the line at introducing our genetic manipulations into the wild population. THAT, for me, is where bioethics comes into play.

That's the point - these type of mutations occur naturally every day. Furthermore, genetic variation is the mechanism of evolution that created everything we have today. "Mutation" is not a bad thing and does not carry negative connotations to biologists.

In terms of introducing our own genetic manipulations into the wild population, that's exactly what humans have done for centuries through selective breeding and hybrid crosses. Keep in mind the corn we eat today was never, ever found in the wild...we made it into what it is today.

Actually nearly 70% of our maize yields are exported around the globe. Monsanto, Syngenta, and other ag-biotech companies are feeding a global population of nearly 8billion people. A feat that no small-scale family farm could even dream of accomplishing.

On a side note, did you or someone you love get laid-off by Monsanto? You sure have it out for them. You don't even acknowledge that other companies have been researching and developing GM traits for decades.

The corporatization of our food supply has created a monoculture that offers cheap calories delivered via a single supply chain. If one thing goes wrong our country will suffer and there will not be food available. The ag-biotech companies aren't doing anything mother nature couldn't do better if farmers were allowed to follow nature's farming techniques. If they were, they'd allow independent scientists to verify the foods they produce are safe and nutritious via published test results. Monsanto and the federal government are practically one in the same in the US.

There are many crops that have been modified, not just corn. And those crops are used to feed tens millions of people around the world.

Check out the UN Food and Agriculture site for some insight on the global impact of GM foods:

Your the nut on the Boehmer finally calls the GOP to Washington article. Ehhhhh.

Come to drive up near you!! I like that McModFish. TradeMark that!

What's wrong with the salads?

Salads? They aren't food. They are what food eats.

Well, that's a ridiculous assumption.

Then you are a fool, Karen.

That's a false assumption--and the kind of assumption that makes me distrust anything someone like you says.

I'd look to all the chemicals that are in our foods that are known to cause health problems before I'd go blaming genetically modified foods.

You realize a gene codes a protein. When a plant is harvested or an animal killed, the gene is no longer expressed. When you cook your food the DNA and protein is denatured. Even if you don't cook the food, when you eat it your stomach acid 0.1N HCL will denature the DNA and protein.

There is absolutely no way that a gene introduced into a foodstock organism would cause disease or allergy to the consumer. The mechanism just doesn't exist.

Mad Cow disease is caused by a misfolded protien...

The infectious agent in BSE is believed to be a specific type of misfolded protein called a prion. Prions will not disappear even if the beef containing them is cooked. Prion proteins carry the disease between individuals and cause deterioration of the brain

Mad Cow disease is caused by a misfolded protien.

what does this have to do with beer's argument?

No, the 11th amendment to the Moral Constitution guarantees the right to play with our food.

Who are you to decide what is morally wrong?

Fluoride is toxic. There's a reason the manufactures direct you to only use a pea sized amount and not to swallow.

Toxicity is always dosage dependent. Almost everything if one eats enough of it will be toxic. Your argument is meaningless.

Broccoli? Green poison. Even fried in butter, it isn't fit to feed to hogs.

My links have disappeared twice now.

I'm frustrated by the comment section. Please go to earthopensource (.org) and find the GMO Myths and Truths article. Download and read the report.

You're at a lost cause if you want to indiscriminately eliminate GMOs. Even if a theoretical law outlawed all GMOs, there are still trillions of GMO plants in our environment. Focus on making sure GMOs are not abused. For example, the idea that you can patent a GMO. Making sure the goal of a GMO is done in a safe manner. Ex: How about making a plant more insect resistant without the formation of pesticide chemicals? How about approving a GMO through the long process like the FDA approves drugs? I do not expect it to be 100% effective, but it will certainly be better.

If a "balance" is "delicate", then it won't long survive. The strong survive, the weak perish. It is the fundamental law of Nature. Any "balance" which doesn't respect that, is merely a transitory state on the way to a more stable condition.

True, but there is a potential loss of diversity. GMO species have the possibility to behave just like an invasive species. I doubt in particular a salmon that requires more food because of its bigger size is going to out compete the regular salmon. The garlic mustard for example was the strongest to survive, however there is now nothing but garlic mustard.