Initiative 522: a test of what you believe about genetically modified foods | Seattle Times Newspaper

Initiative 522: a test of what you believe about genetically modified foods | Seattle Times Newspaper

Article Comment: TrainChaser

Ramsey’s example of the Arctic Apple is interesting. It contains a synthetic gene that reduces production of the enzyme responsible for the browning. Okay, does it do anything else? Do they know? Do they care? No?

Ramsey says he doesn’t know anything about GMOs, but he’s sure it’s a “trivial” difference. How does he know it’s trivial? In fact, why did he even write this article? Is this guy a politician in the making?

Ramsey: “This label is a warning… Before you buy this apple, your government wants you to know this fact about it. But why would my government want me to know this if it makes no difference to people’s health?”

We don’t know any such thing, since there HAS NEVER, EVER BEEN ANY LONG-TERM TESTING OF GM FOODS. NO ONE knows if eating this stuff is going to cause disaster for us and our kids down the road. As far as I’ve heard, the scientists feed rats GMO food for 90 days and call that “safe”. What happens after 20 or 30 or 40 years of eating it? Is there going to be some kind of horizontal gene transfer and recombination? Will the GM foods trigger cancers in cells? Are they going to create new viruses and bacteria for new epidemics for which we have no resistance?

But if it truly doesn’t make a difference with this apple, are you assuming that genetic engineering doesn’t make a difference with ANY of the other GE foods, like the ones that have insect, pig, fish, spider, human, herbicide, insecticide, fungal and bacterial components added to them?

“If 522 were about the ingredients in our food, that would settle the question. But it isn’t about that, said Prof. Alan McHughen, a plant molecular geneticist at the University of California, Riverside. ‘This bill is about the process.’” [Here are a few comments on McHughen from SourceWatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alan_McHughen]

That double-talk is about as stupid a comment as I’ve seen about GMOs, even from McHughen. If the PROCESS CHANGES THE FOOD, why wouldn’t it change how it affects those who eat it?

Ramsey: “Initiative 522 begins to look like an organic-food industry effort to impose a label on its competitors.”

It begins to look like Ramsey has been paid off by the GMO industry. I wonder how much they paid him for this article? Monsanto paid something like $46 million to con the people of California. I wonder how much they’ll spend here in Washington?

Mr. Ramsey, here’s the bottom line: I want to know what I’m eating. I want to know if it has had other “stuff” added to its genetic makeup. I DON’T want my food to have six times the normal dose of Roundup herbicide. I DON’T want fish genes in my strawberries. I DON’T want antibiotic resistant genes in my food. I DON’T want my sweet corn and corn chips contaminated by GM corn growing upwind. I DON’T want 95% of the vegetable oil in my grocery store and in restaurant food to be from GM crops (corn, soy, canola). And I DON’T want my food to glow in the dark, either.

In other words, Mr. Ramsey, if YOU believe this crap is safe to eat, go right ahead and eat it. But stop telling people it’s okay when you don’t know diddly-squat about it.