GMO Free Idaho Thank you for contacting us XXXX. We appreciate the opportunity to have dialogue with everyone.
I agree that GMO crops are likely the biggest change in our food supply, possibly in human history. The introduction of a foreign species via gene splicing is new technology with many implications. This is why we find it very unusual that no long term human safety studies were completed.
There are many reasons that GMOs are not helping to feed a growing population. GMOs are not engineered to increase yield or nutrition. Most all GMOs on the market are only engineered to express their own pesticide or to withstand the spraying of herbicides.
Our exposure to herbicides in our environment is at an all time high. In fact, the US Geological Survey's test results in Mississippi showed Roundup in the streams, air and rain. This is a concern since Roundup has been shown to cause birth defects and endocrine disruption.
World hunger is related to lack of money and democracy. People who have money and resources get to eat. People who do not, starve. GMOs have done nothing to stop this from being true. As a matter of fact, some of the most hungry nations in Africa and Haiti and elsewhere refuse foods which contain GMOs or seeds which have been modified.
The increase in the amount of crop planted per acre increased prior to GMOs. It is a result of monoculture style farming.
I would ask you, if GMOs prove to be a health risk and the exposure to the herbicide they are resistant to makes us sick, are they still the answer to feeding the world?
There are millions of Americans who wish to avoid eating GMOs. In fact, on election day in California over six million people voted for labeling. GMOs are either banned or labeled for consumer awareness in over 60 countries around the world. Those who wish to avoid eating GMOs should be afforded that right. It should not be up to the industry to decide what information we get to have about our food, especially when we both agree, it is the biggest change in food in history.
Thank you again for contacting us. I would be happy to address more of your questions or concerns.
I agree that GMO crops are likely the biggest change in our food supply, possibly in human history. The introduction of a foreign species via gene splicing is new technology with many implications. This is why we find it very unusual that no long term human safety studies were completed.
There are many reasons that GMOs are not helping to feed a growing population. GMOs are not engineered to increase yield or nutrition. Most all GMOs on the market are only engineered to express their own pesticide or to withstand the spraying of herbicides.
Our exposure to herbicides in our environment is at an all time high. In fact, the US Geological Survey's test results in Mississippi showed Roundup in the streams, air and rain. This is a concern since Roundup has been shown to cause birth defects and endocrine disruption.
World hunger is related to lack of money and democracy. People who have money and resources get to eat. People who do not, starve. GMOs have done nothing to stop this from being true. As a matter of fact, some of the most hungry nations in Africa and Haiti and elsewhere refuse foods which contain GMOs or seeds which have been modified.
The increase in the amount of crop planted per acre increased prior to GMOs. It is a result of monoculture style farming.
I would ask you, if GMOs prove to be a health risk and the exposure to the herbicide they are resistant to makes us sick, are they still the answer to feeding the world?
There are millions of Americans who wish to avoid eating GMOs. In fact, on election day in California over six million people voted for labeling. GMOs are either banned or labeled for consumer awareness in over 60 countries around the world. Those who wish to avoid eating GMOs should be afforded that right. It should not be up to the industry to decide what information we get to have about our food, especially when we both agree, it is the biggest change in food in history.
Thank you again for contacting us. I would be happy to address more of your questions or concerns.
No, the problem is that people like you and Hank for some bizarre reason, can only seem to think in black and white terms about this GMO topic and are incapable of understanding or seeing that there a many shades of grey, that cover many different perspectives about the many different types of GMOs. You can't just lump together everyone who would like to see a label on GMO foods as being all belonging to the same 'anti-science' crowd who just wants GMOs banned because they think they are poison.
I would like to see GMO food labelling and then I would still like to buy most of the GMO foods on sale. I agree with Hank that genetically modified foods have enormous potential for humanity and for feeding the poor in the World. I just am not yet sure about the long term safety of Bt GMOs for example, which contain Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) bacteria or their cry toxins, in every mouthful of Bt GMO food that we eat, specifically incorporated genetically into the crop to cause intestinal damage to the targeted bugs that also eat these foods, especially because the Bt toxins in the food can't be washed off like the Bt 'organic' sprays can.
As far as I'm aware, there are no respectable, long term (longer than 90 or 120 days) scientific studies generally available yet, showing harmless effects of these Bt GMOs cry toxins, leptins and roundup tolerant GMOs upon mammals and their guts and especially their internal organs and embryos. Until they are made generally available for the public to read and reassure ourselves that there is nothing to worry about, I personally feel entitled to be able to choose not to eat GMO foods and without GMO labelling I am obviously unable to make this choice.
The scientific studies that have shown rats getting fatter eating GMOs were being fed Bt GMO foods, not any of the thousands of other GM foods that don't contain Bt bacteria, cry toxins, leptin or roundup tolerance genes, that I'm not really worried about. I will happily eat a drought resistant, apple sized, blue strawberry even covered in GM chocolate for Valentine's day, if it is ever were genetically modified and made publicly available (not just for the Hollywood royalty) but I would still want to see a GMO label on it, even though in that particular case it would obviously be a GMO :)