US consumers unfazed by GM foods

[tivodan1116]

AFP: US consumers unfazed by GM foods

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Fears over genetically-modified foods have failed to make much impact in the United States where consumers and the US media are less fired up about the issue than Europeans, activists say. "The media doesn't talk about these issues, there is more apathy," Michael Hansen, a biologist with the major New York-based Consumers Union, told AFP. "When the public is asked in the survey, a high percentage wants food labels, they just don't realize the extent to which certain food such as corn or soybean are genetically engineered, and often they have not heard of any of these food safety concerns." French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday banned the only genetically modified crop grown in France, the Mon 810 maize produced by the US agriculture giant Monsanto. "It simply means that with the principle of precaution at stake, I am making a major political decision to carry our country to the forefront of the debate on the environment," the French leader said. GM foods have also sparked a US trade dispute with the European Union, after the World Trade Organization ruled that an EU moratorium on the authorization of GM products between 1999 and 2004 broke world trade rules. The European Commission on Friday failed to meet the WTO deadline to comply with the September 2006 ruling and normalize trade. But European concerns have largely gone unnoticed here, except by the biotech industry body, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, which denounced France's decision as unnecessary and not based on scientific fact. Hansen said the US government must bear the blame for American apathy for simply failing to address the issue. "The government has ignored public opinions polls for over 10 years saying that the public want labelling," agreed Ronnie Cummins, head of the Organic Consumers Association, a private group of organic food producers. "Most people don't know the food they are eating has at least trace levels of genetic, in soy and corn." Supermarket tests have revealed that at least 70 percent of all foodstuffs contain GM products, he said. If there was compulsory labelling fewer GM components would end up in the products on the shelves, added Hansen. "Because they have blocked any kind of labelling, it's widespread out there in the US." The same consumer apathy however does not apply to meat and diary products from cloned animals. A survey carried out two years ago by the International Food Council found that 65 percent of Americans were opposed to eating such products -- a level of concern matched in Europe. Despite the opposition though, the US food safety authority on Tuesday approved meat and milk from cloned animals, clearing the way for them one day to appear on store shelves. "Meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine, and goats, and the offspring of clones from any species traditionally consumed as food, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals," Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official Randall Lutter said. He added his agency would not require food made from cloned animals or their offspring to be specially labeled, but producers could apply for the right to label their foods "clone-free." The ruling had been delayed by strong resistance from food safety and animal rights groups, as well as the US dairy industry, which fears its image and exports will be damaged.

I wish I could say this is proof Americans are smarter than Europeans, but it probably just means no one has thought about it.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: tivodan1116 AFP: US consumers unfazed by GM foods I wish I could say this is proof Americans are smarter than Europeans, but it probably just means no one has thought about it.

It's probably that no one has thought about it. We're so used to all kinds of chemicals and artificial this and that in our foods that the idea of genetically modified foods doesn't seem to be any different than anything else we've been doing to our foods over the decades.

[Winter wind]

Hold up, what are the dangers of GM food opposed to non GM food?

I'm not saying their aren't any, I just don't know what they are. I've worked with changing the dna in microscopic things so I don't understand how fruit can become less good for you when changed.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Winter wind Hold up, what are the dangers of GM food opposed to non GM food? I'm not saying their aren't any, I just don't know what they are. I've worked with changing the dna in microscopic things so I don't understand how fruit can become less good for you when changed.

Ask the Europeans that seem to be so strongly opposed to it.

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: Winter wind Hold up, what are the dangers of GM food opposed to non GM food? I'm not saying their aren't any, I just don't know what they are. I've worked with changing the dna in microscopic things so I don't understand how fruit can become less good for you when changed.

It's ultimately a fear of the unknown. If you change the genetic structure of a food there's the fear that you may alter something that could make the GM food potentially dangerous. Even if you prove that it is safe in the short term, there is still the potential that it could be dangerous in the long term.

There may not be any evidence to show that GM food is more dangerous than regular food, but we simply don't know yet. However, I think the hysteria surrounding the banning of such food and the like in many European countries is premature.

[another day]

About Genetically Modified Foods - Seeds of Deception

The problem is the apparently the lack of research and the fact that research is being avoided/rigged by the companies in charge of these operations, for the obvious conflict of interest it presents to them. We need independent studies done on the dangers/values of gm food BEFORE they are sold to consumers. At the very least it should always be labeled, but how to label produce? It gets dumped in big bins, loose, not usually packaged. This makes it difficult because it is then up to the store to label their signs, and most won't do that because the product wouldn't sell as well.

[Nemiroff]

We are still working on figuring out individual genes and what they do. But many properties cannot be explained by any single gene. Complex interactions between multiple genes may result in something completely irrelevant to what those very same genes did individually. For example, by modifying a gene to make the plant more resistant to cold could also result in it interacting with many different genes that would completely change the amount of nutrition (turning it into a shriveled leaf with almost no nutrition) or even worse, make it create some sort of dangerous poison or any substance our bodies won't know how to deal with. Of course this is pure speculation, but like chaossaber said, it's a fear of the unknown, and scientists still don't even know all the genes and how the work individually.

[Charlatan]

I think GM food is as good as any other food, as it is not likely to make poisons or people would have already gotten sick. So we got some food coming from altered states, do the animals get cisk? Do the plants grow? It is quick and easy to tell if the plant has undergone any marked changes, and any change would be thoroughly looked into. The health department should cut them up and look into it themselves, but I don't think anyone would sell foods that could come back to haunt them, so it is likely that the foods are not carrying any risk to the consumers, as that is a risk for producers who could go to jail.

Maybe growing artificial foods is just like growing the same stuff, as drugs for people make them odler faster and they don't get sick, so if making one person older faster due to artificial means doesn't affect them, why should it affect something with similar genetic ageing, as living things will get sick and die if the constituents are changed to an 'unworking' order. The 'fruits' of the plant are part of the plant, so if the plant is fine the 'fruits' should be too. In fact the plant should be left to seed again to see if there is a problem, and failing finding fault there, it should be good enough for the people to eat. I am sure since the foods are growing that there is no problem.