Re: Protesters swarm Calif. biotech meeting

From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Tue Jun 24 2003 - 08:57:30 MDT

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    "Alfio Puglisi" <puglisi@arcetri.astro.it>

    > The "forcing" of labels

    Why the quotation marks? You're saying if I sell a can of peas with a label
    you don't like you will put me in jail, that sounds like forcing to me.

    >is to prevent a bigger, messier sequence of events: companies selling
    >foods without labels,

    It's really not that complicated, if you don't like food without labels then
    don't buy food without labels.

    >people (as it was suggested) setting up labs for analyzing food and
    >publishing reports

    What's wrong with that?

    > companies suing those labs for misleading information,

    What's wrong with that? Fraud should be punished and I don't see why
    mandatory labeling laws will lead to less fraud or fewer lawsuits.

    >special interest groups lobbying for this and that,

    In government special interest groups will always be lobbying for this and
    that, and the more an industry is regulated the more lobbying there will be.

    >and consumers that do not know what to do.

    Consumers will know to buy food that has a label they like from a company
    they trust. That trust is a valuable commodity and something no company
    would not want to jeopardize.

    > It's something like the lesser of evils. Complete, in-depth labels
    > would not only settle the GM arguments, but also provide benefits in
    >other ways,

    And would one of those "other ways" be the astrological sign of the person
    who grew the food along with the GM information? After all, millions of
    people are interested in astrology, far more than in modern genetics, you
    don't see many molecular biology columns in the tabloids but every one of
    them will tell you what will happen when the house of Mars is in Uranus.

    >>Me:
    > >Forget GM, if people are worried about the food supply they should
    > >demonstrate against the huge amount of antibiotics injected into
    > >millions of cows and chickens that helps bacteria develop resistance to
    > >those drugs; and also complain about the unsanitary and unusual culinary
    > >practices in China that gave us SARS and many varieties of influenza.
    > >There is little doubt those two things have killed people, lots and lots
    > >of people, GM food almost certainly never hurt anybody.

    > I agree, but those are independent issues. Protesting one does not
    >mean accepting another one.

    Protesting something that has never hurt anyone is time and effort spent
    that could have been used to save many thousands, it's a classic case of
    misplaced priorities.

    > Some years ago, Europe was shocked by the "mad cow" disease.

    And mad cow disease had nothing to due with GM foods.

            John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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