U.S. GMO food labeling bill passes Senate
Source: By Chris Prentice, Reuters
Fri Jul 8, 2016 6:47am EDT
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would for the first time require food to carry labels listing genetically-modified ingredients, which labeling supporters say could create loopholes for some U.S. crops.
The Senate voted 63-30 for the bill that would display GMO contents with words, pictures or a bar code that can be scanned with smartphones. The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) would decide which ingredients would be considered genetically modified.
The measure now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.
Drawing praise from farmers, the bill sponsored by Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas and Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan is the latest attempt to introduce a national standard that would override state laws, including Vermont's that some say is more stringent, and comes amid growing calls from consumers for greater transparency.
"This bipartisan bill ensures that consumers and families throughout the United States will have access, for the first time ever, to information about their food through a mandatory, nationwide label for food products with GMOs," Stabenow said in a statement.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-food-gmo-vote-idUSKCN0ZO08N
= new reply since forum marked as read
You support the "science" (whether independent or corporate sponsored) that conforms to your predisposed belief system. You are hardly interested in anything that would contradict it. You appear to be of the mindset of "Only tell me what I want to know!"
Happy Friday to you!
Either you have the evidence or you do not. That's called peer review. It is how science knows what is true and what is not.
And here's the important part of all this. One has to be willing to give up all ones most cherished beliefs if the evidence comes out against them.
I abide by those principles. I will humbly admit that I was mistaken if there is sufficient evidence against my position.
My question then becomes simple. What amount of evidence would the anti-GMO crowd require?
Apparently no amount of evidence would convince them. That is pretty much the definition of an ideologically based position.
So my plea to them is simple. Put up or shut up. Show me the evidence and if it rises above the contrary evidence it will change my conclusions.
And, BTW, my fondest regards to you, too.
On edit: This is basic science. Biology 101. If there is a line of demarcation between what evolution, agricultural cross breeding, and what is now called genetic modification, life certainly does not recognize it. It is all genetic modification. And your genes, as with all other life on Earth, contain plenty of bacteria genes, and those of sponges, and trilobites, and fish, and just about any other life form that's ever lived on Earth. It's one tree of life.
Prove that wrong and you have an argument against GMO.
Again, my best to you.
The Precautionary Principle is a form of risk assessment intended to cope with uncertainty. It may be "rough" on ecocidal tendencies. It does lack the positivist, technolust quality that GMO boosters crave.
There is a documented trend of scientific research becoming overwhelmingly privatized because of neoliberal policies. Biotech is a large part of that trend. Climate research is closer in nature to palentology or astronomy; few industrial applications--if any at all.
Many people realize that scientific discovery is not cramming innovative implementations into a product pipeline.
Anyway, aren't genetic engineers to ecology what weathermen are to climatology? Even without the shill factor, isn't there still a problem of scope---of myopia? If genetic engineers don't fret over ecosystems and conservation, then aren't their judgments outclassed by those they are trying to ignore?
I don't mean to damn a field just because it yields so much promise for manipulation, but one has to ask: Where is the restraint? CRISPR has already been latched onto by the garage-hacker-bro set---a favorite source of "disruptive innovation" for venture capitalists). (My favorite is the re-engineered bacterium for better-smelling female genitalia.) The field is quickly devolving into technically astute, dangerous idiots.
The rubber-stamp regulatory culture has already come to pass. The US agencies promise to do better, but then again they approved GMO salmon in clear violation of ecological principles (containment will be "perfect" just like trillions of copies of terminator genes will be "perfect"
.
The pattern of almost completely ignoring or trivializing a vital scientific field is also there; evolution/adaptation in particular seems to be a point of aversion. Thinking about how pests adapt to 'product innovations' is just... unthinkable.
This doesn't inspire confidence.
Didn't environmentalists make an excellent case in the debate? The larger salmon could out-compete the natural varieties in the short term, and the resulting lack in genetic diversity could leave the resulting population vulnerable to collapse.
There is also the conservationist argument: Naturally adapted salmon simply shouldn't be replaced in the wild. There is no moral or ethical grounds to allow the excesses of genetic engineering (which is now a glorious, high-speed assembly line, so we are told) to spill over into the wild. And the physical, ecological assessment of this dynamic is one of ecosystem destabilization--quite negative. Assurances that escape events will be mere alternate versions of invasive species are wildly optimistic.
Some genetic engineers see mainly specific goals and targets, like eliminating a common species of mosquito to prevent the spread of zika or malaria. IMO, the power wielded here is both too acute and too great.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2012/03/02/doing-biotech-in-my-bedroom/
BioCurious? The DIY garage biology movement
Its amazing to me that genetic engineers express such admiration for evolution, and to this point have also relied on mutation so much, only to reject consideration that adaptation will occur in response to their creations or that their own 'edits' will be subject to mutation (causing safeguards like terminator genes to fail). The new GE is even worse, treating organisms like programmable computers. Its a fallacious mindset steeped in the culture of marketing and finance.
I don't think it's peer reviewed.
Please stop referencing so-called scientific papers which are published in obscure non-peer reviewed journals and cited only at sites entitled "naturalsociety.com" hardly an objective site.
The site the original paper is published on has anti-GMO adverts. Hardly objective either.
Please stop wasting my time here.
This is not how science is done, my friend.
As always.
I am sure that it is entirely objective. 
The source of the information is important. I note that your citation is not a peer reviewed one, but an ideological, anti-GMO one. Nobody should take any such thing seriously.
I am a firm supporter of methodological naturalism. That will not likely change. But my beliefs in what is true about nature is malleable, subject to evidence and prior probabilities based on consistency with known basic science. The basic science is also subject to revision, albeit with a rather higher bar to jump over.
There are two good examples, a century ago, of the latter, relativity and quantum field theories. By then, the basic science had developed sufficient problems that it was ripe for change.
We may be on the verge of another such change if something interesting is found at the LHC. And dark energy has certainly upset an apple cart or two. But I have not seen anything new on the genetic modification front other than biased and flawed research by ideological sources, not a good sign as these things go. Hell! The retracted Seralini rat study -- yup! glyphosate again -- was not only fraudulent, it was condemned as unethical in its treatment of the animals. Yet one still sees it cited here. And Seralini himself still stands by it even though it has been thoroughly discredited. I've heard that he now apparently publishes in pay-to-play non-peer reviewed vanity journals hosted in Asia.
If one wants to convince, one has to do better.
Science is tough. One does not get away with gaming the system for long.
My best to you.
Evolution, cross breeding, and what is called genetic modification are all genetic modification, whether directed by nature (evolution) or by humans (the other two).
Period!
And your corporate profit claim is a huge non sequitur and just ignores the basic science, which is the first thing you should address here.
Next, I suppose we'll see the Monsanto card played, another common non sequitur.
Either address my specific claim with evidence, or you have nothing.
Science is a bitch. If one wants to play in that arena, one has to play by the rules. All claims by the anti-GMO crowd have been falsified. What few papers they have on their side have been universally maligned upon peer review.
They have nothing. Nothing whatsoever, except for non sequiturs like screeching about Monsanto.
First, address the basic science.
Where is the line of demarcation between the genetic modification of evolution, cross breeding, and what is now called genetic modification?
Start by answering that with some peer reviewed papers.
Frankly, their positions all sound like the anti-GMO of the gaps, to say nothing of a fair amount of Gish gallop.
If you want to play at the science table, there are rules. If you ignore them, you don't get to play.
Sorry.
My best wishes.
I may disagree with you, but unlike you, I would not wish that you die because of it. I suggest that you self delete your post.
I am now done with you.
analogy. That should piss him off! 
to other pursuits. I don't think you are changing any minds on this issue.