Summary
The article asserts that, without clear, proper labelling on GE'd foods, consumers are being oppressed because they have no clue what they are actually buying. While that may be a bit of an exaggeration, I don't think the author is too off the mark. She goes on to list some staggering statistics about how prevalent GMOs are - 90% of foods grown in the US are created from GE'd seeds, and 80% of foods sold contain GE'd elements (If you aren't eating organic, you are nearly guaranteed to be eating something that was genetically modified sometime during production.). While those are scary statistics, things don't get truly scary until the author discusses all the harmful effects independent researchers have found in GMOs (the government, by the way, doesn't conduct any regulated safety testing on GMOs). By consuming GE'd milk, for example, researchers say that we are exposing ourselves to higher risks of colon, breast, and prostate cancers. That is, of course, not to mention the effect this has on the animals. For a 10% increase in milk production, the cows suffer few quite a bit, including a good deal of stress from thrice-a-day milkings. To combat the minor side effects of their genetic modification (trifles like increased incidence of mastitis, lameness and reproductive complications, and a two year lifespan, nbd), farmers (if they can in fact still be called farmers) pump cows full of antibiotics, whose effects are passed on to humans through milk in the form of dangerous growth hormone. These effects are also present in the beef in McDonald's hamburgers, which is what the cows go on to become. And why do the farmers put their cows through all this? To fight disease? Make their milk more nutritious? Find the answer to life, the universe, and everything? For a 10% increase in milk production.
Reflection:
I used to play The McDonalds Game (which is where my image comes from, http://www.kongregate.com/games/molleindustria/mcdonalds-videogame?acomplete=the+mcdonalds , surprisingly educational, I suggest giving it a try. You'll never eat fast food again, though.), and I thought the part where the cows turned green and lame and whatnot was a joke. It is very scary learning how close to the truth that game really is (seriously, play it). It scares me that this sort of thing is in our food, and what the animals have to go through to produce it, and the harmful effects it can have on us. What's worse is that the government isn't doing a thing about it, even though first-world countries around the world have had basic GMO protections for years. We don't get labels informing us about what we are eating. The US government doesn't even have any regulated safety testing on GMOs. It's scary what we are unknowingly consuming everyday, and how our government is so controlled by the agriculture industry that it is just standing by and letting it happen.
Questions:
1) Do you think that food containing GMOs should be labeled as such?
2) If you answered the previous question yes, what information do you think should be on those labels?
3) Should the government require and regulate testing on GMOs? If so, how much?
4) Do you think the government is doing enough to regulate GMOs? Should it regulate them at all?
5) Are American consumers truly under attack?
Opinion/Reflection:
ReplyDeleteI can’t believe that society has been tricked into buying genetically engineered food without realizing it. After all, if some people knew this fairly recent technology was around and being used, then why wouldn’t they question the lack of labels on foods that contain anything genetically engineered? Especially since the long term effects of GE crops on humans is still unknown, there is no question that there should be labels on these foods.
That’s one reason why genetically engineered crops scare me. Almost all processed food in the US today now contains some form of GE crop, because even the most basic ingredients are genetically engineered. Unknowingly, almost all people are consuming some form of an engineered crop, unless they eat only organic (but there is still a chance of slight contamination). As Kate points out, the government doesn’t require any safety tests to be done on GMO’s before they are released to the community. It’s extremely frightening to think about that, because if something isn’t tested then how does the government even know it’s safe? And shouldn’t the health of the citizens be one of the government’s primary concerns, not the genetic engineering industry?
This brings me to my next point-it is now being discovered that GE crops are having an effect on humans. With this discovery, you would think that GE crops would be forced to undergo testing to ensure that they’re safe, but in reality, nothing is being done. As the article states, humans are being exposed to higher risks of prostate, breast, and colon cancers, from simply drinking genetically engineered milk. If that milk was tested in the first place, then we wouldn’t have this problem.
Finally, I was dumbfounded when I read animals
(like cows) are being treated extremely poorly just so farmers can make a profit. For only a 10 percent increase in milk production, cows have to suffer. These poor animals now have a two year lifespan, reproductive complications, and have to suffer with the daily stress of being milked 3 times a day! And if that’s not animal cruelty, I don’t know what is. The whole concept of animal abuse sickens me. Also, you can’t forget that farmers pump antibiotics into their cows, and when humans drink milk, they experience effects in the form of a dangerous growth hormone. That’s yet another thing to add to my list of the scary effects of the genetic engineering industry.
This article relates to class because we discussed GMOs a little bit, like what they are and the controversy they’re causing. In addition, this article talks about how a growth hormone is passed on to humans through genetically engineered cows’ milk, which we touched upon at school.
Answer the Questions:
ReplyDelete1) Yes, I definitely think that food containing GMOs should be labeled. Consumers have a right to know what’s in their food, especially if it’s made from some GE crop. I also believe highly in labeling because GMOs haven’t been tested yet, so we don’t know what the long term effects of eating them are. By the time we discover the truth, innocent consumers who didn’t know what was going on will already be suffering from some pretty devastating consequences.
2) I think two things of basic information should be on the label, like: what GE products are in the particular food item and where some possible sources of GE crop contamination (mainly for organic food) could’ve occurred.
3) Yes, I definitely think the government should require and regulate testing on GMOs. With no testing currently, there isn’t any possible way to know the harmful effects of GMOs, and by the time we do discover those effects, it will be too late, and tons of people will be harmed. In addition, consumer health should always be more important than profit, so I don’t know why these tests aren’t already in place.
4) No, I do not think the government is doing enough to regulate GMOs, so yes, I do believe that they should regulate them. In fact, I feel that the government needs to impose some stricter tests and regulations on these crops so that it is ensured they are safe for consumers.
5) Yes, I think American consumers are truly under attack, because after all, they don’t know what’s in their food, and it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure people are safe and know exactly what their eating. It’s only fair, and this would prevent uneducated people from having to suffer from GMO health effects later on in life.
Ask more questions:
1. Do you think it’s scary that 80 percent of food sold in the US contains genetically engineered elements?
2. How many health effects, if any, do you think GMOs will cause?
3. If you think that GMOs will cause more health effects than currently known, when will these effects start taking place?
4. When do you think the government needs to step up, if at all, to make sure all GMO crops are safe for consumers? Should they wait until more serious health effects are discovered or do they need to take action now?
5. Do you think it’s unfair that humans are the guinea pigs of GMOs? Think, these products have never been tested before, so it was simply assumed that they’re safe for human consumption.
Add a graphic
http://www.treehugger.com/2007/10/14-week/
If you scroll down, there’s an image of a label that depicts a GMO ingredient, soybean oil, which is clearly labeled as a GMO.
http://www.eucalyptusmagazine.com/Blogs/Earth-Talk/September-2010/Template-4/
This image is an ad against GMOs.
That is really... odd is the best way I can put it. While I do not doubt the fact that it can give you an increase chance of colon,breast and prostate cancer I am not entirely convinced that it is an extremely significant chance like more than 1%. The reason I believe this is that I do not beleive (or do not want to believe) that the government would let this through. Oh sure the government is at least run 50-50 between corporations and legislators, if not more so in the direction of the corporations, but I do not beleive that if the numbers were that significant, let's say a 5% increase, that no one in the government would have seen this and done something to get the law changed. But it is still disturbing that there is at least not some kind of regulation or at least MANDATORY SCREENING on these products.
ReplyDeleteQuestions
1) Yes, very much so.
2) Not too much. It should list what it is, and where you can go to find more information on it so that those who wish to be a smart consumer may then go on and learn thus making the decision for themselves. We shouldn't flat out put the possible side effects (cancer, disease, etc.) because that would a) Cause America to go into a panic, and b) make them buy nothing but organic. That would be a problem because while these corporations are immoral, they do bring a good chunk of money into America and if every big food company in America went out of business because people bought nothing but organic that might hurt the economy just a little. We also might see the first cases of people going into debt from buying lettuce.
3) Yes they should. It should test GMO's about twice as often and under about twice as much scrunity as regular products.
4) Yes. They should put the regulations on and enforce them much tighter than they do with normal food due to the possible dangers of such products.
5) Not so much under attack because I believe that unless the product was going to greatly increase the risk of someone being infected I believe that a good number of people would still buy it. It would not be as widespread but still alot of people would buy GMO products.