I am so tired of the only argument regarding the labeling of Genetically Modified Foods being framed in terms of how much people hate and despise GMOs or Monsanto, etc., Half the time the arguments I see online, or hear out in the world in general, people cannot keep the companies straight with their products. This is especially true of GMOs and Biocides which are often made by the same groups of companies.
That Being Said…
If a company wants to file a patent, wherein they claim exclusive financial rights to a Gene-Code that by our legal standards is considered “Un-Natural,” and if they want the legal right to sue others for infringing on their patent, then they have to label their shit. Plain and Simple.
Beyond everything else, this is about the law.
Emotional arguments don’t carry much weight in most court rooms, especially not when one is dealing with the gigantic revolving door politics that grease the gears for multi-national corporations that command extreme wealth and power and political clout. The tools left to us peons is that of the letter of the law.
If you want to put your name on it, and claim rights exclusively, if you want the power to sue even if it’s the aforementioned trans-genes infecting adjacent crops without the knowledge or consent of those adjacent farmers, then you have to label your shit.
Otherwise…
Legally there is nothing making GMOs different from any other food source on paper. And that means no patent. Natural goods and items cannot be patented by US law—only those life-forms that are deemed legally “unatural” because their gene codes were created in a lab via gene splicing (AND NOT plant breeding between similar species)
Here it is, excerpted—used in a previous diary about the culture and concerns surrounding anti-GMO sentiments: Just Another Backlash: The GMO Labeling and Regulation.
Why is this rather important point consistently being left out of the discussion?
In Diamond v. Chakrabarty a divided 5 to 4 Supreme Court held that a genetically modified bacterium that was genetically engineered to ingest oil (for use in oil spill cleanups) was not a "product of nature" and was patentable subject matter under the patent statute. The case did not deal with naturally occurring genes. It dealt with a man-made, genetically engineered micro-organism that the court described as not naturally occurring. The decision made clear that products and laws of nature are not patentable: "The laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas have been held not patentable. Thus, a new mineral discovered in the earth or a new plant found in the wild is not patentable subject matter. . . . Such discoveries are 'manifestations of . . . nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none.'" ACLU
If you want to make money on these inventions, via patents then you have to label your shit. Because if it is “natural” then it’s not an item that can be patented and I smell some big law suits against these companies by farmers who lost a lot of cash over so-called-”Natural” products—read GMO Transgenic pollution in nonGMO fields.
If GMO crops are the same as natural corn, and natural soy, and natural cotton, then the companies have no right to patent the seeds, and have no legal standing whatsoever to launch witch hunts against farmers whose crops are cross pollinated volunteers from previous or adjacent transgenic crops. In short--"Sound Science Champions", you can't have it both ways. If GMOs are natural, then they are not eligible for a patent. If GMOs are eligible for a patent, then they are not natural. You get to pick one.
The attempt to obfuscate the labeling process by putting a digital bar code on the back that can only be read by smart phones is proof to many, about what these companies think of the average consumer. Their constant undermining of our individual rights, and disregard for those rights and desires lets us know that they see us only as another commodity. We aren’t their neighbors or friends, we aren’t their valued customers, because their tactics all along has been to monopolize the market in such a way, so that it doesn’t matter what they do to us via their products—because in that situation, we would have to shop their products regardless.
Making laws that inherently favor corporate profits over human rights—to the point of making profits at the expense of individual human and civil rights —hmm the word that comes to mind: Corporatism?
Well Fuck You Too.
Capitalism is a two edged weapon. Even big ass companies with government backing can find themselves on the losing end of things, if people decide those companies suck.
Here are places where you can make your nonGMO grocery lists:
Verified Products: The NonGMO Project
Non-GMO Shopping Guide
MotherJones: Five Surprising Genetically Modified Foods
Center for Food Safety
Why do I personally want GMOs labeled? I don’t trust their harmlessness. I don’t care for the business model this promotes. I don’t like all the chemicals involved in the growing of GMOs especially when that leads to super-pests. And I observe that these companies should have to follow the same rules of others in this land if they want to run a business and make a profit. And that cannot be at the expense of the health or consent of the citizen-consumers they wish to sell to.
I hear shit all the time about how these scientists behind GMOs and other wonders just wanna help their fellow man. And yet every time the announcement is made that “help” has been discovered, it turns out to cost people a mint.
Nope. These are no different that the solicitors that ring your doorbell at inopportune moments to sell you stuff. It’s all about selling stuff.
Even the most dewey-eyed-virginal-scientist-Nightingale has to get funding, and that means that no matter how cool their discovery, almost every time, whatever is found or created ends up in the hands of people looking to make the biggest profit with the least amount of effort.
This is why we have legal battles over gene codes for cancer research.
This is why we have cures for hepatitis that cost around six figures per treatment.
This is why we have court battles penalizing nonGMO farmers for GMO transgenic pollution.
If it makes a person(s) instantly rich, then chances are what they are peddling isn’t altruism. Science can find and create great things for society. But I would advise that you never forget that in this day and age, science is almost always owned by corporations which are by definition, not altruistic. They exist to make a profit period. They have no morals because they are a collective. They do not as a rule care about you or I as individuals because we are inconsequential motes in their eyes on the way to the bank.
That leaves the power of our collectives (and used to be-- our government) reining those big corporations in and making sure they follow the rules even if it takes a bite out of their bottom line. Labeling is a form of regulation.
And regulation is good because it gives the consumer the opportunity to make an informed decisions about what kind of food or food substitute they put in their mouths or seed they put in their garden, or feed they give their livestock or pets. It is also a method of tracking transgenic products, should they prove to be a problem in the future such as an allergen or a toxin or some hazard vector.
If it’s natural, then it cannot be patented.
If you want to patent it, then it must be deemed via the court as not natural and that means you have to label it, just like we label other additives in food and cosmetics.
And that label should be legible to a person without a magnifying glass or a smart phone. Otherwise this is simply an attempt to obfuscate labeling of patented transgenic products while still making a profit from the patents themselves.
Saturday, Jul 9, 2016 · 12:48:38 PM +00:00
·
GreenMother
I see a lot of Paternalistic behavior in the comment section. The notion that scientists should be able to make people do things they don’t want to, depriving others of their choices as citizens, voters and consumers. And it never ceases to both disturb and amaze me.
You remember that the next time someone attempts to violate your ability to inform yourself and then act on that information. Whether it be in medicine, the grocery store, the pharmacy, or the polls.
Hiding ingredients in food and cosmetics is bad policy and it sets a horrible precedent. And that begs the question—what is so terrible about these ingredients that they have to be hidden?