[smtddr]

>>GMO labelling is of no value though. Because whether or not something is produced using genetic engineering techniques does not explain whether its safe.

Ah, now here's the thing. If you don't know whether it's safe or not which side do you error on? For me and my family, all I know is that my family has no particular history of health problems eating mostly "organic" in that I'm the first generation born in America and the rest of them grew up in Nigeria eating food from plants & farm animals raised with centuries-old tribal techniques. Not saying this was 100% of their diet, but certainly a great deal more natural than USA. I have a relative who doesn't need their diabetes medicine when in Nigeria to control blood sugar level. I'm guessing it's because in Nigeria 97% of the food isn't loaded with HFCS and other sweeteners.

I have no idea wether GMOs are safe, but I'm not interested in being the experiment for it. GMO labeling should be allowed. Or at the very, very least I should be able to go online to see the GMO status of a brand of food product. GMO labeling should be allowed. Or at the very, very least I should be able to go online to see the GMO status of a brand of food product.

Another part of this is probably from the core belief I hold; that human beings messing around with mother-nature is generally hubris and risky. I do respect the fact that many, many amazing things have come out of medial science but I treat it all with caution rather than just whatever-the-scientists-say-must-be-right. Then I watch something like "Food Inc."[1] and become just a bit more skeptical of foods enhanced by science via processing, GMO, pesticides, whatever. I want my food grown with plain ol' water & sunshine & animal feces fertilizer... at least for now.

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/

[XorNot]

And this entire line of reasoning is based on the naturalistic-fallacy.

Nature is out to kill you. The harmonious balance of an ecosystem is a brutal stalemate in an endless war, and this is why you definitely shouldn't eat the berries you find in the forest without knowing what they are (nor eat fish from the ocean if you don't know what they are etc. etc.)

Moreover, your entire spiel on GMO is powered by a completely unrelated area of food manufacture and preparation which has much more to do with the negative health outcomes people have from food. Do you demand labels indicating what type of processing has been done on every package? Or would that be surprisingly unhelpful without more detail?

[akiselev]

Funny you mention Nigeria, a country scrambling to work out a proper biosafety framework and educate farmers [1] so that they can feed a population that is #40 on the hunger index [2], with nearly a tenth undernourished [3]. With the current life expectancy of ~50 years [4], there's a ways to go for Nigerians to see any negative health effects from GMOs among the noise of malnutrition and stunted growth, if there is any to be found (and we've been trying for a while now).

[1] http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=...

[2] http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ghi12....

[3] http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

[4] https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+nigeria

[the_af]

But that's not the thing. The argument is that labeling something "GMO" gives NO information about whether it's safe. You cannot use this label to err on the side of safety, because the same argument can be used for food labeled as "GMO-free": this also gives NO information about its safety. What side would you err on in this case?