Relative Legislation for my life

By now, everyone has heard Monsanto, I hope. If not, they have a very informative website about the craft of manipulating seeds and genetically modifying the foods we eat. Hopefully everyone has also heard of Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. Both of these entities are key in the questions surrounding genetically modified foods and whether or not the general public should be aware that their foods have manipulated.  

 

To some degree, genetic manipulation of plants has always been in practice, since people began trying to select for certain traits to be more prevalent in early farming and crop cultivation. Under the increasing demand for crops, as our population grows, genetically modifying things so they grow faster and larger is one solution humans came up with to address the problem. So many things have been genetically modified up to this point. Farmed fish are genetically modified and are not supposed to be able to breed. That is the hope, anyway. No one really knows the long term effects of eating foods that have been genetically modified at this point or how the proliferation of such seeds and entities into the general population of organic things will change the faces of ecosystems and natural occurring organisms.

 

Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, introduced five bills on the identification of foods, etc. that had been genetically modified so that the farmers might be protected and the public might be informed of which of the foods available at the store had been genetically modified. A brief synapsis of the Acts he introduced is as follows, according to The Organic and Non-GMO Report:

• "The Genetically Engineered Food Right To Know Act of 2002, which "requires food companies to label all foods that contain or are produced with genetically engineered material."    
• The Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act of 2002, which "requires all genetically engineered foods to follow FDA's current food additive process to ensure they are safe for human consumption" and authorizes the FDA to "contract out for independent testing of a genetically engineered food and to seek input on the food safety process from the National Academy's Institute of Medicine."
• The Genetically Engineered Crop and Animal Farmer Protection Act of 2002, which establishes a "Farmer Bill of Rights."
• The Genetically Engineered Organism Liability Act of 2002, which "places all liability from negative impacts of genetically engineered organisms squarely upon the biotechnology companies that created the genetically engineered organism."
• Real Solutions to World Hunger Act of 2002, which restricts genetically engineered exports to those nations "already approved in the U.S. and approved by the importing nation.""

It is my hope that Kucinich, and people like him prevail! It is my hope that I am informed of what I am buying and feeding to my family. As the results to the long term effects of such activities remains unknown, I do not wish to be a living test subject and would prefer to be informed.

 

 http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/millenium/UScongressgmfoodslabeling.php