Hawaii Senate Missed Opportunity to Pass Critical GMO Labeling Bill

By
Daniel De Gracia ll
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13
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BY DANNY DE GRACIA – By today’s decision to defer House Bill 174, the joint Hawaii Senate committees on Agriculture, Conmmerce and Consumer Protection and Health missed a critical opportunity to respond to a growing public concern about the direction of biotechnology and genetic modification.

While it is inevitable that market pressures and inflationary monetary demands over the last fifty years have caused an intensely competitive change in the way food is produced and sold to consumers, our understanding of genetics and the impact of biotechnology on humans and the environment in general is still nascent.

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Biotechnology is becoming more and more prevalent in our daily lives and the public is right to be concerned about whether or not they are consuming food that is naturally grown or the result of genetic modification. When technology advances faster than the moral, spiritual and ecological considerations can fully be explored or argued, the potential for a future crisis of epic proportions is sown at our risk.

The public’s desire to see reasonable regulation in this area should have been honored by their elected legislators in the form of some kind of GMO labeling requirement. The Hawaii State Legislature should commit to finding ways this Session to address the need for GMO labeling while making efforts to minimize disruption to private commerce and local business.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. There are more GMO out there than you realize. If you don't grow it yourself, assume GMO….but then again, the seeds you bought maybe GMO…

  2. Thank goodness this idiotic bill was killed. The Hawaii legislature showed common sense for once.

    GMO is one of the great agriculture innovations of our time and should not be demonized or thwarted – the hysteria against GMO is unfounded. It promises to feed the planet's every growing population while minimizing the need for chemicals and pesticides. Not a single person has died from eating GMO food, but many have died from eating so-called "organic food." (actually, if anything we need warning labels on organic food due to the dangers it poses)

    Please check out Golden Rice, http://www.goldenrice.com to see the amazing potential GMO has in helping feed the world's poor.

  3. Yes, Kurt, we have so much GMO corn to feed the world's poor that the U.S. feeds corn to cattle & pigs and even uses it to make BIO-fuel, corn ethanol. Wow… so much GMO corn… why does the US gov't need to give the corn farmers subsidies for growing it? How come they can't make enough profit without gov't subsidies? And why don't we send the corn to starving people around the world to eat, instead of to the cattle feed lots? Cattle are supposed to eat grass NOT corn… but corn makes them gain weight x $$/pound = more money for some corporate persons. Hooray for GMO corn making humans fat too… it's called high fructose CORN sweetener (read your soda label and junk food labels)…

  5. i read where GMO crops are responsible for the emergence of " superweeds and " super bugs" and they can only be killed by spraying with toxic poisons like 2,4-D (a major ingredient in Agent Orange).The long term effects and impacts of GMO's are unknown.and once these organisms are released into the environment,too late for a "product recall."we are talking chemical agriculture with chemical companies running the show.and worst of all,this is not a Free Market farming enterprise.it is not capitalism. it's cronyism,corruption,cartelism,phony government involvement,subsidies,etc.

  6. when i was a kid my mother gave me a bowl of rice for breakfast and she put an egg yolk right in the rice ,stirred it all up and with a touch of soy sauce had all the vitamin A naturally.i was ready for school.

  7. We should use SUGAR for sugar and not high fructose corn syrup, or is that too revolutionary a concept?

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