Silver Spring, MD – The American Nurses Association (ANA) has joined a coalition urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to label foods that have been genetically engineered. ANA, along with nearly 400 other groups representing health professionals, consumer and environmental advocates, parents, farmers and businesses, believes people have a right to know what’s in their food. The Just Label It campaign (www.justlabelit.org) is demanding that the FDA require labels on foods produced using genetic engineering.
ANA has been a vocal advocate in the issue of food policy. The association co-authored Principles of a Healthy Food System, which supports socially, economically and ecologically sustainable food systems that promote health, the current and future health of individuals, communities and the natural environment.
Everyone has a right to know what’s in the foods they eat. Tell the FDA to label genetically engineered foods; please send your comments to the FDA.
The ANA is the only full-service professional organization representing the interests of the nation's 3.1 million registered nurses through its constituent and state nurses associations and its organizational affiliates. The ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the rights of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
You have got to be kidding me. What intelligent responses. Breeding plants selectively and inserting foreign DNA are entirely different. Please do some research and present yourself as an educated person. People get sick from pesticides and added hormones, this is widely accepted. Organic food is more nutritous than GM food, as monoculture depletes soil, and pesticides kill soil bacteria which are necessary in nutrient uptake.
Take 200 people. Have 100 of them eat a *healthy* diet consisting of commercial produce. Have the other 100 eat the same healthy diet with organic produce.
You won't find any significant health differences among the two groups.
If you want your foods produced or prepared in a certain way or in a certain place then go ahead - spend the money on organics. If you just want nutritious food, then a commercial apple or orange is every bit as nutritious as organic ones.
People focusing on crap like dye, preservatives, pesticides, hormones, or high fructose corn syrup are not helping the situation at all. Cheeze-Itz aren't bad for you because they contain preservatives or coloring - they are bad for your because getting a lot of your calories from crap like Cheeze Its is idiotic.
If you eat whole foods (organic or not), you avoid a diet high in fat, sugar and salt. THAT diet is what's killing people, not commercial produce.
Has any one reading this message EVER admitted and treated a patient because they ate commercial bananas, apples, pears, mangos, tomatoes, etc instead of organic ones? No.
But how many of us have treated people because for years they gorged themselves on a processed diet high in sodium, sugars, and fat? Yep - EVERY stinking one of us.
So tell me, which problem should we be focusing on? Really.
I thought health promotion, disease prevention, policies that impact health, etc were nursing issues.
Which is precisely why ANA should be supporting technologies which enhance crop yields, reduce land use and water use, and enhance the nutritive value of food crops.
Millions of people suffer from malnutrition due to the inability to grow sufficient crops or appropriate crops. Genetic modification offers real hope to alleviating significant suffering and disease in impoverished areas.
If we're so dead set against genetically engineered foodstuffs then we should likewise be opposed to all recombinant products... bye, bye mass-produced insulin, tPA, erythropoeitin just to name a few genetically engineered products that have radically improved human health.
The initial post was supporting the labeling of GM foods. This would allow people to make informed decisions about what they eat. Those that wish to consume conventional produce,or that are indifferent can continue doing so. Those that wish to avoid it can do so. If conventional food is so nutritous and necessary to feed the world, why not label it. It does not take an advanced degree to understand that ingesting cancer causing chemicals can result in cancer. You say no one is admitted to the hospital because they ate GM foods; do you apply the same logic to cheeseburgers? How do you know what degree of cancers are caused by pesticide exposure, or what health problems may result? Have you reviewed the safety studies and approval process? Many studies show that GM crop yields are lower than organic, especially over time. Ask the people in India if they want our GM foods to feed them. GM foods destroy soil, pollute water, require application of ungodly amounts of chemicals that end up in our air, water and blood, reduce crop diversity, result in the loss of seeds, allow life itself to be patented, result in super weeds. I wonder if you would feel the same way if your kids had to play in the areas polluted with cancer causing chemicals, or if you were the one that someone else decided needed to be saved by being fed with this stuff. Maybe its just a matter of needing a market to dump their product in. There are reasons entire nations have banned the cultivation of GM crops. Whatever your position or my position, the majority of Americans want GM foods to be labeled.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Finally........the ANA throws its weight behind an issue I actually care about, instead of just pushing the BSN and union membership. I guess they aren't completely useless after all.
What exactly is the argument against labeling genetically modified food? That people shouldn't be able to make decisions about whether to buy it or not? That providing basic info to consumers is a bad thing?
Unfortunately basic or even moderately advanced biology, chemistry, etc., is not understood by the average consumer.
It is misleading and confusing to label products as organic; (all I can think of is basic biology, organic means it is carbon based, inorganic means it is not carbon based). I have to restrain myself when I buy fruits from demanding my inorganic apple! Pesticide free (honest, plants really do make their own pesticide). Natural (there are hundreds of plants that are poisonous to humans, but they are "natural"). Organically modified (are Mendel's peas organically modified)?
I love a good horror story, where a scientist or some big bad industry knowingly or unknowingly unleashes a scientific experiment and death and panic ensue.
Unfortunately many people go away from these stories thinking there is a kernel of truth and crazed scientists are going to mess up some experiment someday and doom us all. Think back to Frankenstein's Monster!!!
We are all living longer, healthier, better lives, and should be down on our knees every day thanking the thousands of scientists who have made these wonderful advancements.
I repeat, get your doctorate in genetics then I will listen with an open mind to your concerns.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I used to be a dairy farmer and I live surrounded by dairy farms here in Wisconsin. Most of my friends and family are dairy farmers. My farm was certified organic and I sold milk through the Organic Valley Coop, as do most of my neighbors. They also market many other certified organic products that are produced in this area. As I look out my window I can see fields of certified organic crops in every direction (currently being harvested).
Organic is a joke and nothing but a marketing ploy. First cheating on organic standards is rampant. Every fall one can just stand in my yard and witness cheating on organic standards. Second federal organic standards allow things that most people would ever imagine. One example is that certified organic livestock farmers are allowed to inject antibiotics directly into the reproductive organs of breeding females with no labeling or milk / meat withhold. Another example is some of the things they are are allow to use as a pesticide like liquefied copper, or fertilizer like manure slurry from those huge stinky lagoons found on corporate (non organic) hog farms. I could go on and on.
The initial post was supporting the labeling of GM foods. This would allow people to make informed decisions about what they eat. Those that wish to consume conventional produce,or that are indifferent can continue doing so. Those that wish to avoid it can do so. If conventional food is so nutritous and necessary to feed the world, why not label it. It does not take an advanced degree to understand that ingesting cancer causing chemicals can result in cancer. You say no one is admitted to the hospital because they ate GM foods; do you apply the same logic to cheeseburgers? How do you know what degree of cancers are caused by pesticide exposure, or what health problems may result? Have you reviewed the safety studies and approval process? Many studies show that GM crop yields are lower than organic, especially over time. Ask the people in India if they want our GM foods to feed them. GM foods destroy soil, pollute water, require application of ungodly amounts of chemicals that end up in our air, water and blood, reduce crop diversity, result in the loss of seeds, allow life itself to be patented, result in super weeds. I wonder if you would feel the same way if your kids had to play in the areas polluted with cancer causing chemicals, or if you were the one that someone else decided needed to be saved by being fed with this stuff. Maybe its just a matter of needing a market to dump their product in. There are reasons entire nations have banned the cultivation of GM crops. Whatever your position or my position, the majority of Americans want GM foods to be labeled.
The majority of Americans could not tell you what DNA, chromosomes, genes, etc., are or do.
The majority of Americans get their ideas, knowldege, about vaccinating their children from Oprah and a former Playboy bunny!!!!
If an organization such as the ANA endorsed this labeling it will add fuel to the general public's vague fear that big, bad, science is creating another Frankenstein monster! (I hope you know Frankenstein was a fictional tale?)
Please tell me exactly what genetically modified food is, (I'm still wondering if Mendel's peas fit into that catagory) and why I should not be eating it? I would like a clear, concrete, down to the genetic level explanation, of what this genetic food is and how, why, it could harm my DNA or whatever fears you have about it.
When I get these FACTS from you I will endorse the ANA's position.
Read the post from the dairy farmer to see how wonderful the whole organic food movement is.
Please tell me exactly what genetically modified food is, (I'm still wondering if Mendel's peas fit into that catagory) and why I should not be eating it?
To be succinct, "genetically modified" refers to gene splicing and recombinant technology rather than selective breeding.
If, during the formation of gametes and zygotes, a novel gene is formed which creates an infectious protein (i.e. a prion) or which gene itself is an oncogene then it could prove harmful. Once such were detected, however, it could be too late to eradicate it.
MN-Nurse, ASN, RN
1,398 Posts
Take 200 people. Have 100 of them eat a *healthy* diet consisting of commercial produce. Have the other 100 eat the same healthy diet with organic produce.
You won't find any significant health differences among the two groups.
If you want your foods produced or prepared in a certain way or in a certain place then go ahead - spend the money on organics. If you just want nutritious food, then a commercial apple or orange is every bit as nutritious as organic ones.
People focusing on crap like dye, preservatives, pesticides, hormones, or high fructose corn syrup are not helping the situation at all. Cheeze-Itz aren't bad for you because they contain preservatives or coloring - they are bad for your because getting a lot of your calories from crap like Cheeze Its is idiotic.
If you eat whole foods (organic or not), you avoid a diet high in fat, sugar and salt. THAT diet is what's killing people, not commercial produce.
Has any one reading this message EVER admitted and treated a patient because they ate commercial bananas, apples, pears, mangos, tomatoes, etc instead of organic ones? No.
But how many of us have treated people because for years they gorged themselves on a processed diet high in sodium, sugars, and fat? Yep - EVERY stinking one of us.
So tell me, which problem should we be focusing on? Really.