Sigh, its not a federal courts job to stop health issues in food, its the FDA. The EPA is responsible for any environmental problems they cause. This really does nothing.

Edit: also federal courts can't halt sale, they can be sued for damages if they make a seed that hurts you.

“Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job.”

Bite me, Phil.

corporations are people... sociopaths, but people... we've been warned

We need to "Fight Club" this shit down

Don't diss my man Obama...don't be a racist!

I really don't get all the GMO hubbub. I realize it sounds bad - like we are Frankenstein-ing our food, but I'm a biologist and physician and people need to realize that we have been GMO-ing our food since the advent of agriculture/husbandry. The whole POINT of agriculture/farming is to breed crops/animals such that they express certain genetic traits that are valuable to humans. Examples are abundant: bananas, corn, cows, chickens, Scottish fold kittens... Basically anything that humans can grow/raise, we attempt to genetically modify through selective breeding; the fact that we now have the technology to accomplish these changes in a lab is obvious as the next logical step. If you object to GMO then you should be a hunter-gatherer. This is not to say that there are no risks to selective breeding/GM. For one, genetically similar or identical organisms are susceptible to the same pathogens. If we stake our fortunes on a single type of wheat, corn, cow, banana, whatever - we risk losing it forever if there is some sort of infectious outbreak. As far as health risks to consumers, I don't think there is any legitimate science that suggests that GM food is any worse for you than non-GM food (the same goes for irradiated foods).

Politicians are here to serve and protect their own interest, not yours.

The issue is GMO crops designed to secrete their own pesticides (toxins).
Which is a large part of what plant GM has been about.
In animal tests, there are major health problems - but since you can't PROVE that people will react the same, sale is not prohibited.
In Europe there is more scrutiny to this, and some things actually are banned that are still permitted in the U.S.A..

-scheherazade

http://videosift.com/video/GMO-controlling-our-food-the-politics-of-monsanto

nuff said.

The federal courts don't sell seeds and they cannot be sued

Anyways, the problem with the courts is that they deal with issues that are not catching up with the times. Gay marriage? Too new a civil rights issue. Corporations are people? Yeah, but that's okay because it doesn't take away our democracy, does it? Damn goggle won't tell me!

If we want to truly look at government the way you do (That it can in no way go outside of it's scope for any reason) then you are effectively saying much with this myopic view--in my opinion. For example, in a free market capitalism, it is not the governments job to throw up one roadblock to any form of success. Monopolies are currently discouraged even though it is not the job of the government at all to do so. It's counter to capitalism. Free enterprise should be ruthless and profit driven. It's only checks and balances should be the consumers. One monopoly should have already risen to take over all America's communications, industrial and consumer services. Another monopoly for natural resources; food and gas, etc.

This is the true result of competition. One chess player wins the tournament and takes home the prize, the others lose.

Then when these two companies want to discourage protests and such, they should be able to block out entire neighborhood's food supplies and starve them to death. (This has happened in other countries since the beginning of time--though mostly government owned there is no reason a corporation cannot do this.) After all, it's not their job to provide people food--they are just a business and if they want to pull their business, meh. After all, the people dying are competing with the corporation.

You may find this analogy off track, or even silly, but I am trying to point out something serious. Government either changes with times or we destroy ourselves.

Ps, wrote rather quickly because I gtg. Wife and kids stuff.

Ok, lets look at it this way. In many cases a federal court can be a court of opinion. Numerous people say "oh this seed caused me a problem" and the federal court says "ok banned". Generally we would see this as a good thing, because people see a response to their claims. Enter the "chinese food syndrome". People are being told by health food nuts that GMO can cause symptoms, and psychosomatic symptoms develop. Now without any actual research, we have people that are claiming symptoms and a federal court stepping in to stop sale. This is exactly why we have a federal agency to review research and conduct their own research to ensure food safety, its called the FDA, they are fairly competent. They ban stuff all the time, many things with only minor health concerns (less than alcohol and cigarettes in any case). The same is said for the EPA protecting the environment (they would seem to do a worse job than the FDA). These agencies can review concerns with GMO's without the "court of public opinion" deciding on GMO's.

ALSO, after a quick read on what the bill actually states...
First this bill was part of a bill to prevent government shutdown, it really needed to be signed. It does not grant Monsanto a get out of jail free card, it prevents them from injunctions by other seed producers filing injunctions to shut them down and sue them out of the market. This is directly related to a 2010 lawsuit between Monsanto and another seed manufacturer that resulted in extensive litigation and could have cost the company considerably in lost revenue if they could not offer their seed at the right time of year due to a injunction. With agriculture you could lock someone out of the market every year by simply filing suit at the correct time of year and then dropping it after the planting season is done.

Isn't it funny how when you start pulling on even one little thread half of what Cenk says turns out to be bullshit?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

What about specifically creating seeds that are "RoundUp Ready®" which then lets farmers use huge quantities of said herbicide RoundUp™ on their crops with only the RoundUp Ready® seeds surviving. What about those said RoundUp Ready® seeds blowing in the wind and pollinating adjacent farmers' plots. What about Monsanto then suing those adjacent farmers for "patent infringement" and putting them out of business.

GMO may not be bad in itself, but its propagators are fucking evi.

I'm not a politician or lawyer. The patent infringement stuff you mentioned sounds bad, but I don't know enough to make an educated comment.

As far as RoundUp Ready soybeans, what I know about it is that it inhibits an enzyme required for RoundUp (the sprayed pesticide) to work, thus rendering certain crops "immune" to the spray. From a bioengineering perspective it is ingenious and allows developed nations to have plentiful and cheap crops year round. GMO is a product of our (humanity's) need for cheap, plentiful and calorie-dense foods. Sure, we can complain about the fact that we don't want to eat pesticides/insecticides/whatever, but we complain far more when the food we eat is expensive, scarce and calorie-sparse. Before GM (I'll include selective breeding in this category), our food supply was predicated on the vagaries of the weather, insects, viruses, fungi and bacteria. We now enjoy a plentiful bounty year round and still we complain. We cannot have it both ways.

I realize that there is a gut reaction to GM (and irradiated) foods, but people need to educate themselves and ask if they would rather have massive price swings for staple foods or (relatively) cheap food year round that is inherently not the product of evolutionary changes.

Actually, I'd have to say that from a bioengineering perspective, it's incredibly stupid. What they're really doing is breeding Roundup resistant weeds, and far faster than anyone claimed they would. In consequence, agri-business is dumping many times as much herbicide into their fields...the facts make it damned clear that the only winner in this race is Monsanto. Farmers pay more for the seed and more for more herbicide to apply.

In another 20 years, Roundup will be useless, but Monsanto will happily move on to the next longterm fuckup that is profitable in the short run.

I guess it's time we stop using those incredibly stupid things called antibiotics because we're breeding resistant organisms for those as well. The facts make it damned clear that the only winner in this race are pharmaceutical companies. Patients pay more for the medicine as germs become more resistant. In another 20 years our antibiotics will be useless, but pharmaceutical companies will happily move on to the next longterm fuckup that is profitable in the short run.

While we're at it we should stop using idiotic chemotherapy and radiation for cancer because we only end up with resistant cells.

Do you really see no benefit to pesticides? Not a single upside? That's strange because they keep selling them. Someone's buying.

Monsanto has sued individual farmers that have obviously and intentionally preserved seeds from their fields that border Monsanto-bred fields. Even with such a willful and intentional violation, they've never won, and have had to pay all court costs. ZERO farmers have had to pay out-of-pocket because of Monsanto's legislation, despite several admitting to being out-of-bounds.

So, yeah, Monsanto sues people, some are shady, others not, but Monsanto hasn't made a dime, and with a mountain of precedence, it never will... but it does have to sue in order to be seen as "protecting" it's Intellectual Property. I don't think Monsanto is a "Good Guy"... it's a corporation and is only interested in increasing shareholder value.

I'm as liberal as you get, but I'm against GMO legislation without proof that GMO has health concerns. I feel like I'm rather consistent... I don't want to ban weapons, cars, marijuana or smoking unless and until it's been proven through studies to cause death. Weapons, cars and smoking have an inordinate amount of death associated with their use. The chance of a gun accident in a household with guns is INFINITELY higher than one without guns.

Anyways, the point is that there have not been peer-reviewed studies that show that GMO is in any way dangerous. I do believe that corporate-controlled life is dangerous, however.

Keep GMO, get rid of Monsanto. If you're against Monsanto, be against Monsanto... You won't win any battles by going against GMO, as it makes you sound as absurd as creationists, anti-vaxers or wifi-allergists.

Hatsix gets me.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I think you're being exceedingly soft on Monsanto in your version of the court history - your version reads like a Monsanto press release.

No defense that this company has patented the genetics of plants and aggressively sues farmers when they pollenate. You can say they're *just* a corporation but that's a cop out.

Yea the Galactic Empire is just a corporation too, deciding what planets to destroy and shit, "suing" other guys who wish to not be apart of them.

My only complaint, based on the TYT's I've seen, as for using these guys as a news source is I wish these two hosts, specifically, were better at discussing these news articles together than seemingly trying to be the one who says the most to the audience. I only blame one of the two for that though.