If they had to swear or affirm safety, it comes with liability. Just the cost of suits brought on behalf of a small group with problems clearly stated in the "possible side effects", would be big bucks.

Nah, the government already affirms that it's safe, if it were possible to sue people would already be doing it. The labeling issue is just so people are made aware of what they're buying. Monsanto rightly understands that, correctly or not, people are going to avoid buying GMO products once they actually know which ones they are. And GMO products are the only thing Monsanto makes.

Problem: most of us only reason using soundbytes. So is salt safe or a killer? Both. But that requires numbers. Most of us do not want and cannot make judgements using perspective. Most want a soundbyte answer often found in extremism.

In a world where extremist soundbytes have more credibility than long technical reality, then anyone can appreciate why Monsanto (and so many others) desperately want a low profile.

Perfect example - Keystone pipeline. Opposition only exists due to extremist half truths and outright lies. Where is one hard fact (with numbers) that says that pipeline is bad? None exist. So why do so many have opinions? Again, many adults still think like children. Their emotions (not facts) created by soundbytes justify their opinions.

If we must label foods as genetically modified, then we should label all foods. Since virtually all are genetically modified.

Or do what does not exist in health food stores and should be required. A full sheet describing every ingredient with numbers that say how much AND numbers that say what the recommended daily amount is. In this case, wackos in government will oppose that because honesty would bankrupt the health food (ie GNC) industry that buy politicians.

How many foods have probiotics and bifidus regularis? Magic ingredients that improve digestion? Of course. All foods improve digestion because even more junk food increases the amount digestion. But Dannon sales increased more than 20% due to a soundbyte lie. So many can be scammed by 'magic' expressions that are only 'good' or 'evil'. In an extremist's world (or a world of adults who are still children), only those two conditions exist.

Define affirmed safety.

The thing that people don't understand, when they point out that this is just evolution on a faster timescale, is that the potential intolerances occur on a faster scale too. Evolution is a dance between both populations, the eater and the eaten.

Say a strain of tomatoes develops naturally in the wild with a gene mutation. There's a chance, perhaps even a good chance, that some portion of the human/animal population is not going to tolerate that new gene sequence as well--is not going to be able to digest it as easily, is going to be more likely to be allergic to it, happens to cause a greater incidence of heart disease, whatever. But since that strain took 20 years to occur, and would take another 100-200 to spread widely across the land, those incompatible individuals are weeded out just as slowly. This is why tomatoes are generally good for us--not because they're magically good for us, but because the people for whom they were not good died. Conversely, if too many animals/people are intolerant of the new gene sequence, then the tomato dies out instead of spreading because no one is eating it, and ejecting the seeds wide and far through their fecal matter.

Immediately change the gene sequence of a huge portion of the food supply, and you've skipped that dance. Maybe most of the population can't tolerate it, in a subtle but insidious way--say, I don't know, they're allergic to it. Did you know that peanuts were one of the first widely-spread GMO foods?

And hey, maybe that's better in the long run. Maybe we make our species stronger faster by sickening and brutally weeding people out faster. But you can't just speed up one half of evolution without speeding up the other.

That assumes most all tomatoes would suddenly switch to one new hybrid strain. That is not what GM foods are about. GM means variety; different strains optimized for that unique enviroment and other changes.

Serious problems are recently identified for crops such as bananas and coffee. Most bananas are the Cavendish variety. Suddenly a fungus began appearing in Central American because everyone was still growing the Cavendish variety. New hybrid (genetically modified) bananas are needed. GM also means toxic hybrids can be identified long before going into production - without using consumers as guinea pigs.

Need for genetic modification using new tools is exasperated by so many and increasing numbers of invasive species. Unfortunately GM tools are not fast enough for the banana crop. Orange crop has recently (in the past ten years) also seen a threat that entered in eastern FL and is now widespread even in CA oranges. More reasons why better genetic modification tools are needed.

To increase deaths, ban GM development. Only fear invented more diseases and deaths from GM crops.

No, GM means the opposite. Monsanto created the "ideal" new strain of soybean that is Roundup-Ready, and it is now effectively the only strain of soybean grown at all. It has invaded the fields of even those farmers who didn't want to grow it (i.e., pay for it,) and then Monsanto sued them for having the patented soybean species on their land even when they were trying not to. The same is true of corn, by the way. It is basically impossible to buy corn nowadays that is not the primary GMO strain.

The ubiquitousness of Cavendish bananas, while not the result of genetic modification, are most certainly the result of human intervention, wiping out other species and planting only that species that has the longest shelf-life after picking and thus can be shipped the farthest.

Humans don't aim for variety. Our natural instinct is to find the one "best" answer and throw every hat we have into that ring.

Absolutely. Monsanto is in the business of market control any other outcomes are incidental.

Then why do soi many varieties of tomatoes exist? And corn (maize)? And rice? Roundup resistance is only one example of GM foods. And a first example of doing the same old thing with very new tools. We have only been doing this stuff for 20 years - literally only just started. Since these new tools have only been recently developed, there is plenty of work to be done creating new varieties for all other foods. But naysayers want to attack on some Frankenstein myth that Roundup resistant crops are destroying agriculture like an invasive species. Even Frankenstein was fiction.

So where are the killer bees that would soon destroy domestic bees. Where are the lung fish that would jump out of lakes, flop across roads, and wipe out all domestic fish. Where is this epidemic of West Nile disease. Fear of Roundup resistant crops means we should ban all genetically modified foods? Nonsense. That is only an emotional fear not supported by numbers and still not happening across the agriculture industry.

Hybrids are why the earth feds many times more people than what was once thought possible. Fear of hybrids, using the expression GM, is not justified by facts - with numbers. How was most of the world's rice industry saved? What could have averted the great potato (or potatoe depending on who you are) famine in Ireland? Genetically modified crops.

Our natural instinct is to keep inventing and innovating. To keep advancing mankind. How does banning innovative new crops do that?

On that we agree. We have no clue what we're doing yet.

It is humorous that you would accidentally say this to someone who got West Nile. But I freely admit that the 4 days of morphine were pretty awesome.

We are forgetting that Monsanto, in their genetic tinkering, have also made all their seeds sterile, preventing farmers and even hobby gardeners from saving seeds to replant next season. And thereby forcing all planters large and small to buy new seeds every season, increasing their profits.

And for those who dare to plant heirloom seeds, they have various legal remedies to stop you. This doesn't mean your backyard garden is illegal, but if you sell to an out of state customer at a farmers market, you may feel their wrath. Ditto raw milk and rGBH free meats.

Yes Flint indeed so!!

We need to try hard to get rid of this GMO garbage!!!!!! -- No good!!

Plenty of other seed manufacturers exist. The problem with your reasoning is that farmers have chosen whose seed they want. It is called a free market. Monsanto is not the Central Committee of the Communist Party as so many assume.

I prefer the plants themselves to "manufacture" their seeds.

Did you discuss this somewhere? I don't know anyone who got West Nile. And do not know about the experience (how one knows, what symptoms are like, what is involve in treatment).

Then buy those seeds; not the Monsanto seeds that claim to grow sterile crops. Many farmers do not want your preference.

Genetic innovation means more options. And crops that can adapt to a farmers environment and needs. I have no idea why anyone would want to stifle invention and innovation.