Why should you care about California's Prop 37?

That's the title of my my latest article on foxnews.com.  Some of the key paragraphs:

Proposition 37, if passed on November 6th, will require mandatory labeling of certain foods containing genetically engineered ingredients.  Because California is such a large consumer of agricultural products grown in the rest of the US and because food manufacturers work across state lines, the implications (and costs) of Proposition 37 could expand far beyond the Golden State.  

and

Everyone wants to know what’s in their food.  That issue is not at stake.  The real question is how much consumers are willing to pay to know what’s in their food, and whether it makes sense to force companies to provide information.  If consumers really value information about the biotech content of their food, there are plenty of opportunities for enterprising farmers and food manufacturers to provide the feedstuffs consumers want.  And, indeed they have.  

and

Yet, every major scientific authority on the subject – from the American Medical Association to the National Academies of Science to the American Dietetic Association to the World Health Organization – has confirmed the safety of eating currently approved foods made with biotechnology.  

Consumers in a free society have the right to disagree.  But, the rest of us shouldn’t be asked to pay the costs of their skepticism.    

The only thing I'd add is that American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the publisher of the most prestigious academic journal, Science, yesterday released a statement in support of genetically modified food.

Assorted Links

One of the best discussions of GMO adoption and pesticide use I've read

New "stop light" food labels in the UK

A response to Dr. Oz's show in GM foods

This environmental lawsuit against poultry growers could be a trend setter

A good way of increasing transparency in food?

Prop 37 Appears to Be Losing Support

A new poll reported in the LA Times suggests support for Prop 37 has fallen substantially since the poll we conducted about a month ago.  Our study showed weakness in support - with people reacting much more to negative than positive ads, but I am surprised support has fallen this far.  We also found acceptance was sensitive to the anticipated costs of the mandatory label.  

Here is the summary from the LA Times:

After a barrage of negative television advertisements financed by a $41-million opposition war chest, a USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday showed 44% of surveyed voters backing the initiative and 42% opposing it. A substantial slice of the electorate, 14%, remains undecided or unwilling to take a position.

The critical drumbeat of television advertising is having a big effect, voters said. The anti-Proposition 37 spots "made me start looking more into" the issue of genetically engineered plants, said Josie Prendez, 63, a retired school employee in Fresno. She said she concluded that farmers should not be hit with more regulations.

​and

The opposition advertising is paying off, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and former Republican political strategist. "The challenge for the opposition is to convince voters there are economic consequences involved here. It appears they are in the process of doing that."

GMOs Are Back

​You might have noticed that I've been posting quite a bit on biotechnology and GMOs recently.  Part of this is in response to the developments associated with Prop 37, but it's also because it's been in the news a lot lately.  

Apparently it isn't just me.  Here is a graph from google trends​ showing trends in searches for the word "GMO":

The trend largely confirms my own interest in the issue (maybe I'm just a trend follower).  I did a lot of work on consumer acceptance of biotechnology in the early 2000s.  Then, it seemed the literature was saturated with academic papers on the topic.  I even wrote a Meta analysis (a summary of previous studies) on consumer acceptance of GMOs because I was getting so many papers to review on the subject.  For a while I lost interest in the topic because it seemed all had been said that was to be said.  But, the topic is back with a vengeance.  It will be interesting to see what new research will be motivated by current events. ​

​On that note, here are two interesting links (here and here) on recent developments in France regarding the rat study claiming to link GMOs with tumor development.  Apparently, other French scientists were none too impressed by the study.  And, the French government is no longer challenging Monsanto's license to sell GM corn in the EU.

Gestation Crates, Selective Breeding, and the Danger of Anthropomorphic Reasoning

​A friend forwarded me a link to this page, which allows you to virtually experience life as a sow living in a gestation crate.  I encourage you to check it out.

​It is a powerful tool for those attempting to phase out gestation crates.  In fact, if I were trying to convince someone of the inhumanity of gestation crates, I'd be hard pressed to think of a more effective message.

That being said, the experience provided at the link can be misleading.  You are not a pig.  And, how we project ourselves feeling in those cages may or may not correspond to the way pigs feel who have been selected to live in those environments.  

I was reminded of this when reading Haidt's most recent book when he wrote:

In the 1980s the geneticist William Muir used group selection to get around this problem.  He worked with cages containing twelve hens each, and he simply picked the cages that produced the most eggs in each generation.  Then he bred all of the hens in those cages to produce the next generation.  Within just three generations, aggression levels plummeted.  By the sixth generation, the death rate fell from the horrific baseline of 67 percent to a mere 8 percent.  Total eggs produced per hen jumped from 91 to 237, mostly because the hens started living longer, but also because they laid more eggs per day.  The group-selected hens were more productive than were those subjected to individual-level selection.  They also actually looked like the pictures of chickens you see in children’s books – plump and well-feathered, in contrast to the battered, beaten-up, and partially defeathered hens that resulted from individual-level selection.

​Haidt was making a point about how genetic selection works not only at the individual level but also at the group level in humans and animals .  But, he also mentions another important point.  The animals we have on farms today are specifically selected for the environments in which they live.

I wrote a paragraph exactly on this point for our recent book on animal welfare that ultimately wound up on the cutting room floor.  Here it is resurrected:​

Seeing a picture of a pig living out its life in a small cage can invoke strong emotions, but we must recall that the pig was genetically selected, in part, because it was relatively unbothered by such living conditions. Some people do not mind spending all day lounging on the couch. Others of us cannot sit still. Animals exhibit similar diversity in their need and desire for movement and exercise. An animal that is constantly fidgeting and stressed about living in confined quarters is an animal that will not rapidly gain weight. Because farmers want just the opposite, they have purposefully selected and bred animals that are not terribly troubled about living in a crate.This does not mean that such animals would not prefer a larger pen or to live outdoors, but it does suggest it can be dangerous for humans to transpose their needs and emotions on farm animals, especially those animals that have been purposefully bred for the environments in which they live.

None of these comments necessarily justify gestation crates, but they do at least suggest caution in making decisions based on anthropomorphic thinking.