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Is Canada not involved in this mess? Rmhermen 22:36 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I wonder if the article as written doesn't underplay the importance of agricultural protectionism. One of the advantages of forcing GM food labeling, I would think, is that it would give an advanatge to small "organic" farmers. This seems quite convenient, given that the EU countries consider preserving the "quaintness" of their countrysides a cultural priority, while the death of the family farm seems to be more generally accepted in North America. Europe certainly wouldn't be alone in feigning concern over the supposed safety of foreign food in order to protect their own industries (look at what Japan is doing right now re: mad cow disease). -- stewacide 23:21 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)
What I meant was that the governments in European countries may be overplaying the risks of GM foods as a cover for protectionism. I have no doubt that many citizens are personally fearful.
Also, I agree that this shouldn't be characterized as just a US vs. EU thing. In fact, the US and EU are traditional allies on issues of agricultural trade in that they're both strong protectionists. The alliance between the US and the pro-free-trade "Cairns Group" countries (Canada, Australia, and the developing world) is quite unusual. There are probably other countries (Japan?) that side with the EU for one reason or another.
Also, I wonder about strains within EU, such as between food exporters like France and food importers (Italy? Spain?).
p.s. If that "follow our leaders blindly" thing was a jab at the US, no dice, I'm Canadian (Happy Canada Day to ya' :)
Also, Europeans accusing North Americans of having a mob mentality is pretty ironic IMHO. When was the last time we had a war or genocide in North America? Europeans and your silly ethnic nationalism; when will you learn!?! ;) -- stewacide 07:00 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I think, it is better to restart the discussion:
Perhaps "Genetic Engineering" should be added to the list of Demons and devils that someone is compiling, it certainly sounds very dangerous. Ping 07:11 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Despite the fact that no scientific study has yet shown genetically modified food to be unacceptably harmful to people ...
Has any study found GM foods to be acceptably harmful to people? Evercat 17:56 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Despite the fact that no scientific study has yet shown genetically modified food to be harmful or harmless to humans
How can any study or any number of studies ever prove something to be entirely "harmless"? -- stewacide
IT CANT - it is impossible to prove a lone hypothesis, one can only accumulate evidence that is consistent (or not) with a system of hypotheses that constitute a philosophy. There will always be room for your hypothesis to turn out false, because other assumptions may be violated. Add to this that (the departing agriculture minister indicated) British field trials and other government funded research has intentionally neglected any 'indirect' routes by which GMOs may cause harm to humans, such as damage to the ecosystem. So I am worried too (it's not like you can take GM out of the ecosystem if you got it wrong, and it's not as if Genetic Engineering is equivalent to the current system of genetic design).
I wonder if Trade in genetically modified food wouldn't be a better title? Calling it a "trade war" may have NPOV problems. -- stewacide 18:56 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
of course, you are all welcome to move that to the best host article :-) But...if we start saying GMO plants have not been scientifically been proved to be dangerous, it is just fair that information is *really* added on the topic, yes ? User:anthere
I think that most of this information on Roundup should be moved to its page, not here. Rmhermen 19:27 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I see no pb with that. But, I mostly wrote this because it was added there were no credible scientific proofs GMO could be bad for the environment :-) I think I even forgot to look for RoundUp article. The only thing important imho is
Consequently -> use of GMO -> use of round up -> more glyphosate -> pb for humans, fauna, water quality...
Add cases of allergies, increase resistance, bt issues, studies showing diffusion of genes from one species to another (I have some virus diffusion at hand), I think that ultimately, the sentence "no credible studies have shown that some gmo have proven dangerous for the environment" should...just perhaps...be rephrased a bit ?
When done, we could perhaps explain why Gmos are good for a change ?
Anthere
141, though I agree we should avoid to repeat unduly similar linkages in articles, I also think your way to hunt any double link is not a very good practice sometimes. When an article is - at two different places - referring to two different aspects of another article, it makes sens to orient the reader to this article again, not to let him search several paragraphs above the reference of this article he has maybe not focused on. This is very common practice in numerous articles. User:anthere
Polls done in 2000, (Libération), 73% of French people worried by presence of GMO in food (77% for women)
polls done end of 2002 show (libération)
polls in april 2002 (eurobarometre)
Basically, 3 persons among 4 opposed and worried, that does not mean "some" but "widespread". Imho.
User:Anthere
Yknow, I coulda sworn waaay more countries than the US were fighting the EU in the WTO over this. -- Penta.
It seems to me that this article has a lot of irrelevant references to the Iraq war. Jtrainor 18:06, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hey there, think Wikipedia's great and I'd like to learn more about html so I can contribute effectively every now & then. Thus, didn't want to tweak the main page by trying to add this information myself, but
While two of the main criticisms of the WTO dispute panel process have been 1. lack of participation by non-members (e.g. NGOs) 2. lack of transparency there may yet be hope. The Appellate board did, in a recent decision, consider an NGO submission previously unavailable to the dispute panel considering the decision under appeal. This may establish jurisprudence for NGOs wishing to make future submissions but there is probably a long way to go before these will have impact on decisions still made within parameters narrowed by financial concerns. Furthermore, given the significance of the GMO dispute between U.S. & E.U. it was recently revealed that the panel determining the dispute would need to extend the normally limited decisionmaking process due to the complaxity of the arguments before it. A speaker at the recent World Conservation Union meeting in Sydney, 2005, revealed that October has been set as the definite date for this decision. holigopoly 01:01, 5 Sep 2005 (UTC)
Some parts of this article are pretty much out of date, speaking about coming events in 2003 and 2004. Don't know a lot about this topic, but it seems to me that this "trade war" is still going on. Anyone able to update this? Maybe one could also link this to other "trade wars"... 134.83.201.84 00:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
An alternative to updating is to give that page a title reflecting the dates of the events. E.g. : "GM food war 2000-2004"
Then a link to a new current page shall be enough. -- 193.56.241.75 08:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
why cant i find any information on the netherlands??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????):<
This appears to be an advocacy piece rather than an encyclopedia article, and reflects a basic misunderstanding of GM regulation and the WTO dispute. It quotes a German Greenpeace spokesman on the question of what US consumers want, and cites Aventis - a European company based in Strasbourg, France - as a "US biotechnology giant." The essay alludes to an EU "ban" on GM food products, but both the US and the EU "ban" GM food products until they have been approved through the regulatory process. The WTO complaint was not based on the failure of the EU to approve GM products, but their failure to make any decisions at all. The US asserted that the EU regulatory process had been stalled for political reasons and had effectively become a prohibition not based on scientific evidence as to health and safety, which is a non-tariff barrier prohibited by the WTO agreement. The US did not seek to have GM food products approved, it sought to have the EU regulatory process put back into use - to have the safety reviews conducted and the decisions - pro or con - made. 83.79.7.14 04:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
"In Europe, a series of unrelated food crises during the 1990s created consumer apprehension about food safety in general, eroded public trust in government oversight of the food industry, and left some consumers unwilling to consider "science" to be a guarantee of quality."
What was the nature of these food crises? Zebulin 17:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
This section appears to be copied from a textbook. It references chapters in the textbook. I'm not sure that it adds much to the article. Is there something in this section worth saving? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.111.254.147 ( talk) 02:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Why are there so many references to the 2003 invasion of Iraq in this article? I would like to remove them all. Zebulin ( talk) 08:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
"Árpád Pusztai, considered by many to be the leading expert on GM foods" - you can`be serious? Who are those many? For sure not she scientific community, maybe by antiGMO campaigners, but in that case, a reference and more specifity is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lavrentii ( talk • contribs) 14:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
This article was outdated and mostly covered topics already discussed in the Genetically modified food controversies article, so I merged it into that article. Jytdog ( talk) 23:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)