The only comparison I can think of is this.
Do you think it is a good idea for the FDA to require food manufacturers to put labels/references on products that contain peanuts, peanut oil, or peanut flour?
Many people might called that a “useless” regulation... but NO ONE who has a peanut allergy would say that.
Will it save lives?
Probably.
How many?
Hard to say.
Did prices skyrocket when producers started labeling peanut containing items?
Not that I recall.
Many people might called that a “useless” regulation... but NO ONE who has a peanut allergy would say that.
You are right, it is very cheap to put that label on and solves NOTHING.
But like many conservatives and liberals, the answer to any problem is more laws and regulations.
You know there ARE other options besides passing laws. Can you think of them?
If the law required food producers to actually perform genetic sequencing on each ingredient to find GM inserts, including cases where some wind-pollinated crop picks up the new genes through the air, and report on that, it may be a good law. As of now there is no way other than whole-genome sequencing to determine if your ingredients contain foreign snips.
But as it stands, it’s paperwork and labeling with no requirement to show that your food does or does not contain GMO. If I’m not sure, I put “may contain” on my jar, just like the peanut labels say now (or “processed in a facility that may also process peanut, treenut, shellfish, milk or soybeans”).
A paper law lawyer-driven with no real concrete benefit.
And we still import lots of gamma-irradiated food with no labels.
From what I have read, GMO products do not have any known adverse effects on folks like some other products (peanuts, wheat, etc.). And like others have said, it is one thing to know that you manufactured your products with ingredients like peanuts, wheat, etc. It is a whole nother thing to know if the peanuts, wheat, etc. were helped along with GMOs.