Readers React: How food companies can fight anti-GMO hysteria

I am a scientist who believes wholeheartedly in the value to humanity of genetically modified (GMO) foods. After all, we have been modifying foods genetically for millenniums through selective breeding. (“Vermont’s new GMO law may upend food industry nationwide,” June 6)

But that’s not the point. The real point is, why are we ashamed of it? Why are rational people spending so much time and energy resisting labeling these foods as genetically modified? I would wager that the number of people who believe genetically modified foods are evil is about the same as the number who believe fluorescent light bulbs are a government plot to control our minds.

If, instead of resisting labels, food companies would spend as much time and money on educating the public about what these modifications are, and the fact that people all over the world have been consuming these foods for years without a single known negative effect (not to mention significantly increased world food production), concern would dwindle to just the light-bulb haters, who would either forget it or move on to another spurious cause.

And the need for labeling would probably disappear as well.

William Clark

Los Angeles

There is no food that does not contain GMO foods. None, absolutely none. Corn, wheat and any other foods that are pollinated by the wind are full of GMOs, and no one has gotten sick.

Why? People have been hybridizing foods for thousands of years, maybe longer. The techniques used to make GMO foods are no different than what Luther Burbank did.

Unfortunately, humans are hard-wired to fear anything new. Remember how computers were once widely feared?

Why do corporations label their foods as GMO-free? Money, of course.

We should be grateful to have such healthful food; too many people aren’t as lucky as Americans.

Diane Harper

Long Beach

Why is it that most coverage of the GMO debate focuses on the health effects on the individual? The much bigger issue is the fact that it is legal to patent life.

What will we do when most of our food supply is owned by corporations and no one can save seeds to plant in the future? This is the big problem, not whether non-GMOs are bad for health.

Sarah Clark

Los Angeles