Washington GMO labeling initiative losing, but not done.
Source: POLITICO
By JENNY HOPKINSON | 11/6/13 1:58 AM EST Updated: 11/6/13 9:47 AM EST
Washington state’s GMO labeling measure appears to be going down in defeat, early results show.
With slightly less than a million votes counted, the current tally on Ballot Initiative 522, which would require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms, show those opposed leading by about 536,000 (54.8 percent) to 442,000 (45.2 percent). The figures represent about a quarter of the state’s 3.9 million registered voters, so more votes are on the way.
The delay in the final vote total is due to the fact that Washington is a mail-in ballot state, and it will count any ballots postmarked by Nov. 5, even if those ballots arrive at the end of the week. As a result, the tally on election night often only reflects about 60 percent of the votes that ultimately will be received, according to Brian Zylstra, a spokesman for Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State.
If that holds true in this election, with 997,566 ballots counted on election night, another 665,044 could be in the mail.
Elizabeth Larter, spokeswoman for the “Yes on I-522” campaign tells POLITICO that given the spread out returns, the campaign remains optimistic that the final results will support the measure.
“Usually with Washington State campaigns, it tends to be that the more conservative vote tends to come in earlier … so we knew going into tonight that we would either be down or it would be very close,” Larter said. Voters in King County — the state’s most populous and home to Seattle — who have supported the measure in polling, tend to mail their ballots at the last minute, and so election results often “take a couple of days to catch up.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/washington-state-gmo-labeling-initiative-2013-elections-99442.html#ixzz2jtpGAzVF
= new reply since forum marked as read
The only reason I've seen on DU that agribusiness fights so hard against labeling is because people who eat food are too stupid, and the plain truth would frighten them and hurt the businesses bottom line. Yeah... I think that one kinda brain-dead too.
Seems that particular premise is predicated on very little, and substantiated on even less, and then turned around by placing the responsibility on non-GMO foods to label themselves as such.
Taking that same line of justification a step further, would one also argue that all pasta companies other than Barilla Pasta label themselves as gay-friendly? 
The ethical stretches and apologies made on DU for companies who fight against being truthful is too often disheartening at best...
There you have it.
sourced ingredients.
Related: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12312207
POST 15. How Food Companies Exploit Americans with Ingredients Banned in Other Countries
Additionally, as in the historical case history of trans fats, labeling requirements in CA and NYC accelerated the voluntary reduction or elimination of trans fats from many processed foods, although the FDA took years to weigh in despite ongoing harm to public health. The goal here is the same.
Rise and fall of trans fat: A history of partially hydrogenated oil
By Betty Hallock
November 7, 2013, 3:40 p.m.
Trans fat was the first man-made fat to become part of our food supply more than a century ago when a German scientist presented Procter & Gamble with ways to add hydrogen to cottonseed oil. Because the product looked like lard (though originally intended for soap), P&G started selling it in 1911 as Crisco (the name derived from "crystallized cottonseed oil"
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And now, decades later, the Food and Drug Administration is moving to eliminate trans fats from the food supply. Most scientific research shows that even trace amounts can be harmful to health.
Partially hydrogenated oil (now also called trans fat) was an inexpensive substitute for butter and lard, and wow, did it make for flaky pie crust. It also increased the shelf life of baked goods and improved the texture of other foods. For decades, food manufacturers would add partially hydrogenated oil to cookies, crackers, bread, frozen foods and more, and food companies and restaurants used it for frying.
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In 1993, health advocacy groups called for fast food chains to stop frying with partially hydrogenated oil. It wasn't until 10 years later that the FDA required trans fat to be listed on food nutritional labels (giving food companies until 2006 to comply) along with saturated fat and cholesterol.
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FDA trans fat ban: Proposal makes clear no amount is safe
By Tenny Tatusian
November 7, 2013, 10:00 a.m.
The FDA announcement Thursday that it was moving to eliminate added trans fat from processed food means that microwave popcorn, frozen pizza, refrigerated dough, cookies and ready-to-use frostings are too much of a health risk. Yes, even that coffee creamer is trying to kill you.
Updated 12:39 p.m.: FDA officials say this move can prevent as many as 7,000 deaths and 20,000 heart attacks a year. If it's successful in banning trans fats altogether, the FDA will eliminate scant amounts that still show up in foods. Manufacturers don't have to identify trans fats when foods contain less than .5 grams of the oils.
Fast food chains such as McDonald's stopped using trans fats when the FDA first required clear labeling seven years ago.
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The parallels to the unfolding GMO story are evident; note dates in article below. In the GMO saga, are we living today in what is effectively the '1968' era in transfats?
Food Industry Ditches Trans Fats, Kids' Cholesterol Levels Drop
By Tom Philpott| Tue Aug. 21, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
"0 grams trans fats." That promise appears prominently on packaging for that classic American junk food, the Lay's Potato Chip. McDonald's iconic French fries? Trans-fat free—as are its Chicken McNuggets.
It wasn't always thus. As recently as 2006, journalist Nina Teicholz could report that consuming a large order of McDonald's fries and McNuggets in one sitting meant taking in nearly 10 grams of trans fats, a "substance considered so unhealthy that the National Academy of Sciences concluded, in 2002, that the only safe amount of trans fats in the diet is zero."
Trans fats are made through a process known as partial hydrogenation—basically, when you add hydrogen to ordinary vegetable oil, it becomes solid at room temperature, making it a cheap substitute for butter.
According to Teicholz, probably the journalist most responsible for exposing the ill effects of the once-ubiquitous, now-scarce substance, "A daily intake of five grams of trans fats increases the risk of contracting heart disease 4 percent to 28 percent."
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Teicholz reported trans-fat production was dominated by agribusiness giants Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Bunge. These companies ran a trade group called the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO), which "for decades" worked "behind the scenes to squelch bad news about trans fats." Teicholz reported:
As far back as 1968, the ISEO was mentioned in an internal memo written by the medical director of the American Heart Association: According to the memo, the ISEO objected to the AHA’s intention to include a warning about trans fats in its dietary guidelines; subsequently, the AHA took it out.
And the food industry, too, actively sought to repress research showing trans fats' ill effects. According to Teicholz, independent-minded scientists examining the topic had to "deal with the tidal wave of industry pressure unleashed against them at meetings, conferences, and events. Their papers were rebutted with unusual ferocity, and their research funding was scarce." The pressures came from the industry's highest levels:
With independent science about its health effects virtually nil, trans fats took on a healthy sheen, promoted by a food industry that was happy to have found a cheap replacement for butter that also worked well in deep frying. By the '70s, "margarine manufacturers used the slogan 'Healthy for Your Heart' and marketed the product like a drug to doctors," Teicholz reported.
Meanwhile, damage to public health was severe. Teicholz cited Harvard epidemiologist Walter Willett, who reckoned that "of the half million Americans who die prematurely each year from heart disease—the leading cause of death in this country—at least 30,000 are killed by trans fats."
The breaking point came in 2002, when a panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences produced a scathing report on the effect of trans fats. Spurred by the NAS document, the FDA had little choice but to move on labeling, which it began to require in 2006. Then came bans on using trans fats in restaurants in New York City, Philadelphia, and California. The drop in trans fat consumption was swift—a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that trans-fat levels in the blood of white adults plunged by 58 percent between 2000 to 2009. (The fats the industry has seized upon to replace trans fats, palm oil and interesterificated vegetable oil, may present their own problems, both to health and the environment, but that is a topic for another post.)
Although a long time in coming, the melting away of trans fats in the American diet shows that progress can be made—that when independent science can cut through industry-induced fog, and when regulators are compelled to do their job—the American diet can improve. But as the Journal of the American Medical Association article shows, things are still dire. Kids' cholesterol levels are coming down, the article notes, but obesity and overweight levels remain stubbornly high.
That unhappy fact, I think, stems from another practice the food industry picked up in the late '70s—adding massive amounts of empty sweeteners to processed food. As the journalist Gary Taubes has shown, the food industry has largely managed to bury a growing body of research on the harms of that habit.
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