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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
The powerful California Nurses Association has put Ebola on the bargaining table in its negotiations for a new contract with Kaiser Permanente.
Contract talks have been going on for months, and the nurses' most recent demands are focused on Ebola — better training, more staffing, protective gear that goes beyond what's recommended by federal officials and even a special life insurance policy.
"We'd like to have an extra supplemental coverage, for specifically Ebola, if we were to contract Ebola while we're at work," says Diane McClure, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente's hospital in Sacramento, where a patient suspected of having Ebola was treated in August. He later tested negative for the virus.
She says even a month after the Ebola scare at her hospital, nurses hadn't received any meaningful hands-on training.
"They felt that all they had to do was pull up some [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] information online and put some flyers on the tables and in the bathroom and that was it," says McClure, who is a member of the nurses' bargaining team.
Leaders from California's union and its partner in lobbying, National Nurses United, are quick to label the problems with training as a symptom of the country's fragmented health care system. The CDC issues guidelines, state departments of public health pass them on, then it's up to each hospital to take it from there.
The unions say fragmentation and a lack of protocols are the reasons two nurses at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian hospital were infected with Ebola. They've hosted several rallies for the nurses at the Dallas hospital, while noting that it isn't unionized.
Source
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United States44012 Posts
Where exactly in Dallas is the state of California?
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On October 19 2014 01:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +With the Nov. 4 ballot measure, Colorado is at the forefront of a fierce food fight raging across the nation: whether or not to label foods made with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, so consumers can easily see if the food they buy is a product of genetic engineering.
Similar ballot initiatives failed in California and Washington in the past two years.
This spring, Vermont became the first state to approve GMO labeling. But then a group of national organizations — led by the Grocery Manufacturers Association — filed a lawsuit in federal court that challenges the new law. This could be the first of many lawsuits to block mandatory GMO labeling, experts say, and now Colorado jumps into the high-stakes debate.
"It will be a hot issue for quite a while in this state," said Katie Abrams, an assistant professor at Colorado State University who researches consumer understanding of food labels. "And it's going on in more places than just Colorado."
GMO labeling will also be on the ballot in Oregon, and this year about 35 similar bills were introduced in 20 states. Source
Sometimes you wonder where the " if you don't have nothing to hide you won't have anything to fear" crowd is.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it is fear mongering with no benefit.
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On October 19 2014 09:59 oneofthem wrote:
it is fear mongering with no benefit.
Except that people still have the right to know what's in their food. I don't really care about GM products for the most part (there are some serious problems with some genetic engineering, particularly in the instances where domesticated stocks can and do breed into wild populations), but if I wanted to know how it's made that information should be available.
Do you trust that people are capable of making rational, informed decisions? Well, you have to inform them, one way or the other, in order for them to be able to do so.
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On October 19 2014 09:59 oneofthem wrote:
it is fear mongering with no benefit.
Yo pass all that shiz, yes please thank you very much. In every state. Hype up the fear mongering as well.
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Gots to bring the price of premium wild Alaska seafood up more baby. Benifits me. 
Edit: All jokes aside, it clearly benefits all food producers who don't use gmo's. Whether that is overall a benefit for society is a different question entirely though.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
merely having a GMO label is not informative unless you have some general phobia for all GMO. having specific labels will be ok for particularly problematic features of specific GMO crops, but you have to prove these facts. this general GMO labeling is pure fear mongering precisely because the purported informative content is actually not all that informative, except for its general phobia effect.
just to make an analogy, suppose we have a group of people who believe products made by jews are unclean and of severe damnation effect if consumed. these people demand a label on goods to indicate whether it is made by jews (a factual matter, seems to satisfy information), but in looking at this situation you would have to establish a relevancy/actual harm standard on the information. i don't see a general GMO label passing this test.
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That analogy is completely out of place. There is no evidence that genetically modified food poses health risks at the moment but the idea in itself is not as absurd as your food being dangerous because Jews made it. Altering your food genetically may as well have averse effects at some point.
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There's quite a few countries where labeling for traces of nuts etc is mandatory. Now i personally don't give a shit about this specific label, since nuts etc don't affect me in any way, but the people who are affected appreciate that very much.
I'd agree that a "generic GMO label" is dumb, but as long as not every single genetically altered crop is tested thoroughly (including long-term), it's good enough. I don't want genetically manipulated food in my diet. In germany, we basically have that label already. The only exception is meat/eggs/milk from "normal" cows etc that were fed manipulated food (even though it has a paragraph that says this only applies if the animal wasn't fed manipulated food a certain amount of time before slaughtering). Every other food-item that is manipulated, or is made with manipulated ingredients etc. etc. has to be labeled (edit2: or in case of loose potatoes etc, has to have a label highly visible next to it).
I don't see the harm in that either, to be honest. In the end, the label is for the consumer, not for the companies. If they fear less income due to this label, well, .. seems easy enough to prevent: don't sell GMOs.
edit: not to mention, if you label for people to be careful because the exhaust might be hot(!!), and other dumb stuff.. This should be a no brainer. The only reason not to label is simply because you're scared that people don't buy your manipulated stuff (even though unmanipulated things would go up in price, most likely). Downside: it only takes one person to sue successfully, and i've seen dumber lawsuits in the US. To me that sounds like the recipe for a big lawsuit.
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On October 19 2014 12:57 m4ini wrote:
There's quite a few countries where labeling for traces of nuts etc is mandatory. Now i personally don't give a shit about this specific label, since nuts etc don't affect me in any way, but the people who are affected appreciate that very much.
I'd agree that a "generic GMO label" is dumb, but as long as not every single genetically altered crop is tested thoroughly (including long-term), it's good enough. I don't want genetically manipulated food in my diet. In germany, we basically have that label already. The only exception is meat/eggs/milk from "normal" cows etc that were fed manipulated food (even though it has a paragraph that says this only applies if the animal wasn't fed manipulated food a certain amount of time before slaughtering). Every other food-item that is manipulated, or is made with manipulated ingredients etc. etc. has to be labeled (edit2: or in case of loose potatoes etc, has to have a label highly visible next to it).
I don't see the harm in that either, to be honest. In the end, the label is for the consumer, not for the companies. If they fear less income due to this label, well, .. seems easy enough to prevent: don't sell GMOs.
edit: not to mention, if you label for people to be careful because the exhaust might be hot(!!), and other dumb stuff.. This should be a no brainer. The only reason not to label is simply because you're scared that people don't buy your manipulated stuff (even though unmanipulated things would go up in price, most likely). Downside: it only takes one person to sue successfully, and i've seen dumber lawsuits in the US. To me that sounds like the recipe for a big lawsuit.
Except labeling comes with a set of restrictions and regulations that cost the government, producers, and consumers money. For something that seems so incredibly harmless by every measure so far, it looks like a burden that could be avoided. Also, labeling things as hot or dangerous is meant for caution, as a warning. Are you going to tell me you have evidence that people are in danger if they eat GMO foods?
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United States44012 Posts
They could want labelling in order to more effectively exercise their choice to spend their money on other products that are not GM. That's both reasonable and doesn't require scientific evidence to back it up. If I were trying to boycott Nestle then I'd want Nestle products to have Nestle written on them somewhere, even if I was boycotting them for dumb reasons.
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Also, pretty much any foodstuff you can buy has a list of ingredients printed on it. This is neither new nor weird. Specifying that further to also identify if the stuff in there is GM, or comes from slave workers in some mine in africa (This should be on pretty much anything involving diamonds for example) is generally a good idea. Informing consumers is good. The less ability companies have to hide things, the less shady they are, which is good for everyone, as many companies have proven time and time again that unless they are forced to reveal exactly how they do things, they will choose the cheapest way ignoring all other factors.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
let's be serious. this label will generate irrational fear, has no value whatsoever regarding the econo-ecology of agriculture. the amount of labeling caution displayed here is disproportionate to the danger.
the danger btw is way closer to jews made it than hot blowtorch.
the analogy was directed at the simple 'deserve to know' argument. a general, always on label requires more than that. it can be argued to create the perception of danger where none exists.
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If being GMO is relevant to consumers, isn't it enough that non-GMO products are allowed to label themselves so?
Seems to me the initiative is more about making more people care about GMOs than informing the consumers who already care.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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On October 19 2014 13:55 KwarK wrote:
They could want labelling in order to more effectively exercise their choice to spend their money on other products that are not GM. That's both reasonable and doesn't require scientific evidence to back it up. If I were trying to boycott Nestle then I'd want Nestle products to have Nestle written on them somewhere, even if I was boycotting them for dumb reasons.
That's reasonable, but doesn't require mandatory labeling of GMO. Optional labeling of Non-GMO, like organic, would work. The agenda here is clearly to hurt the profits of GMO products, either by increasing costs through diligence in labeling their products and derivatives, and/or decreasing prices by making their products less desirable.
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we must protect gmo-profits by protecting the commonfolk from their own ignorance.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
or learn to separate the issues.
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the non-gmo agenda, exposing the commonfolk to the commonfolk ignorance, will succeed, causing panic and even worse: irrational abstention of gmo-food purchases.
the commonfolk should not be calling the shots, or a new kristallnacht is right around the corner.
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Follow the money; the organic lobby is present in a large way in every single state in which GMO labeling is being pushed through, with Vermont and California, the two states in which the labeling measure has generated the greatest fervor, being literal epicenters of the organics industry.
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EPT
