Whistle Where You Work #28 - Genetically Engineered Food; WikiLeaks

Genetically modified food has been part of the American diet for several years -- and it's everywhere. 85 percent of U.S. corn and 91 percent of U.S. soybeans are genetically engineered. It's estimated that 70 percent of all processed foods at American supermarkets contain genetically engineered ingredients. Now, a company is Massachusetts says it is close to receiving FDA approval to start selling genetically modified salmon -- which would be the first transgenic animal sold in America for consumption.

But critics argue that we simply don't know enough about the consequences of genetically modified food to approve its consumption, and some public interest groups are even considering lawsuits to stop the sale of the salmon if the FDA approves it. What are the public health issues involved with genetically modified foods? What are the current regulations/legislation covering this new technology? What are the problems involved with genetically engineered fish escaping into the wild (from farms)? And shouldn't consumers have the right to know these products are created this way?

Guests include Patty Lovera from Food & Water Watch, and Eric Hoffman from Friends of the Earth.

Then, WWYW turned to the controversial whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which has made national headlines with its posting of hundreds of thousands of classified materials, including Collateral Murder -- a video from a helicopter which documents Iraqi civilians being killed by U.S. forces. The U.S. government takes the view that WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning (accused of releasing the video), and Julian Assange (WikiLeaks' founder) irresponsibly and dangerously reveal sensitive information. Others point out that there are no "proper" channels to release information, and a lack of appropriate legal protections for national security whistleblowers will inevitably lead to more releases of this nature.

GAP's Homeland & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack discusses WikiLeaks, as well as the cases of Bradley Manning and Thomas Drake -- two national security whistleblowers who are being prosecuted by their own government.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Genetically modified food
• FDA
• genetic modification
• salmon
• WikiLeaks
• Homeland Security
• Human Rights
• Classification
• Tom Drake
• Bradley Manning

[GovAcctProjTV]

Regarding journalism concerns: WWYW is a television show produced by GAP (stated in Mark's title and the GAP ad). GAP staff members are not journalists. Rather, GAP is an advocacy group and Mark here is advocating for stronger whistleblower rights and protections.

[chili40m]

The bottom line is, just about every farmer in the US A, were paid and instructed by the FDA, not to grow healthy FOODS,why? because, the American Doctors are sponsoring the FDA to control all natural herbs from healing people,also benefiting from our insurances,at the same time." therefore,serves the purposes for decreasing the American's populations." Reason so, because the Govt. wanna control the wealth of the lands for themselves, Both, foods and economics.Plus! lived off Americans benefits

[TheDaikashido]

apparently when farmers offer genetically modified or regular feed to their cows, the cows reject the GM everytime. In the case of the salmon, there is NO way to prevent the transgene from crossing to the wild population.. Permaculture growing practices outperform GM, gm is not only not needed but it promotes a style of agriculture that is incredibly harmful to the environment and the human genome

[permacultureli]

and nature will test every mutation for thousands of years...or hundreds of generations...we are not doing that....we do not see past the immediate profit.

[franky30000]

i liked that woman