Remember that a majority of our veggies and fruit are coming from south of the border and only God knows what they spray on them.
A lot of it is pesticides and chemicals that are NOT allowed to be used on crops in the US (because of their toxicity), but are sold to Mexico and other countries--by Monsanto in particular--and end up getting into our food system anyway when the produce comes into our markets. (though I'm not sure it's the 'majority' of our produce?)
Laura, there are many reasons to avoid bioengineered food (which is not the same as hybridized food).
For one , we simply don't have enough knowledge of the effects on these foods on humans in the long run.
Secondly, companies patent bioengineered foods which means they 'own' the food and can control how it is used;
Monsanto (again) has tried to sue farmers with farms adjacent to those in which their bioengineered crops grow when those crops spread on their own.
Also, companies build in a genetic code in many of these foods that makes the seeds of the second-generation plants sterile, which causes farmers in poorer countries, who traditionally saved seeds from one crop to plant the following year, to go into poverty because they can no longer do that and have to keep buying new seeds.
The consequences of the genetic information from these engineered seeds combining with other plants are not fully understood. In one instance, the pest resistance of engineered soy (I think it was) affected other plants (milkweed?) that certain butterflies use for food and killed them. (And I'd rather have poo again than eat a food that is engineered to be its own pesticide, which is pretty much what is happening.)
Genetically engineeered produce can be lower in certain phytochemicals which plants produce partly in reaction to attack by pests, as their own natural defense, which in humans have beneficial effects, such as acting as a defense against free radicals.
Biodiversity is very important, if only for the fact that the less diversity there is, the much greater chance there is of a disease wiping out an entire species of plant.
I don't see how the choice as being between pesticides and poo (though I'll take poo over pesticides)? In fact, I don't really see your reasoning there. Salmonella contamination had nothing to do with pesticides use or lack of it, but all to do with animal agriculture (as was already mentioned, the outbreak was tied to run-off from a factory farm...and the spinach involved was primarity non-organic spinach that WAS treated with pesticides and chemicals).
Yes, food safety is very important, but there are many ways of achieving it. I agree that if this bill is something that is supported by Monsanto (a company only out for profit with no real concern for human health---otherwise I don't see how they would continue to produce carcinogenic and mutagenic pesticides and sell them to other countries) I would be very wary of it.
