tion
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In its statement on gene editing, VLOG says unequivocally that these new techniques are “genetic modification” procedures. It says that gene-edited products fall under the EU’s GMO legislation and as such should be subjected to testing and risk assessment. "...
Open post at 'See More' below photo.
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In its statement on gene editing, VLOG says unequivocally that these new techniques are “genetic modification” procedures. It says that gene-edited products fall under the EU’s GMO legislation and as such should be subjected to testing and risk assessment. "...
Open post at 'See More' below photo.
Carol Garnier Dutra
" German GMO-free industry body says gene-edited foods are GMOs
Published 23 December 2016"...
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..." In Europe the GMO label has become the equivalent of a skull-and-crossbones for many retail sectors and shoppers, resulting in a situation where GM ingredients are rarely used in food meant for human consumption. Pro-GMO lobbyists hope that a new wave of “gene-edited” plants and animals will escape GMO labelling and enter the food supply unnoticed and unopposed. They have even dubbed the new techniques “new plant breeding techniques” (NPBTs) in an apparent attempt to avoid the unpopular “GM word”.
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Published 23 December 2016"...
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..." In Europe the GMO label has become the equivalent of a skull-and-crossbones for many retail sectors and shoppers, resulting in a situation where GM ingredients are rarely used in food meant for human consumption. Pro-GMO lobbyists hope that a new wave of “gene-edited” plants and animals will escape GMO labelling and enter the food supply unnoticed and unopposed. They have even dubbed the new techniques “new plant breeding techniques” (NPBTs) in an apparent attempt to avoid the unpopular “GM word”.
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But these attempts look increasingly unlikely to succeed as legal experts, scientists, NGOs, and the US National Organic Standards Board have stated their view that gene editing gives rise to GMOs.
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This view has now gained support from what is apparently the first food industry body to weigh in on the new GM techniques. VLOG, the German industry association representing food manufacturers and retailers that advocate food production without GMOs, has issued a hard-hitting position statement saying that the products of new gene editing techniques are GMOs and must be regulated as such.
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Gene-edited products fall under EU GMO legislation
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In its statement on gene editing, VLOG says unequivocally that these new techniques are “genetic modification” procedures. It says that gene-edited products fall under the EU’s GMO legislation and as such should be subjected to testing and risk assessment.
.
.
Gene-edited products fall under EU GMO legislation
.
In its statement on gene editing, VLOG says unequivocally that these new techniques are “genetic modification” procedures. It says that gene-edited products fall under the EU’s GMO legislation and as such should be subjected to testing and risk assessment.
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VLOG adds that “strict regulations for these new genetic engineering procedures are indispensable” because “Currently it cannot be assessed to what extent the individual procedures or products that originate from them can be considered safe”.
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VLOG also believes that the products of these new techniques must be labelled as GMOs, otherwise “transparency and free choice for consumers, and protection of GMO-free agriculture and food products cannot be ensured”.
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VLOG further states, “Organisms exempt from regulation cannot be monitored and cannot, in an emergency, be withdrawn from the environment and the food chains. The abundance of genetically modified organisms to be expected can quickly create a situation in which an extensive loss of control by the authorities and in the food industry could occur while the precautionary principle would be abrogated.”
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GMWatch welcomes VLOG’s position statement and encourages other industry bodies to respect scientific reality and EU legislation and follow suit in calling gene-edited products what they undoubtedly are: GMOs.
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More about VLOG
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VLOG awards licences for the “Ohne GenTechnik” (“produced without genetic engineering”) seal used on food products. It currently represents more than 450 members and licensees, primarily from Germany, which represent combined annual sales exceeding 182 billion Euros. More than 4,500 food products are promoted with the “Ohne GenTechnik” seal.
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More about VLOG
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VLOG awards licences for the “Ohne GenTechnik” (“produced without genetic engineering”) seal used on food products. It currently represents more than 450 members and licensees, primarily from Germany, which represent combined annual sales exceeding 182 billion Euros. More than 4,500 food products are promoted with the “Ohne GenTechnik” seal.
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The non-GMO sector is continuing to grow in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. Alexander Hissting, general manager of VLOG, told the online magazine Feed Navigator, “In 2017, we’ll see a clear continuation of the development in the German dairy sector towards more non-GMO production. In 2016, we saw the big move by Lidl offering only ‘Ohne Gentechnik’ under its own brand Germany-wide and all other retailers trying to follow suit.” "
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http://www.gmwatch.org/…/17385-german-gmo-free-industry-bod…
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Same standard for the United States. New gene-edited foods will NOT be included into ORGANIC. They are GMO.
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..." This recommendation to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program will ensure that ingredients derived from new genetic engineering techniques, including synthetic biology, will not be allowed in the production or final product of foods and beverages that are certified organic. "...
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http://www.foe.org/…/2016-11-organic-standards-will-exclude…
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http://www.gmwatch.org/…/17385-german-gmo-free-industry-bod…
-----------------------------------
Same standard for the United States. New gene-edited foods will NOT be included into ORGANIC. They are GMO.
.
..." This recommendation to the US Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program will ensure that ingredients derived from new genetic engineering techniques, including synthetic biology, will not be allowed in the production or final product of foods and beverages that are certified organic. "...
.
http://www.foe.org/…/2016-11-organic-standards-will-exclude…
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MY COMMENT: Both the GM produced Tryptophan that killed some people, and the 'Flavr Savr' tomato were quietly removed from the market place.
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Because of the 'Flavr Savr' tomato disaster we do not have a GM tomato in the market place today, and we do NOT need any GM tomatoes.
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Try to Imagine the gut pain people endured from the 'Flavr Savr' tomato before it was removed from the market place. Again, it was our own government that did not tell anyone what was going on. Inste...
See More.
Because of the 'Flavr Savr' tomato disaster we do not have a GM tomato in the market place today, and we do NOT need any GM tomatoes.
.
Try to Imagine the gut pain people endured from the 'Flavr Savr' tomato before it was removed from the market place. Again, it was our own government that did not tell anyone what was going on. Inste...
Carol Garnier Dutra
Drucker - Post 2
..." The Problems Linked to the First GE Whole Food Were Also Covered Up "...
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"Independent Science News...
See More.
"Independent Science News...
MY COMMENT: Serotonin is synthesized in our guts from the amino acid Tryptophan. Glyphosate inhibits the production of the amino acid Tryptophan in both plants and in our guts. Monsanto put the GM amino acid Tryptophan into the market place because Monsanto was aware that Glyphosate residues INSIDE GM foods were destroying our bodies ability to manufacturer our normal amount of Tryptophan in our guts. What Monsanto replaced 'normal' Tryptophan with, made many people suffer ho...
See More
Carol Garnier Dutra
Drucker - Post 1
..." The Disaster Caused by GE’s First Edible Product Was Obfuscated "...
(was concealed from the public)
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"Independent Science News...
See More..." The Disaster Caused by GE’s First Edible Product Was Obfuscated "...
(was concealed from the public)
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"Independent Science News...
RECENT ACTIVITY
J-20, Take Action! Join Hawaii statewide and nationwide protests organized for Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2017
“It is time to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and the world that sustains us. Our lives + futures depend on it.”
J-20 web site,
https://www.hawaii-j20.com/
https://www.hawaii-j20.com/
Let us know if you or your group are participating at
https://www.hawaii-j20.com/connect/
https://www.hawaii-j20.com/connect/
Please join University of Hawaii at Manoa Faculty and Students, and a coalition of activist groups to organize around J-20. Please let us know if you or your group would like to participate as part of the statewide activities.
“On Friday, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States. It must be made clear to the whole world that the vast majority of people in the U.S. do not support his presidency or consent to his agenda. Trump and his appointees stand in opposition to the values we embrace as residents of Hawai‘i nei. We will never support fascism and we will not sit idly by as the institutions of democracy are destroyed.”
Two more until we get 500!
Spread this like wild fire, and we'll pass a health care bill in Hawaii that:
1. Enables seniors to find doctors in Hawaii who will accept Medicare. Currently, many doctors are refusing to accept Medicare.
2. Ends co pay and deductibles on YOUR health care plan.
3. Lowers the cost of every ones plan.
4. Ensures that your plan COVERS you fully in the event of a serious illness.
Check our FB Group:https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthcareforallhawaii/ to learn all of the details.
Look for our meeting this December 22 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at The BoxJelly Coworking. We will live stream it.
Aloha!
#hawaii
#honolulu
#waikiki
#hawaiigov
#hawaiihealthcare
#kupuna
#seniors
#singlepayer
#thepeoplescongress
#thepeoplescongresshawaii
#labor
#unions
#honolulu
#waikiki
#hawaiigov
#hawaiihealthcare
#kupuna
#seniors
#singlepayer
#thepeoplescongress
#thepeoplescongresshawaii
#labor
#unions
This is a paper Dr. Kemble wrote in 2015 to Gov Ige:
Why the Ige Administration Should Empower the Hawaii Health Authority
July, 2015
July, 2015
More money is being wasted and there are more potential savings in health care than anywhere else in the State budget – by far!
The prevailing rationale for health transformation, including the rationale driving the reforms under the Affordable Care Act and the Abercrombie administration’s Health Transformation Initiative, is flat out wrong – especially in Hawaii.
We have a privatized Medicaid managed care system that relies on extensive obstructions to care and that is wasting large amounts of money on unnecessary, ineffective, and counter-productive attempts at bureaucratic “management,” while physician participation has been declining and ER and hospital usage and costs have been rising dramatically.
We are attempting to meet the “Triple Aim” goals (improved quality of care, improved population health, and reduced cost) by pushing health care providers to organize into competing “Accountable Care Organizations” (ACO’s) and attempting to manage health care with extensive, detailed, computerized health information and pay-for-performance incentives. So far, these strategies are having the effect of markedly increasing administrative burdens and costs for health plans, hospitals, and doctors. Health insurance premiums have escalated sharply in the past 5-6 years, while we are losing doctors at an accelerating pace.
Competing health plans are the wrong model for cost-effective financing of health care. The primary driver of competition that determines the financial success or failure of a health plan is to secure a healthier than average risk pool and avoid covering or paying for sicker patients and populations. When individuals choose their health plan, such as in Medicaid and in the individual market under the Exchange, then a competing plan that actually does a better job of serving the needs of patients will quickly attract sicker subscribers, driving up cost. Competition drives a “race to the bottom” to avoid being too attractive to the sick.
In reality, the health policy evidence says that the most cost-effective model for health care delivery is not an ACO, but something much closer to what we had in Hawaii 10-20 years ago. We had the best benefits, the broadest coverage, and among the lowest per capita health insurance costs in the country. For the physician sector of health care, the most cost-effective model is small 1-5 physician practices, with or without computers, being paid with a simplified form of fee-for-service with no pay-for-performance incentives, and with adequate physician supply and distribution so that everyone has access to primary care and needed specialty care.
Government agencies such as MedQUEST, public housing, General Assistance, and SNAP (food stamps) have become infected with the mentality that we need to restrict benefits and eligibility and weed out the undeserving to “save money.” The problem is that restricting benefits and eligibility does not restrict health problems, which then show up in more expensive forms as complications and in our emergency rooms and hospitals. We all end up paying more due to these misguided attempts at “savings.” This is exactly what happened when MedQUEST cut most dental benefits, with proof-of compliance requirements for General Assistance benefits, with the now abandoned “limited benefit” QUEST-ACE and QUEST-NET programs, and most recently with the COFA population since they were switched from Medicaid to the Exchange.
We need a new philosophy and rationale for health and human services. Let’s start by assuring necessary services for everyone who needs them. Then ask, “How can these services be delivered as cost-effectively as possible?” This must include health care and also programs to address the social determinants of health, including housing, food, shelter, and community support services for the disabled and elderly.
Instead of starting by protecting the interests of existing “stakeholders” that are currently adding cost without value, we need to design programs from the ground up to meet community needs, based on the most cost-effective models that have been proven in practice, both in Hawaii and elsewhere.
This approach of assuring needed services combined with “ground-up” cost-effective program design could achieve very significant improvement in the health of our population and large reductions in cost. We need to stop pursuing unproven, counter-productive reform ideas, or the outcome will be continued failure to achieve any of the goals of reform – on a massive scale. Getting this right is crucial to the success of ACA waivers for 2017, a process that must be finalized before the 2016 legislative session.
According to Hawaii Revised Statutes:
§322H-2 Hawaii health authority; duties and responsibilities.
(a) The authority shall be responsible for overall health planning for the State and shall be responsible for determining future capacity needs for health providers, facilities, equipment, and support services providers.
(b) The authority shall develop a comprehensive health plan that includes:
(1) Establishment of eligibility for inclusion in a health plan for all individuals;
(2) Determination of all reimbursable services to be paid by the authority;
(3) Determination of all approved providers of services in a health plan for all individuals;
(4) Evaluation of health care and cost effectiveness of all aspects of a health plan for all individuals; and
(5) Establishment of a budget for a health plan for all individuals in the State.
(c) The authority shall determine the waivers that are necessary and available by federal law, rule, or regulation necessary to implement and maintain this chapter.
(a) The authority shall be responsible for overall health planning for the State and shall be responsible for determining future capacity needs for health providers, facilities, equipment, and support services providers.
(b) The authority shall develop a comprehensive health plan that includes:
(1) Establishment of eligibility for inclusion in a health plan for all individuals;
(2) Determination of all reimbursable services to be paid by the authority;
(3) Determination of all approved providers of services in a health plan for all individuals;
(4) Evaluation of health care and cost effectiveness of all aspects of a health plan for all individuals; and
(5) Establishment of a budget for a health plan for all individuals in the State.
(c) The authority shall determine the waivers that are necessary and available by federal law, rule, or regulation necessary to implement and maintain this chapter.
If the Ige administration is truly concerned for the public good and for the integrity of the State budget, then the Hawaii Health Authority should be empowered to do its job as stated under Hawaii law.
Addendum on the status of ACO’s and Pay-for-Performance
The assumption is that the problem with US health care cost is that there is a whole lot of unnecessary care driven by fee-for-service incentives. Therefore, the proposed solution is to get rid of fee-for-service and organize doctors and hospitals into Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) that take on insurance risk, so that they are rewarded financially by reducing unnecessary care, presumably making care delivery more efficient and cost-effective. This requires detailed data on what physicians do, that becomes the basis for establishing quality metrics that are used to guide efforts to improve quality and identify and root out unnecessary care.
There are huge problems with this formulation of the problem and its proposed solution.
In Hawaii, there isn’t a lot of unnecessary care!!! We have had the lowest per-capita Medicare expenditures in the country and we have a low rate of procedures.
If there isn’t a lot of unnecessary care driven by fee-for-service, then the only way an ACO can save money is by skimping on necessary care or by excluding sicker, more complex patients from their covered population.
The area where there is unnecessary care in Hawaii is in excessive ER and hospital usage for those who don’t have access to outpatient care, such as on the neighbor islands, among the Medicaid population, and the Micronesian immigrants who were recently pushed from Medicaid into the Health Connector exchange, effectively torpedoing the exchange.
The Medicaid population is already being managed by Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) that obstruct care at every turn. Plans are already in the works to reward and punish doctors financially if their patients do or don’t meet quality metrics, and the sicker and poorer their patients, the more the risk to the doctor’s “quality” scores. These policies are having the effect of driving doctors out of Medicaid.
“Value based” contracting requires extensive, expensive computerized data gathering and establishment of valid quality metrics. Most of health care, and especially for primary care, is too complex to be measured and managed in this way, so the metrics anyone can come up with either lack validity or are too narrow to matter much. What we get is a lot of gaming of documentation to meet metrics, and doctors are still incentivized to avoid sicker, more complex patients who might bring down their “quality” scores. Doctors are now spending much more of their time paying attention to their computers instead of their patients, to the detriment of actual quality of care. Due to widespread gaming of documentation, the metrics also lose whatever limited validity they might have had.
The majority of the “Pioneer” ACO’s are losing money, and this is especially true for those in areas that were “low cost” to begin with, such as in Hawaii.
If there isn’t a lot of unnecessary care driven by fee-for-service, then the only way an ACO can save money is by skimping on necessary care or by excluding sicker, more complex patients from their covered population.
The area where there is unnecessary care in Hawaii is in excessive ER and hospital usage for those who don’t have access to outpatient care, such as on the neighbor islands, among the Medicaid population, and the Micronesian immigrants who were recently pushed from Medicaid into the Health Connector exchange, effectively torpedoing the exchange.
The Medicaid population is already being managed by Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) that obstruct care at every turn. Plans are already in the works to reward and punish doctors financially if their patients do or don’t meet quality metrics, and the sicker and poorer their patients, the more the risk to the doctor’s “quality” scores. These policies are having the effect of driving doctors out of Medicaid.
“Value based” contracting requires extensive, expensive computerized data gathering and establishment of valid quality metrics. Most of health care, and especially for primary care, is too complex to be measured and managed in this way, so the metrics anyone can come up with either lack validity or are too narrow to matter much. What we get is a lot of gaming of documentation to meet metrics, and doctors are still incentivized to avoid sicker, more complex patients who might bring down their “quality” scores. Doctors are now spending much more of their time paying attention to their computers instead of their patients, to the detriment of actual quality of care. Due to widespread gaming of documentation, the metrics also lose whatever limited validity they might have had.
The majority of the “Pioneer” ACO’s are losing money, and this is especially true for those in areas that were “low cost” to begin with, such as in Hawaii.
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