PrepTest C2, Section 3, Question 17
Environmentalist: The United Kingdom recently instituted a law requiring that foods containing genetically altered ingredients be labeled accordingly. Food producers, fearing that consumers would understand the labels as warnings and thus avoid their products, rushed to rid those products of genetically altered ingredients. Other countries contemplating such labeling should therefore refrain, because many crops are genetically altered to be pest resistant; loss of demand for these genetically altered crops would necessitate production alternatives, all of which are dangerous and pesticide intensive.
Environmentalist: The United Kingdom recently instituted a law requiring that foods containing genetically altered ingredients be labeled accordingly. Food producers, fearing that consumers would understand the labels as warnings and thus avoid their products, rushed to rid those products of genetically altered ingredients. Other countries contemplating such labeling should therefore refrain, because many crops are genetically altered to be pest resistant; loss of demand for these genetically altered crops would necessitate production alternatives, all of which are dangerous and pesticide intensive.
Environmentalist: The United Kingdom recently instituted a law requiring that foods containing genetically altered ingredients be labeled accordingly. Food producers, fearing that consumers would understand the labels as warnings and thus avoid their products, rushed to rid those products of genetically altered ingredients. Other countries contemplating such labeling should therefore refrain, because many crops are genetically altered to be pest resistant; loss of demand for these genetically altered crops would necessitate production alternatives, all of which are dangerous and pesticide intensive.
Environmentalist: The United Kingdom recently instituted a law requiring that foods containing genetically altered ingredients be labeled accordingly. Food producers, fearing that consumers would understand the labels as warnings and thus avoid their products, rushed to rid those products of genetically altered ingredients. Other countries contemplating such labeling should therefore refrain, because many crops are genetically altered to be pest resistant; loss of demand for these genetically altered crops would necessitate production alternatives, all of which are dangerous and pesticide intensive.
Which one of the following is an assumption on which the environmentalist's argument depends?
In general, people interpret labels stating that some food ingredients are genetically altered as warnings.
Before the United Kingdom instituted a law requiring that foods containing genetically altered ingredients be labeled as such, almost all foods sold there contained genetically altered ingredients.
The reactions of food producers in other countries to laws requiring labeling of foods containing genetically altered ingredients are likely to be similar to the reactions of food producers in the United Kingdom.
Warning labels on food products have proven to be effective in reducing consumption of those products.
Countries that institute new food labeling regulations often experience a change in consumer eating habits.
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