© organicconsumers.org
Monsanto found an ally in Dan Morain at the Sacramento Bee who tried to find fault with the CA Right to Know/Label GMOs coalition. Here are Morain's points, along with our rebuttal.
#1 "Although there's no proof that genetically modified food has caused anyone's nose to fall off, labeling is not a terribly bad idea. People like to know what they're eating."Guided by common sense, Dan Morain can't help but to agree with us.
But, then he lets Monsanto's spin distract him from the simple fact that GMO labels protect our right-to-know...
#2 The CA Right to Know/Label GMOs coalition consists of "[r]ich people with a cause [who] cannot seem to resist inflicting their world views on California politics."The CA Right to Know/Label GMOs coalition consists primarily of non-profit sustainable agriculture organizations, as well as natural, organic and non-GMO businesses, many of whom are based in CA, and all of whom have a large base of members and customers in California.
#3 Voters should decide whether or not to support the Label GMOs initiative based on what they think of $500,000 donor Dr. Joseph Mercola, "an osteopath who lives in suburban Chicago and runs a website, Mercola.com, which promotes his alternative, though generally unproven, health-related products and ideas."We're very proud to have the financial and educational support of Dr. Mercola, and we encourage everyone interested in learning more about natural health and the potential health impacts of consuming genetically engineered food to visit Mercola.com. But, that's not what this initiative is about. It's about the right to know. All we want are labels.
#4 The initiative would open farmers and food producers to litigation.This isn't about farmers. It's about packers and processors. Packers and processors have to follow labeling laws.
It isn't about litigation, either. Consumers already have the right to sue to enforce California's food labeling laws. This initiative can't change that one way or the other. All it can change is what gets labeled. Again, 9 out of 10 people think GMOs should be labeled.
#5 "The initiative wording is ambiguous and could be interpreted to bar companies from calling any product "natural" if it has been subject to 'processing such as canning, smoking, pressing, cooking, freezing, dehydration, fermentation or milling.'"Morain thought he had a clever way to undermine support for the initiative proposition that GMO foods should not be marketed as "natural." He took a talking point straight from Monsanto's playbook - only he didn't get the point.
What spokespersons for Monsanto and the agricultural biotech industry usually say is, to require labels on virtually all processed foods as possibly containing GMOs, because of widespread use of genetically modified soy, corn, canola, cotton, sugar beet and alfalfa seed, amounts to meaningless disclosure. Morain must not understand what genetic engineering is. He heard that "virtually all processed foods" would have to be labeled and somehow he figured this was because of the way they were processed. Morain doesn't get that almost all processed foods contain ingredients that are genetically engineered.
If everyone knew that all the processed food they were eating contains GMOs, labels would be meaningless, but in the United States, a country where virtually everyone is eating GMOs, only about one quarter of the population is aware of it. In this context GMO labels are anything but meaningless.
#6 "[H]umans have been modifying crops for 10,000 years. Durham wheat, Asian pears, domesticated cattle and many other commodities would not exist without some sort of engineering. Of course, genetic engineering and irradiation are different from cross-breeding of days past. But in very real ways, [professor Martina Newell-McGloughlin, director of Life & Health Sciences Research Development in the UC Davis Office of Research] said, new techniques are much more controlled. 'This is tested so thoroughly,' Newell-McGloughlin said.Again, the CA Right to Know/Label GMOs initiative isn't about the merits of GMOs. If genetic engineering is so great, its proponents should agree that food labels are a good idea. Of course, the fact is that Monsanto and the other agricultural biotech companies don't want you to know about GMOs in your food because they don't want you to wonder whether it's safe.
Newell-McGloughlin's statement that "[t]his is tested so thoroughly," would lead the reader to believe that independent scientists who work for public research institutions are carefully safety testing each new GMO before it enters our food. On the contrary, the government's policy that there is "no material difference" between GMOs and normal foods obviated the need for review. Companies that want to market new GMOs don't have to prove that they're safe, only that they are similar to normal foods - and they get to do their own research.
Comment: For a more in depth look at the issue of companies wanting to market new GMO foods without proper safety approvals read the following articles:
Monsanto: 'There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans'
There is a growing body of scientific evidence which proves that genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are inherently different from natural organisms, including the way the body processes them, as well as how the immune system responds to them. But Monsanto, the largest purveyor of GMOs in the world, believes that GMOs are no different than natural organisms, and that GMO testing is both needless and valueless...New GMO Food Additives To Be Introduced Without Full Safety Appraisal
Monsanto does not actually care about science, though, and has actually made it a point to just arbitrarily deny the need for actual GMO testing in humans to prove its claims. In concluding its unsubstantiated diatribe about why human testing of GMOs is unnecessary, the agri-giant says there is simply "no need, or value" in testing the safety of GMOs - in other words, if Monsanto says they are safe, then they are safe!
The fact that anyone considers this blind, self-serving declaration to be scientifically sound is frightening in and of itself, let alone the fact that the US government openly approves of such nonsense and has used it to form food policy. To put it more simply, GMOs have never been properly safety tested in humans because Monsanto does not feel it is necessary, and most of those in control of food policy are perfectly content with this.
The following articles provide additional information about GMO's and their associated health risks:
What's to Know About GMO?
Explained: What Are GMOs?
Why We Need Mandatory GMO Food Labels
How to Win a GMO Debate: 10 Facts Why Genetically Modified Food is Bad
In the case of GMO salmon, for instance, the applicant, AquaBounty, submitted data to the FDA that showed their genetically engineered salmon was less nutritious, more likely to trigger allergies and had higher levels of a hormone linked to human cancers than normal salmon. The FDA noted this, but concluded that it wasn't different enough from normal salmon to be blocked or even labeled.
But, that discussion isn't even relevant to this issue of GMO labels. Safety tested or not, genetically engineered food should be labeled.
For more information and to volunteer to help collect signatures for the California Ballot Initiative to Label GMOs go to Organic Consumers Fund.
Sacramento Bee removed all the comments from Morain's article. Please contact them and let them know your opinion on this issue.
. . .voting than anything else; voting with one's pocketbook that is.
Monstrous-Ante has its ear firmly to the ground, has had for a long time and, fools' hubris notwithstanding, they surely know what would happen if people actually knew whether they were buying GMO or not.
And based on someone's opinion poll of some population some 90% of people -- do -- want to know.
Now if that poll was of the general population, 90% is a very high percentage so I think that in name of good science the study's particulars need to be illuminated.
It seems to me that in Canada it was about 10 years ago we were advised that we, " . . .didn't need to know what we were eating in respect of GMOs," which of course is simply ridiculous.
And particularly so in view of what happens pretty much across the board to researchers who tell the truth about their GMO-related studies.
So I don't think Mutsanto . . . has a ghost of chance in an election where the ballots are dollar bills . . . Fiat money or not, those ballots get counted.