That's The San Francisco Chronicle on the mission of the Organic Consumers
Association
<http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activistcash/index.cfm?ORG_ID=20> (OCA),
now protesting at Starbucks restaurants in 300 U.S. cities. OCA head Ronnie
Cummins <http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activistcash/index.cfm?BIO_ID=1431>
's strategy "has worked before. In November, Trader Joe's, a billion-dollar
upscale grocery chain 'capitulated,' in Cummins words, and pulled all
products" containing genetically improved ingredients.

To force a Starbucks "surrender" and take the anti-biotech battle to larger
fronts, Cummins and his group "spread false fears about safe foods," says
the American Council on Science and Health
<http://www.acsh.org/press/releases/warning022502.html> :
"Anti-biotechnology activists engaged in a week of 'direct action' at
Starbucks Coffee shops this week aim to target you over the next few days
with false and misleading information… Like the misleading Alar in apples
scare <http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=66> ,
activists often use products associated with children -- like milk and ice
cream -- and falsely link these products with horrible ills such as cancer
to evoke the greatest fear…

"In 1989 environmental activists and their public relations firm Fenton
Communications
<http://www.consumerfreedom.com/activistcash/index.cfm?ORG_ID=110> claimed
that the use of the plant growth regulator Alar by apple growers was causing
cancer in children… The claims made national headlines… They turned out to
be false… Today, more than a decade later, the same public relations firm
and the same activists are in Seattle and at local corner coffee shops
across the country spreading false fears.

"Biotechnology helps farmers produce more safe and nutritious food, using
less land and less input. This is good for consumers, good for the
environment and good for farmers-misleading fear campaigns, on the other
hand, are not."

Glossing Over Schlosser
Copley News Service ran a puff piece on Fast Food Nation author Eric
Schlosser this week, letting the muckraking meat-basher rant about
everything from meatpacking to immigration policy. Schlosser sounds more
like a B-grade horror flick actor than a journalist when he exclaims: "There
is this instinct that I encounter, which is, 'What about me? What am I
eating when I eat a burger? What's in the French fries? What's going to
happen to me?" (That's not too surprising: "Schlosser does not have a long
history as an independent… investigative journalist. Until eight years ago,
he worked in the film industry," Copley reports.)

Want to learn more about the real Eric Schlosser? Read our op-ed "Fast Food
Nation Book is Full of Fluff
<http://www.consumerfreedom.com/oped_detail.cfm?OPED_ID=138> ," available
exclusively at ConsumerFreedom.com