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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) calls antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.” In the U.S., at least 2 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection every year, and at least 23,000 of those people die, the CDC says.

Antibiotic resistance is a global, and worsening, problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “some types of bacteria that cause serious infections in humans have already developed resistance to most or all of the available treatments, and there are very few promising options in the research pipeline.”

Unfortunately, the tide isn’t turning back. In the U.S., that’s largely because lobbyists for some of the world’s biggest agribusiness corporations have successfully thwarted efforts by Congress to restrict the rampant and reckless use of antibiotics on factory farms.

Nonprofit alleges Twinings’ false claims of “pure” and “100% natural ingredients” on products that contain unnatural herbicide and insecticide residues are misleading to consumers.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - July 9, 2019 - The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) sued Twinings North America, Inc. and its parent company, Associated British Foods PLC, for the deceptive labeling, marketing and sale of Twinings Tea of London products. The suit was filed on behalf of OCA by Richman Law Group, in D.C. Superior Court under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.

“No reasonable consumer who reads the words ‘pure’ and ‘100% natural ingredients,’ whether on Twinings’ packaging or in other advertising or marketing communications, such as the company’s website, would expect those products to contain residues of glyphosate, a synthetic herbicide, and unnatural insecticides,” said Ronnie Cummins, OCA co-founder and international director.

I’m here at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with our allies to deliver the petition signatures we’ve collected so far demanding that the EPA end the use of glyphosate-based herbicides.  (Live video here.)

Even if you’re not here with us, you can help!

First, please submit your comments to the EPA  before midnight on Friday, July 5. Demand that the EPA heed the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cance determination that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.”

Next, sign this petition asking Congress to ban Monsanto-Bayer’s cancer-causing Roundup weedkiller.

There are members of Congress who are ready to join us in pressuring the EPA to conduct an unbiased, scientific review of the evidence that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

We’ve even heard from some of them that they would consider introducing a bill to ban glyphosate--if they heard from enough of their constituents!

I’ll get right to the point.

The fundraising campaign we launched earlier this month is lagging.

Can you make a donation, of any size, today? It’s easy and secure to donate online, by mail or by phone, details here.

Like other nonprofits, our team would much rather be out there educating, organizing, mobilizing, lobbying and having a real impact, than in here expending our time and energy on fundraising.

But it’s the reality we’re faced with: We’re powered by you—nearly 80 percent of our funding comes from individual donors like you, who contribute anywhere from $5 to $50 to $500.

Every single one of those donations counts.

If the biotech industry has its way, the meat, eggs and milk on your plate could soon come from genetically engineered farm animals—and without laws requiring these products to be labeled, you’ll never know.

Just a few years ago the idea of genetically engineered farm animals seemed like science fiction to most consumers. But it’s a sign of how powerful the industry has become, and how quickly the science is advancing, that we’ve reached the stage where regulators are having to draft new regulations to deal with the influx new applications.

Behind the scenes there have been squabbles over not just what the regulations will say, but which government department should take the lead.