Katherine's Blog
On April Fools Day, OCA activists delivered jester hats to several key U.S. Senators, along with this message: Thank you for voting against the Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-Kan.) DARK Act (S.2609) Please don’t make fools of the nine out of 10 voters who want GMO foods labeled by accepting a compromise version of the bill in order to preempt, or delay implementation, of Vermont’s GMO labeling law.
Why the jester headwear? Because we know that several of the Senators who voted against the DARK Act on March 16, are on record as wanting to preempt Vermont’s law. We believe they’re just waiting for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to introduce a compromise bill—and then they’ll turn right around and betray you.
Who are those Senators? Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). What will they do when Congress reconvenes and the Senate takes up the DARK Act again? It’s anybody’s guess—but we guess they’ll vote to preempt Vermont by supporting some sort of compromise to the DARK Act.
OCA rejects any federal labeling bill unless it meets or exceeds the standards set by Vermont, and does not preempt or delay implementation of Vermont’s bill. Since there’s less than a snowball’s chance in hell Congress will pass such a law, we think Congress should stop fooling around, get out of the way, and let Vermont’s law proceed on schedule. Find out why.
First, they injure us with their GMOs and toxic pesticides. Then they insult our intelligence.
Unable to reach a compromise and/or get the votes they needed this week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry postponed action on a federal bill to preempt Vermont’s GMO labeling law until Tuesday, March 1.
Perpetrators of the bill, which is full of holes according to the latest legal analysis, are having trouble gaining bipartisan support.
But it’s only a matter of time. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) bill to kill GMO labeling will likely be the subject of a lively Ag Committee debate on Tuesday next week, where Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and others will push for a compromise aimed at keeping Vermont’s law from taking effect July 1.
Meanwhile USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, Rep. Robert Alderholt (R-Ala.) and Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) were making the media rounds, spreading lies and fear, extolling the virtues of GMOs, and insulting the intelligence of consumers by claiming that we “just need more education.”
You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You – Molly Ivins
The late, great political columnist Molly Ivins, who railed relentlessly against money in politics, would be all over the GMO labeling fight. She’d be especially keen to tackle the next battle, set to take place any day now in the U.S. Senate.
On Thursday (February 25) this week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry will take up a bill introduced last week (Friday, February 19) by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Roberts’ bill aims to establish a voluntary labeling plan that would block Vermont from enacting its mandatory GMO labeling law on July 1.
Monsanto’s minions in the U.S. Senate know they’ll have a tough time getting 60 votes, enough to pass a bill that preempts Vermont and other states from enacting mandatory labeling laws. So there will likely be amendments made, in the hope of making the bill—a bill opposed by more than 90 percent of Americans—more palatable to Senators worried about upcoming elections.
“Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.” – Lewis Carroll
Yesterday (February 3, 2016), the Senate Ag Committee met, again, to discuss what to do about a federal standard for GMO labeling.
Once again, Monsanto, Big Food and their devoted politicians in Washington D.C., engaged in another round of hand-wringing over what they claim will amount to doomsday for food companies: having to comply with Vermont’s GMO labeling law, by July 1.
The argument they love to put forth is this: Requiring food companies to comply with state laws requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs will result in a nightmare of confusion and costs.
The solution they put forth is this: a voluntary federal labeling law, preferably involving QR codes.
The question we ask, over and over again: If you’re that concerned about slight variations in state GMO labeling laws, why not just pass a mandatory federal labeling law that meets or exceeds Vermont’s standards? That’s what consumers want. That’s what the citizens in more than 60 other countries already have.
One of Monsanto’s favorite (false) claims is that the proliferation of GMO crops leads to reduced pesticide use. The latest study to refute that claim, published this week in Environmental Sciences Europe, says that glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since Monsanto’s "Roundup Ready" genetically engineered crops were introduced in 1996. (Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup).
Monsanto also loves to falsely claim that glyphosate is harmless, despite study after study suggesting otherwise. Not to mention that last year the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
How much should you care about a 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate?
"The dramatic and rapid growth in overall use of glyphosate will likely contribute to a host of adverse environmental and public health consequences," said Dr. Charles Benbrook, author of the new study.
Consumers aren’t the only ones who aren’t keen on a high-tech “solution” to GMO labeling.
A number of Senators—including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders—have some pointed questions for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) about its proposed QR code labeling scheme.
Sanders, along with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) fired off a letter to the GMA’s executive director, Pam Bailey, stating that they are “troubled” by the QR code scheme’s “anti-consumer loopholes.”
The Senators request a response by February 17, 2016.
Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) have long defended their die-hard positions against mandatory GMO labeling laws, often by feigning concern for the financial impact labeling laws would have on consumers. Labeling will be costly for manufacturers, who will pass those costs on to consumers, our opponents consistently argue, despite studies suggesting otherwise.
As if concern for consumers’ wallets had anything to do with Big Food’s determination to deceive.
So the first question we asked the Campbell Soup Co. (NYSE: CPB) last week, following the announcement that Campbell’s will label all of its products that contain GMOs, was this: Will you charge more for these products after you label them?
No, the company said.
Campbell’s is the first major food company to break ranks with the biotech and food industries on the issue of mandatory labeling of GMOs. We don’t yet know how the decision will play out over time.
But this much we know: The sky will not fall.
We’ve all grown accustomed to the steady parade of television ads—$3 billion year worth, by some estimates—urging us to “ask our doctors” about the latest miracle drug. Pharmaceutical ads have been commonplace since the 1990s, after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the way for prescription drug companies to aggressively market their wares directly to consumers.
Wisdom and ethics aside, it’s easy to see why Big Pharma would push pills to humans, to treat human ailments. It’s big money.
But a drug company that makes animal drugs, purchased not by consumers but by factory farms, advertising direct to consumers who will never actually purchase those drugs? How does that make sense?
If you’re Elanco, the $2.3-billion animal drug division of Eli Lilly, you make it seem sensible by spinning the message. In Elanco’s case, the message is this: Without our animal drugs, the world will starve.
It’s a message that paints the drug maker as an altruistic savior, instead of the profit-motivated animal abuser and public health threat it actually is.
Thanksgiving arrived a day early for Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) when GMO labeling activists delivered a white-tablecloth, genetically engineered Thanksgiving dinner to the Senator’s office staff on Wednesday (November 25).
State Director Ben Hill and other staff were surprised, but cordial. They said “no thanks” to the meal, which included apple pie, zucchini, sweet corn, corn bread, papaya and a salmon surprise Jello dish. But they did listen to our concerns.
The message behind the meal, organized by members of Right to Know Minnesota, Food and Water Watch and Organic Consumers Association, was this: Klobuchar needs to stand up for Minnesotan’s rights to know what’s in their food, and the right of Minnesota and other states to pass laws requiring the labeling of foods that contain genetically engineered (GMO) ingredients—and that means also protecting the GMO labeling laws already passed by Connecticut, Maine and Vermont.
The groups also called on Klobuchar to oppose a proposal, reportedly supported by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to substitute the use of QR codes for wording on packaging.
Last week, while we waited for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to announce whether or not the agency will give Monsanto’s Roundup a free pass by green lighting the use of glyphosate for another 15 years, the EPA’s counterpart in the EU made its own big announcement.
Glyphosate is “unlikely to cause cancer” said the authors of the new report by the European Union Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
That headline, music to Monsanto’s ears, seemed to fly in the face of the findings published earlier this year by the World Health Organization (WHO). After extensive review of the evidence, all 17 of WHO’s leading cancer experts said glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.”
Sustainable Pulse (SP), publisher of global news on GMOs and other food-related issues, quickly reported the glaring omission made by the majority of news sources reporting on EFSA’s findings.
According to SP, what EFSA really concluded is this: Glyphosate by itself doesn’t cause cancer (a fact other scientists dispute). But products like Monsanto’s Roundup, which contain glyphosate and other additives and chemicals that are essential to making the herbicide work? That’s another, or in this case, the rest of the story.
