There are days when fighting giant corporations, like Monsanto-Bayer and Tyson, feels a bit hopeless.

Huge corporations have pockets deeper than we can ever dream to have. And they use their vast financial resources to buy power—over politicians, over regulatory agencies like the EPA, over the farmers they squeeze every dime out of, and ultimately over all of us.

Hopeless, because all that power gives them the freedom to poison everything in sight, from our air, soil and water, to the very food we eat.

But hopeless isn’t an option. 

Jake Bellah is 12 years old. His father, unaware of the risks, used Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller for years. In the family’s yard. Around their gardens.

Jake has non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He sued Monsanto-Bayer. His lawyers argue that his trial, one of thousands by other cancer victims, should be expedited.

Jake is 12. If he can take on Monsanto, we all can. And must.

A recent article in Wired magazine cites statistics revealing that pollution—from all sources and contaminating everything from our air and water to our food—killed more than 9 million people in 2015.

Whether like Jake, we’re poisoned directly by chemicals companies claim are “safe,” or whether we’re indirectly poisoned by companies like Tyson—which according to a 2016 study by the Environment America Research & Policy Center beats out every other agribusiness corporation when it comes to polluting U.S. waterways—we’re all in this battle together.

We all have to speak out, stand up and do everything in our power to hold toxin-spewing corporations accountable, until finally, one day, they’re forced to clean up their acts.

We owe it to the Jakes of the world. Thank you for keeping OCA strong. Thank you for giving us hope.

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