BREAKING: OBAMA APPROVES NEW MONSANTO GMO CORN
Food Democray now! Team
It's hard to believe the levels of deception that Congress and our regulatory officials at the FDA will go to, but in the past several weeks the FDA has approved GMO salmon and denied a citizens' petition by the Center for Food Safety submitted in March of 2012 that called for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.
If this weren't bad enough, right now the Senate, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, are scrambling to pass the ultimate Monsanto Protection Act by sneaking a rider into a must pass spending bill that would permanently deny states the right to pass GMO labeling laws and create a system that only allows for "voluntary" labeling of GMO foods.
Incredibly, even as we fight for mandatory GMO labeling and basic transparency in our food supply, today the Obama administration has just approved another Monsanto GMO corn variety this very morning and given "preliminary" approval of yet another new GMO potato by J.R. Simplot. This is an outrage!
Even worse, rather than put 4 simple words, "Produced with genetic engineering", on food packages sold in the United States, leading American food companies are intentionally trying to deceive us even further by mandating that GMOs be considered "natural" under U.S. law.
At the same time, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Associations (GMA) are promoting an intentionally deceptive solution that would allow these companies to continue to hide GMOs using a meaningless technological solution known as QR codes, which function like bar codes, and would only allow people with smartphones to see if their foods contain GMOs.
Currently, both Congress and our federal regulatory agencies are allowing GMOs to be rubberstamped like new flavors of Chiclets. Today, in America, we have a regulatory system that functions like the Wild West, with the FDA, EPA and USDA approving virtually any new GMO crop (and now animals) based on cherry-picked corporate funded cigarette science that allows corporations like Monsanto to submit their own in-house studies, while denying the health and safety concerns of hundreds of independently funded research scientists.
What you need to understand is that there is a bipartisan selling out of American democracy and food safety to the highest bidder, and in this case, your basic right to know what's in your food and how it's produced are up for sale. The good news is we've built a powerful citizen-led movement that has passed GMO labeling laws in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine and we need your help to defend these historic victories over Monsanto and the GMA's corruption of our democratic institutions.
Stop Monsanto's desperate plan to kill states' rights to label GMOs! - Tell your Senators and the President: “I support GMO labeling!” Every voice counts!
Our regulatory system is so broken that just last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was forced to revoke its recent approval of the controversial chemical Enlist Duo, which is a super-toxic chemical combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D designed to be sprayed on Dow Chemical's 2nd generation GMO corn and soy, which are widely know as Agent Orange GMOs.
Unbelievably, the EPA only revoked Enlist Duo because it learned that Dow Chemical had not shared basic safety information regarding the ‘synergistic effects’ between the product’s two active ingredients, glyphosate and 2,4-D, which could result in greater toxicity to non-target plant. The EPA only learned of this new information because of a lawsuit against them, when the information came to light nearly a year after the agency's approval of the new Agent Orange GMO crops.
Ironically, the same giant food and chemical companies that are fighting to deny us our basic rights to label GMOs in America, already label them in 64 other countries around the world.
We need all hands on deck to stop the ultimate Monsanto Protection Act and convince your Senators not to violate states' rights and kill GMO labeling and allow GMOs to be labeled "natural"!
Don't let Monsanto continue to corrupt our food and our democracy - it's time to protect America's family farmers, communities & the environment! Every voice counts!
This fight is about transparency, freedom of choice and democracy! Who writes the rules in America? Us or Monsanto? It's time to make a stand, this could be our last best chance to win labeling.
Please share this alert with family and friends you know who may be concerned, we need all the comments we can get and every voice counts!
Remember, democracy is like a muscle, either you use it or you lose it!
Thanks for participating in food democracy,
Dave Murphy
Founder / Executive Director
Food Democracy Now!
Sources:
1. “USDA Announces GE Corn Deregulation”, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, December 4, 2015
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1553?t=13&akid=1730.1133276.WAKSoL
2. “USDA Announces Preliminary Extension of Deregulation to GE Potato”, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, December 4, 2015
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1554?t=15&akid=1730.1133276.WAKSoL
3. "The High Tech Hijacking of GMO Food Labeling", Huffington Post, November 18, 2015
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1555?t=17&akid=1730.1133276.WAKSoL
4. “EPA does about-face on new weed killer”, Omaha World Herald, November 30, 2015
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1556?t=19&akid=1730.1133276.WAKSoL