26.4.10

GMO Sneak Attack

Giant agro-businesses like Monsanto have continuously been able to get sneak by with passing off their GMO-enhanced, foodish items as natural food products in the United States. But the tides are changing in other parts of the world, and people and governments alike are starting to take notice. For example, thanks to stringent food labeling laws, citizens in France currently enjoy the luxury of knowing exactly which of the foods they purchase are genetically modified or engineered. If a food product is made up of less than .1% of genetically modified organisms, a standard much higher than elsewhere in the E.U., then it is labeled as such in the supermarket, allowing consumers the right to make informed decisions about what they are buying and eating. Naturally, there is a certain feeling of security, a joie-de-manger, when sitting down for un repas en France.

But we are not allowed this luxury of food security in the United States. And the Obama administration has recently reaffirmed their commitment to the secrecy of genetically modified foods, as they plan to vehemently deny our right to truth through labeling. Perhaps it is because a former Monsanto lobbyist is currently our country's chief agricultural negotiator that the Obama administration plans to argue a position against mandatory GMO labeling at a conference of the United Nations' Codex Committee on food labeling next week. This conference will determine the future of global food labeling rules, which has the GMO-happy and agro-business friendly United States Government squirming in its boots. The position paper put together by the U.S. to be submitted before the committee next week ridiculously states that to label genetically modified and genetically engineered food products as such would be "false, misleading, or deceptive." Apparently, our government believes that it would be somehow bad for us to know the truth about what we are eating.

And all of this is going on fairly under the radar. If the administration had it their way, labeling rules would be abolished before we even knew they were an option. But organic food producers, public health advocates, environmental groups and concerned citizens alike are fighting back, petitioning to the FDA and the department of agriculture to reconsider this inappropriate stance on food labeling. To read the letter addressed to FDA Deputy Commissioner of Food Michael Taylor and USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, click here. To sign a petition opposing the sneak attack on GMO labeling, click here!

1 comment:

  1. What has the world come to when this is not outrageous behavior on behalf of our elected representatives? It is practically common knowledge that processed foods cause poor health outcomes, yet their is so much resistance to providing our population with information on said products.

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