How much money does it take – most from outside interests – to take down an effort to label GMO-based foods? Better perhaps, how much disinformation does it take to alter voters’ minds to force them to subvert their own nutrition –food choices? It turns out the answers may be much more than we believed for the first ($9.7m vs. $330,000 for proponents), and much less for the second. The latter since now the Denver Post has tossed its hat into the GMO labeling ring and given a rousing endorsement to vote down Proposition 105 in its Sunday editorial.
But
then we already knew the Denver Post – while allowing a few liberal memes – did
staunchly also wage a brief for unlimited fracking over a year ago – arguing it
was critical for the state’s economy. Can we call ‘bollocks’ on that too? I
believe so, especially after surreal gloating and smug satisfaction fairly
oozed from the paper’s pages after Jared Polis removed from the Nov.
ballot the initiatives to give local
control of fracking to Colorado
The
image attached was taken from a flyer delivered in the mail. The flyer included
canards that have been repeated in assorted ads on TV and also by the Denver
Post in its editorial. Some of the more
prominent include:
1)
Farmers and food producers would be required to separate, repackage and re-label
ingredients from throughout the country – just for our state.
2)
Proposition 105 would cost Colorado
3)
Proposition is so full of exemptions it would not tell consumers which foods
are produced with GMOs.
Responses:
The
first is overblown fear mongering. Most of Colorado Vermont
has already found out, as well as Switzerland
The
Second complaint is more hype and the regulatory body needed can be modeled again after Vermont
As
for (3), yes, there are exemptions, because over-ambitious labeling demands
would not have gotten the signatures needed and likely invited even more
lawsuits than the ones planned. As progressives always harp on in elections: “You cannot make the perfect the enemy of the
good!”
Given
the progressives' clarion call, of course meat and dairy aren’t forced to be
labeled since the animals are only raised on GMO foods, they are not
themselves genetically re-configured animals (e.g. cows actually being
engineered from rat, skunk or vampire bat DNA). Restaurants also don’t need GMO
labeling because many (e.g. Chipotle) are already doing it and finding a
competitive edge because of it. As for Alcoholic beverages, these also need no special
GMO labels. For one thing, most everyone conscious knows it is a drug and also
the ill effects, including on the liver and brain. Whether in fact GMOs play
any role in alcoholic beverages is therefore akin to worrying about whether the
cancer sticks you’re smoking have bisphenol –A filters.
Other
objections to Proposition 105 are even more ludicrous, such as Colorado commissioner
of agriculture Don Ament arguing (Denver Post, Sept. 28) that genetic
engineering has been going on for thousands of years – actually referring to
hybridization, e.g. of cattle. In this way, many have been led to believe
voting for the Proposition is ridiculous and redundant because – hey! - those things have been with us like
forever.
But
there’s a huge difference. In hybridization, similar species can be cross-bred
because they share similar genetic traits. (Such as two types of cow being
mammals and ungulates). Hybrids can
occur naturally or they can be created by grafting and cross-pollination.
By
contrast, genetic engineering involves splicing of two distinct species (e.g.
cows and alligators, or tomatoes and mice) that would never occur naturally in
a million years – or ten million. Since the GMOs are not natural – they don’t
represent natural creatures that would have evolved, or plants, and we simply
don’t know what the health consequences might be.
We
do know there were some earlier studies, such as Arpad Pusztai’s in Britain
More
recently, families have been made aware of glyphosate in these foods and how it
reduces their nutritive value and also raises the specter of Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s disease and non-Hodgkins
lymphoma. This will be particularly pronounced if the new Enlist DUO Weedicide
is approved for use with GMO crops, as Dr. Oz Mehmet already exposed – as well
as others, see e.g.
For Colorado's premium newspaper, The Denver Post gets many things wrong as well in its Anti-105
editorial. Thus, the issue of “cost” is again carped about despite the fact
David Byrne – former European commissioner for health and consumer protection -
declared that GMO labeling “did not result in increased costs despite the
horrifying predictions of some interests.”
The
Post also complained that some would ban GMOs which “ironically have resulted
in a large decrease in the use of insecticides etc.”
But
as Mehmet Oz observed:
-
There are 1.1 billion pounds of
pesticides used per year, used on GMO crops - because those crops are designed
to survive the poisons.
70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.
70 - 170 million pounds of additional highly toxic pesticides will be used if the FDA approves Enlist.
Oz then flatly skewered the notion that “less” toxins are being used,
and in fact the very design of GMO crops encourages the use of MORE toxins
because they are designed to survive them.
As
Oz’ guest, journalist Mark Bittman also
noted:
“Yields are not up and
pesticide use is not down. So when you talk about feeding a hungry world, GMOs
have not moved us in that direction."
Do you really want the residues of 2,4 –D, the chemical used in Agent
Orange during the Vietnam War, splotched all over your food if Enlist is
approved by the multinational-compromised EPA?
The bottom line here is one of buyer choice: Do you deserve to know if
that tomato you’re purchasing is the product of the natural tomato being
spliced with mouse genes, or not? (The
aim being to increase its shelf life).
Sixty four European nations already have a ban or moratorium and strict
regulation of GMO foods including labeling.
“ funded thirty projects to investigate the
risks and benefits of GMOs. These projects concluded that there were no clear
health or environmental dangers associated with planting GMOs. However, they
also concluded that there was little economic incentive for farmers to adopt
GMOs in Switzerland.”
(Wikipedia)
Our Swiss friend
Rolf told us that the main concern of farmers in Switzerland
As he asked me
while we were staying in Appenzell,
“If it’s good enough for we Swiss, why
isn’t it good enough for Americans to have your food labeled?”
Indeed!
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