Well those Teabaggers who have been screaming for deregulation and “less government” just got it in the form of a green light for Monsanto to cram genetically modified foods down your gullets without you even knowing it. Won’t it be really cool when your great grandchildren have three legs and one eye?
The Editor.
Why You Can Now Kiss Organic Beef, Dairy and Many Vegetables Goodbye
The USDA ruled that farmers are now free to plant GE alfalfa, and USDA won’t even keep track of who plants it where. The implications are huge.
Monsanto has been trying for years to gain approval for its genetically modified Roundup-Ready alfalfa seed. On January 27, 2011, it finally got the green light in the form of “deregulation.” This means that farmers are free to plant GE alfalfa, and the USDA won’t even be keeping track of who plants it where. There will be no tracking, no notification system, and no responsibility on the part of Monsanto for any business that is lost as a result of the genetic contamination that is certain to result. If the ruling stands, we can kiss organic dairy and beef goodbye, and many organic vegetable growers will have to switch the cover crops they use on their fields.
The Center for Food Safety is planning on dragging the issue back to court, where the organization has a good track record in recent years against Monsanto, even in the notoriously business-friendly U.S. Supreme Court, which in June upheld a ban on the planting of Roundup-Ready alfalfa until the USDA drafts an environmental impact statement (EIS).
The EIS was dutifully drafted and released in December 2010. The document airs the concerns expressed by the vast majority of the 200,000-plus comments on GE alfalfa, yet somehow concludes: “…consumer preferences for organic over GE foods are influenced in part by ethical and environmental factors that are likely unrelated to minor unintended presence of GE content in feed crops.”
That’s quite a use of the word “likely”: When the organic rules were drafted in 1997, Big Ag tried very, very hard to include GE products in organic-labeled foods. In response to this attempt, USDA received over 275,000 comments against GE in organics. It was the largest number of comments USDA had ever received on a single issue. How USDA managed to conclude that consumers of organic food are likely unconcerned by contamination of organic products is a mystery — at least, until we recall that Tom Vilsack, Obama’s agriculture boss, used to fly around in a Monsanto corporate jet while governor of Iowa. During that same period he was also named “Governor of the Year” by the Biotechnology Industry Council.
Another word in the above statement that bears scrutiny is “minor,” as in “minor unintended presence of GE content in feed crops.” While it may be true that the public may in fact be OK with a little “minor” genetic contamination, there’s nothing minor about the threat posed by Roundup-Ready alfalfa.
Read the whole story at AlterNet
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11 Responses to Why You Can Now Kiss Organic Beef, Dairy and Many Vegetables Goodbye
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This will make some interesting fodder for the talk shows this week, if it gets mentioned.
While waiting at the library i heard a young woman who works at our local supermarket explaining that all the organic products were going to be half off next week. The store can’t sell them. As long as our country values quantity over quality and the food corporations can play to that greed, we’re in trouble. The cost of eating healthy, organic food is way beyond the means of most Americans these days. Our priorities are geared toward more, not better most of the time. It’s a comfort to have sources for good information like D&S around even if we don’t seem to be able to get more folks to wake up.
I don’t know how trustworthy Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit” series is, but they did a show on organic foods. They found, among other things, organic enthusiasts could not tell the difference in taste or texture of a variety of foods.
They also pointed out that not all the “organic” stuff is necessarily healthy or good for you; just because something is found in nature, doesn’t mean it’s safe to eat.
All in all, they found the whole idea of organically grown food to taste better and to be better for you a myth.
Penn and Teller’s expert was paid by Monsanto…………hmmmm, not sure i want to use them as a source.
http://www.green-blog.org/2009/08/05/penn-teller-claims-organic-food-is-bullshit-fails-to-mention-that-their-expert-is-paid-by-monsanto/
There may be some reality to claims that ‘some’ pesticides are safe, but what this thread is talking about is wholesale manipulation of genetic capacity to rebuff disease. The fact that food tastes the same has little to do with nutritional value and I, for one, tend to think that the public of this country has been addicted to a combination of sugar/fat/salt that David Kessler former head of the FDA who has had serious issues with his weight (DAVID A. KESSLER, MD, served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kessler is the father of two and lives with his wife in California.) explains in his book, The End of Overeating http://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Insatiable-American-Appetite/dp/1605297852
Given, the addiction to crap food is just one element of the control that big agriculture/food production exerts over our health and diet.
There are a number of articles that discuss the ‘values’ of pesticides and the cost benefit ratios.
http://extension.umd.edu/publications/pdfs/fs652.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/food/viewtols.htm
Relying on science rather than comedians for our health would seem to be a good idea.
Penn and Teller are members of the Cato Institute also……not such friends to the little guys.
Incidentally, just to follow up on cabininthewoods comments, The Cato Institute was founded by Charles Koch…yes, he of the famous Koch brothers who have been written about quite broadly on this blog. To put it in literal terms, Penn and Teller are just plain BULLSHIT.
The Penn and Teller “expert,” Alex Averey is paid by the Hudson Institute. Below is some information on said institute. JD…don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters.
Hudson Institute Right-Wing Agenda
As many of you know, there have been a series of attacks on MSF and WHO around the provision of generic antiretrovirals over the past few months. While these claims are factually wrong and baseless and can be challenged on the weaknesses of their arguments alone, it is interesting to look into the motivation of the Hudson Institute and other institutions leading these attacks. Here is a list of the Hudson Institute’s key funders, which includes some of the most extreme right-wing foundations in the United States and host of enormous multinational corporations including the mega-pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Lilly. It is clear that none of the Hudson Institute’s funders have any significant history in philantrophy around public health issues. What these foundations and companies do support is the advancement of American business’ agenda on a number of fronts, from tax and trade policy, and the American right wing’s agenda to dismantle public health and social welfare programs such as Medicaid and Medicare in the US.
So, next time you read an op-ed from someone associated with the Hudson Institute, remember who pays their bills. It’s a bit like reading an op-ed talking about the health benefits of cigarettes from an “institute” that’s funded by the tobacco companies, or an op-ed on the benefits of industrial pesticides by a “think tank” that’s funded by oh, say, Monsanto or American Cyanamid. So, yes, we have issues to deal with in rolling out therapy and in fighting AIDS, but no one should be fooled into thinking that the Hudson Institute or any similar organization cares one iota about people with AIDS or our communities.
The Hudson Institute and its ilk are more dangerous than HIV itself
Funding for the Hudson Institute
Between 1987 and 2001, the Institute received $12,041,203 in 183 separate grants from only — foundations: [source]
* Castle Rock Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* JM Foundation
* Koch Family Foundations (David H. Koch Foundation)
* John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Scaife Foundations (Scaife Family, Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
* Smith Richardson Foundation
The Hudson Institute’s IRS Form 990 for the financial year ending on September 30, 2001 showed total income of $7,818,439, most of which came in large grants. Other known funders include:
* Ag Processing Inc
* American Cyanamid
* Archer Daniels Midland
* Cargill
* Ciba-Geigy
* ConAgra Foods
* DowElanco
* DuPont
* Exxon Mobil
* HJ Heinz
* Lilly Endowment
* McDonalds
* Monsanto
* National Agricultural Chemical Association
* Novartis
* Proctor & Gamble
* Sunkist Growers
* United Agri Products
I wasn’t “following them”. I just referenced that they did a show on this, with the disclaimer that I don’t know how reliable they are.
In other places I have argued that eating healthy, which many prescribe, costs more money. For most of America, money is always an object. Even in your local super market, the leaner meat is more expensive.
As to the general point of this thread, I believe our food needs to be regulated. Some of this is voiced in my piece about allergies. As the food makers find more and more ingredients that make their food seem higher in quality, there are more things in them they may bring forth allergic reactions in many people, aside from other possible health issues. Read the ingredients on “low fat” pastries, salad dressings, chocolate bars, etc., etc., and scratch your head.
I have never been a fan of “lite” beer. If you want to have a beer have a beer, god damn it…why the hell do you need to drink one that’s been chemically processed to take out the calories? The key here is to have a beer or two…not a six pack. A couple of beers won’t put you into the next waist size of Dockers. The same with chocolates, or pastries or ice cream. If you want to have them…go for it, just do it in moderation. It’s far better for you than eating all the chemically enhanced “reduced fat, reduced sugar” garbage that people somehow feel is “healthier.” We’ve all seen folks with weight problems coming into a restaurant and ordering a diet coke with their meal. Do they really think the can of coke is going to help? Certainly a person can be allergic to a specific natural food…if so, simply avoid it. The point of this post is that “organic” is being replaced with “genetically enhanced,” and there is no telling what long lasting affects that will have on the human body, or on the food chain in general. The political parrots of the agro-giants, like the gentleman who appeared on “Bullshit,” will tell you not to worry…it’s all in your head. Again, I answer, “bullshit.” If the cost of eating healthy is difficult to sustain then one answer might be “eat less.” I know that’s anathema to the American culture but stuffing ourselves with chemicals by choice removes any privilege of complaining about our health.