No Need to Label GMOs, FDA Says
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As if to illustrate just how completely the U.S. Food & Drug Administration is in the pocket of the biotech (GMO) industry, the FDA has patted the public on its pate, said “There there now,” and guaranteed that not only are GMOs safe to eat, but that they are so safe there’s not even a need to label them.
Genetically engineered plants that have been approved for sale don’t need labels and people can be assured they’re safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration announced in mid-November.
“The agency is not aware of any valid scientific information showing that foods derived from genetically engineered plants, as a class of foods, differ from other foods in any meaningful way. GE (genetically engineered) foods don’t present greater safety concerns than foods developed by traditional plant breeding,” the FDA’s announcement said.
“However, if a food derived from a genetically engineered plant is materially different from its traditional counterpart, the labeling of that food must disclose such differences.” Otherwise, it’s up to the manufacturer to label or not to label any GMO food. This sets the U.S. apart from the European Union, Australia, and China, which require labels. Consumer and environmental groups have long pressed for the FDA to require labels on GMO foods, but the FDA says there’s no need.
It’s very difficult to avoid genetically engineered plants, the FDA pointed out. It failed to point out that food labeled organic by the USDA cannot contain genetically modified ingredients, and that therefore it’s pretty simple to avoid GMOs.
“In 2013, in the United States, bioengineered soybeans made up 93 percent of the acreage of planted soybeans, bioengineered cotton made up 90 percent of the acreage of planted cotton, and bioengineered corn varieties made up 90 percent of the acreage of planted corn,” it said. “In addition, bioengineered sugar beets accounted for 95 percent of the acreage of planted sugar beets in the 2009-2010 crop year.”
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NEWS ARTICLES ABOUT GLYPHOSATE SOW CONFUSION
The news media often misconstrues the meaning of press releases. A case in point is documented by Katherine Paul of the Organic Consumers Association, writing about the European Union’s Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) recent conclusion that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is “unlikely to cause cancer.”
That headline seems to contradict findings published earlier this year by the World Health Organization (WHO). After extensive review of the evidence, all 17 of WHO’s leading cancer experts said glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen.”
Sustainable Pulse, publisher of global news on GMOs and other food-related issues, quickly reported the glaring omission made by the majority of news sources that reported on the European Authority’s findings. According to Sustainable Pulse, what EFSA really concluded is that glyphosate by itself may not cause cancer, but products like Roundup, which contain glyphosate and other additives and chemicals that are essential to making the herbicide work, are another story.
According to the EFSA report, “It is likely, therefore, that the genotoxic effects observed in some glyphosate-based formulations are related to the other constituents or co-formulants.”
Take some glyphosate, writes Ms. Paul, mix it up with other chemicals, and you’ve got a cancer-causing concoction. (Genotoxic means “damaging to DNA and thereby capable of causing mutations or cancer). Remove those additives (or adjuvants as scientists refer to them), and you’ve got a weed killer that doesn’t work.
From Sustainable Pulse:
Independent scientists have long warned that pesticides are authorized for use based on medium- or long-term tests on laboratory animals carried out with a single chemical ingredient, which is known as the active ingredient because it is assumed to be responsible for giving the pesticide its pest- or weed-killing action.
However, the complete pesticide formulations as sold and used also contain additives (adjuvants), which increase the pest- or weed-killing activity of the pesticide. These complete formulations do not have to be tested in medium- and long-term tests—even though they are the substances to which farmers and citizens are exposed.
That would explain the difference between EFSA’s conclusion, based on its assessment of glyphosate alone, and the WHO findings, based on studies of glyphosate in combination with the other additives.
EFSA’s statement also issued a strong warning to EU member states that they might want to take a closer look at Roundup’s whole formula before they draw conclusions about glyphosate and Roundup. EFSA’s findings could, and should, change the way agencies like the EPA and EFSA study the toxic effects of herbicides.
Paul checked in with André Leu, author of the Myths of Safe Pesticides, for his take on the EFSA report.
“No surprise,” said Leu, who told us he’s devoting a whole chapter in his new book to how the pesticide industry has corrupted EFSA and the EPA. “I’ll reveal the background on how Monsanto’s ‘Glyphosate Task Force’ wrote the EFSA glyphosate reassessment report almost word for word to justify lifting the residue limits.”
According to Leu, both glyphosate alone, and formulations like Roundup, are genotoxic. He said research has shown that glyphosate “can cause genetic damage, developmental disruption, morbidity, and mortality even at what are currently considered normal levels of use.”
Leu cited a study published in 2004, which found that glyphosate-based herbicides caused cell-cycle dysregulation, which leads to cancers. Researchers involved in that study said: “Cell-cycle dysregulation is a hallmark of tumor cells and human cancers. Failure in the cell-cycle checkpoints leads to genomic instability and subsequent development of cancers from the initial affected cell.” The researchers behind the 20014 study tested several glyphosate-based pesticides and found that all of them caused cell-cycle dysregulation.
Leu also referred to the article Differential Effects of Glyphosate and Roundup on Human Placental Cells and Aromatase, published in 2005 in Environmental Health Perspectives. The article revealed evidence that glyphosate damaged human placental cells within 18 hours of exposure, even at concentrations lower than those found in commercially available pesticides and herbicides. According to the scientists who conducted the study “this effect increases with concentration and time or in the presence of Roundup adjuvants.”
And then there’s the study published in the journal Toxicology. Scientists studied four different commercial glyphosate formulations and observed breaks in 50 percent of the DNA strands in human liver cells at doses as low as five parts per million. This damage affects the way DNA sends messages to several physiological systems, including the endocrine system. According to the study’s authors, Leu said, this is significant because the liver is the first detoxification organ and is sensitive to dietary pollutants.
“The good news is that this may be the beginning of testing pesticide formulations for chronic and non-contagious diseases,” Leu said. “Currently pesticide formulations are tested for acute toxicity—the amount that will kill you in two weeks—but not for all the long-term diseases like cancer, endocrine, nervous, immune metabolic, birth defects, and on and on. Not one of the thousands of formulations that are used on our food are tested for these longer term diseases.”
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MICHIGAN DEMOCRAT BOWS TO MONSANTO BLACKMAIL SCHEME
Monsanto has reportedly convinced Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to push for a rider to the end-of-year appropriations bill that would keep corporations from having to label GMOs.
Sources told PoliticoPro that Sen. Stabenow wants to preempt states from enacting their own GMO labeling laws, before Vermont’s law takes effect in July. Under her plan, according to PoliticoPro, Stabenow’s bill would “sunset” after an unspecified period of time, unless corporations come up with a voluntary, not mandatory, labeling scheme.
How will Sen. Stabenow convince her fellow Senators to pass a law that is opposed by 90 percent of Americans? By forcing Congress, and the President, to either support the legislation—or risk shutting down the government.
It’s blackmail, pure and simple. Brought to you by Monsanto, Big Food and the politicians who represent their interests, not yours, says the Organic Consumers Association.
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EPA ALLOWS ‘HIGHLY NEUROTOXIC PESTICIDE’ RESIDUES ON FOOD
You would think that even the smallest bit of evidence suggesting a pesticide causes birth defects, brain damage and mental disorders in children would be enough for our government to ban the use of that toxin on our food.
And yet, it’s taken nearly a decade—and a court ordered mandate—to get the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose banning Dow’s child-poisoning chlorpyrifos from our food system. Chlorpyrifos, better known as Dursban and Lorsban, is a neurotoxic organophosphate.
Chlorpyrifos is highly neurotoxic. It is a cholinesterase inhibitor, which means that it can bind irreversibly to acetylcholine esterase (AchE), an essential enzyme for normal nerve impulse transmission, inactivating the enzyme. Studies have documented that exposure to even low levels of organophosphates like chlorpyrifos during pregnancy can impair learning, change brain function, and alter thyroid levels of offspring into adulthood. The evidence of the neurotoxic dangers associated with chlorpyrifos’ exposure is extensive and consistent. See the Pesticide-Induced Disease Database (PIDD) for more information.
The EPA currently allows low-level residues of chlorpyrifos on food, in spite of recent studies which suggest that low levels of chlorpyrifos and other endocrine disrupters may actually be more toxic than higher levels.
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WHICH WAY TO THE PUSHME-PULLYOU?
Other than the few small luxuries afforded them, like private access to a large patch of grass, there was nothing to mark the two hornless dairy calves born last spring at a breeding facility in Sioux Center, Iowa, as early specimens in a new era of humanity’s dominion over nature, according to The New York Times.
But unlike a vast majority of their dairy brethren, these calves, both bulls, will never sprout horns. That means they will not need to undergo dehorning, routinely performed by farmers to prevent injuries and a procedure that the American Veterinary Medical Association says is “considered to be quite painful.”
Instead, when the calves were just single cells in a petri dish, scientists at a start-up company called Recombinetics used the headline-grabbing new tools of gene editing to swap out the smidgen of genetic code that makes dairy cattle have horns for the one that makes Angus beef cattle have none. And the tweak, copied into all of their cells through the normal machinery of DNA replication, will also be passed on to subsequent generations.
Not all biotechnicians are thrilled. Jennifer A. Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, an inventor of a new genome-editing technique, is the lead author of an article calling for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new method, to give scientists, ethicists, and the public time to fully understand the issues surrounding the breakthrough.
Meanwhile, gene-splicing roars on its unregulated, if not merry, way. Maybe Dr. Doudna is right and the world will not be a better place when it’s overrun with chimerical beasts.
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U.S. SENATE TOLD ‘DARK ACT’ IS UNACCEPTABLE
On Tuesday, November 17, the Organic Consumers Association and Citizens for GMO Labeling, representing millions of consumers, brought this message to the U.S. Senate:
Consumers demand mandatory, on-package labeling of GMOs—and any compromise, including voluntary labeling, or a QR code scheme, is unacceptable.
OCA says it delivered the message at a briefing on Capitol Hill, attended by legislative aides representing dozens of U.S. Senators. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Connecticut State Senate President Pro Tempore Don Williams, the lead sponsor of the first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law, and Tara Cook-Littman, also from Connecticut, who led the grassroots charge to pass Connecticut’s law, addressed the packed hearing.
Blumenthal had this to say:
“Part of my role as a Senator is to stop bad things from happening. The DARK Act (preventing positive GMO labeling) is one of the worst things that could happen.” Activists and/or lawmakers from Vermont, Massachusetts and New York also addressed Senate staffers.
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GREENPEACE DEBUNKS GLOWING REPORTS OF GMO SUCCESSES
A new Greenpeace report exposes the dismal failure of GMO crops to live up to their promises. The report also debunks every one of those promises.
According to the report: 1) there are no GM crops designed to deliver high yields; 2) GM crops do not hold the key to climate resilience; 3) there is no scientific consensus that GM crops are safe for humans and the environment; 4) GM crops do not simplify crop protection—weeds and pests evolve to resist “crop protection” chemicals, creating worse problems; 5) GM crops are not economically viable for farmers; 6) GM crops cannot coexist with other agricultural systems without causing contamination of non-GM crops; 7) Genetic engineering is not the most promising pathway of innovation for food systems.
As we’ve known all along, Monsanto’s seeds are engineered for the sole purposes of cornering the market on the chief agricultural crops and selling dangerous pesticides.
“Over the past 20 years, GM technology has only been taken up by a handful of countries for a handful of crops, so no wonder two thirds of Europe have decided to ban it. Where GM crops are grown, they lead to increased pesticide use and the entrenchment of industrial farming systems that in turn exacerbate hunger, malnutrition, and climate change,” said Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace EU food policy director.
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FOOD STAMPS ARE FOR REAL FOOD, NOT JUNK FOOD
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner, Mary Mayhew, has proposed banning the purchase of soda and candy with food stamps. Since her appointment, Mayhew has focused on welfare reform, and she claims that healthy eating will benefit both food stamp recipients as well as the state government. About one in three adults in Maine is obese, and this problem disproportionately affects the poor.
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CLOSE THE REVOLVING DOOR BETWEEN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Al Franken of Minnesota have introduced the Close the Revolving Door Act of 2015 that would ban former members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists, according to reporter Kathryn Schroeder.
Bennet explained the reasoning behind the bill on his website:
“Washington has become all too comfortable with the spin of the revolving door. Lobbyists working for special interests shouldn’t be allowed to hold more sway than the people back home in Colorado and around the country. We can put the power back into the hands of the people we came here to represent by banning members of Congress from lobbying when they leave Capitol Hill and closing the revolving door for Congressional staff.
“Although Washington has resisted these types of reforms, we will continue to fight for these commonsense fixes every year and in every Congress to ensure Washington is focused on the real issues that matter to the country.”
Bennet previously introduced the bill in 2010 and has committed himself to reintroducing it in every subsequent Congress until it becomes law.
According to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics, about 45 percent of former members of the 113th Congress who are currently employed work for lobbying firms. Around 12,000 registered federal lobbyists were active in Washington in 2014.
“The revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry is a problem that needs fixing, because our democracy can’t function the way it’s supposed to when big interests have more power than the American people,” Franken said. “Our legislation would put in place much-needed reforms by not only banning members of Congress from becoming lobbyists, but also by making the industry become more accountable and transparent.”
There is a law in effect now that bans former members of Congress from lobbying their former colleagues for one to two years, in what is referred to as a “cooling-off period,” Vox reports.
Bennet and Franklin’s bill would make lobbying illegal for life with its proposed reforms that include:
Placing a lifetime ban on current members of Congress from becoming lobbyists.
Increasing the statutory staff restrictions on lobbying from one year to six years.
Banning lobbyists from joining Congressional staffs or committee staffs that they lobbied, for a period of six years.
Creating a more accessible website for public reporting of lobbying activities.
Requiring substantial lobbying entities to report on the non-lobbyist employees they have who are former members of Congress or former senior congressional staff, and describing those employees’ job responsibilities.
Increasing the maximum penalty for violating the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana has joined Bennet and Franken in their fight, and even Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has backed the idea.
Bennet and Sharpen are not the only members of Congress fighting for lobbying reform.
Republican Rep. Rod Blum of Iowa introduced the No Golden Parachutes for Public Services Act in the House of Representatives this past week to ban former members of Congress from lobbying after they leave office.
You can assess the detrimental effects of the revolving door as it affects public health and agriculture by re-reading the items in this blog. But the situation is not hopeless, as the introduction of the Close the Revolving Door Act attests to. And now for some very positive news, read the next item.
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EPA PULLS APPROVAL OF HERBICIDAL ‘AGENT ORANGE’ COCKTAIL
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), responding to litigation, has announced it is revoking the registration of “Enlist Duo.”
Approved by the agency just over a year ago, Enlist Duo is a toxic combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D that Dow AgroSciences created for use on the next generation of genetically engineered crops, designed to withstand being drenched with this potent herbicide cocktail. In its court filing, EPA stated it is taking this action after realizing that the combination of these chemicals is likely significantly more harmful than it had initially believed.
This action resolves a year-long legal challenge filed by a coalition of conservation groups seeking to rescind the approval of the dangerous herbicide blend. EPA had approved use of Enlist Duo in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and North Dakota, and had intended to approve it in additional areas in the near future.
Earthjustice and Center for Food Safety, on behalf of Center for Food Safety, Beyond Pesticides, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group, the National Family Farm Coalition, and Pesticide Action Network North America, had challenged EPA’s failure to consider the impacts of Enlist Duo on threatened and endangered plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Act requires that every federal agency consider the impacts of its actions on our nation’s most imperiled plants and animals and seek input from the expert wildlife agencies before plunging ahead, which EPA had refused to do.
“The decision by EPA to withdraw the illegally approved Enlist Duo crops is a huge victory for the environment and the future of our food,” said George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety’s senior attorney. “We will remain vigilant to ensure industry does not pressure the agency into making the same mistake in the future.”
“With this action, EPA confirms the toxic nature of this lethal cocktail of chemicals, and has stepped back from the brink,” said Earthjustice Managing Attorney Paul Achitoff. “Glyphosate is a probable carcinogen and is wiping out the monarch butterfly; 2,4-D also causes serious human health effects, and the combination also threatens endangered wildlife. This must not, and will not, be how we grow our food.”
Dow created Enlist crops as a quick fix for the problem created by “Roundup Ready” crops, the previous generation of genetically engineered crops designed to resist the effects of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Just as overuse of antibiotics has left resistant strains of bacteria to thrive, repeated use of Roundup on those crops allowed glyphosate-resistant “superweeds” to proliferate, and those weeds now infest tens of millions of acres of U.S. farmland. Enlist crops allow farmers to spray both glyphosate and 2,4-D without killing their crops, which they hope will kill weeds resistant to glyphosate alone. But some weeds have already developed 2,4-D resistance, and the escalating cycle of more toxic pesticides in the environment will continue unless EPA stops approving these chemicals, and USDA stops rubber-stamping new genetically engineered crops.
“This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for EPA taking this important action to protect people, rare plants, and animals from Enlist Duo,” said Lori Ann Burd, Environmental Health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “As we gather with our families for the holiday feast, we can all breathe a little bit easier knowing that EPA has protected our food from being drenched with this poisonous pesticide cocktail.”
Judy Hatcher, executive director of Pesticide Action Network, commented: “EPA is taking a step in the right direction, but Enlist Duo shouldn’t have been given the green light in the first place. Too often, GE seeds and the herbicides designed to accompany them are rushed to market without thorough evaluation of their real-world impacts on community health and farmer livelihoods.”
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