What You Won’t Read about California’s Prop 37–Except Here
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There’s a scene in “The Maltese Falcon” where Humphrey Bogart slaps Peter Lorre’s face as Lorre cringes and whines. Bogie looks at him with disgust, slaps him again, and says, “You’ll take it and you’ll like it.” Kind of like Monsanto and friends are doing to the American public by feeding us its genetically modified frankenfood while claiming that it’s safe and good for you and that labeling it will cause the sky to fall.
Well, just hope the good citizens of California vote Yes on Prop 37 this November, because it’s high time we—the people—fight back.
California’s Proposition 37 requires that foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) be so labeled. In one sense, they already are. If you check the price look-up code—a five-digit number on the package—you’ll find that numbers beginning with four are conventionally grown, those starting with nine are organic, and those starting with eight are genetically modified. But hardly anyone knows that, so it’s not really much of a help to the consumer.
But why not put a label on GMO foods? If it’s so good for us and so safe, why are Monsanto and friends so afraid of saying so on the label? Currently, the U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world that insists its citizens be kept in the dark about whether their foods contain GMOs. Poll after poll shows that more than 90 percent of Americans want to know which foods contain GMOs. So what’s the hang-up?
The Council for Biotechnology Information and the Grocery Manufacturers Association are two big hang-ups. The Council has six major members: BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The Grocery Manufacturers has 300 members, among them BASF Nutrition & Health, Bayer CropSciences, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, and Syngenta, plus agribusiness giants Cargill Inc., ConAgra Foods, General Mills, and just for good measure, Georgia Correctional Industries and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. And you know about criminal justice in Texas.
The Council on Biotechnology Information is in the business of disinformation, creating propaganda to assuage the fears of adults about GMO food, and also aiming at propagandizing children. The Biotechnology Basic Activity Book, produced by the Council, is for elementary school kids and teenagers. It can be examined on the Council’s website. Judge for yourself which of these claims they make for genetic modification are true:
It helps us grow more food.
It helps the environment.
It grows more nutritious food that improves our health.
In the book, kids are given puzzles to “learn more about biotechnology and all of the wonderful ways it can help people live better lives in a healthier world.”
These corporations and lobbying groups are throwing millions of dollars into the fight to defeat Prop 37, as you would expect them to, because when the GMO label appears on processed foods, it might as well be a skull and crossbones, and there goes Monsanto and friends’ plan for world food domination down the drain.
The coalition backing No on 37 is a long list of biotech, big ag, and drug and chemical manufacturers, including the American Council on Science and Health, whose president is Elizabeth Whelan, who describes herself as a lifelong conservative “more libertarian than Republican.” The ACSH supporters include Dow, DuPont, Exxon, General Mills, David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, and of course Monsanto. And Coke and Pepsi if you need an artificially sweetened beverage.
In fact, the first volley of propaganda has been fired in California. A mailing has been sent out by a group called, “No on 37: Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labelling Scheme,” whose major funding comes from—you guessed it—the Council on Biotechnology Information and Grocery Manufacturers Association. The mailing is a flier that proclaims, in all-caps, 60 point type: “DEMOCRATS OPPOSE PROP 37.”
The three Democrats include two Central Valley members of the California Assembly, Henry Perea and Manuel Perez, and the vice chairperson of the California Democratic Party, Alexandra Rooker.
I sent emails to all three, asking them to explain their opposition to Prop 37 and additionally, whether they had received any campaign contributions from the Council on Biotechnology Information, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, or from BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, or Syngenta. Perea’s office said he was away on family business and that was all I heard from him. Rooker never responded, nor did the Northern California Carpenters Union, which opposes the measure and whom I contacted. Perez’s office passed my request for elaboration to Kathy Fairbanks of Bicker, Castillo, and Fairbanks, a Sacramento lobbying firm. Here’s what Perez had to say in the flier:
“This initiative was rushed to the ballot and contains flaws that will lead to unintended consequences. Prop 37 is an unfunded mandate filled with confusing loopholes, contradictory exemptions, and extreme restrictions that will cost the state millions of dollars to administer.” Some of his wording is identical to wording in an accompanying “fact sheet.”
And Ms. Fairbanks responded to all his complaints, but summed up the thrust of the opposition at the end of her email by saying that Prop 37 will have a “detrimental impact on California’s economy. It will increase state costs at a time when the state has a severe budget deficit. It will raise grocery bills when families are still struggling.”
Regarding the campaign donations, Josh Pulliam of Assembly member Perez’s office called in response. He said that he remembered the Bayer corporation giving a couple of thousand dollars, but that was before the Prop 37 issue came up, and that none of the other companies or institutes had given any donations, “to my knowledge,” which is really a claim to having no knowledge of the actual facts.
So there you have it. Opponents of the measure have so far raised about $23,600,000 (see accompanying box on opposition donations) to proponents’ $2,300,000. They will use this money to flood the state with alarm about how Yes on 37 means you will pay more for food. It just may work, since nearly everyone in the state will hear about rising costs due to Prop 37, but relatively few will see the ads saying you have a right to know what Big Ag is feeding you.
Who Are the Big Donors to No on 37
Company Subsidiaries Amount Donated So Far
Monsanto $4,208,000
Pepsico Izze, Naked Juice 1,716,000
Coca Cola Honest Tea, Odwalla 1,164,000
Conagra French Meadow, Alexia,
Lightlife 1,076,000
Kellogg Kashi, Morning Star Farms,
Gardenburger, Bear Naked 632,500
General Mills Cascadian Farms, Muir Glen 520,000
Smuckers R.W. Knudsen,
Santa Cruz Organic 380,000
Dean Foods Horizon Organics, Silk 253,000
Source: Cornucopia Institute
Along with the three prominent Democrats opposing Prop 37 comes a page of “Facts.”
Here’s one: “Prop 37 will result in increased production costs and higher food costs.” It will surely cost the state something to insure compliance with the law so Big Ag and Biotech don’t cheat. But it’s hard to see how adding a statement to a label will raise production costs to manufacturers and food costs to consumers.
Here’s another: “The higher costs that farmers, food companies, and grocers would face because of this proposition would be passed on to California consumers through higher food prices.” Labeling GMO foods would cost farmers money? Would cost grocers money? No it won’t. But it may cost Monsanto and friends money because people will in all likelihood avoid their frankenfoods like the plague.
Here’s another: “Prop 37 is bad for factory and warehouse workers, truckers, port workers, longshoremen, farmworkers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, plant engineers, checkers and grocery clerks, and many other employees.” This is simply ludicrous. Why not add bank tellers, cookbook authors, gunnery sergeants, and football coaches while you’re at it? But notice that carpenters are included. Maybe that’s why Bob Alvarado, executive secretary-treasurer of the Northern California Carpenters union is included on the mailing’s Fact Sheet. Here’s his quote:
“Prop 37 will put California union jobs at risk by driving food production to other states.”
First of all, there is no other state with California’s ability to produce year-around food on the scale it does. Second, why would it drive food production out of California, even if there were somewhere else to drive it to? So what Alvarado is saying is that by labeling GMO foods, farmers will have to move to Kansas to grow crops? Why would that be? Because Californians, seeing the GMO label on their foods, will stop eating and therefore California farmers will have to move to Kansas because their local customers will all be dead of starvation? It makes no sense.
Also on the Fact Sheet is this quote from the “America Medical Association” (sic): “There is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineering foods.” Despite the questionable grammar, the quote is accompanied by the AMA’s logo.
AMA board member Dr. Patrice Harris clarified: “The science-based labeling policies of the FDA do not support special product labeling without evidence of material differences between bioengineered foods and their traditional counterparts. The AMA adopted a policy supporting this science-based approach, recognizing that there currently is no evidence that there are material differences or safety concerns in available bioengineered foods.”
Award-winning food and nutrition writer Marion Nestle has a blog called foodpolitics.com where she parsed this claim by the AMA. She writes, “Science-based. Translation: if the food is safe, it is acceptable. GM foods are presumed safe; therefore, they are acceptable and any criticism of them is irrational.”
But the AMA’s statement, and Dr. Harris’s, too, are moot. We now have mounting scientific evidence, much of it published in peer reviewed journals, that GMO foods are indeed different than regular food. And how could it not be? Insect genes in corn, fish genes in tomatoes, human genes in rice? This isn’t exaggeration. This is happening. And one scientist quit Monsanto in disgust, saying that the whole GMO rationale is a fraud—that the genes inserted into a plant’s DNA don’t just express the gene’s single function, they cause the cell to do all kinds of wacky and dangerous things. That may be what’s behind the new peer-reviewed study. Scientists in Norway have released results from experimental feeding studies carried out over a 10-year period, and the verdict is in: if you want to avoid obesity, then avoid eating genetically engineered corn, corn-based products, and animals that are fed a diet of GMO grain. The studies also looked at the effects on organ changes, and researchers found significant changes that affected weight gain, eating behaviors, and immune function.
The results show a positive link between GMO corn and obesity. Animals fed a GMO corn diet got fatter quicker and retained the weight compared to animals fed a non-GMO grain diet. The studies were performed on rats, mice, pigs and salmon, achieving the same results.
Researchers found distinct changes to the intestines of animals fed GMOs compared to those fed non-GMOs. This confirms other studies done by US researchers. Significant changes occurred in the digestive systems of the test animals’ major organs including the liver, kidneys, pancreas, genitals and more.
So now we do have proof of pathology with many more studies underway. And yet the Council for Biotechnology Information, with the help of the AMA, continues to spew disinformation in its mailings.
Finally, the mailing shows the logo of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration and this: “U.S. Food & Drug Administration says such labeling policy would be inherently misleading.” That is, it would be misleading to allow consumers to know what’s in their food. As Scooby-Do would say, “Huh?!” Now why in the world would the governmental body tasked with making sure our food supply is safe and wholesome come out with such an Alice-in-Wonderland, world on its head, Orwellian statement like that?
Perhaps because the senior advisor to the FDA commissioner is an apparatchik called Michael Taylor, formerly a Monsanto executive and the company’s chief lobbyist. He’s one of the people responsible for getting Monsanto’s genetically modified milk-stimulating hormone (rBST or rBGH) into our milk supply, where it causes cows to gush out super amounts of milk contaminated with the hormone and often (ick) with pus formed in the cows’ overworked and diseased udders.
One of Taylor’s tasks is to plan implementation of new food safety legislation. He’s been in the revolving door between Big Food and the government for decades—obviously doing a good job for Monsanto and friends but maybe not so good a job for you and me.
I encourage you to send a link to this article to everyone you can in California. Monsanto and friends think they have this thing nailed down and there will be many more lies, half-truths, and disinformation to come as we approach November. The virulence of their response and the huge amount of money they are spending to defeat it only proves their fear of Prop 37.
Let’s make them take it and like it.
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