Originally published March 14 2015
15 reasons to ignore biotech PR and label dangerous GMOs
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Chemical companies and their food conglomerate allies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years fighting against your right to know what's in your food. No matter how the industry tries to spin the issue, people have a right to know if they're eating patented genetic material that has never been proven safe, yet mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) still isn't a reality in the U.S.
Pressure is continually mounting for this to change, but so is the propaganda aiming to convince people that labeling GMOs will somehow increase food prices and lower food quality. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but if the lie is repeated enough times, some people are going to fall for it.
You don't have to be one of them, though. Keep these 15 facts in mind the next time you see a billboard, read a magazine article or talk to someone who's pushing the pro-GMO agenda:
1) GMO companies have been hiding the health risks of their products from the public for years. If you take a gander at Monsanto's "Commonly Asked Questions about the Food Safety of GMOs" webpage, you'll notice that this major GMO purveyor claims that it doesn't have to safety test GMOs on humans because these patented products are somehow identical to real crops in terms of safety, composition and nutrition.
Monsanto openly admits that there hasn't been a single human clinical trial used to test the safety of GM crops because "GM crops... are the same as existing foods" and "do not require testing." Meanwhile, independent scientists like Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini have found that GMOs damage vital organs, alter testes and sperm, harm embryo cells, disrupt hormones and cause cancer.
2) Chemical companies say the FDA is in charge of regulating GMO safety while the FDA says this is the chemical companies' job. It's true -- the FDA has never performed any safety testing on GMOs, instead relying on safety data provided by the likes of Monsanto. How can such data really be trustworthy?
3) Lax treatment of GMOs caused by former vice president Dan Quayle. Believe it or not, the FDA's lax position on GMOs is due to a "regulatory relief initiative" established by former vice president Dan Quayle more than 20 years ago. Quayle decreed at the time that genetic engineering is no different from traditional plant breeding and thus requires no additional regulation.
4) PR campaigns promoting GMOs similar to tobacco industry tactics. Monsanto's attempts to "greenwash" GMOs with crafty public relations campaigns is nauseatingly similar to what the tobacco industry once did to cover up all the deaths associated with cigarette smoking.
5) Same PR firm that promotes Russian interests also hawks GMOs. If you aren't a big fan of Russia or Vladimir Putin, it might interest you to know that the same PR firm actively promoting GMOs in the U.S., Ketchum, also spins for Russian interests (as well as the tobacco industry).
6) GMO defenders have extensive track record of scandals and deceit. The character of the organizations most aggressively promoting GMO interests is also highly questionable. One website posing as an informational source for GMO issues was exposed as a front page sponsored by Monsanto, DuPont and Dow AgroSciences, three of the largest GMO companies in the world.
7) When agrochemical companies don't get their way, they attack free speech. When these and other tactics fail, the biotech giants employ even sleazier ones, including PR attacks on scientists and journalists with whom they disagree.
8) Pro-GMO shills have been placed in high government positions. Many of the top policy-setters in the federal government have ties to the biotech industry. Michael Taylor, a former vice president at Monsanto-turned-senior FDA Commissioner, is one example. Another is Islam Siddiqui, a Monsanto lobbyist who was appointed as Agriculture Trade Representative by the Obama regime.
9) Three of the top agrochemical companies can't even grow GMOs in their own countries. BASF (Germany), Bayer (Germany) and Syngenta (Switzerland) are all prohibited from growing GMOs in their home countries, which recognize the serious environmental and health risks involved.
10) Monsanto supported GMO labeling in the UK, but not in the U.S. Strangely, Missouri-based Monsanto supported GMO labeling in the UK, but vehemently opposes it here in the U.S. What is this evil company trying to hide?
11) "Superweeds" and "superbugs" mean more profits for chemical companies. You can call it the "pesticide treadmill" -- the constant need for newer, stronger pesticides to replace the older ones that no longer work. It is a health nightmare for Americans, but a profit windfall for agrochemical companies.
12) GMO "science" is largely a scam. The agrochemical industry can claim that science is on its side, but most of this so-called "science" is swayed, bought or biased in some way. Not only are industry players like Monsanto almost always behind the studies that claim GMOs are safe, but they're almost always conducted for very short periods of time in order to conceal negative findings.
13) Nobody but the chemical companies benefit from GMOs. Not a single GMO has ever been shown to be safer, healthier or more nutritional than its natural counterpart. There's also scant evidence showing that GMOs improve yields or make farmers' lives and livelihoods better -- in fact, the most comprehensive report ever conducted on the issue found that organic farming systems produce the highest yields.
14) Regulatory bodies governing GMOs are asleep at the wheel. Just because the government says GMOs are safe doesn't mean they actually are. FDA-approved pharmaceuticals kill at least 100,000 people annually, and in most cases the agency does nothing to protect consumers.
15) Agrochemical companies are embroiled in crimes and wrongdoing. The naive believe that the factory food industry has our best interests in mind. But the history of crimes committed by the likes of Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer and BASF is so extensive that listing it all here would fill an entire book. Some of Monsanto's crimes are outlined here.
Sources for this article include:
http://gmwatch.org
http://www.gmoseralini.org
http://www.responsibletechnology.org
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.examiner.com
http://www.nationofchange.org
http://www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.thelibertybeacon.com
http://www.gmo-free-regions.org
http://truth-out.org
http://justlabelit.org
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org
http://rodaleinstitute.org
http://www.thelibertybeacon.com
http://truthwiki.org/Genetically_modified_cr...
http://truthwiki.org/GMO_Dangers,_opinion
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