by Christine Hunt
This is what is going on about your food. Genetically Modified food is not just hybridization. It is inserting a chemical, bacteria or DNA from another species into the DNA of a plant or animal (in the recent case of salmon). Please contact your Senators and encourage them to exclude the rider that Sen. Stabenow is trying to include in the end-of-year appropriations bill. This rider will be a Federal law that will override the ability for any State to pass laws requiring labeling of foods that contain GMO ingredients. See below for more details. The future of our food is literally at stake. Go to this link to contact your Senators.
A Bill to End GMO Labeling for Good
In case you’re still in the dark about the DARK Act, here’s the Readers Digest backgrounder.
Rep. Mike “Agribusiness Puppet” Pompeo (R-Kan.) introduced H.R. 1599 earlier this year. He then managed to rush it through the House, where it passed by a vote of 275 to 150 on July 23 (2015).
The bill is a sweeping attack on states’ rights to self-govern on the issue of GMO labeling, and on consumers’ right to know if their food has been genetically engineered. If the Dark Act becomes law, there will never be GMO labels, safety testing of GMOs, protections for farmers from GMO contamination or regulations of pesticide promoting GMO crops to protect human health, the environment or endangered pollinators.
Under what most of us would consider a fair and democratic process, the bill would move next to the Senate, where there would be the opportunity for debate, amendments and a vote.
But with the July 1, 2016 enactment of Vermont’s GMO labeling law, Act 120, looming, Monsanto is probably thinking it doesn’t have time to slog through a Senate hearing and stand-alone vote, especially as the Senate has yet to introduce its own version of the bill. And perhaps even more daunting than the July 1 deadline, is the prospect that the DARK Act might get watered down, or worse yet killed, in the Senate—a risk Monsanto would likely prefer to avoid.
According to reports, Monsanto has convinced Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to push for a rider to the end-of-year appropriations bill. The rider would keep corporations from having to label GMOs.
The appropriations bill, essentially a budget bill, must pass by midnight December 11. Or the federal government will shut down.
We also learned today that the FDA has approved GMO salmon. Alaska is the only state that has a law in place to require labels on GMO salmon.
Sen. Stabenow’s rider probably won’t preempt labels on GMO salmon because it’s an animal, not a plant. But the rider will make it impossible for states or the FDA to require labels on foods containing GMOs derived from plants.
We will do everything in our power to stop this rider, or any last-ditch effort to stomp out GMO labeling laws. If we fail, we will ramp up the largest Big Food Boycott in history.
Sources told PoliticoPro that 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.
Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education). The link is here.
Source: Organic Consumers Association
To your health!
Do you understand the difference between a genetically modified plant or animal and hybridization?
Please share your questions and comments below.
Christine Hunt is a Wellness Coach and Certified EFT Practitioner and has found that working with the whole person by combining mind/body work, dietary adjustments and movement provides her clients with the tools they need to lose weight (and keep it off), get relief from chronic illness and positively transform their lives. Contact her for a free, 15 minute consultation to learn why what she does works when other methods have failed.
Christine works with her clients in person, by Skype or phone. So, if you live away from the Annapolis, Maryland area, she can still work with you.
