By Will Allen, Cedar Circle Farm, Vermont, and Ronnie Cummins, Organic
Consumers Association
April 4, 2012
The world's most hated corporation is at it again, this time in
Vermont.
Despite overwhelming public support and support from a clear
majority of Vermont's Agriculture Committee, Vermont legislators are dragging
their feet on a proposed GMO labeling bill. Why? Because Monsanto has threatened
to sue the state if the bill passes.
The popular
legislative bill requiring mandatory labels on genetically engineered food
(H-722) is languishing in the Vermont House Agriculture Committee, with only
four weeks left until the legislature adjourns for the year.
Despite thousands
of emails and calls from constituents who overwhelmingly support mandatory
labeling, despite the fact that a majority (6 to 5) of Agriculture Committee
members support passage of the measure, Vermont legislators are holding up the
labeling bill and refusing to take a vote.
Instead, they're calling for
more public hearings on April 12, in the apparent hope that they can run out the
clock until the legislative session ends in early May.
What happened to
the formerly staunch legislative champions of Vermont's "right to know" bill?
They lost their nerve and abandoned their principles after a Monsanto
representative recently threatened a public official that the biotech giant
would sue Vermont if they dared to pass the bill.
Several legislators have
rather unconvincingly argued that the Vermont public has a "low appetite" for
any bills, even very popular bills like this one, that might end up in court.
Others expressed concern about Vermont being the first state to pass a mandatory
GMO labeling bill and then having to "go it alone" against Monsanto in
court.
What it really comes down to this: Elected officials are
abandoning the public interest and public will in the face of corporate
intimidation.
Monsanto
has used lawsuits or threats of lawsuits for 20 years to force unlabeled
genetically engineered foods on the public, and to intimidate farmers into
buying their genetically engineered seeds and hormones.
When Vermont became the
first state in the nation in 1994 to require mandatory labels on milk and dairy
products derived from cows injected with the controversial genetically
engineered Bovine Growth Hormone, Monsanto's minions sued in Federal Court and
won on a judge's decision that dairy corporations have the first amendment
"right" to remain silent on whether or not they are injecting their cows with
rBGH - even though rBGH has been linked to severe health damage in cows and
increased cancer risk for humans, and is banned in much of the industrialized
world, including Europe and Canada.
Monsanto wields tremendous influence
in Washington, DC and most state capitols. The company's stranglehold over
politicians and regulatory officials is what has prompted activists in
California to bypass the legislature and collect 850,000 signatures to place a
citizens' Initiative on the ballot in November 2012. The 2012 California Right
to Know Act will force mandatory labeling of GMOs and to ban the routine
practice of labeling GMO-tainted food as "natural."
All of Monsanto's
fear mongering and intimidation tactics were blatantly on display in the House
Agriculture Committee hearings March 15-16.
During the hearings, the
Vermont legislature was deluged with calls, letters, and e-mails urging passage
of a GMO labeling bill - more than on any other bill since the fight over Civil
Unions in 1999-2000. The legislature heard from pro-labeling witnesses such as
Dr. Michael Hansen, an expert on genetic engineering from the Consumers Union,
who shredded industry claims that GMOs are safe and that consumers don't need to
know if their food is contaminated with them.
On the other side of the
fence, Monsanto's lobbyist and Vermont mouthpiece, Margaret Laggis employed
inaccurate, unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims to make Monsanto's case. She
warned during the hearings that if this law were passed, there would not be
enough corn, canola, and soybean seed for Vermont farmers to
plant.
Laggis lied when she said that the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) had done exhaustive feeding tests on genetically modified
foods. Hansen corrected her, testifying that all of the GMO feeding tests
submitted to the FDA were conducted by Monsanto and other GMO corporations and
that the FDA had not done any GMO testing of its own.
Laggis lied again
when she claimed that a recent Canadian study showing that more than 90%
pregnant women had high levels of a genetically modified bacterial pesticide in
their blood resulted from them "eating too much organic food" during pregnancy.
Again, Hansen refuted this nonsense by pointing out that the Bacillus
thuingensis (Bt) bacterium spray used by organic growers is chemically and
materially different from the GMO Bt bacterium which showed up in the pregnant
women's blood and the umbilical cords of their fetuses. Hanson pointed that the
high levels of Monsanto's mutant Bt in the women's blood was due to the
widespread cultivation of GMO corn, cotton, soy, and canola.
The
committee heard testimony that European Union studies have been conducted which
showed that even short-term feeding studies of GMO crops caused 43.5% of male
test animals to suffer kidney abnormalities, and 30.8% of female test animals to
suffer liver abnormalities. Studies also have shown that the intestinal lining
of animals fed GMO food was thickened compared to the control animals. All of
these short-term results could become chronic, and thus precursors to
cancer.
Studies like these have prompted 50 nations around the world to
pass laws requiring mandatory labels on GMO right foods.
In the end, none
of the scientific testimony mattered. Monsanto operatives simply reverted to
their usual tactics: They openly threatened to sue the
state.
Unfortunately, in the US, industry and the government continue to
side with Monsanto rather than the 90% of consumers who support labeling.
Monsanto's biotech bullying is a classic example of how the 1% control the rest
of us, even in Vermont, generally acknowledged as the most progressive state in
the nation.
Vermont activists are organizing a protest at the state
capital on April 12 to coincide with the next round of hearings on H-722, and
are asking residents to write letters, make calls, and e-mail their legislators
and the Governor. For more information, please go to the website http://www.vtrighttoknow.org or the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/vtrighttoknow of the Vermont Right to
Know Campaign.
* * *
Will
Allen is the co-manager of Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford, Vermont. He is
also the Author of The War on Bugs , a
history of farm pesticides and fertilizers since 1810. He is on the policy
advisory boards of The Organic Consumers Association and Willing Hands. He has
attended all of the agriculture committee hearings on H-722, where the testimony
referred to above was delivered.
Ronnie Cummins is the National Director of the
Organic Consumers Association and its Millions Against Monsanto campaign. He
also is a member of the Steering Committee of the California Ballot Initiative
to Label Genetically Engineered Foods, and co-author of the book,
Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25180.cfm