D. GMO LABELING = A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE

       According to Causes.com, "the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA)—Monsanto's Evil Twin—is pulling out all the stops to keep you in the dark about what's in your food.

     "The GMA plans to sue Vermont to overturn its new GMO labeling law, H.112. And it's pushing a bill in Congress that would not only overturn every state's right to enact a GMO labeling law, but also legalize the practice of labeling GMO foods 'natural.'"  The Vermont suit has been filed.

      These actions of the GMA have one purpose.  To silence and make impotent the critics of genetically engineered food.  Either we have the constitutional right to live freely and pursue happiness or we don't.  Being as healthy as possible allows one to exercise that right. The GMA does not think you should have the right to decide what is best for the health of your family.  We know we can't depend on government to make good decisions about our health nor about what is in the best interest of the Common Good.  The government gives private industry a free pass to use the public as human guinea pigs in whatever technological innovation that industry thinks will increase their profits.  Only when it is scientifically verified that an innovation is doing grievous harm does the government do anything to stop it.  Now the GMA wants to take away your right to opt out of the GMO experiment by not letting you know what foods contain GMO ingredients.

       This also has a negative effect on the Common Good because of "Superweeds" (www.ucsusas.org/news/press_release/superweeds-overrun-farmlands...) that are resulting in more polluted farm runoff and higher food prices.  There is also evidence that GM DNA has jumped from farm fields into the wild plant population outside of farms (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/10canola.html?_r=0).

    The Human Rights issue is a simple one.  Should people have a right to know if the food they are eating contains GMOs or has been produced through means of genetic engineering.
     I will compare this issue to skydiving.  An imperfect analogy but the best I've got at the moment.
Some people are not meant to skydive.  They may have an intuition about it.  Sky-diving enthusiasts will never understand those people.  They will insist your chances of not suffering any ill-effects are 99.5% or whatever.  If I were to force someone who is not meant to skydive, to do it because the danger is minuscule, I would be violating their basic rights. 
       Monsanto and then Grocery Manufacturers Association wants to coerce people into eating food whose genes have been artificially manipulated through banning mandatory GMO labeling.  This is abusive and a violation of human rights.
       I would feel the same way if the FDA approved adding sawdust from rare tropical forest trees to processed foods as a fiber supplement.  Even if the FDA deemed it safe to eat, I would remain morally bound to boycott that food.  I could not do that if the food containing the offensive ingredient was not labeled as such.  People who don't care have a right to not know what is in the food they eat.  All they have to do is not listen to the information and not read food label information.  People who do care should likewise have the right to know what the food they eat contains.    

                                         

 WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

    There is a pledge you can take at Causes.com sponsored by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) to boycott the companies that belong to the GMA.  More than 20,000 people had signed it as of 7/4/14.

      According to the OCA, GMA member "corporations spent about $68 million just to defeat GMO ballot initiatives in California (Prop 37) and Washington State (I-522). And they continue to fight against your right to know by supporting the GMA's latest efforts to overturn states' rights to pass GMO labeling laws. 

      "Here are the worst culprits .... and the amount they spent just to defeat Prop 37 and I-522:"

PepsiCo ($4.8M)

Coca-Cola ($3.2M)

Nestle ($3M)

Kraft/Mondelez ($2.4M)

General Mills ($2.1M)

ConAgra Foods ($2M)

Kellogg's ($1.1M)

Campbell's ($980k)

Smucker's ($900k)

Hershey's ($880k)

Bimbo Bakeries ($560k)

McCormick ($400k)

Post E, the next one on this site, is a list I prepared of  what seem the most familiar of the 300 GMA member companies and some familiar brands of each.  This way you can contribute to the boycott even if you can't sign the pledge.

GOING  ABOVE AND BEYOND

Some of us feel the need to do more than boycott these companies.  I have written letters to several firms to let them know how disappointed I am not to purchase their brands anymore until and unless they renounce GMA membership and publicly support consumers' right to know what they are eating.  You might encourage your friends, neighbors and co-workers to join the boycott.  I have written my elected representatives to express my support for universal mandatory GMO labeling.  One might consider writing/Emailing one's appreciation and promise of support to those companies that do not appear on the GMA list and which hopefully have not spent any profits trying to keep us from knowing what we are eating.  One might even encourage organizations to which one belongs or with which one asssociates to participate in the boycott.

If your organization would like to go on record as supporting GMO Right to Know, you can go to http://www.carighttoknow.org/endorsements

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