Published on May 26, 2013
“Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Wednesday offered an amendment to the Senate’s major farm bill that would allow states to require labels on genetically engineered foods.
“Today we have an opportunity with this amendment to affirm once and for all that states do have the right to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients,” he said on the Senate floor.”*
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) fought hard to give his state and others the right to label GMO foods, but faced non-sensical opposition from Monsanto-bought Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Did reason win? Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
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Monsanto: Profits Above Human Health
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| Dees Illustration |
Stephen Lendman
Activist Post
On May 25, tens of thousands of people marched against Monsanto. They did so in dozens of countries worldwide. They had good reason.
“March Against Monsanto” (MAM) headlined “Why Do We March?”
Independent research shows GMO foods and ingredients cause “serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects.”
Former Monsanto executives run the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An obvious conflict of interest exists.
Provisions of the March 2013 Monsanto Protection Act include “ban(ning) courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically-modified seeds.”
For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism.
Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.
Monsanto’s GM seeds are harmful to the environment; for example, scientists have indicated they have contributed to Colony Collapse Disorder among the world’s bee population.
MAM advocates:
- buying organic foods;
- boycotting Monsanto-owned companies;
- repealing Monsanto Protection Act harmful provisions;
- more independent research on the effects of GMOs on human health;
- holding Monsanto officials and complicit politicians accountable;
- informing the public about “Monsanto’s secrets;” and
- “taking to the streets to show the world and Monsanto that we won’t take these injustices quietly.”
- “We will not stand for cronyism. We will not stand for poison. That’s why we March Against Monsanto.”
In 1906, Upton Sinclair’s muckraking novel The Jungle aroused the public. It exposed monopoly capitalist excesses, worker exploitation, and unsanitary practices in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants.
Food hazardous to human health was produced. Nothing was done to stop it. Unsuspecting consumers ate it.
Jack London said Sinclair’s book “depict(ed) what our country really is, the home of oppression and injustice, a nightmare of misery, an inferno of suffering, a human hell, a jungle of wild beasts.”
Theodore Roosevelt was president. Public outcry got results. The 1906 Pure Food Food and Drug Act became law. It fell short of full protection. It helped by prohibiting some of the worst abuses.
Yesteryear’s reforms are gone. They no longer exist. Deregulation ended them. Profits alone matter. What corporate America wants it gets. It runs the country. Agribusiness and other industry sectors occupy Washington.
They decide policy. They write laws Congress passes. Ordinary people have no say. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Public health and environmental sanity are ignored. Corporate greed alone matters.
Business officials run the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other government agencies.
America’s food supply suffers. Genetically modified ones proliferate. They’re unsafe to eat. They’re hazardous to human health. Independent studies prove it.
Monsanto’s the world’s leading GMO seed producer. It’s profiting at the expense of human health. It wants all animal and vegetable life forms patented. It wants global food control.
It wants labeling prohibited. It wants reliable science buried. It wants issues of food safety ignored. It wants consumers to have no say.
It wants critics silenced. It wants them discredited. It has enormous influence in Washington. It gets its own way. It’s long past time that ended. Ordinary people must demand it. Food safety is too vital to ignore.
The World According to Monsanto chronicles its controversial history. It’s a powerful film. It explains some of the most toxic products ever sold.
Monsanto deception, pressure, collusion and bribery are standard tactics to do so.
Secret documents are exposed. Firsthand accounts are presented. Victims, scientists, politicians and others tell their own stories.
Related articles
- About 50 residents protest ag corporation (yumasun.com)
- Senate rejects measure to allow labels on genetically engineered foods (rawstory.com)
- GMO Labeling Bill Shot Down In Senate Just Days Before March Against Monsanto (thedailysheeple.com)
- GMO Labeling Bill Voted Down In Senate May 23, 2013 (noliesradio.org)
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