Saturday, August 25, 2012

The fight to label genetically modified food



If you were eating something completely unnatural - something that
could make you sick - give you cancer - make your testicles shrink -
heck, even kill you - wouldn't you want to know? If you answered yes -
then you're on the same side as over 90% of your fellow Americans.
Poll after poll over the last few years - has shown that more than 90%
of Americans support specific labeling of genetically modified foods
that they buy in grocery stores. And European and other developed
countries require labeling of GMOs -- genetically modified foods. But
even though for years Americans have been demanding the right to know
what's in their food - and whether or not it's franken-food - not a
single piece of state or federal legislation has ever been passed to
make it happen. Which brings us to California. Efforts to force the
state legisature to pass laws to require labeling of genetically
modified foods have failed - so now citizens of the state have taken
matters into their own hands. After collecting more than a million
signatures - the citizens of California put proposition 37 on the
ballot for November - which will force all genetically modified foods
to have special labels. Good news, right? Well...now the fight is just
starting. That's because the biggest purveyors of genetically modified
foods - giant corporations like Monsanto, DuPont, Coca-Cola, Pepsi,
Nestle - all of them are spending enormous amounts of money to defeat
Prop 37. They don't want you to know what's in your food. Monsanto
alone has spent more than 4 million bucks - so too has Dupont - and in
total the GMO industry has raised $25 million to kill prop 37 - and to
kill your right to know what's in the food you eat. On the other hand
- the supporters of Prop 37 - have only raised $2 million. This is
going to be an uphill battle.

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