Hey Hey! Ho Ho! GMOs Have Got to Go!

The folks in Washington, D.C. are about to make another big mistake.

There’s a legislative rider being advanced that, if passed, will open up the floodgates for the planting of new, untested GMO (“genetically modified organism”) crops. This scares the you-know-what out of a lot of people.

I’m late to this party. There’s so much other crap going on in Lansing and Washington that I just haven’t had time to write about every important issue (e.g. GMOs, the Keystone Pipeline, Sarah Palin’s rack). This is intentional on the part of the evildoers, I'm sure, who want to keep us scrambling on so many fronts that our opposition is fragmented and ineffective. (And no, I’m not wearing a tin foil hat.) But the thought of chemicals being injected into our food – and of me feeding my trusting children untested, genetically engineered “frankenfoods” that could prove carcinogenic or turn them orange or whatever – gives me the creeps.

I’m not an expert on health and nutrition – I’d like to say I buy organic as much as possible but I don’t – but it seems like standing up to biotech lobbyists who’re trying to sneak provisions into Continuing Resolutions that trash serious scientific and regulatory review of our food supply is the right thing to do. It’s not about insider politics or anti-corporatism. It’s about whether food produced with GMOs is safe and consumers have a right to know if it’s been modified.

The specific provision, which a group called Food Democracy Now is calling the “Monsanto Protection Act,” would strip judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumers, farmers and the environment. According to the group, “this provision is simply an industry ploy to continue to sell genetically engineered seeds even when a court of law has found they were approved by USDA illegally. It is unnecessary and an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review.”

The group says the judicial review process is a vital check on federal agency decisions that could negatively impact on public and environmental health.

Food Democracy Now wants voters to demand that Senator Barb Mikulski (D-Maryland), who chairs the relevant Senate Appropriations subcommittee, pulls this “dangerous and unconstitutional rider” and supports any amendment that would strike it from the Continuing Resolution.

Sounds good to me.

Senator Mikulski’s phone number in Washington is 202-224-4654.

For background information on Monsanto and the Organic Consumer Association’s “Millions against Monsanto” campaign, click here.

Sources: Food Democracy Now, OpposingViews.com, NBCNews.com, Organic Consumers Association, CNBC.com.