Guest post: Reply to Consumers Union
Guest post by Josh Spokes. An email from Consumers Union to members, and his reply.
Policy and Action from Consumer Reports
If you want the right to know, speak out now.
Monsanto is telling Senators you don’t need to know about GMOs in your food. We think you have the right to make up your own mind! Tell your Senators to support GMO labeling.
Take action
Dear Joshua,
If you want the right to know what’s in your food, now is the time to speak out. If you wait, you may forever be kept in the dark.
As you read this, Senators are writing a bill that could determine the fate of GMO food labeling. They will decide whether you get to know that the tortilla chips or breakfast cereals you’re buying and eating are genetically engineered.
Monsanto, DuPont, General Mills, Kellogg’s and other giant industrial food producers are telling Senators that you don’t need to know about GMOs in your food. We think you have the right to make up your own mind. If you agree, act now — once this bill is written it will be tough to change, and the vote will come soon.
Tell your Senators to support mandatory GMO labeling! Don’t let Monsanto keep you in the dark about what you’re eating.
The year-long Congressional fight over GMO labeling has come down to this moment. The House in July passed a horrible industry-backed bill that would ban federal GMO labeling and forever block your state from implementing its own labeling laws.
But if you speak out, your Senators can change this. They can pass their own bill by the end of the year to make sure your choices and rights aren’t taken away. Just as you now know which foods have been frozen or come from concentrate, requiring GMO ingredients on the label simply lets you choose what you want to eat.
And labeling is more important than ever: Now that the weed-killer associated with GMO crops has been designated as possibly causing cancer, don’t you think you have the right to make an informed choice about whether you want to eat GMO foods?
Senators are writing the bill now. Tell them to make sure it doesn’t take away your right to know what’s in your food!
After you act, please share this with others in your network so they can tell their Senators the same thing. And we will be back in touch soon to let you know how the bill turned out and next steps!
Sincerely,
Jean Halloran, Consumers Union
Policy and Action from Consumer Reports
Josh’s reply:
As a longtime supporter of Consumers Union I am incredibly disappointed in your support for labeling GMOs. This is not an issue of “consumers’ right to know,” and I don’t think you’re that naive. This is a bogeyman issue that plays on legitimate consumer sentiment and twists it.
Labeling GMOS—which isn’t even honest, since every domesticated crop
is GMO, just not always by direct genetic manipulation—won’t give
consumers any information that will allow them to make any choices that
affect their health or safety. It will, however, give the government
imprimatur to the idea that GMOs are scary, harmful, and only invented
to make Monsanto rich, and that they have no benefits for ordinary
people. Indeed, you make it seem like they’re not only no benefit to
anyone, but that they’re actually a harm.
What is wrong with you on this count? You have always been the most
scrupulous researchers and consumer advocates, weighing evidence and
presenting it so that people can make informed decisions. You’re one of
the most powerful consumer organizations in the country, and everyone in
the US owes you a huge debt for the work you’ve done not only helping us
shop wisely, but holding product manufacturers accountable for dangerous
items.
I suspect you must think that, because your demographic is
overwhelmingly liberal and left (I’m liberal and left, too, and I work
for a nonprofit consumer watchdog organization) that we must all be
scientifically ignorant. That we will support this issue because we
culturally identify with it as part of our NPR/Whole Foods tribe. That’s
insulting, and it’s cynical.
How about spending some of your considerable expertise debunking the
costly and often dangerous “health” bullshit that Whole Foods uses to
bilk gullible consumers out of hundreds of millions of dollars?
Do better. We have a right to expect it from you.
And I’d actually like an explanation for your policy, a well-reasoned
rationale. If you have published this somewhere, I’d be grateful for a
reference.
Joshua [Spokes]
Josh, generally you’re so right there’s just nothing else to say. Not this time.
1) Labelling does not, by itself, imply scariness. It tells people what’s in their food. That’s all. Sugar, salt, and fat aren’t scary, but knowing how much is in your food is still useful.
2) Direct gene modifications to food are a very mixed bag. A tiny part of the mix is good stuff like golden rice which adds carotene (and hence Vit A) to a staple food. A huge part, around three quarters, is making crops resistant to glyphosate/RoundUp herbicide, which is ecologically damaging, ethically dubious when the same company provides the resistant seeds and the RoundUp, and shows significant indications of human health effects from the increased use of the herbicide(s).
See, for instance, Landrigan and Benbrook, 2015, New England Journal of Medicine, GMOs, Herbicides, and Public Health.
It’s the industry that has been trying very hard to make the issue appear settled. It’s not. Far from it.
But even if it was, people still have the right to know anything they want to know about where their food comes from and how it was treated and processed. If it doesn’t all fit on the label, put it on a web site. But we do have a right to know.
In general… what Josh said. The grist for this mill is with the anti-GMO (… anti-vaccine etc.) gang.
Why is there a need for mandatory labeling as opposed to government certified GMO-free labels?
quixote@1:
Leaving aside the science considerations, the labeling initiatives to date haven’t been about telling people what is in their food, despite proponents loudly claiming that. I’m specifically thinking of I-522 here in Washington state (which failed), which is representative of the kinds of labeling proposals that have come up in other states, and which was largely based upon appeals to emotion and popularity, and containing enough exceptions to what must be labeled as to make the law essentially meaningless. For example, flour made from GMO wheat would have been required to be labeled, but a slice of pizza served hot but made with GMO flour in the crust (and probably GMO tomatoes, GMO olives, GMO peppers, even pepperoni made from animals fed GMO corn) would not be labeled; in fact, no prepared food fell under the requirement, and not even certain boxed foods in supermarkets. Any such labeling scheme needs to be fair, and if intended to inform, it needs to actually result in information.
There were exactly two plausible justifications for the proposed law: 1) That factory farms growing GMO crops might use more pesticides (emphasis on “might”), and 2) that countries with anti-GMO laws might ban the import of Washington crops if they were not clearly labeled via government mandate.
I don’t see that #1 was really an argument for GMO labels as much as it was an argument against factory farming and the overuse of pesticides, to be honest, which really just left #2 as a justification for the labels. So far, even without the labels, such bans have not appeared to be a concern, though. So even if that initiative had passed, consumers would not have been much better informed today than they were in the past, but—and here’s the worrisome part—they would have thought that they were better informed and protected.
TL;DR: GMO labeling laws are difficult to get right. So far, nobody has gotten one right, and I’m against passing ineffective, unfair, and poorly worded bills.
qwints@3:
I believe that the federal “Organic” label is the functional equivalent of “GMO-free”. Not certain of that, though.
Quixote, thank you for responding. I don’t think I am wrong, however.
Labeling is not merely “this tells you what’s in it.” Not in every case. This is not analogous to ingredient lists. Those lists simply display ingredients, allowing the consumer to choose for nutrition, avoidance of food allergies, etc. In other words, it conveys real information about nutrition and potential health consequences that are vital to food consumers.
GMO labeling does not. It tells the consumer nothing like ingredients lists do. The very act of labeling does carry a serious connotation when it’s a government requirement. It’s a powerful tool, and it’s a tool we need. But its very power means that it must be used judiciously. In this context—-we are awash in people who do, actually believe that GMOs are harmful to their health—it is absolutely going to be read as a government warning. As a disfavored, “Now you know, proceed at your own risk” statement.
We don’t need to agree on everything to both acknowledge that that is a real psychological dynamic.
This is bad public policy that relies on “satisfying” consumer demand that has been manipulated and misled. Hell, a lot of it has been flat-out created by scare-mongering anti-GMO activists.
This is not what government labels are for.
Quixote—I also challenge your assertions about roundup. I challenge your claim that it’s “ethically dubious”, and I challenge your contention about “health effects.” Get specific, and be credible. I’ve read quite a bit of science arguing on both sides, and my opinion is that the anti-GMO side is being less than careful, is using vague words (“health effects,” for example) that they know are read as “health dangers” when there is no evidence of such. I don’t trust them.
I’m about as pro-regulation as you can get. I am not a lover of giant corporations, and I mistrust them by default, all things being equal. But all things are not equal. I have no emotional or cultural or tribal sympathy with corporations per se, nor with Monsanto specifically. My evaluation that this is bad science being used cynically is not something that services any emotional needs I have to affiliate with corporations. Believe me that, if you knew me outside the context of this post, you’d sort me into the liberal-pro-reg category right away.
James highlights something really important. Probably the *most* important part of this: Misusing the power of such labeling dilutes its effectiveness when we need it. When it *purports* to tell you something you believe you need to know, and you then believe you do have that information and you can make the morally correct choice, but you don’t actually have that information, it’s a serious problem.
Quixote, you have reiterated many common concerns about this technology. I’ve done a fair bit of research on the science element here, so hope that the following info will be helpful:
But GMO isn’t an ingredient, it’s a technology. As such it’s arbitrary to single it out over all the other technologies used to produce our food. We’ve been eating untested hybrids for generations, and traits made by irradiation (Hello, texas red grapefruit) for decades. None of those techniques are required to be labeled. Why not? What’s the difference in *how* the genetic makeup of the plant was tweaked for the desired effect on the resulting product?
a) If you object to glyphosate use, it certainly isn’t limited to GM crops. Conventional farmers use a ton of it. Clearly, it’s a pesticide, with toxic effects by design, but one of the main reasons that it was chosen over other pesticides to engineer the resistant trait was because it’s much *less* toxic than many other pesticides. Being able to use glyphosate at later points in the growth cycle (what the trait specifically allows for) has significantly *decreased* the use of way nastier products, like atrazine, for example.
b) The patent on glyphosate expired several years ago. Any company can make it now, not just Monsanto.
c) A large number of GE crops are Bt, i.e. they contain a gene from a soil bacterium that produces a protein toxic to root worm, boll worm, and other crop-chewing pests. That means you don’t have to kill them with chemical pesticides. Incidentally, topically applied Bt is an approved pest control measure in Organic farming.
d) If you are still anxious to avoid GE products because of your objection to corporate practices, or whatever THERE ARE ALREADY LABELS THAT ENABLE YOU TO DO THAT: “Certified Organic” and “NonGMO Project” are voluntary labels that help consumers who care about this issue buy what they want.
e) I would highly encourage you to read beyond Benbrook, who is far from a neutral reporter on this issue. I highly recommend Nathaniel Johnson’s series of articles for Grist here: http://grist.org/series/panic-free-gmos/
And I have many, many other links to scientifically sound sources on this issue, if you are interested.
Peace
“b” is so special it got listed twice. Damn it. Sorry.
That oversight invalidates your entire post, Jen. Sorry!
Seriously, though, you made lots of great points. It helps to have a working biologist chime in on these things. One of the problems I have with these discussions is exactly the one you made before (a), that GE is a technology, not an ingredient. EVEN IF a study shows that GE corn variety CY-8399 fed to lab rats results in X% more cancerous tumors than rats fed the non-GE parent variety, that doesn’t tell us anything about other GE techniques in other varieties, much less anything about GE varieties of completely different plants.
Yes, exactly, MrFancyPants, and it gets even more convoluted than that when you consider that a lot of products that would be subject to labeling laws, like beet sugar and corn syrup, are, by virtue of processing, far, far removed from their plant of origin and therefore don’t contain “organisms” (or cellular residue, or DNA, etc.) at all.
awww, thanks for taking such good care of me, Ophelia <3
I took pity on poor little e.
If the GMO labelling movement was at all honest and fair in application, I would agree on the grounds that people do indeed get to decide what they put in their bodies. The fact that this is just one part of a largely dishonest anti-GMO ideology invalidates that in my view. They use the neutral language of “We think you have the right to make up your own mind” with one side of their face, while the other side is engaged in poisoning the term GMO.
Thank you Jen for your informative and clear post! Much appreciated!
Let’s take the ethics out of the sphere of soybeans and put it into a human context. Patenting a RoundUp resistant soybean and then selling lots more RoundUp (multiple times more, not just a bit more) is the same as a company putting a carcinogen in the water and then patenting the only cure. I’m being polite, calling it “ethically dubious.”
Some of the evidence requested is in the link to the NEJM article. (That’s why I linked to it. The idea was “here’s some evidence, if you’d like to go deeper.”) Just a couple of quotes: “the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate, the herbicide most widely used on GM crops, as a “probable human carcinogen”” [The meta-study was published in The Lancet.] “But widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant crops has led to overreliance on herbicides and, in particular, on glyphosate. … Not surprisingly, glyphosate-resistant weeds have emerged and are found today on nearly 100 million acres in 36 states. Fields must now be treated with multiple herbicides, including 2,4-D, a component of the Agent Orange defoliant used in the Vietnam War.”
Another article, also 2015, No scientific consensus on GMO safety, Hilbeck et al., published in Environmental Sciences Europe. From the abstract: “The joint statement developed and signed by over 300 independent researchers, and reproduced and published below, does not assert that GMOs are unsafe or safe. Rather, the statement concludes that the scarcity and contradictory nature of the scientific evidence published to date prevents conclusive claims of safety, or of lack of safety, of GMOs. Claims of consensus on the safety of GMOs are not supported by an objective analysis of the refereed literature.” (Refereed literature. They’re not just talking about random thoughts on Post-it notes. This is the article CU signed on to that Josh mentioned.)
A good summary by the FAO of multiple issues with GMOs, from 2003, but unfortunately, still applicable.
This could go on for dozens of references. I’m not sure Ophelia would appreciate me doing that?
You’re so welcome, Claire! Happy to help.
And if anyone is hungry for more data, here is a nice series of graphs showing the decline in use of many more toxic pesticides. Please note that I was wrong in my above comment about the decrease in atrazine use. While every other pesticide evaluated has indeed declined with the wider circulation of GE crops, atrazine use in particular has remained pretty steady. However, the # of farmed acres has increased over that same time period, so if atrazine use is remaining steady, that fact that it isn’t scaling up proportionally is a promising sign.
http://www.crediblehulk.org/index.php/2015/06/02/about-those-more-caustic-herbicides-that-glyphosate-helped-replace-by-credible-hulk/
I just got my flu vac.
I’d never shop Whole Foods.
I’m not some hysteric.
I know there is no evidence that GMO foods are harmful. (or non-Organic, or milk from BHT treated cows).
AND I want to be able to choose to purchase non GMO foods, that’s all, I want that choice and I’m willing to pay higher food prices for it.
Also, I, like most people with brains, realize that all domesticated animals and plants are the result of many generations of careful human selection and to equate the common use of GMO to that process is one freaking insulting straw man.
Cazz, why is that “an insulting straw man?”
And if you recognize there’s no harm from them, why do you believe labeling foods for GMOS specifically—and not based on some other characteristic—is necessary?
cazz @ #18:
You already can choose to purchase non GMO foods. There are well-established reliable ways to do this. There are even downloadable apps. Go for it!
I, too, am curious about the ‘insulting straw man’. What is it that you find about this method of genetic modification that is functionally different than all the other ways (which include more options than selective breeding)?
For the record, I have never (and would never) suggest that people who have reservations about GMOs are hysterical or unintelligent. There are a lot of distinct objections to GMOs and I think each position merits some thoughtful discussion and evaluation. Pronouncing everyone who doesn’t agree with me a Slack-jawed Luddite is unlikely to win many hearts or minds, which is why I tend to duck out of pro-GM conversations that are headed down that road (numerous Facebook groups come to mind). I’d much rather have a reasonable discussion.
Sorry, that analogy doesn’t make any sense to me.
Please see above where I discussed the selection of glyphosate over other more toxic options. If they didn’t give a crap about human health, why would they bother to make that choice?
As far as glyphosate being a probable carcinogen, lots of things are. Dosage, exposure, and relative risk need to be taken into consideration to make that a meaningful categorization. Importantly, none of those factors are communicated well by the IARC. (See recent example of Western civilization losing its collective mind over the IARC classification of bacon as a carcinogen–actually in a higher category than glyphosate, for what it’s worth).
As to the Benbrook piece, which, despite appearing in the NEJM, is an opinion piece (not a research paper) and is written by someone whose work is entirely supported by the Organic industry:
“Overreliance” compared to what? The thing that always seems to be missing from these claims is perspective on what the agricultural alternatives are. Which is worse for the environment: using a gallon of glyphosate to spray 100 acres of RR soybeans, or using 50 gallons of diesel fuel to till those same 50 acres? There are costs and benefits to every farming practice.
Regarding the glyphosate resistant weeds, yes, it is indeed unsurprising. Plants develop resistance to herbicides. Insects develop resistance to insecticides. Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. And it’s not just about chemicals–there are weeds that have developed resistance to tilling. Evolution is an arms race. What Benbrook fails to mention is that this resistance is not a problem unique to GE crops in any way, but has been a part of farming for decades. The trait that’s engineered into RR crops was derived from glyphosate resistance that was identified in a different plant species, in fact.
This is a rather ugly ‘guilt by association’ gambit, to be honest. Agent Orange was designed to kill jungle plants, and 2,4-D is an effective chemical for achieving that goal. Batches of Agent Orange that were contaminated with dioxin were the ones that caused so much damage to humans. The active herbicidal ingredients had nothing at all to do with that.
You’re right, Quixote, this *could* go on for dozens of references, so it seems important to consider the sources w/r/t to the quality of the research and potential conflicts of interest in play, and how the claims measure up to the scientific consensus. Yes, you can find studies concluding that there are problems with GMO crops, just as you find studies concluding that global warming is not happening, or is not anthropogenic, or is not a problem. Just as you can find studies that vaccines cause autism. When put into context with the entire body of work in these various fields, however, such findings are in the minority. Again, I’d urge anyone interested to read through the Grist series. It’s extremely even-handed, and far more accessible than the primary literature.
Whether my wish is to seek out or to reject GMEnhanced foods is neither Josh’s nor Monsanto’s nor anyone else’s business. Once I have decided I want certain information I don’t give a tinkers dam whether someone else thinks I “need” it. And unless there is a *pressing* need to hide it I consider any effort to do so as prima facie evidence of ill will on the part of those seeking to do so – and I am quite willing to suffer the consequences of holding a wrong opinion in order to “punish” those who would deny me the information I ask for, and I (and millions like me) don’t care if that makes me an irrational asshole. So I think the anti-labelling campaign does far more harm than what it seeks to suppress – to the prospects of GMOs in particular, and to rational science-based policy in general.
But you’re not the only person affected. This isn’t an individual issue. Nobody is trying to deny you, personally, information you, personally, ask for. Getting all personally outraged about it is kind of beside the point.
I demand that there be labels on all processed foods indicating EXACTLY what percentage of cockroach parts were incorporated into the food, as it is a well known fact that such things inevitably make their way into the packaging as a result of the processing technology. I don’t give a tinker’s damn that many people claim that trace amounts of cockroach are harmless, so unless there is a pressing need to suppress the exact percentage, I’ll consider it to be evidence of ill will on the part of those seeking to do so. I don’t care if that makes me an irrational asshole, it’s my RIGHT TO KNOW.
To clarify my position: I am not “anti-labeling” when it comes to GMO’s. I’m quite suspicious of the motives of the groups pressing for labels, and their cynical manipulation of the fears of people who are unfamiliar with the science, but this is the way our democracy is set up, at least here in Washington State: if enough people want an Initiative on the ballot, and enough people vote for that initiative, then that is a reflection of the will of the people and I am all for a healthy, representative democracy and people expressing their wishes through voting. So if the people want labels, let them have them.
HOWEVER. There needs to be a reason to decide something beyond just “I want this”, which is what my previous snarky comment was trying to convey. Decisions should be informed. All that I (and most people I know who push back against labeling campaigns) are trying to do is to convey information that helps people decide. I have tried to illustrate some of the flaws with the bills proposed so far (well, at least with one bill) that could have resulted in at the very least a useless law, if not a damaging one—and haven’t we all, at some point in our lives, been rankled by bad laws? Why on earth would we willingly vote in another one? Show me a GOOD labeling bill, one that actually does what its proponents claim, and one that is based on solid science. If you can do that, I won’t resist your efforts to get it passed (which is not to say that I’d vote *for* it myself, as is my right, just that if it’s a solid bill that is based in facts, then I won’t *oppose* it).
Alan Cooper @ #24–again, this information is already available to you, via voluntarily labeled products, apps, and easily obtainable information about what genetically modified crops are in our food supply.
If you are in the US, here’s a current list that includes all FDA approved GE foods on the market (or, in the case of the JR Simplot potato or the Arctic apple, approved for sale):
http://time.com/3840073/gmo-food-charts/
Corn, soy, canola and beet products (most of which become oils and sugars) make up the bulk of our GE derived food products. If a food item made with those ingredients is not Certified Organic, or doesn’t explicitly say ‘NonGMO Project Verified’, then it probably contains an ingredient derived from GE plants.
There’s any indication that the ag companies marketing these plants have a desire to hide their existence from the public. I do, however, think they have a fair stake in not having their rigorously tested products blackballed without cause by an arbitrary labeling law.
There’s NO indication, FFS.
What Jen Phillips wrote: the problem is classic FUD.
(“Frankenfoods”)
More.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/11/blissful-ignorance-how-environmental-activists-shut-down-molecular-biology-labs-in-high-schools-.html
Helene–wow! What an extraordinary story.
How is this any different from a cult, honestly?
I, like the author, wonder if this would have remained a non-story if the topic had been climate science. Damn.