Vote YES! on Prop 37: California’s ‘Right to Know’ Food Labeling for GMO / GE Ingredients

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This is a CRUCIAL HEALTH ISSUE for Americans and the world. It’s also a KEY environmental, ‘freedom of information,’ and basic democratic policy issue.

WHY?
1) As consumers, we have the RIGHT TO KNOW. U.S. courts recognize a fundamental “RIGHT-TO-KNOW” rooted in the U.S. Constitution and in common law.
2) American citizens WANT TO KNOW: Although only 25% of us are aware that up to 80% of grocery store packaged foods contain genetically engineered ingredients. When asked, up to 90% of US consumers would like labels on genetically engineered food.  We’re not going to have labels on GE / GMO food until WE DEMAND it.
3) Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are purchasing and consuming unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite an FDA scientists’ finding that these foods POSE SERIOUS RISKS to personal & environmental health.
4) Huge agri-bio tech & chemical corporations, like Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, United Grocers, do NOT have the right to EXPERIMENT on US and OUR FAMILIES against our will and without our permission. Check out who’s funding / opposing Prop 37.
5) At least 50 countries including China, India, and EU member states have mandatory GE/GMO food labeling laws, rendering the USA’s policy OUTDATED and DANGEROUSLY MISGUIDED.

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I’m a LabelGMOs volunteer in northern California in a county renown for its excellent wines, cheeses, olive oil, and specialty gourmet foods. I invited Pamm Larry, the proposition’s visionary, to come speak to volunteers in our area, when she first reached out summer of 2011 to see where there was interest in labeling GMO / GE food ingredients.

Over the past year, I’ve spent hours at meetings, trainings, posting LabelGMO info on Facebook, via local forums, on Twitter, sending email blasts to my personal contacts, tabling at farmers markets, in front of grocery stores, Walmart, county fairs, designing graphics for outdoor banners and leafleting info for our Latino community…all in an effort to educate CA voters about the issue.

In the process, I’ve discovered many people are confused about the difference between GMO laboratory manipulation vs nature’s own genetic adaptation via hybridization.

striped heart shaped heirloom tomato
Heirloom Tomato

GMO / GE development vs hybridization are vastly different processes.

NATURAL HYBRIDIZATION is the insect or wind pollinated or deliberate human cross-fertilization of plants in the same family (ie. two melons growing on a farm or in your backyard to produce a sweeter or larger, earlier or later maturing melon).

GMO/GE gene manipulation is a LABORATORY process of inserting / splicing genetic material from an unrelated animal / other species / pesticides / chemicals into our food plants. Or to genetically program seeds to die (ie. Monsanto’s “terminator” seed program, which has been jeopardizing the tradition of growing, harvesting heirloom plants and collecting their seeds for coming growing seasons).

Genetically Engineered Foods pose Serious Health Risks

Now that 18 years have past since these crops were introduced in the USA and Canada’s crops, the ill effects on peoples’ well-being of eating foods containing GMO / GE ingredients, a number of studies over the past decade have revealed that genetically engineered foods pose SERIOUS RISKS to the health & welfare of humans, animals, wildlife and the environment.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) reports…‘Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,’ including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods.”

Scientists are just beginning to make a link between GMO foods, GMO cotton and the horrific fiber disease (Morgellon’s or GMO Disease) that is now spreading around the world.

GE / GMO FOOD PRODUCT LABELING is ESSENTIAL for Americans to avoid growing / buying / consuming genetically engineered foods. DEMAND your legislators honor the folks who voted them into office. Be the Change We All Need in the USA.

If you’re a California voter: Vote YES! on Prop 37: California’s ‘Right to Know’ Food Labeling for GMO / GE Ingredients
Thanks!

RESOURCES:
Hidden GMO ingredients in our foods (PDF)
10-10-12 New York Times article: Vote For The Dinner Party by influential food author Michael Pollan
The United States of GMOs, watch the FoodBabe’s video (North Carolina delegate to the Democratic National Convention) and interviews with arrogant or clueless media personalities and legislators.
A list of companies and individuals who endorse GMO / GE food labeling

To Learn More:
California Right to Know: http://www.carighttoknow.org/
A great organization to keep up with these issues is OCA – Organic Consumers Association: http://www.organicconsumers.org
http://gefoodlabels.org

TAKE ACTION!
SUPPORT Prop 37’s Campaign. There are many ways to participate: http://www.carighttoknow.org/campaign_hq

SUPPORT the Center for Food Safety’s legal petition to FDA to REQUIRE LABELING of ALL Genetically Engineered (GMO) Foods (Docket No. FDA-2011-P-0723).
U.S. courts recognize a fundamental “RIGHT-TO-KNOW” rooted in the U.S. Constitution and in common law. Whether FDA believes that GE foods are “of the same or equal quality” as conventional foods is irrelevant. Unlabeled GE/GMO foods are misleading. Consumers’ right to know what is in their food is being thwarted by the FDA’s current GE/GMO food non-labeling policy.

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