Poison in every bite => GMO Corn = sweet corn that contains a toxic pesticide in every bite

Surveys over the past decade have consistently shown that Americans don’t want to eat genetically engineered (GE) food. Despite the overwhelming opposition to this risky new food technology, the biotech giant Monsanto continues to impose its unlabeled GE foods onto our dinner plates.

The latest: Monsanto’s new GE sweet corn. This experimental corn will not be labeled, so consumers cannot know when they may be eating sweet corn that contains a toxic pesticide in every bite. Monsanto’s corn is a new GE variety that has been genetically modified for three different traits, to resist two different insects and to withstand heavy spraying with Monsanto's toxic Roundup herbicide. Because there are already varieties of other insect-resistant and Roundup-Ready varieties on the market, federal regulators are not requiring ANY approval process—which means NO public comment on its introduction into our food supply.

CFS has teamed up with the Center for Environmental Health and Food and Water Watch to urge major food companies and grocers to reject Monsanto’s GE sweet corn, and we need your help to tell leading retailer Walmart to reject this new GMO corn. General Mills (Green Giant, Cascadian Farms), Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods have already indicated that they will not use Monsanto’s new GMO sweet corn in their products—so can Walmart!

The American Frozen Food Institute, National Meat Association, International Dairy Foods Association and United Fresh Produce Association would like to cause $77.7 bln in food borne illnesses v having safer processing standards....

An Obama administration plan to raise $220 million for food-safety programs through fees on processing plants, warehouses and other facilities. 

The fees are minimal compared with the cost of foodborne illness, which the act seeks to reduce, Doug Karas, a spokesman for the FDA, said in an e-mail. Such illnesses cost $77.7 billion a year, according to a 2012 study cited in the agency’s proposal. That includes medical costs, time off work and the cost of premature death. 

 The Republican Congress rejected including a similar proposal in the Food and Drug Administration’s budget request last year and also ruled out the idea when debating a food-safety law that President Barack Obama signed last year.

Mutant Fish don't require labels in the USA but in Europe they do.....

A coalition of 11 food safety, environmental, consumer and fisheries organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) calling for a halt to its approval of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon after learning that the company’s – AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. – research site was contaminated with a new strain of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), the deadly fish flu that is devastating fish stocks around the world.

“This new information calls into question the reliability of AquaBounty’s data and the validity of its claims that their fish are safe for the environment” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “The FDA must respond appropriately and conduct their own environmental impact statement that looks at a broad range of environmental risks from these genetically engineered salmon, including the risk of spreading diseases such as ISA and antibiotic use for other diseases.”

AquaBounty has claimed that the company’s process for raising GE fish is safer than traditional aquaculture. However, documents that were revealed last week indicate that their production site was found by Canadian Authorities to have been contaminated in Nov. 2009. This information was hidden from the public and potentially FDA and other Federal agencies consulting on the GE salmon application. ISA is a deadly disease and is classified as a ‘Listed’ disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) – alongside diseases such as Anthrax, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Foot and mouth disease, rabies, sheep pox, swine fever, avian influenza, West Nile fever, scrapie, fowl cholera, bovine tuberculosis and myxomatosis.

“Infectious Salmon Anaemia threatens wild fisheries around the world and the communities whose livelihood depend on those fish” said Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US. “ISA infections in Chile cost the industry around two billion dollars. A similar infection in Canada and the U.S. could be the last blow to wild Atlantic salmon populations and bring a collapse in wild salmon fisheries.”

The December 19 letter urged FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to release all health data on AquaBounty’s GE salmon and to suspend any approval actions until all the data is disclosed and the public has an opportunity to review the data. Additionally, the coalition asked the FDA to conduct a full environmental impact statement that includes review of the effect of fish diseases, like ISA, on wild fish populations that might come into contact with the AquaBounty fish. Currently, the FDA has only performed a less comprehensive environmental risk assessment.

Meat grown in a lab v a farm = would you like to know before you bite that burger?

Yesterday, a ballot initiative that would require the labeling of all genetically engineered (GE) foods sold in California was submitted to the Attorney General’s office. The initiative has the support from a coalition of consumer groups and organic food companies – this coalition is expected to grow as the campaign unfolds in the coming months.

The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is an initiative intended to be on the California ballot in November 2012, pending securing enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot. The Act would simply require that food sold in
retail outlets be labeled if it is genetically engineered, or if it contains genetically
engineered ingredients.


“Genetic engineering adds completely new elements into our food. Because the FDA has failed to require labeling of GMO food, this initiative closes a critical loophole in food labeling law. It will allow Californians to choose what they buy and eat and will allow health professionals to track any potential adverse health impacts of these foods.” said Andy Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “Genetically engineering food can cause unintended consequences and because there have been no long term studies, we are unsure of how GMOs may affect our health.”

Center for Food Safety (CFS) believes that consumers have a right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children, including whether food is genetically engineered. We all should be able to make informed choices, and have the ability to choose whether to buy genetically engineered food or not.

Stay tuned to CFS’s websites for more information on this issue in the coming weeks!