It was with distress that I read the latest tired Garth Buchanan tirade about how GMOs are “safe, environmentally friendly and necessary to prevent world hunger” (Herald, March 2). Same old pro-GMO views rearranged in a new column with a slightly new bent: We Luddites, who think GMOs should either go away or be labeled, should just go away ourselves. It’s just too costly to label GMOs, according to Buchanan, and there are “no health issues related to GMOs.” These are the usual biotech untruths.
One reason for the lack of accurate scientific tests on GMOs is that the biotech companies like Monsanto refuse to release their seeds so they can be accurately tested by third parties. Then there is the GMO l-tryptophan that caused hundreds of deaths decades ago. Then there is the Starlink corn that caused millions of pounds of corn products to be pulled off shelves because they caused life-threatening allergies. And then there is our plummeting health here in the United States: huge increases in food allergies, gluten intolerance, digestive maladies, diabetes – increases of which started around the time these unlabeled toxins hiding in our foods hit the market.
Well, Buchanan better get ready for a fight: The Colorado Supreme Court just approved the verbage for GMO labeling to go on the ballot in November. It will be on the ballot in Oregon, too, this fall. And dozens of other states are considering either ballot or legislative initiatives. GMO labeling will happen. And droves of consumers are waking up and starting to avoid them.
Then, there are the superweeds and the superbugs that have evolved, causing biotech to make stronger and even more toxic-resistant crops containing 2-4 D and other even stronger toxins than glyphosate, which is showing up in air and water samples all over the world.
My favorite GMO quote comes from Andrew Kimbrell from the Center for Food Safety: “It’s not so the lame shall walk and the blind shall see – it’s about chemical companies selling chemicals.”
Watch for petitions to sign this summer.
Julie Meadows
Durango
