I am here to tell you why it is important to ignore all the lies that are coming at you from every paid media outlet. It is important to vote YES on Initiative 522 (label GMOs).
When the Seattle City Council voted 8-1 to endorse I-522, Councilmember Richard Conlin said, "Consumers have the right to know what is in their food, just as they have the right to know ingredients and nutritional information." Amen.
He also said Washington farmers are increasingly dependent on exports and with 64 other countries worldwide now requiring labeling, those markets could be lost. With a genetic-engineering company trying to shove GMO salmon onto the marketplace, Washington’s fishing community could also be at extreme risk.
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Yet, there is a massive disinformation campaign going on from every outlet—TV, radio, mass mailings—being funded by the same folks who told us DDT, PCBs and Agent Orange aren’t dangerous to human health (they are), using the same lies they used in California, and none of what they're saying is true. Their lies are so egregious that the Washington State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the Grocery Manufacturers Association two weeks ago, saying that they illegally collected and spent more than $7 million while shielding the identity of its contributors. Is it weird to anyone else besides me that the Grocers don’t want us to know what’s in the food we’re buying from them?
Their lies were so egregious in California, Stanford University even forced them to take one commercial off the air because they represented the spokesperson as a Stanford professor, which he wasn't. That should tell you all you need to know about the opposition's integrity. Dana Bieber is an expensive hired gun and the gun she’s firing is full of lies.
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Here’s the real story about Initiative 522:
Initiative 522 is a well-written, well-researched proposition, put together by a diligent group of food industry, food policy, farm, science and health experts, whom I trust implicitly.
Initiative 522 specifically only addresses genetically-engineered crops sold whole or as ingredients in other food items, to make it as easy as possible for stores and companies to comply. These crops include: corn, soybeans, canola, sugar beets, cotton, Hawaiian papaya, some zucchini, and crookneck squash. Washington State law requires that ballot measures only address one state code at a time. Items not included in Initiative 522—alcohol and meat—are covered by different state or federal codes and therefore do not apply.
There is a strong precedent to Initiative 522 in the U.S.: The 2004 Food Allergen Labeling Act protects consumers by requiring labeling of possible allergens like peanuts, soy and dairy. When Congress approved it, the same food companies objected and made the same claims, yet, when the Act went into force, stores and companies complied, prices remained stable, there was no excessive or abusive litigation, and consumers had more information with which to protect themselves (we have all seen the labels, “This product made on equipment which may have once touched peanuts”).
Initiative 522 offers no economic incentives for lawyers to sue. The only new enforcement provision added by I-522 allows a consumer to sue only for an order to force required labeling to take place—not to recover any money at all. Consumers cannot file a class action without first giving notice, and if the defendant fixes the labels, then no class action is permitted. Any penalties from a violation go only to the state, not the plaintiff or lawyer.
Initiative 522 does not include a “bounty hunter” provision. The same pesticide companies making claims about lawsuits are themselves suing farmers across the country for saving their own seeds.
Food prices remained stable when the European Union required the labeling of GMOs ten years ago. Sixty-four countries across the globe either label GMOs or ban them completely, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, Peru, India, China and Russia. Why on Earth do people in Russia and China have more rights to know what’s in their food than we do? That’s not the country I grew up in.
Creates paperwork? Anyone who believes farmers who use Monsanto seeds don't already keep reams of paperwork to address the patent protection situation, aren't paying attention.
The grassroots effort that became Proposition 37 in California was started by a fearless, feisty grandmother from Chico, a small northern California farming town. Pamm Larry, who couldn’t believe that genetically-engineered foods weren’t already being labeled. She called together some friend to help, those friends became a people’s movement which gathered nearly a million signatures to get her GMO labeling initiative on the California ballot. Her work in California inspired I-522 in Washington.
If you have other questions or concerns, I would be happy to address them. This is one of the most important issues of our time and Washington State has the opportunity to lead the way towards greater transparency and a more level playing field (organic farmers are not federally subsidized; GMO farmers are), which is what our free market economy is supposed to be all about.
To sum up: Vote Yes on Initiative 522! It is our right to know what’s in the food we feed our families.
To learn more about how the Pesticide and Junk Food Industries are using the exact same lies in Washington State that they used in California: