it feels preposterous and maybe even embarrassing to stand here twenty
thirteen to say to you that we have the right to know what's in our food
that's exactly what i want to talk about tonight and i want to speak about
the fact that the U.S. does not mandate labelling of genetically engineered
organisms you would know GE organisms they are otherwise known as GMOs
these are plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to
exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs
and this is actually accomplished by the transfer of genetic material from
one species to another
in a way that could never happen in nature
or frankly through traditional breeding the leading biotech firms
will go to great lengths on their
websites to distinguish between
genetically-engineered crops patented crop to pay on
and those that they have developed through traditional breeding method and so
they really are
quite different and i wanna argued to you today that our federal government's
failure
to mandate
transparency to mandate labeling
of these new life forms is a complete breach
of its responsibility to we the people
and and i want to argue that we have a role
in making that happen and argue also that the federal government's failure to
be
actively engaged in the science of long-term risk assessment
of these new life forms is also a breach
now interestingly one aspect of our one part of a federal government absolutely
recognizes these crops as completely unique
but U.S. patent office has given out hundreds of patents identifying these as
absolutely distinctive new form that can be in fact owned
and as you know these patents have been very successfully defended with tens of
millions of dollars
farmers who
saved crops who saved seeds when their farms have been
inadvertently contaminated with genetic
uh... material or transgenic crops from
nearby farms of accident successfully prosecuted for patent infringement now
at the FDA
on the other hand we have the exact opposite point of view
the FDA's point of view for twenty years since nineteen ninety two
keep in mind of these cops were introduced in nineteen ninety-six
commercially
but since nineteen ninety two the FDAs
policy has been that these crops are substantially equivalent they are materially
the same
because they exhibit similar organ elliptic taste or smell
characteristics or similar nutritional
uh... characteristics and therefore it is determined that we
should not be uh... they're not material to us to know
and it's important to understand that this
voluntary guidelines opted by the FDA in nineteen ninety two was not a result
of input by the people are represented as this did not come out of congress
this is actually
a result of a process led by the council on competitiveness council
competitiveness chaired by then
Dan Quayle who you might recall
and they it was actually a very brilliant move on the part of industry
to enlist
vice president quayle
in creating this effort because this is in fact in the law
of the land today even though there have been enormous changes
over that time for example
ninety percent of selling now out there is genetically engineered eighty five
percent of corn
is now genetically-engineered
what this means is that over seventy five percent of the processed foods we're
eating
now contains genetically-engineered
materials been incredibly successful but the data as overwhelmingly clear but the
average citizen
knows nothing about this now interestingly
in fifty five nations around the world
actually take the exact opposite view that when these crops are
approved for commercialization
labeling is absolutely required
really progressive countries like well first of all of the EU
and most of our trading partners but really progressive countries like russia
china
even syria
have mandated labeling now you may wonder
why did these countries offer liberties to their status is that we in the land
of the free don't have
that I assure you is beyond the scope of my discussion today but it has
something to do
with corporate influence in washington i'm pretty sure
uh...
the reality is...the question that you must we must ask is are they safe
and that's a very important question
but it's actually not material to whether they should be labelled
this has become a kind of a smokescreen when these companies say well they're
materially the same and a perfectly safe
if a crop
or an additive or process is found to be unsafe it's not just put on the label
it's banned
this is not about whether it's safer not this is about the fact that under the
federal food drug and cosmetic act
the FDA is required is accountable to we the people
to make us aware of processes or ingredients that alter or materially change
the food in a way that is not obvious to us so in the case of irradiation where
we have mandatory labeling of irradiation nobody has
proven irradiated foods are harmful or not
uh... but there is a recognition in DC
that this process is of concern to our citizens it is therefore
material
and therefore labeling is required and it's important note that the irradiation
companies
have not five takes there actually proud of their technology and it's interesting
to contrast that
with the chemical companies who own these GE crops
the reality is is that we have lots of examples like this we have
farm raised versus wild, we have orange juice from concentrate we have country
of origin
these are processes where you can say it's safe or unsafe
and you can say that they're materially uh... similar but these are processes
that concern people
what i'm arguing is that we shouldn't be labeling we don't need to be labeling
because they're proven to be safe or unsafe although there is
something that i want to say about that in just a moment
but rather because we are introducing new bacteria, new genetic material
we are introducing new proteins that have never before been in these foods
that is material to us
now i do want to raise the
concern because it's widely held out there that the lack of independent
testing
to determine substantial equivalence or material
similarity
is is a problem
nearly all of the conclusions of substantial equivalence have
resulted from studies either conducted by the patent holders or funded by the
patent holders
and indeed this is important because
many of the promises by these very same patent holders
have in fact gone unfulfilled
for example
we have a corn out there that's widely used that has an insecticide built into it
called bt
a formerly effective
insecticide that has done a nice job of controlling
root worms but we were told
that this...at the time that this crop was being... was filing for approval
that this bt insecticide would never survive in the human digestive system in
fact that it would be
destroyed by our saliva within seconds of consuming it
now we have absolute input evidence and and published studies
from two years ago that show the bt
toxins are present in the core blood of pregnant women
we literally have ingested these insecticides
and they continue inside us
numerous national academy of science studies
revealed that
well there are all kinds of reasons to believe that we may be introducing new
toxins and new allergens
in these cops but unlike with drugs where we have mandatory testing on animals
mandatory human clinical trials
mandatory trials of carcinogenicity
of fetal impact, neurological impact
and at least some limited allergy testing
none of that is required believe it or not for these crops
so there may be chronic problems happening across the country there may
be links
to the explosion of allergies that everyone of us is seeing
around us
but we have, epidemiologists have absolutely no way of knowing because
without labeling we don't know if we're eating this stuff
now there are lots of reasons to label there are allergen concerns there are
concerns about independent testing
their religious concerns my friends in the
the religious community
refer to GMOs as god moving over, they just don't like messing with god's work
and i will tell you that the mellman group has done research showing that
ninety two percent of americans when given the choice
say that they prefer to know whether these crops or ingredients are in our
food or not
actually what they said there's no statistical difference between
republicans
democrats or independents
and in fact what they also said that ninety two percent of americans don't
agree on anything
so this is a very meaningful
meaningful statistic
now let me say what is material from my vantage point
we were told by these very same chemical companies on these crops when
herbicide tolerant crops were that which is the primary gene available in these
cops
when they were first introduced we were told that
they would actually result in a reduction
of herbicide usage
but here's actually what's happened
we have seen since nineteen ninety six since these crops were introduced
a 527 million pound increase
and herbicides in 1996 we used 14 million pounds of herbicides
on the three leading commodity crops, last year we use over 300
million
pounds of these herbicides
and the single dependence on these herbicides is creating all kinds of
issues
and never before really seen out there but for example the USGS, the united states
geological survey reports
that we are now finding glyphosate herbicide in the air
in the spring in the summer throughout our rural communities and of course
through drift everybody uh...
downwind from this is breathing this stuff so we're literally breathing
herbicides now and drinking it in our water
with insecticides
where again we've seen the second leading trait that's been developed is
insecticide tolerance
uh... we have seen a decrease actually
this is good news, of 123 million
pounds in the same period since these crops were introduced
but we have this problem now which is that new studies have come out in
the last year and a half, two years, that the corn borer, the corn root worm is
now becoming
resistant to what was used to be a very effective insecticide and again
as i mentioned
this insecticide is now present
literally in our bodies and we're carrying it around with us
and this indeed is uh... not uh... at all what was promised with these crops
now i wish i could tell you that this was the end of the problem it's actually in fact the
beginning
because going along with the overuse of these herbicides has been an explosion
of herbicide resistance out there
twenty three different weeds
are growing in more than half the states in this country on millions of acres
that are now
resistant they're no longer affected by herbicides
which in smaller doses
dosages used to affect them
and so what the chemical companies have said is well farmers need to use
stronger herbicides 2,4D, Dicamba, you may understand the last time you heard
2,4D
is that it was fifty percent of agent orange and we're now using this
widely across the country
and in fact now new crops are being introduced that are genetically
bred to be resistant
to 2,4D and Dicamba
in fact the weed science society of america is meeting later this month
for a major uh... discussion and debate on this exact issue that we have
essentially sentenced ourselves
to chemical inflation, kind of an environmental and health
train wreck and we're becoming more and more depending on these chemicals
so this is a very brilliant brilliant business model
the crop, the companies that own seeds
make money by selling the seeds, they are patented
and then they make money selling the chemicals that we are now becoming
addicted to and required
and we need stronger and stronger chemicals
and indeed
uh... in 2010 the President's cancer panel
came out and reported that
forty one percent of americans are going to be diagnosed with cancers in our
lifetime
and the smoking gun that this prestigious panel
referred to in this study
is chemicals, primarily herbicides and pesticides, in our air, water, soil and
food
months after this study came out out we had a study, a peer reviewed study
reporting
an absolute correlation between pesticide exposure
and ADHD which is really an epidemic in our society
so what we have here is a very simple situation let me summarize it
we have no
clarity yet on whether these crops themselves are inherently safe or not
and we're not going to have that clarity for probably a generation
yet at the same time we absolutely know that there's a direct relationship
between using these cops
and increasing chemical use- I would call that material
to the average consumer This is no longer 1992
the twenty-year-old regulation
that was the law of the land before these crops were introduced
it's time to review them, we now know
that this is chemical armageddon
We have americans want to know,
we are using more chemicals, the FDA can label, it's time for us to simply label
very simply this is more than a fight
for labeling, this is a fight about whether our government is of, for and by
the people
or of, for and by a handful of chemical companies
and I invite you to learn more and join us at justlabelit.org
Thank you