Warning to Trump: don’t approve GMO, pesticide, FDA horror show
You are incompetent on these vital subjects
Don’t plunge ahead
Stop thinking about jobs, jobs, jobs for two seconds
by Jon Rappoport
In a previous article on Donald Trump, I wrote: “I think Trump favors jobs, all jobs, and will go to extremes to create them…He’ll find ways to allow the FDA to license new drugs more quickly, thus maiming and killing more Americans. He’ll cast a blind eye toward big corporate toxic GMOs/pesticides.”
I want to strengthen that warning.
First of all, the FDA isn’t being too careful in their drug approval process, as Trump team members suggest. It’s the opposite. The FDA is in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies. The president-elect should take notice of the famous July 26, 2000, review in the Journal of the American Medical Association, by Dr. Barbara Starfield, a revered public-health expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Starfield concluded that FDA-approved medical drugs kill 106,000 Americans a year. That would be 1.06 MILLION deaths per decade. Speeding up their drug-approval work now, the FDA would add many MORE dead Americans to their “credit.”
On the issue of GMO/pesticide safety, I could cite many references which eradicate the official claim that these substances are safe. But let’s look at the primary facts surrounding the original approval of GMO crops (and their attendant pesticides) in the US.
When you cut through the verbiage, you arrive at two key statements. One from Monsanto and one from the FDA, the agency responsible for overseeing, licensing, and certifying new food varieties as safe.
Quoted in the New York Times Magazine (October 25, 1998, “Playing God in the Garden”), Philip Angell, Monsanto’s director of corporate communications, famously stated:
“Monsanto shouldn’t have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”
From the Federal Register, Volume 57, No.104, “Statement of [FDA] Policy: Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties,” here is what the FDA had to say on this matter:
“Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety.”
This buck-passing, the direct and irreconcilable clash of these two statements, is no accident. It’s not a sign of incompetence or sloppy work or a mistake or a miscommunication. It’s a clear signal the fix was in.
There was no science to back up the claim that GMOs were safe.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)
My belief, at the moment, is that Trump will screw all this up completely. His focus on jobs and the economy will lead him into doing grave damage—just as Obama has, just as Hillary Clinton would have.
The corporate media, their corporate experts and allies, and their government friends have low-keyed the whole GMO-pesticide-FDA horror show for a long time.
We need a president who will go against the tide.
On these issues, Mr. Trump, through ignorance, inattention, unconcern, whatever, is on the verge of becoming a Big Pharma Big Biotech shill.
~Jon Rappoport
TLB recommends other pertinent article from Jon Rappoport
About the author: Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com orOutsideTheRealityMachine.
Warning: False narratives follow
Republican Agenda 2017
A Pro-Growth(pro-GMO) Agenda for the 115th Congress 193 pages
Edited by Ivan Osorio and Gregory Conko (of ‘GMO Answers’, an advocate for biotechnology & GMOs)
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Food, Drugs, and Consumer Freedom:
• Protect Consumer Freedom by Ensuring Access to Genetically Engineered Foods p138
• Streamline Regulation of Genetically Engineered Plants and Foods p142
• Repeal the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard p146
• Protect Consumer Food Choice by Opposing FDA Overregulation of Food Additives p150
• Protect Consumer Food Choice by Opposing the FDA’s “Voluntary” Sodium Limits p152
• Protect Consumers’ Access to Life-Saving Drugs and Medical Devices p155
• Modernize the Rules for Evaluating New Drugs and Medical Devices p158
• Expand Patient Access to Experimental Treatments p162
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P138
PROTECT CONSUMER FREEDOM BY ENSURING ACCESS TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS
The safety of genetically engineered organisms—also known as biotech, bioengineered, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs)—has been studied extensively by dozens of the world’s leading scientific bodies. EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS CONCLUDED that the techniques give rise to no new or unique risks compared with conventional breeding methods, and that the ability to move individual genes between organisms makes the characteristics of genetically engineered (GE) products more precise and predictable, and therefore SAFER, than comparable products developed with more conventional breeding methods. Furthermore, the consensus among scientists who have studied genetic engineering holds that the evaluation of these products “does not require a fundamental change in established principles of food safety; nor does it require a different standard of safety” than those that apply to conventional foods.
Nevertheless, genetically engineered plants and animals, and foods derived from them, have been subject to extensive regulatory requirements imposed by three different agencies in the United States: the USDA, EPA, and FDA. Nearly all new GE crop plants must undergo rigorous testing and be verified by those agencies before they can be put on the market, even though conventionally bred plants with identical characteristics are subject to no regulation at all.
The expensive and lengthy review process is scientifically unjustified, but it adds millions of dollars to the development costs for each new GE variety. The cost and complexity of complying with these regulatory strictures have concentrated GE product development in the hands of just six major seed corporations, and has made it uneconomical to use genetic engineering to develop improved varieties of all but major commodity crops, such as corn and soybeans. Small startup firms and university-based researchers can rarely afford the regulatory costs associated with bringing a new GE crop to market.
The unfounded concerns that some GE products may not be regulated stringently enough prompted the Obama administration, in July 2015, to initiate a comprehensive review of the way the USDA, EPA, and FDA regulate GE organisms. Although
the memorandum ordering that review notes that one of its purposes is to “prevent unnecessary barriers to future innovation,” most observers expect the Biotechnology Working Group of senior government officials that is conducting the review to recommend increased regulatory scrutiny, even as the scientific community is calling for regulatory reduction and streamlining.
Despite the overwhelmingly positive record of environmental and human safety, and the substantial burden of mandatory testing and regulatory review, some critics have demanded special labeling for GE foods. They argue that, even if GE foods are safe and nutritious, consumers want the additional information and have a right to choose products that are not produced using genetic engineering.
By 2014, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine had enacted legislation that would require labeling certain GE foods as containing genetically engineered ingredients— and several other states have considered such laws. Such mandatory labeling would create a patchwork of conflicting, onerous, and expensive labeling rules throughout the country, needlessly raising the cost of all foods, whether or not they contained GE ingredients. Mandatory labels also send a false signal to consumers that they should be concerned about eating GE foods. They are unnecessary because a thriving market exists for voluntarily labeled non-GE foods, providing plenty of choices to those who wish to avoid genetically engineered ingredients. And mandatory labeling laws also raise First Amendment questions, if they are not enacted to advance a government interest more substantial than satisfying consumer curiosity.
To head off the threat of conflicting state laws, in July 2016, Congress enacted the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard to create a uniform national labeling policy for genetically engineered foods and ingredients enacted as S. 764. The law instructs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to require food producers to disclose whether their products include GE ingredients. Producers will be given an option to disclose the information with on-package labeling or by directing consumers to a website or telephone number, from which they can learn about individual products.
Despite creating a new nationwide regulatory burden, the bill received overwhelming support from food and agriculture interests, because it also preempts state labeling requirements that differ from the national standard, thereby alleviating some of the concerns about inconsistent state laws. Unfortunately, this uniform national standard will prove to be little better than state mandates. Although it will prevent states from enacting multiple, conflicting policies, it (a) will still prove expensive for food producers to implement, (b) will falsely suggest that there is some reason for consumers to be concerned about GE ingredients, and (c) may run afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition on compelled speech that does not further a substantial government interest.
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https://www.organicconsumers.org/sites/default/files/cei_agenda_for_congress_2017_-_final.pdf