Organic Bytes

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob447.html

PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK Still Counting Despite news reports that Oregon’s Measure 92 to label GMO foods was defeated on Tuesday, the official word from the YES on 92 campaign is: It’s not over. As of this morning, November 9, Measure 92 is trailing 49.73 percent to 50.27 percent. According to the official word from the campaign, a GMO labeling law in Oregon is just 8,300 votes- or just one half of one percent - shy of a win. Although the math looks difficult, the campaign believes there are enough ballots yet to be counted that a win is still within reach. Campaign staff are working diligently to make sure every vote is counted, but it's a slow process. And we may not know the outcome until November 18, the deadline for the Secretary of State to count all outstanding ballots. Whichever way it goes, Monsanto and Big Food outspent us in Oregon by more than 2 to 1, dumping a record-shattering $20.8 million into TV, radio and print ads, and direct mail, to run yet another campaign of twisted truths and outright lies. The Gene and Junk Food Giants also spent big in Colorado—more than $17 million—to defeat Colorado’s Proposition 105 this week, another citizens’ initiative to label GMOs. Conservative estimates put the total spent by the likes of Monsanto and Pepsi to defeat GMO labeling laws, so far, at about $105 million. That number doesn’t include the recordmillions spent lobbying lawmakers. Or the millions spent trying (unsuccessfully) to prevent Vermont from passing a GMO labeling law. What the pesticide and junk food companies won’t spend. Just to hide the genetically engineered, pesticide-laden “foods” they’re feeding you. GMO labeling wasn’t the only anti-GMO issue on the ballot this election. The anti-GMO movement won two key battles this week—clear signs that we are making headway. Voters in Maui County (Hawaii), passed a moratorium on the growing of GMO crops, despite an $8-million campaign waged by the biotech industry to try to stop them. Sources say a lawsuit by industry is inevitable, just as it was in Vermont. In Humboldt County, Calif., voters passed a law making it illegal "to propagate, cultivate, raise or grow any organism (or its offspring) whose DNA has been altered by genetic engineering.” The loss in Colorado is disappointing. But not debilitating. And whatever the final outcome in Oregon, this movement is very much alive. We are nothing if not patient and determined. We have the science, and you, on our side. And we are fired up.