http://www.soilassociation.org/motherearth/viewarticle/articleid/4752/the-pro-gm-lobbys-seven-sins-against-science

The pro-GM lobby's seven sins against science

Peter Melchett

17 December 2012

The role that genetically modified (GM) food should play in our food chain is a highly contested political issues. One interesting facet of the debate in the past year has been the pro-GM lobby's interest in staking the 'scientific high-ground'; simultaneously positioning itself as the voice of reason and progress, while painting its opponents as unsophisticated 'anti-science' luddites, whose arguments are full of dogma and emotion, but lack scientific rigour. In this essay Peter Melchett explores how such crude characterisations are themselves based on logic that is itself profoundly damaging to the concept and representation of 'science' in our national culture.

Ask Whole Foods to do the right thing

From the Organic Consumers Association:

Whole Foods Market Plays Dumb on Activists' Arrests, Unlabeled Frankenfoods

Ask WFM to Respect Consumers' Right to Know About GMOs...

... and Anti-GMO Activists' Freedom of Speech!

As OCA activists Alexis Baden-Mayer and Mike Durschmid await a June 7 court appearance resulting from their arrests at a Whole Foods GMO Food Dump in Chicago, the debate over whether food retailers should label genetically modified foods is heating up.

On May 24, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times published Monica Eng's report, "Consumer Activists Seek Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods: They Have Become So Common That Even Organic Retailer Whole Foods Says It Can't Avoid Stocking Some."

Eng writes:

"Used in an estimated 70 percent of all American processed food, genetically modified crops make up 93 percent of all soy, 86 percent of all corn and 93 percent of all canola seeds planted in the U.S., which makes stocking only non-GMO products difficult, said Joe Dickson, quality standards coordinator for Whole Foods Market.

"'Until there's federal government mandated labeling of GMO ingredients, there's no way to tell if packaged products contain GMO ingredients," Dickson said. "Our approach is to work in the spirit of partnership with our suppliers to encourage them to take active steps to avoid GMO ingredients.'"

The idea that Whole Foods has no control over the unlabeled genetically modified foods sold in their stores is as credible as their initial claim that no anti-GMO activists had been arrested at their Chicago store. (Once they gave up pretending there was no arrest, they insisted they had nothing to do with it, even though police were on site before the GMO Food Dump began and could only have been alerted by Whole Foods employees or executives.)

We can't let the "world's leading natural and organic foods supermarket" continue to play dumb. It's time Whole Foods' took responsibility for the Frankenfoods in their stores and for trying to stifle anti-GMO activists!

Tell Whole Foods to respect consumers' right to know about GMOs and stand up for activists' right to free speech.

Take Action

New Soil Association report shows GM crops do not yield more - sometimes less

http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8985

Soil Association, PRESS RELEASE, 10 April 2008

Coinciding with a manifesto from Country Life launched today, which urges people to 'learn to love GM crops', the Soil Association has published a report on the latest available research on GM crop yields over the last ten years. The yields of all major GM crop varieties in cultivation are lower than, or at best, equivalent to, yields from non-GM varieties.

Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said:

'GM chemical companies constantly claim they have the answer to world hunger while selling products which have never led to overall increases in production, and which have sometimes decreased yields or even led to crop failures. As oil becomes scarcer and more expensive, we need to move away from oil dependent GM crops to producing food sustainably, using renewable energy, as is the case with organic farming.'