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