21 hours ago near Portland, ME
Some days it’s hard not beam with pride at the humble courage of Maine’s state legislature. Faced with the certainty that Maine will be sued by the likes of Monsanto and their industry friends and supporters (read, lobbyists and self-funded advocacy groups), Maine’s legislature has joined 18 other state legislatures, including neighboring Vermont’s, in getting ever closer to requiring the producers of GMO food products to label their products as GMO food products. It’s interesting to note that Monsanto and their cronies object to any labeling regime at all, on the grounds that their free speech rights will be somehow violated because (you can’t make this up) 1) there is no credible scientific evidence that genetically modified organisms pose health risks to human consumers (the environment generally and naturally occurring animal and plant species don’t count/aren’t factored into the argument), and (this one is incredible) 2) the likely outcome of a mandated labeling regime would unfairly hit GMO food product producers’ bottom lines from two sides -- lost sales from an unfairly ignorant consumer base that is irrationally afraid of genetically modified food products, and the cost of implementing any labeling regimen at all. In the first instance, if your argument against informing consumers about the origins of your product is that they will be less likely to buy it, it’s hard to imagine a better reason to hit the pause button on the entire industry until we understand the implications of these products on, say, our progeny and their environment some 15-20 generations hence. Maybe even longer. And in the second instance, the cost of labeling…really?! Suck it. Monsanto (and now by extension, most of the GMO players) just successfully defended their patented GMO seed and, by extension, their seed licensing business model, which allows them to advance their monopolies by being able to sue any farmer whose crops are even unintentionally contaminated by their patented GMO seeds. Given the far-reaching economic implications of this awful SCOTUS decision (the awfulness is not in the actual decision, but in that the SCOTUS decided to take this case in particular, as opposed to a number of alternatives unrelated to food) that skew to the advantage of the Monsantos of the world, it’s a safe bet that they can afford the increased printing costs of new labels.
If the above doesn’t frost your shorts, maybe this will: It’s worth noting that the last time these same arguments were SUCCESSFULLY made, Phillip Morris and its peers were making straight-faced claims, under oath, as to the health benefits and overall safety of their products.
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