On the eve of the “March Against Monsanto,” the United States Senate shut down the GMO labelling bill that a large majority of states within the U.S. are calling for. The bill would have allowed individual states to decide if genetically modified food products should be labelled without any mandating action. This bill wasn’t controversial as it simply gave individual states the option to allow their citizens to know whether or not they are eating genetically modified foods or not. Unfortunately the vote was abolished in an overwhelming fashion, the Senate voted 71 to 27 against it on Thursday, right before today’s global protests.
How can we be governed by an illusion, that introducing a toxic gene is creation of life – Vandana ShivaThe reason given for not labelling GMO’s was that it runs counter to what we ‘know’ about them. If we know GMO foods are safe (which in fact we don’t), and pose no serious threat then what is the point? The United States is clearly ignoring all the research that shows how GMO crops are harmful and hazardous to human health. Vermont and Connecticut recently decided to label their foods, but Monsanto is preparing to sue them, especially in light of this recent decision by the senate. They are completely ignoring everything, even the research that recently showed GMO-fed rats developing mass tumours that resulted in death. Animal testing is not needed to determine if GMOs are harmful, we already know they are.
Is there not a conflict of interest here? Who owns Monsanto? Major financial institutions like Fidelity Investments, and the State Street Corporation do. Who owns the Major pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer? The answer doesn’t change, the same major financial institutions do, Fidelity Investments, and State Street Corporation, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs to name a few(1)(2). These are the major shareholders, and we all know that financial institutions that control these multinational corporations are dictating governmental policy.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/gmo-labeling-bill-genetically-modified-food_n_3325972.html
http://naturalsociety.com/senate-shoots-down-gmo-labeling-bill/
http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-march-against-senate-766/
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MON+Major+Holders (1)
http://www.actupparis.org/IMG/pdf/Major_Pfizer_holders.pdf (2)
http://ens-newswire.com/2013/05/24/u-s-senate-bars-gmo-labels-as-march-against-monsanto-revs-up/