Make your voice heard - Stop the DARK Act in the Senate

[RiverLover]

https://secure.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1741#_ga=1.217391253.2042196693.1442278655

Send a letter to your senator with this ^^^ link, then Food&Water Watch will also make it easy to CALL them on Weds 9/16 the natl day of action.

Info on the DARK Act, which has already passed the House~

The bill originally only prevented states from labeling products with GMOs. The version to be considered this week goes a step further, prohibiting state and local governments from protecting the environment and public health from the side effects of the production of GMO crops. The bill also allows companies to make “natural” claims on foods with GMOs and blocks state efforts to prohibit these misleading claims. These are more reasons that clean food advocates call the bill the Deny Americans the Right to Know, or DARK Act.

“This bad bill just keeps getting worse,” said Mary Ellen Kustin, EWG senior policy analyst. “The DARK Act has always been an infringement upon the well-established rights of states to regulate food labeling, but the most recent versions of the bill takes that overreach to a new level.”

Use of herbicides linked to cancer, especially glyphosate, has exploded alongside the increase in production of GMO crops engineered to withstand the application of these toxic chemicals. In the last 20 years, use of glyphosate, which was recently identified as a probable human carcinogen by the world’s leading cancer researchers, has increased 16-fold.

As glyphosate use has increased, weeds have started to develop resistance to it. In response, Dow Agrosciences has produced Enlist Duo, a combination of glyphosate and another herbicide, 2,4-D, which was recently labeled a possible human carcinogen. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of Enlist Duo in 15 states, though the agency has not examined the safety risk of the two active ingredients when combined together.

“Because of the risks to human health posed by the widespread application of herbicides linked to cancer and other terrible diseases, like Parkinsons, of course local governments would want to keep farmers and farmworkers safe from exposure,” said Kustin. “If the federal government isn’t going to protect public health, responsible local officials will want to step up—but the DARK Act wants to make it impossible for them to do so. Backers of the bill keep adding more ways to keep Americans in the dark.”

http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/13/gmo-labeling-bill-dark-act/

Its about more than just preventing states from passing GMO labeling laws. That's bad enough, this is even worse.

Please take a moment to get involved!

[bkkyosemite]

1. I called and signed

[roody]

2. knr

[countryjake]

3. Done! And here's a bit more on this Republican-pushed bill...

Truth In Labeling—It's Our Right to Know What's in Our Food by Jim Goodman ~ August 21, 2015

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/08/21/truth-labeling-its-our-right-know-whats-our-food

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015. A gross misnomer, of course, since the bill's real purpose is to preempt the rights of state and local governments to pass laws requiring the mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), to overturn GMO labeling laws already in place in several states, and to prevent the passage of any federal mandatory GMO labeling law in the future.

If this bill becomes law, U.S. consumers will be deprived of basic information about the content of their food – information they want and have a right to know. It will prohibit truthful disclosure and non-misleading free speech, clearly a violation of the First Amendment.

Apparently the Republican controlled House of Representatives feels campaign contributions are protected free speech, but truthful food labels... I guess not.


~snip~

H.R. 1599 is a prime example of how corporate money has corrupted the political process in order to create laws that protect corporate profits at the expense of American citizens. According to a report from Open Secrets, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics, the 275 members of the U.S. House who voted in favor of H.R. 1599 received $29.9 million in contributions from the agribusiness and food industries in the 2014 cycle.

While campaign contributions can easily explain the passage of 1599 in the House, one does wonder how the majority party, who pride themselves on wanting to end “big government” and give more power back to state and local governments, can so mindlessly pass a bill that absolutely takes those powers away.

[RiverLover]

5. Informative article, really good. Thanks.

"H.R. 1599 is a prime example of how corporate money has corrupted the political process in order to create laws that protect corporate profits at the expense of American citizens."

Indeed it is. B*stards.

[RiverLover]

4. Thanks guys! Hopefully many of us have, and plan on calling their offices tomorrow too.

Their staff will keep a tally.

This is about our democracy as well as our right to know & protecting our farmers. Our right to have local control with our votes is on the line.

I don't know if congress gives a damn about US really unless its time to vote for them, but I hope it makes a difference. If the number against this is large enough, maybe?

[happyslug]

6. 2,4-D has been known as a Cancer Causer for decades, glyphosate just recentlhy

In June 2015 the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) confirmed its 1987 classification of 2,4-D as a possible carcinogen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic_acid

On of the side affects of combining glyphosate with 2,4-D is that one can cover up any more evidence that glyphosate is a cancer causer by saying such evidence is from 2.4-D not glyphosate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic_acid

2.4-D kills growth above grow quicker than glyphosate, but glyphosate kills the roots while 2.4-D does not. Thus if you spray with 2,4-D you will see dead plants within days, but with glyphosate it takes two weeks to a month to see the effect on the plants sprayed (I have been using glyphosate on Knotweed for the last 10 years from July to October. I had started with 2.4-D but when I saw it was NOT killing the roots switched to glyphosate. Even cancer causing products can be useful if used properly, but I question the need to use such items on plants intended to Human consumption (I use it on Knotweed to get rid of that invasion plant, I do NOT intend to eat anything around the plants I spray).