One year after the launch of a social media effort to allay consumers' concerns about the safety of foods made from genetically modified crops, U.S. companies that develop GMOs have further committed to a multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat attempts to add GMO labels to such foods.
"We are not going to sit down for that (labeling)," Cathleen Enright, spokeswoman for the effort, said in an interview. “We want people to know how their food is grown ... we support a right to know. It is the mechanism that we can’t abide.”
Monsanto Co., Dow Chemical and other GMO crop backers last summer kicked off an interactive website, called GMO Answers, as the centerpiece of a broad effort to win over consumers. A speakers' tour and social media advertising are part of the effort.
The group has committed to spending millions more annually for several more years on this campaign, said Enright. She would not provide specifics on the campaign spending.
The money spent on the marketing campaign comes alongside more than $80 million spent since 2012 by the biotech and food industries to defeat mandatory labeling at the state and federal levels, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Environmental Working Group.
The companies spent $9 million lobbying Congress in the first quarter of 2014 alone, the report said. (here)
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