GMO Labeling: Seattle Political Consultant Dana Bieber Debates "No Side" On PBS Stations In Oregon and Colorado

Colorado Decides Live Stream: Proposition 105 Debate
15:03 Assumption: Issue not about labeling....GMO foods. Supporters are left side of political equation. How are we going to feed the growing world population "without biotech"? (Eric Sondermann)

Shannon Ridge: I'm so glad Robyn spoke for Colorado mothers like myself. It is about time that we know what is in the food we purchase. I was unaware for a long while that our corn, soy, sugar and canola was made in a lab. Although there are many exemptions in this particular legislation, we must vote YES to stand up for our right to know what we are buying. This initiative is a start to food and product transparency. Many other states are doing this very same thing because Americans are learning what has been done to our food. 64 other countries already have similar laws. Since this is new technology, we should be able to track it and trace it. If these organisms can be patented, they should be labeled as something different. It is no longer just corn if it can be registered with the EPA as a pesticide -- it should be labeled in our food as such! Vote YES on 105.

Zen Honeycutt: This issue is our right to know what is in our foods AND GMOs. We have the right to know that red food dye is in our food because it is an ingredient in our food period. We also need to know because some children react adversely to it. GMOs are a foreign protein ingredient in our food. And they have been shown to mutate DNA and wreak havoc in animals in scientific studies. GMOs are also genetically engineered to withstand pesticides or to be a pesticide. Everyone knows pesticides kill things. W have the right to avoid pesticides in our food.We now know that the main ingredient in Roundup, which 80% of GMOs are genetically engineered to withstand, glyphosate, does NOT wash or cook off. We are eating a poison which has been shown to kill gut bacteria ( weakens the immune system), cause chelation of vital nutrients ( vitamin and mineral deficiency which can lead to cancer) and endocrine disruption ( birth defects).

As a mother, I have a right to protect my child from being poisoned and sick. Doctors need to know to provide care for their patients. Health insurance providers need to know to support their customers to prevent expensive health conditions.

Yes the issue is GMOs and we demand that they be labeled clearly.

And no we do not need GMOs to feed the world. We have farmed and fed mankind for thousands of years before GMOs and toxic chemcials and we can do it again. In fact it is imperative to the survival of the human race that we do this again. Our human race will not survive if we continue to spray hundreds of millions of gallons of pesticides on our food crops every year. GMOs are not feeding the world, they are making us sick.

Diana Reeves - GMO Free USA: That question was off topic and inappropriate - the answer should have been - that question has nothing to do with this debate - this debate is about the right to know and the freedom to choose what we eat and feed our families. 64 countries around the world have the information they need to make informed choices and so should we. We'd be happy to provide the facts and figures in support of how & why the world can feed itself quite nicely without GMOs but that information is not relevant to a debate on the need for labeling GMOs.

Pamm Larry: I think it's another one of their false assumptions taken as truth because the lie has been told so many times people believe it.


Interview with Sandeep Kaushik, Oregon GMO Right to Know Communications Director


Podcast: Oregon Public Broadcasting Debate with Sandeep Kaushik, Spokesman for Oregon Right to Know, and Dana Bieber: Spokeswoman for Vote No On 92 (Sept. 24)

Colorado Citizens' Initiative Review Panelists

Colorado Citizens' Initiative Review:



Expert Panel 1 Sept. 8, 2014 

Proponents:

Dr. Ray Seidler: Ph.D., former EPA Scientist

Dr. Ray Seidler is a former Senior Scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency, who wrote the EPA’s Bio safety Plan. During his career, Dr. Ray Seidler studied the development of methods to evaluate/predict the survival, multiplication,gene exchange, effects, and dispersal of recombinant organisms (GMOs); the origins, and health significance's of pathogens in surface and drinking water, industrial and agricultural environments.While at EPA he was invited to give over 100 talks on GMO biosafety issues throughout the world. During the 1980′s he was the Chief EPA scientist involved in monitoring the first ever microorganism GMO releases into the open environment.

Cheryl Gray, RD

Cheryl Gray is a Registered Dietitian and natural born leader who inspires others with her passion for individualized nutrition, functional medicine, and wellness. With over 20 years’ experience, Cheryl has worked as a Functional Medicine consultant in the nutraceutical industry where she continues to educate physicians on the value of nutrition and functional medicine principles. In 2001 she founded and served as Executive Director for the highly successful Functional Medicine Forum in Colorado using her leadership skills to create a network of high-profile speakers, providing a series of monthly lectures to physicians and other healthcare providers on the science-based principles of functional medicine. Recently, Cheryl produced the Seeds of Doubt Conference, a special one-day seminar for doctors and healthcare practitioners, which examined the detrimental effects of GMOs on our health and the environment. The conference presented the latest compelling research from leading experts around the world and brought to the forefront the importance of educating practitioners and patients of the growing concerns around the effects of genetically modified crops on our environment and health. She regularly consults with physicians and other health care providers helping them incorporate functional medicine into their daily practice.

Opponents:

Don Shawcroft
Don Shawcroft is a fourth generation rancher from Conejos County, Colorado. Don has been working for the Colorado Farm Bureau (CFB) since 1986 and is currently the President of the CFB. Don has previously served agriculture as the Chairman of the Board for the United States Animal Identification Organization, as Chairman of the Colorado Ag Water Alliance and currently as a Director for the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Back home in the valley, in addition to managing the family ranching operation, Don serves on the Board of the Colorado Choice Health Plans and San Luis Valley Health as well as being active in his church. He and his wife Ann are the proud parents of six, grandparents of nine, with a son and son-in-law currently working on the ranch.


Martina Newell-McGloughlin, D.Sc.
Dr. Martina Newell-McGloughlin directs the University of California System wide Biotechnology Research and Education Program, which covers ten campuses and three national laboratories. She is co-director of a National Institutes of Health Training Grant in Biomolecular Technology and has also served as director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program. Dr. Newell-McGloughlin travels worldwide for various organizations including the U.S. State Department and the USDA as an expert on biotechnology research and education issues. She has recently provided briefings for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation directors and thePontifical Academy of Science at the Vatican on future opportunities and challenges in biotechnology. Her science training is from Trinity College, Dublin; University College Dublin, and the National University of Ireland.She has extensively studied issues related to mandatory labeling systems of food ingredients in the E.U. as well as proposed single-state labeling systems similar to Proposition 105 in the United States.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps Oregon and Colorado GMO Bottle Label

On the WWGF News Live Stream Google Hangout, David Bronner talked about the Oregon and Colorado product labels that support the state grassroots GMO Labeling campaigns. The quart bottles will be on store shelves nationwide next month.

“We are excited to introduce special GMO Info labels this fall on our quart soaps in support of the Oregon and Colorado right to know campaigns," explains David Bronner, President Dr. Bronner Soaps.  "We hope to educate and activate voters to engage with the respective campaigns, by donating money and volunteering time.  A particular focus of these labels is conveying the reality that the pesticide industry is genetically engineering food to tolerate high doses of the pesticides they sell:   GMOs = pesticides on and in our food.”

TOP BANNER –

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Consumers should not be kept in the dark about what is in their food.

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW IF YOUR FOOD IS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED

We have the right to choose the food we eat and feed our families.

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LABEL GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS

VOTE BY TUES. NOVEMBER 4^TH IN OREGON STATE

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We must defeat deceptive pesticide companies that put profits over people.

IT’S TIME TO EXPOSE PESTICIDE INDUSTRY LIES ABOUT GMO LABELING We have a right to know when food has been engineered to produce and withstand pesticides.

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GENETIC ENGINEERING IS A PESTICIDE INDUSTRY BOONDOOGLE

Chemical companies genetically engineer DNA from bacteria into food crops to enable them to survive high doses of the herbicides they sell. This foreign DNA produces foreign proteins in every cell of the plant, which gets served up on our plates along with increased pesticide residues.  No long-term independent safety studies have been conducted on GMOs. Instead, overuse of pesticides has created resistant ‘superweeds’ and ‘superbugs’, resulting in GMO crops now being designed to resist even more toxic herbicides like 2,4 D and Dicamba. These same companies made the herbicide Agent Orange and the insecticide DDT and claimed they were safe, and currently manufacture the neonic pesticides that are killing bees. 

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In America, we have the right to know important information about the food we eat and feed to our families – things such as sugar and sodium levels, country of origin, whether flavors and other ingredients are natural or artificial, and if fish is wild or farm-raised.

We also have the right to choose whether we want to buy and eat genetically engineered foods, just as citizens in over 64 other countries do, including Europe, Japan and China. U.S. companies already label genetically engineered foods for those citizens with no additional costs to consumers. Why are American families being left in the dark?

Traditional family farmers are concerned that GMO pollen drift will contaminate their crops and ruin key markets, jeopardizing their economic livelihood as experienced in 2013 when genetically engineered wheat halted exports from the Pacific Northwest to Japan and Korea for months.

Most GMOs are engineered by chemical companies to tolerate the pesticides they sell. Overspraying GMO crops is wiping out monarch butterflies, for example, and these same companies make the neonic pesticides that are killing bees.

Labels ensure transparency and preserve our freedom to make our own choices about the foods we eat. Your health and food decisions are up to you - not corporations, the government or special interests. Learn more at: www.oregonrighttoknow.org (Colorado) 

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The path to national labeling is through the states

VICTORY IN OREGON STATE IS KEY TO THE NATIONAL LABELING MOVEMENT

The Oregon Right to Know campaign is a grass-roots, volunteer-driven effort that has state-wide support including hundreds of family farmers, parents, educators, doctors, food producers, scientists, nutritionists, gardeners, birders, restaurateurs, conservationists, and many more.

The nationwide movement for GMO labeling has made huge strides including the recent victory in Vermont, the first state in the nation to pass a true GMO-labeling law. The power of the people can triumph over the Industrial Ag machine!

There is a lot at stake and a lot of support in Oregon for GMO labeling. Oregon has major farming and fishing sectors that are very concerned about the spread of GMO salmon, wheat and apples. We can punch through to victory as we did in Vermont - then other states will follow and national labeling will be inevitable. 

DON’T BE FOOLED BY DECEPTIVE TV ADS

Oregon voters will face a relentless deluge of deceptive TV ads funded by pesticide and junk food manufacturers. These ads will attack and mislead voters into thinking that a simple labeling law means food prices will skyrocket. But those same hollow arguments against our Right to Know have been made against every previous labeling regulation, such as country of origin and calorie disclosure. It’s wrong that American democracy has been hijacked by corporations that spend vast sums of money to keep consumers in the dark.

OREGON CAN W­IN WITH YOUR HELP!

Wherever you live in the U.S., now is the time to join the movement! Please visit www.oregonrighttoknow.org (Colorado) today to be educated, get active, donate and volunteer.

"In the case of a label that helps promote the Colorado campaign to consumers and shoppers in stores across Colorado," states Steven Hoffman, Communication and Fundraising Director for the Right To Know Colorado campaign, "is always welcome helping to increase awareness about the bill and the importance of voting for GMO labeling is very key. So, we welcome all types of education whether it be a special label from Dr. Bronner's or when we have spokespersons going out in and around the state helping to educate people about GMOs and the importance of GMO labeling."