10 Reasons to Label GMOs: Tell Your Friends, Food Companies, & Politicians!

From the Organic Consumers Association, June 2, 2011

World Food Day is October 16, 2011. That means there are only 3 months left to get 1,000,000 people to sign our petition to label GMO foods and organize 435 "Millions Against Monsanto" demonstrations nationwide.

Download the petition  (PDF)

Getting everyone you meet to join the "Millions Against Monsanto" campaign should be easy - upwards of 90% of the public already agrees that foods made with genetically modified organisms should be labeled - but if you need some ammunition and inspiration to inspire you to spread the word, look no further than these 10 scary reasons to label GMOs:

1. Monsanto's Bt-toxin, in its Bt-producing GMO corn and cotton (used in food in the form of cottonseed oil), was found by Canadian doctors in the blood of 93% of pregnant women and 80% of the umbilical blood of their babies.
2. The authors of the Canadian study conclude that the women and their babies were exposed to Monsanto's GMO Bt-toxin through a "normal" non-organic Canadian diet, including non-organic (so-called "natural" and "conventional") meat, egg, and dairy products from animals fed Bt corn.
3. Monsanto's GMO "Bt" corn and cotton plants are engineered to produce an insecticide in every cell of the plant that kills insects by breaking open their stomachs.
4. Mice fed Monsanto's Bt corn had elevated levels of immune system substances that are also higher in humans who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, allergies, Lou Gehrig's disease, autoimmune disease, and colitis.
5. Young mice in the same study had elevated T-cells, which are increased in people with asthma, and in children with food allergies, juvenile arthritis, and connective tissue diseases.
6. Monsanto's GMO Bt-toxin has properties of known allergens - it actually fails the World Health Organization's allergen screening tests.
7. Monsanto's GMO Bt-toxin has been found to bind with the small intestines in mice and with intestinal tissue in rhesus monkeys.
8. In addition to its GMO "Bt" crops which are engineered to produce insecticide, Monsanto also produces GMO "RoundUp Ready" crops, engineered with a bacterial DNA that allows it to survive otherwise deadly doses of its herbicide RoundUp.
9. In the only human feeding study ever published on GMOs, Monsanto's GMO "RoundUp Ready" soybeans were found to transfer Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" DNA to the bacteria living inside human intestines.
10. According to Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology, the transfer of Monsanto's GMO Bt DNA to human digestive bacteria could create a "living pesticide factory" that could be responsible for the "increase in gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune diseases, food allergies, and childhood learning disorders - since 1996 when Bt crops came on the market."

Learn More: Millions Against Monsanto

Learn More: Dangerous Toxins from Genetically Modified Plants Found in Women and Fetuses  

Take Action - the Organic Consumers Assoc. provides these handy links:

• Tell the President, VP, Congress & FDA to label GMOs!
• Tell your State Legislators to label GMOs!
• Tell the top 6 US food retailers to label GMOs! 
• Tell Whole Foods Market to label GMOs!
• Tell Trader Joe's to label GMOs!
• Tell Kellogg's to label their GMO ingredients!
• Tell Kraft to label their GMO ingredients!