Issue Position: Healthy Foods

Issue Position

Healthy Foods

The health crisis in the U.S. is related to the foods we eat and the exercise we don't get. There is much debate over how to pay for health care, but the basic problem is the crisis in chronic illness, much of which could be controlled by healthier lifestyles.

As far a paying for health care, my position is that if we extended Medicare for All we would save 15% of costs right up front, because overhead for Medicare is only 5% compared to the 20% allowed to the huge insurance companies under Obamacare.

Further, spreading those costs widely across the population through our tax base would take that burden away from businesses and encourage more employment.

The greatest crisis in my view in the health of Americans is that our food supply has been compromised by mono-culture farming. We have to encourage locally grown organic farming and insists that huge agri-businesses quit using genetically modified seeds so that currently most processed foods are genetically modified. At the very least they should be thoroughly tested for safety. No serious testing is being done and there are many reasons to believe that GMOs are unsafe for human and animal consumption and are unsafe for the environment due to increased use of pesticides and the production of super weeds. And until such testing is done, GMOs should be labeled as they are in most countries so Americans can know what they are eating.

Below you will find an essay of mine on the Threat of GMOs that I would be happy to give to your organizations.

The GMO Debate, by Will Bronson

For further information or to schedule a presentation on GMO issues, call Will at 239 940 6080

Despite the opposition by multinational biotech companies against testing and labeling genetically modified products, there is a growing body of evidence that GMOs present a serious risk to animals, humans, and the environment.

For over fifteen years, it has been the goal of Monsanto Industries to gain patents over the seeds that produce our food supplies. The only way they can do this is to create an intellectual property by genetically modifying seeds from their natural states. A uniquely perverse way of doing this is with Bt corn and cotton which have now become registered with the government as pesticides because they have in each cell a powerful toxin that kills insects. The obvious question is: what does it do to animals and humans who eat the same products? You would think that would suggest testing, unless you didn't want to know the answer. One would also think labeling these products was a good idea, unless you didn't want people to shun them, as they surely would.

So here, in the biotech arena, you find the perfect storm and rationalization for heavy lobbying against testing and labeling. The FDA bought biotech's line that GE (genetically engineered) food and natural food are "substantially equivalent." This is their excuse for not demanding testing of GMOs in animal and human trials. It also explains why Monsanto and others spent millions of dollars to defeat California's Proposition 37 in 2012 that would have required labeling of GE (Frankenstein) food.

What's so bad about genetic engineering? Haven't we always bred plants and animals to develop better strains? Natural breeding is one thing. Forcing genes from different species into another DNA string is something else. Using genetic science to understand our genomes, marking and selecting for good genes is helpful and legitimate science. But creating mutant proteins by shooting genes into the DNA of other species, or through chemical or radiation mutation, is messing with Mother Nature big time. And the problem is that once these strange new organisms get loose in the environment, there is no recalling them. Pandora's Box cannot be shut.

Genetically modified farm salmon have escaped into the North Atlantic and are breeding with wild stocks as we speak. Traditional and organic farmers are being invaded by ubiquitous GE seeds, pollens, and inadvertent cross pollination. Unintended "horizontal gene transfer" (HGT) is creating superweeds that cannot be killed with Monsanto's Roundup and require massive new pesticides to control.

European Union woke up years ago and have resisted the introduction of GE products. The biochem firms call them "un-American." Africa is rejecting GE grains that were promised to end their food shortages. The problem however is not a shortage of food, but persistent poverty that makes existing food unaffordable. They are faced with a tragic Catch 22: die of hunger or die from GE induced diseases. The utopia promised by GMOs is turning into a tragic dark dream.

Thousands of goats died in India when they foraged on Bt cotton fields. Serious allergic reactions resulted from just touching Bt cotton. Strange and unnatural proteins resulting from genetic engineering are suspected in a wide range of auto immune disease and allergy symptoms.

The U.S. spends over twice as much on health care as other industrialized nations while we continue to suffer increasing degrees of cancer, Altzeimer's, autism, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. High fructose corn syrup has been linked to disease, as has aspartame, all brought to us courtesy of biotech corporate recklessness. Over 75% of processed foods contain GMOs, including GE grain feed, rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) beef and milk products.

Unless you shop carefully and buy organic, you are introducing into your bodies foreign, unnatural proteins that can make you seriously sick. Unless you vote carefully, you will be served by politicians paid to look the other way when bills like the Monsanto Rider are attached to legislation. Otherwise known as the Monsanto Protection Act, this amendment prevents the courts from interfering with biotech multinationals ongoing profit making experiment on the American public. Tell your legislators that you are not a lab rat for Monsanto or anyone else.

Please copy and forward this to your friends.

Will Bronson was the Democratic candidate for US Congress in Florida's 17th District in 2012. He holds MA, MTS, and DMin degrees, the latter from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.

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