Your Opinion: Label GMO foods; skip assurances

Dear Editor:

Once again Kristie Schuellen has written a letter dismissing my concerns about the invasion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) into our food system. She says she can produce studies that dispute the findings I've referenced documentation for that indicate serious health risks associated with GMO food, including infertility, allergic reactions, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, yet Schuellen offers no such documentation.

She cites her 20 years experience of using GMO feed on her hogs and never seeing any adverse effects as some sort of "proof" that they don't exist. Unless Schuellen had a freshly slaughtered carcass and its organs tested, there is no such proof. In the short life of a young hog there may not be any visual effects of the GMO feed but that doesn't mean there are no effects. It also seems quite obvious that Schuellen never converses with any organic farmers because they are very concerned about GMO feed and the animals they raise.

Schuellen states, "As for the insecticide in Bt (GMO) corn, it's not your garden variety, off-the-shelf type of insecticide. It's only the natural resistance within the corn's DNA that's been allowed to emerge by "tweaking' its' DNA."

This is pure obfuscation (blowing smoke) and an outright lie! Part of the corn's DNA is destroyed and totally foreign DNA strands are inserted that make the corn produce Glysophate, the active ingredient in Roundup, so the corn can be sprayed with more Roundup than it can normally tolerate. This is the very same Roundup you can find on the shelf at your hardware or farm supply store.

My main concern is that food producers in the U.S. don't have to label the food that contains GMOs. Over 40 countries around the world, including China, have mandatory labeling of all food that contains GMOs but not here. I and millions of other Americans want to know what is in our food and we're not being informed.

If Schuellen and others of her ilk want to consume GMOs that's fine with me but I don't. I want all food that contains GMOs to be labeled so I can have the choice of whether to consume them or not. Americans deserve the right to know what is in the food we buy and I won't stop pushing until we have it.

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