Dear Editor:
The ups and downs and all around of the recent weather has been some sort of April Fool’s joke, though a local maple syrup producer tells me this is common for April in the Bonnechere Valley as is a maple sap flow as late as April 30th.
I noticed in the Eganville Leader last week a letter saying labeling food is unimportant if it relates to GMO products. Perhaps this was also some April Fool’s joke, or maybe not.
The author claims that “GMO labels will not tell you if … herbicides were used.” This is totally false.
The whole basis of most GMO foods is that they are engineered to be able to tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides. This is vital information to know, based on world-wide studies which show this herbicide negatively affects the health of humans.
Some glyphosate remains in the GMO crop and thus builds up in human tissues and fluids, including mother’s milk. Glyphosate is a synthetic form of the amino acid, glycine, thus the human body (and other bodies) do not reject it. Since it is not natural, its buildup in the body causes the body to reject other, natural, forms of glycine when it perceives its quantity to be sufficient. Glycine is necessary for central nervous system function, and proper digestion. Statistics show there have been challenges in both those areas of human health since glyphosate and GMOs became common.
The author seems to believe the agri-food giant’s sales brochures. He is welcome to his beliefs. I personally don’t believe that forcing people to be kept in the dark about what is in their food is wise, or just. What do they have to hide?
A request under the “Freedom of Information Act” to learn about the basis of allowing GMOs and glyphosate in Canada has revealed that Health Canada never did its own studies. It totally relied on Monsanto’s research. It also revealed that Health Canada does not want to reveal what Monsanto’s research reported, calling it “trade secrets”. It would seem the public’s health is less valuable to the “higher ups” in Health Canada than the trade secrets of Monsanto.
The author claims it is only billion dollar Organic companies that want GMO labeling. Not so.
The vast majority of consumers want to know. He also claims that 99 per cent of all scientific studies show GMOs and glyphosate to be safe. Not so. There are myriad numbers of independent studies that have been done showing the truth of the matter. However, many of the scientists who performed these studies were fired for telling what they found and their results buried.
Russia refuses to welcome GMO and glyphosate as it does not want to give over control of its agriculture and ability to feed its people to a multi-national corporation.
Canada has welcomed Monsanto controlling much of Canada’s agriculture. There’s lots of profits being made thereby. Perhaps some, or most, of those profits are amongst the $200 billion being banked off-shore every year to avoid being taxed in Canada, as reported in the Panama Papers. Millions of dollars of tax money that are not available for health care, for tuition, for so many other social programs, and for public seed improvement development, like we used to have before Monsanto took over.
In favour of informed choice, and that’s no joke,
Robbie Anderman, Killaloe Ontario
