Center for Food Safety (CFS)Posted 9 years ago under Uncategorized
Founded in 1997, the national, non-profit public interest organization called Center for Food Safety (CFS), based in Washington DC, promotes sustainable agriculture and protects human health (and rights), animal health, and the environment, by educating consumers about toxic food agents and synthetic, gene-altered pesticides, plants and organisms the majority of US food, including some organic foods and products. CFS utilizes groundbreaking scientific reports and legal actions to help grass roots campaigns dig roots, build strength and gain victories for the clean food movement. The CFS “True Food Network” helps with this much needed agenda and all the legal cases collected serve as the body of knowledge on prior food and agriculture issues. The CFS slogan and tagline for awareness: “Protecting Our Food, Our Farms, & Our Environment” is the underlying theme of all the CFS efforts, and their accomplishments and continued efforts run deep. (1)
CFS preserves strict national organic food standards
CFS helps prevent animal and human health crises caused by food borne illnesses
CFS promotes organic agriculture on all scales: large, medium and small farms
CFS educates the public about the hazards of industrial agriculture
CFS, in 2004, was the single LARGEST financial contributor to the campaign for banning biotechnology crops and gene-altered farming in California, and the ban was successful (Measure H for Mendocino County)
CFS sponsors the “Keep Nature Natural” campaign, which often petitions the FDA for stricter regulations of GMO
With nearly three quarters of a million members across the country screaming NO! to industrial agriculture, CFS spreads the word for free and sends out updates and action alerts so that anyone and everyone can find ways to make a difference in the fight for clean food. CFS is gaining so much strength and garnering so much attention that Big Food and Biotech is sending their “hell hounds” to try and neutralize the organization’s massive accomplishments to date, but it won’t happen.
Don’t confuse CFS with CCF–Center for Consumer Freedom – a major front group for the fast food and tobacco industry (3)
CFS, Center for Food Safety, is looking out for consumer interests, health, clean food and a sustainable environment, unfortunately, there are also “front” groups that are formed primarily to trick consumers, confuse consumers and misinform everyone, from consumers to regulators to legislatures to Congress. These groups, such as Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), American Cancer Society, Susan Komen Foundation, Genetic Literacy Project, American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) (10), and many more, are funded and propagandized by huge corporations and the biotechnology industry in general, and the lies they tell to confuse consumers run deep. CCF is a front group for tobacco, alcohol and junk-science, fast food industries that manufacture chemical-laden, cancer causing foods the FDA readily approves for consumption, adding hundreds, even thousands of new chemicals to the food supply each year in America. CCF is funded by Philip Morris, Monsanto, Tyson Foods, Arby’s and Wendy’s. One of CCF’s main goals is to neutralize activist groups (9), and this front group is run by the nefarious Rick Berman, who uses media campaigns to attack real scientists, holistic doctors, health advocates, animal rights activists and environmentalists. Berman is a Washington lobbyist who funnels millions into his own pocket, skirting IRS codes in the process. Center for Consumer Freedom is not about freedom at all, it’s about trapping people in a lifestyle of consuming poisonous foods that cause disease and disorder. Watch out for CCF propaganda–they’re the polar opposite and the nemesis of the Center for Food Safety. (3)
March 2004: First U.S. county to ban gene-altered farming located in California
Measure H supporter Art Harwood (of Harwood Products) had this to say about the goal of banning chemical-violence in agriculture: (5)
“This is an issue that needs to be dealt with at the state, national or global level, but you have to start somewhere and that somewhere is Mendocino County,”
In Mendocino County the voters banned biotech crops altogether, and was the first county in the United States to do so. Referring to it as “gene-altered farming,” the ban included animals. Who knew? By a slim margin of about 12 points, “Measure H” was approved to block the Frankenfood “monster” corporations from planting their pesticide-laden and herbicide-resistant (which means the toxins are in the DNA of the plant) crops. This precedent case and initiative shows up on the global map and symbolizes success that can be cited and sourced for years to come, serving as a catapult for the clean food movement, organic food, animal rights, human rights and sustainability. A few of the biotech giants (including CropLife America and local and state Farm Bureau leaders and other “high profilers”) spent over $500,000 over two months to try and defeat the measure, fearing its precedent-setting ability. That amount is 7 times the amount spent to approve Measure H. The Center for Food Safety was the single largest financial contributor to the campaign for banning GMO farming in California, and the ban was ultimately successful.
Dec 2015: Hawaii CFS Director exposes the impact of pesticide-laden crops on families, farms and food in Hawaii
“Pesticides in Paradise” (4) – Groundbreaking Report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XEVQqlAXCY
The Hawai’i CFS Director, Ashley Lukens, PhD, (2) presents key findings from a groundbreaking report on health damage from toxic pesticides used in pristine Hawaii. This presentation and webinar serves as an opportunity to comprehend the levels of hazard concerning pesticide use by these agrichemical companies. (2)
GMO-Free America in the Distance?
Unlike most developed countries, the USA eats blindly. Nowhere on food packages are genetically modified ingredients labeled, unless organizations go out of their way to grow organic food and label that GMO-free, organic or “non-GMO.” Genetically modified means crops contain the genes of toxic pesticides infused in laboratories–a way nature NEVER intended, and consumers who eat these foods regularly die of cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, obesity and other preventable diseases and disorders that catapult from nutritional deficiencies caused directly from consuming chemical-based pesticides, including fungicide, algaecide, herbicide (Roundup), insecticide (sodium fluoride in tap water), and more.
Biotech front groups try to pull the “wool” over the eyes of the “sheeple” who are trusting the US regulatory agencies to regulate chemicals, keep them out of foods, beverages, personal care products, cosmetics, and medicine, but they don’t. Biotech front groups propagate lies and tries to blur the distinct lines between GMO and food that contains nutrients. Big Food and Biotech propaganda tell you US food is clean and there’s nothing to worry about, while the rest of the developing world labels or even completely BANS GMO, knowing full and well the consequences of it’s continued consumption.
The 15 Nations in the European Union, plus Japan, Russia and China ban GMO
According to a national poll, even though nearly 90% of all Americans want GMOs labeled on foods and beverages, the corporations that run America have prevailed thus far, for thirty years, to keep this dangerous technology “out of sight–out of mind” of the American consumers. How could this be so? Front groups like Center for Consumer Freedom and P.R. groups like Ketchum, Inc., (11) breed confusion and disinformation campaigns when it comes time to vote for labels. Plus, the FDA runs NO TESTS on GM technologies for health or environment safety. Neither does the EPA. These rogue “regulatory” agencies are nothing more than bureaucratic businesses that thrive off the money the lobbyists contribute from the deep pockets of the likes of Monsanto, Tyson Foods, Bayer, Dow Chemical, Dupont, BASF, Syngenta, Cargill and more.
Center for Food Safety uncovers documents via litigation showing FDA scientists know that GMO foods and synthetic biology poses serious health risks
The Biotechnology not only infiltrates government-held positions of control, power, and legislation that favor their rogue “technologies” in chemical agriculture, but agri-businesses hold secret meetings with the FDA, CDC and EPA to selectively choose what data and research to reveal to the American people. This is why the FDA has not acted to create labels for GMO, claiming they are not “materially” different from other foods. Why wouldn’t people have severe allergies to chemical pesticides if they have allergies to dairy, peanuts, artificial hormones, monosodium glutamate, aspartame, and mercury in flu shots?
The FDA claims that if the food tastes the same, and smells the same as other foods, then it must BE the same. Since GE foods can’t be “sensed” by consumers, then they have no need to know whether they are in the food they eat or even dominate the ingredients list. How absurd. You can’t taste cesium, plutonium, lead and mercury either, so where’s the logic? Since corporations run America, there is no need for logic. Rogue propaganda-pushing agencies, groups and the media simply push misinformation and breed confusion, and all goes on as planned, fueling health and environmental detriment right and left.
April 2014: CFS files suit in federal court to force USDA to hand over documents showing FDA fraudulently approved GM alfalfa
Many concerns arise about environmental safety when new GM crops, vegetables and produce, are approved by the FDA and USDA for growing on US soil. (6) There is an untold number of animals, species, insects, bees, turtles, rabbits, beetles, microorganisms and other life forms that manage and maintain entire ecosystems that are now threatened by chemical agriculture practices that dominate more than 90% of US farms. (7)
The executive director for CFS expressed major concern over the complete reversal, in just one month, of the USDA going from determining that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa posed significant environmental and economic harms to granting them full, unrestricted approval. Either the White House or Monsanto obviously pressured the USDA to flip-flop and green-light this dangerous GM alfalfa. Lump this glyphosate-ridden crop in with all the rest of the corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, beats, cotton and canola. These pesticide-laden crops are pushed through the system without any scientific review human health or environmental safety–it’s all just accepted as such by the words of the manufacturer.
The worst part is that alfalfa is a key feed element for dairy cows, so as they get sicker, the milk they produce will be tainted. Also, alfalfa is used in many dietary supplements and herbal medicines, so if it’s not organic, you’re taking toxic herbicide with your vitamins, minerals and/or medicine. GM alfalfa is known to cross-contaminate traditional fields of alfalfa also, since it’s pollinated by bees that can travel many miles away. This can ruin an entire shipment of alfalfa that is being exported to other countries that ban GMO and who don’t want their people consuming chemicals daily.
The CFS director hopes to obtain over 1,000 documents from the USDA via the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to shed light on how they came to the quick decision to approve GM alfalfa after having stated major concerns just thirty days earlier.
Congress omits rider in Federal spending bill that would have blocked states from labeling GE foods
CFS praised Congress for doing the right thing, finally, when they did not include a policy rider in the omnibus spending bill that would have prevented all US states from passing and implementing mandatory GMO labels, the way Maine, Vermont and Connecticut have already done. Vermont‘s labeling goes into effect in July of this year (2016). The rider would have nullified the legislation these states already passed, too. More than half of all US states have at least introduced bills to label this new technology of inserting genes of pesticides into staple crops. Consumers have a right to know what is in their food, and CFS is one main organization keep watchdog eyes on these developments by individual states and Congress oversight.
Attorney Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety, stated the following regarding the rider exclusion:
“We are very pleased that Congress has apparently decided not to undermine Americans’ right to know about the food the purchase and feed their families,” … “Adding a rider to the budget bill that would nullify state laws requiring labeling and even forbidden federal agencies from mandating labeling would have been profoundly undemocratic and nothing short of legislative malfeasance. We will remain vigilant over the coming days and into the next legislative session to ensure our right to know is protected.”
“In the absence of federal leadership, states have led the way by passing legislation intended to prevent consumer deception and give consumers the right to know,” said Kimbrell. “We thank those Members of Congress, as well as the thousands of Americans who contacted their Senators recently, for preventing this grossly unethical rider from seeing daylight.”
Leaving this insidious rider out of the omnibus spending bill was thanks to the Senate, as the House of Representatives had passed H.R. 1599 (dubbed the DARK Act) earlier that would have preempted states and local authorities and the FDA from ever labeling GE foods. the Senate resisted heavy pressure from biotechnology industries in doing so.
Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act
Center for Food Safety supports bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Boxer and Representative DeFazio called the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, requiring food manufacturers label foods that contain GM ingredients, guaranteeing all Americans the right to know what is in their foods while respecting the need by companies for a uniform, federal standard. (8)
Executive director of CFS, Attorney Andrew Kimbrell
Thanks to the executive director of CFS, many legal cases have been won in the fight to maintain food and agricultural integrity in the USA. Kimbrell has put the brakes on many dangerous technologies that would have simply been passed, implemented and carried forth without consumers consent or even any labels to denote the toxins used to manufacture and manipulate the seeds and plants of staple foods across the country. Legal actions have halted at least seven kinds of GM commercial crops and GE plants that produce biopharmaceuticals. CFS has halted the contamination of feed additives for industrial livestock and protected pollinators from toxic pesticides. CFS also fights to keep corporations and companies from engaging in dangerous and unethical animal cloning, food irradiation, CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), and from using dangerous drugs such as synthetic growth hormones that can cause cancer in those animals and the humans that consume meat and dairy products. Attorney Kimbrell is also the founder of the International Center for Technology Assessment and is one of the world’s leading 100 visionaries per Utne Reader’s list. The Guardian recognized Kimbrell in 2008 as one of the 50 people who could save the planet. You may recognize him from the 2004 feature film “The Future of Food.”
Sources:
(2) http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/3859/hawaii-center-for-food-safety/ge-food-labeling
(3) http://gmwatch.org/news/latest-news/16438-new-report-probes-pro-gmo-journalists
(4) “Pesticides in Paradise” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XEVQqlAXCY
(5) https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/ge/yesmeasureh030304.php
(6) http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mo-gmo-alfalfa-20140313-story.html#axzz2vr4F8g9l
(7) http://www.naturalnews.com/044691_food_safety_GM_alfalfa_Monsanto.html#ixzz3viXL1yrz
(9) http://www.truthwiki.org/center-for-consumer-freedom/
(10) http://www.truthwiki.org/the_american_council_on_science_and_health/
(11) http://www.truthwiki.org/ketchum-public-relations-firm/