By Heather Callaghan, Editor

The FDA and USDA are attempting to counter “misinformation” about GMO foods and you’re going to help them. U.S. taxpayers are to fund a government propaganda drive to persuade them to like GM foods. [1]

This is enough to spurn an already cash-strapped public, especially since Monsanto is in the midst of legal trouble and has been caught paying Internet trolls to “astroturf” the public to believing GMOs are good for the world. They already launched war on real science and Bayer has unleashed an army of farmers to “re-educate” consumers. Additionally, science has shamelessly hurdled over the line of impartial research by spending funds on figuring out how to emotionally trick women into buying GMOs again.

Washington Post reports:

The Food and Drug Administration will fund a campaign to promote genetically modified organisms in food under a bipartisan agreement to keep the government funded through the end of September. The deal to avert a government shutdown allocates $3 million to “consumer outreach and education regarding agricultural biotechnology,” which includes genetic engineering of food and commodity crops. The money is to be used to tout “the environmental, nutritional, food safety, economic, and humanitarian impacts” of biotech crops and their derivative food products. More than 50 agriculture and food industry groups had signed on to an April 18 letter urging the funding to counter “a tremendous amount of misinformation about agricultural biotechnology in the public domain.” But some environmental groups and House Democrats have derided the provision as a government-sponsored public relations tour for the GMO industry.

Interestingly, Democrats attempted to corral the monies into medical pediatrics, but Republicans shot it down apparently in support of Big Ag interests.

Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) tried to get the measure struck from the bill last month.

During a hearing she had said:

It is not the responsibility of the FDA to mount a government-controlled propaganda campaign to convince the American public that genetically modified foods are safe. The FDA has to regulate the safety of our food supply and medical devices. They are not, nor should they be, in the pro-industry advertising business.

We couldn’t agree more. Using the public’s money for corporate proselytizing – and spouting untested junk science – does NOT fall under the General Welfare clause.

Washington Post notes that the $3 million allocated for the dissemination of GMO propaganda is basically negligible compared to the FDA’s current $2.8 billion budget. Let’s ignore that ridiculous budget amount for just a second and consider that $3 million dollars is a pretty penny – and that taxpayers should not be on the hook for this unnecessary “service.”

Let’s consider that we pay the FDA that ridiculous budget to be frontrunners for chemical ag corporations and Big Pharma already. We don’t need a specialized biotech education program tacked on as a rider for a budget bill.

In the words of Andy Kimbrell, the executive director of the Center for Food Safety, who notes that Monsanto clearly has a “marketing problem”:

…Monsanto has plenty of money to advocate for GMOs … Why do we need to use taxpayer dollars?

See: Introducing A Real Science-Based Website On GMOs Launched By Experts In Science

[1] GMWatch

Heather Callaghan is an independent researcher, writer, speaker and food freedom activist. She is the Editor and co-founder of NaturalBlaze as well as a certified Self-Referencing IITM Practitioner.

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