We frequently report on the anti-genetically improved foods (GIF) movement and the efforts by its activist base to confuse policymakers with manic ramblings and deceptive misinformation. So when people get the chance to sift through the incoherent rants of science denying loons (remember when the Center for Research on Globalization called the cultivation of GIFs developed to prevent malnutrition and save hundreds of thousands of lives “racist”) the anti-GIF camp finds itself a little stumped.
This week, a Congressional panel met to evaluate the merits of creating a national requirement that genetically improved foods, also called GMOs, be labeled. Luckily, scientific consensus on the issue is unequivocal enough to drown out even the loudest whining from fear-mongering quacktivists: lawmakers and scientists firmly agree that GIFs are as safe as conventional foods.
Finding that its dregs of bogus data failed to sufficiently sidetrack Congress from sound science, the anti-GIF activist base scrambled to find a plausible explanation for the lawmakers’ very logical conclusion that perfectly safe foods do not—and should not—require a special label. But don’t expect the Congress to get any credit for getting science right. One Huffington Post headline spectacularly accused the hearing of playground name-calling: “Americans Are Too Stupid for GMO Labeling, Congressional Panel Says.”
This creative reporting is most likely inspired by the panel’s concern with the misinformation distorting public opinion of GIFs. Expert witnesses including Dr. David R. Just of Cornell University warned that because of this propaganda, labels may mislead consumers into believing that GIFs are harmful.
Rather than acknowledge science, activists are hoping to deceive, distract, and bamboozle, which won’t be the first or the last time they mislead in the service of their dangerous ideology. It’s a shame that some reporters are going along with the farce.
