Greens back cloned-animal labeling bill, explain measure necessary to protect state consumers from "potentially dangerous" food
GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA NEWS RELEASE
SACRAMENTO, Ca. (April 11, 2007) - Green Party environmental specialists today voiced support for legislation to mandate clear labels on any food derived from a cloned animal or its offspring, and said the bill is in the "public interest" and necessary to protect consumers from "potentially dangerous" food products.
Senate Bill 63, authored by State Senator Carole Migden, D-Marin/San Francisco, was approved in the Senate Health Committee Wednesday.
"The federal government continues to make it difficult for citizens to know what they are putting in their bodies. First, they attacked Proposition 65 that requires warning labels on products known to contain hazardous ingredients, then fought local governments from controlling Genetically Engineered Agriculture and now they want to allow growers to hide the fact that their animals were cloned," said Wes Rolley, of the Green Party of United States Eco-Action Committee.
"It is all part of the same plan to keep the public in the dark," added Rolley.
"The federal government continues to rubber stamp biotech foods. In 1992, over the objections of government scientists, it was decided that genetically engineered foods are "substantially equivalent" to natural foods and do not need to be safety tested or labeled," said Erica Martenson, a Napa County Green who works on the GPCA Platform Committee regarding food safety issues.
"This decision was made despite the agency's own scientists' statements that genetically engineered foods are different and carry different risks, including allergenicity, toxicity, antibiotic resistance, nutritional problems and cancer. Now, several years later, the FDA is doing the same thing with milk and meat from cloned animals," she added.
"These decisions are not in the public interest. Only biotech corporations benefit from this lack of regulation. We need politicians at the state level to intervene on behalf of the public by at least mandating that these foods be labeled, so that consumers can protect their own health and well-being by avoiding these potentially dangerous products," Martenson said.
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Contacts:
Crescenzo Vellucci, State Press Office,
916.996.9170,
Sara Amir (Los Angeles),
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Dr. Bob Vizzard (Sacramento),
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Daniel Brezenoff (Southern California),
310.422.2211,
Susan King (San Francisco),
415.823.5524,
The Green Party of California
PO Box 2828
Sacramento, CA 95812
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