CA Greens back cloned-animal labeling bill
Green Party of California
www.cagreens.org
Contact: Susan King, spokesperson, 415.823-5524 funking@mindspring.com
Dr. Bob Vizzard, spokesperson, 916.206 8953, thevizz@aol.com
Sara Amir, spokesperson, 310.270-7106 saraamir@earthlink.net
Cres Vellucci, press secretary, 916.996-9170 civillib@cwnet.com
April 16, 2007
Originally released Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Greens back cloned-animal labeling bill,
explain measure necessary to protect state consumers from 'potentially dangerous'
food
SACRAMENTO -- 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.