20 LEADING FOOD COMPANIES AND RETAILERS REJECT INGREDIENTS FROM CLONED ANIMALS IN THEIR PRODUCTS
Consumer Preference, Lack of Market Acceptance Driving the Issue, Companies Say
Washington, D.C. (September 3, 2008) - The Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth today announced that 20 of Americaís leading food producers and retailers have stated that they will not use cloned animals in their food. The companies include Kraft Foods; General Mills; Gerber/Nestle; Campbell Soup Company; Gossner Foods; Smithfield Foods; Ben & Jerry's; Amy's Kitchen; California Pizza Kitchen restaurants; Hain Celestial; Cloverland, Oberweis, Prairie, Byrne, Plainview, and Clover-Stornetta Dairies; and grocers PCC Natural Markets, Albertsons, SUPERVALU, and Harris Teeter. The move by these companies represents a growing industry trend of responding to consumer demand for better food safety, environmental, and animal welfare standards.
"This rejection of food from clones sends a strong message to biotech firms that their products may not find a market," says Lisa Bunin, PhD, Campaigns Coordinator at the Center for Food Safety. "American consumers don't want to eat food from clones or their offspring, and these companies have realistically anticipated low market acceptance for this new and untested technology." This sentiment is echoed by General Mills in their letter to the Center which identified "consumer acceptance" as an important consideration with respect to the potential use of ingredients from clones in their products.
Kraft Foods expressed a similar position in a letter stating that although they defer to the conclusions of the FDA on the safety of ingredients from cloned animals, "product safety is not the only factor we consider in our products. We must also carefully consider additional factors such as consumer benefits and acceptance...and research in the U.S. indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals."
In May 2008, the Center for Food Safety began reaching out to companies involved in the production, use, and sale of meat and milk products, regarding their position on the use of food from clones. In response, three of the top-earning food manufacturing companies indicated that they will not be using ingredients from clones.
Kraft Foods, North America's second largest food and beverage company, reported revenue of approximately $37.2 billion in 2007, with products such as Cracker Barrel, Cool Whip, Velveeta, Oscar Meyer, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. General Mills, another leading American food processing company, with brands that include Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, Totino's, Yoplait and Haagen-Dazs, reported revenue of approximately $12.4 billion in 2007. Gerber/Nestle, a top international food manufacturing company and leader in baby food and infant formula production, whose brands include Carnation, Toll House, Lean Cuisine, and Stouffer's reported approximately $121 billion in revenue in 2007; Bringing their total revenue for 2007 to $170.6 billion.
Ben & Jerry's Social Mission Director, Rob Michalak, told the Center for Food Safety "Cloning presents a host of complex social, economic and animal welfare consequences. The decision to approve clones for food use was rushed through, under the radar, without a proper, comprehensive review. As a result, we now need to establish a national registry and tracking framework so that people know where the clones are."
Ben & Jerry's, Amy's Kitchen, Clover-Stornetta, Oberweis Dairy, Prairie Farms Dairy, Plainview Dairy, PCC Natural Markets, Gossner Foods, and Hain Celestial have gone one step further by stating that they would not use ingredients from clones or their offspring. The Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, and the American Anti-Vivisection Society are working to obtain more commitments of this kind.
In addition, Friends of the Earth has worked with top U.S. grocers to determine their policy on the use of cloned animals and their offspring in their food, and presented them with over 8,000 signatures from consumers who reject products made from these animals. To date, Albertsons, SUPERVALU and Harris Teeter have informed Friends of the Earth that they will not sell products from cloned animals. SUPERVALU, owner of Shaw's, Cub Foods, Acme Markets, and partial owner of Albertsons, is the second-ranked grocer in the nation, with a reported 2008 revenue of $44 billion. Albertsons, which operates more than 300 Albertsons supermarkets nationwide, reported over $40 billion in revenues in 2006. North Carolina-based grocer Harris Teeter reported $3.3 billion in revenues, supplying upwards of 90% of parent company Ruddickís profits.
"Grocers are recognizing that people do not want to eat food from cloned animals," said Gillian Madill, Genetic Technologies Campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "Food safety authorities must also recognize this and ñ in keeping with their public interest mandate ñ enact labeling regulations that allow Americans their fundamental right to choose."
The American Anti-Vivisection Society, Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, Citizens for Health, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Humane Society of the United States, Organic Consumers Association, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility have sent FDA over 150,000 letters from their supporters who oppose the unlabeled introduction of cloned animals and their offspring into the US food supply.
FEDERAL COURT UPHOLDS BAN ON GENETICALLY-ENGINEERED ALFALFA
Washington, D.C. (September 2, 2008) - In a decision handed down today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa pending a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Court determined that the planting of genetically modified alfalfa can result in potentially irreversible harm to organic and conventional varieties of crops, damage to the environment, and economic harm to farmers.
Although the suit was brought against United States Department of Agriculture (USDA); Forage Genetics and Monsanto Company entered into the suit as Defendant-Intervenors. In her opinion, Circuit Judge Mary M. Schroeder held that ìMonsanto and Forage Genetics contend that the District Court disregarded their financial losses, but the district court considered those economic losses and simply concluded that the harm to growers and consumers who wanted non-genetically engineered alfalfa outweighed the financial hardships to Monsanto and Forage Genetics and their growers.î
“This ruling affirms a major victory for consumers, ranchers, organic farmers, and most conventional farmers across the country,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “Roundup Ready Alfalfa represents a very real threat to farmer’s livelihoods and the environment; the judge rightly dismissed Monsanto’s claims that their bottom line should come before the rights of the public and America’s farmers. This ruling is a turning point in the regulation of biotech crops in this country.”
Today’s decision upholds District Court Judge Charles Breyer’s earlier ruling of May 2007, in which he found that the USDA failed to address concerns that Roundup Ready alfalfa will contaminate conventional and organic alfalfa. Judge Schroeder’s decision affirms that USDA violated national environmental laws by approving GE alfalfa without a full Environmental Impact Statement. It also affirms that USDA failed to address the problem of Roundup-resistant “superweeds” that could follow commercial planting of GE alfalfa.
The Center for Food Safety represented itself and the following co-plaintiffs in the suit: Western Organization of Resource Councils, National Family Farm Coalition, Sierra Club, Beyond Pesticides, Cornucopia Institute, Dakota Resource Council, Trask Family Seeds, and Geertson Seed Farms. For more information, please visit www.centerforfoodsafety.org.
MONSANTO SEEKS TO DIVEST OWNERSHIP OF CONTROVERSIAL GROWTH HORMONE USED IN MILK PRODUCTION
rBST Marketed as Posilac Was Considered Flagship Product of Agricultural Biotechnology
Center for Food Safety and Other Consumer and Farm Groups Declare a Victory for Consumers in "Milk Wars" Over the Use of the Artificial Growth Hormone
Washington, DC, August 6, 2008 - Today, the Center for Food Safety and other consumers and farm groups declared a victory for consumers in the ongoing "milk wars" when the the Monsanto Company announced this morning that it was "pursuing a divestiture of its dairy product, recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), in the upcoming months." This decision by the biotech giant to drop its line of artificial bovine growth hormones, Monsanto's first biotech product, comes after a nearly five-year decline in use of rBST, which was marketed under the name "Posilac".
"What's happened today could be a great victory for the American consumer," says Andrew Kimbrell, founder and executive director of the Center for Food Safety. "Monsanto has recognized that consumers have made a choice to avoid milk made with genetically engineered growth hormones, and that the dairies and markets that serve their needs are not buying milk made with their product. They have clearly judged the time right to get out of the failing artificial growth hormone business."
In 1994, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved use of Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone, the FDA also said that the following label statement, in proper context, is acceptable: "from cows not treated with rBST." Last year, Monsanto asked FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to declare these labels to be misleading. In August 2007, the FTC wrote to Monsanto, "The FTC staff agrees with FDA that food companies may inform consumers in advertising, as in labeling, that they do not use rBST."
Subsequent attempts by Monsanto to ban such labeling at the state level have met with strong resistance from local consumers, advocacy groups, farmers and dairies. Earlier this summer, an overwhelming public backlash forced Pennsylvania Governor Rendell to rescind an order from his Dept. of Agriculture to remove labels from milk identifying it as produced without use of rBGH. A similar rule put forward in Ohio is now under legal challenge by groups representing farmers, dairies and consumers (the Center for Food Safety is a co-plaintiff).
"When Monsanto failed to get the federal government to remove 'rBST-Free' labels, they went after states like Pennsylvania and Ohio to ban labels, but they've been fought every step of the way," said Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Center for Food Safety. "They have clearly seen and understood that public demand is in favor of transparency and truth when it comes to what's on our plates."
Scientists and physicians have long raised questions about the long-term safety of consuming milk from cows treated with rBGH, concerns stemming from the milk's increased levels of insulin-like growth factor, another powerful hormone. Regulators in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and all 27 nations of the European Union have banned rbGH due to adverse effects on animal health. Cows injected with the hormone show increased risks for infertility and lameness as well as for udder infections, which are treated with antibiotics. Antibiotic use on animals is a major cause of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a major public health threat.
Numerous polls show that there is widespread consumer demand for milk produced by cows not treated with artificial hormones and the market is responding to that demand. A June 2007 Consumer Reports National Research Center poll of over 1,000 people nationwide found that 76 percent of consumers were concerned with dairy cows given synthetic growth hormones and 88 percent agreed that milk from cows raised without synthetic bovine growth hormone should be allowed to be labeled as such.
Monsanto's artificial growth hormone business has been in decline since 2002, according to a recent USDA report. The number of dairy cows injected with rBGH dropped from 22.3 percent of all U.S. cows in 2002 to 17.2 percent in 2007, a nearly 23 percent drop. This trend in response to market demand continues: in 2008, many more dairies have announced that are going rBST-free.
Irradiation Not the Solution to Food-Borne Illness
Center for Food Safety calls FDA approval of irradiation of spinach and lettuce a false solution to unsanitary practices of industrial agriculture
Washington, D.C. (August 21, 2008) - The FDA announced today that it will allow food producers to start irradiating fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce in an attempt to kill E. coli O157:H7 and other bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses, despite scientific and consumer concerns about the use of irradiation. The move comes in response to a petition filed by The National Food Processors Association, a trade group representing major food companies.
"Irradiation is not the solution to food-borne illness," said Bill Freese, Science Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety. "In fact, it serves to distract attention from the unsanitary conditions of industrial agriculture that create the problem in the first place."
In 2006, California spinach contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 sickened over 200 people, and killed three. A field investigation by FDA and the State of California identified the same strain of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle feces from a ranch close to where the spinach was grown.
Besides being the source of 3/4ths of the nation s spinach, California is home to nearly 5 million cows which produce 15 million tons of manure every year - manure that often ends up in nearby waterways, including the ditches and channels of irrigation water for crops like spinach. Dried manure can even blow onto neighboring fields in clouds of dust.
"Irradiation kills some bacteria in our foods, but it is no substitute for measures to clean up the huge animal operations that pollute our waterways and irrigation water with the raw manure that often carries pathogenic bacteria," said Freese.
Contamination of leafy greens is not a new problem. According to the California Department of Health Services, in the last 11 years, 20 E. coli outbreaks have been linked to "leafy products" grown in California, including two related to spinach.
"Food companies are also seeking FDA permission to label irradiated foods as 'pasteurized' - an obvious attempt to conceal from consumers the fact that foods are being irradiated," added Freese.
Food irradiation uses high-energy Gamma rays, electron beams, or X-rays (all of which are millions of times more powerful than standard medical X-rays) to break apart the bacteria and insects that can hide in meat, grains, and other foods. Radiation is one of the more destructive forces in nature, and scientific studies have documented that irradiation can dramatically lower the nutritional content of foods, particularly vitamin A and folate, an essential B vitamin. The FDA's proposal concedes that irradiation will make spinach less nutritious.
"Fresh spinach is extremely nutritious, as every mother knows. Irradiation will rob it of some of those essential nutrients, all to avoid tackling the problem at its source," said Freese.
The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org
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