Cigarettes, GMOs and the Business of “Physician Approved”
Cigarettes were once ‘physician’ tested, approved. When health concerns about cigarettes began to receive public attention in the 1930s, tobacco companies took preemptive action. They capitalized on the public’s trust of physicians in order to quell concerns about the dangers of smoking. They created what is now known as “tobacco science.”
From Hematology/Oncology: “For a long time, physicians were the authority on health. Patients trusted in their doctors’ education and expertise and, for the most part, followed their advice. When health concerns about cigarettes began to receive public attention in the 1930s, tobacco companies took preemptive action. They capitalized on the public’s trust of physicians in order to quell concerns about the dangers of smoking. Thus was born the use of physicians in cigarette advertisements
“When you knit this together into a full story, the scope of it and the way it duped the public was just incredible,” said Robert K. Jackler, MD, Sewall Professor and Chair, otolaryngology—head and neck surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. “The public was becoming increasingly worried about the health consequences of cigarettes. They started to refer to cigarettes as coffin nails and started talking about smoker’s cough and smoker’s hack. The companies saw a threat to their success and business model.”
A generation later, we are now dealing with “food science” in the same way that our grandparents had to deal with “tobacco science.”
Every month, it seems that a new study appears to swing us one way or the other. It’s a “he said, she said” battlefield right now, making it all the more important that we have complete transparency around our food until the science is settled. That includes knowing how much pesticide is being applied to our foods, whether or not they are genetically engineered (given that some GMOs are regulated by the EPA as a pesticide and some require increased applications of glyphosate, a “probable carcinogen” according to the World Health Organization.).
Rick Friday, the cartoonist fired for speaking truth to power, highlights all of this once again, in this cartoon.
As the World Health Organization releases coffee from its carcinogen list, Roundup, Monsanto’s signature product, remains on it.
If you had a choice to sprinkle Roundup across your children’s breakfast or onto their dinners, would you? If you had a choice to spray it into your soy milk or onto your corn, would you? The sign on the bottle says, “Keep Out of the Reach of Children.”
Americans should be given that choice, and GMOs should be labeled here the way that they are in Europe, China, India, Russia, Brazil and over 60 other countries around the world.
We’re not asking for anyone to reinvent the wheel, we’re just asking for the same transparency into how our food is made that all of our key trading partners enjoy.