Robyn O’Brien is the co-founder of rePlant Capital, an impact investment firm, deploying integrated capital from soil to shelf in order to build soil health and financial resiliency for farmers. She is also the founder of Do Good, a strategic advisory firm, and the AllergyKids Foundation. Random House published Robyn’s book, The Unhealthy Truth, in 2009, and her TEDx talks have been translated into dozens of languages and viewed by millions around the world.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the CEO of Mylan, the maker of EpiPens, to explain sharp increases in the device’s price.
“The substantial price increase has caused significant concern among patients,” Grassley, who is up for reelection this year, wrote in a letter to the company. “I have heard from one father in Iowa who recently purchased a refill of his daughter’s EpiPen prescription. He reported that to fill the prescription, he had to pay over $500 for one EpiPen.”
And while Mylan is saying that their abusive pricing practices are justified because they gifted American schools with some EpiPens, Grassley and millions of Americans aren’t buying it. That’s like an abusive spouse saying their behavior is justified because they gifted the abused.
It’s abusive pricing. Lives are at risk. On top of that, as Senator Grassley mentions, over 40% of American children are on Medicaid, so taxpayers are the ones who are actually shelling out for Mylan’s price-gouging in those cases.
Read Senator Grassley’s letter below. He raises some very important points.
The number of people in the U.S. with food allergies is skyrocketing.
For the last year, we’ve been working to bring an awareness to the risk that the skyrocketing price of EpiPens creates, and the fact that some families are now priced out of this life saving devices due to its jaw-dropping price tag of about $600.
As recently as the 3rd quarter of 2015, the price of one EpiPen was at $300. But that number is misleading, as the product is sold in a two-pack, so the consumer has to pay $600. In some cases, like this week in Colorado, a parent paid over $700 for the exact same device that just six years ago cost $100. No product changes, no device changes, and the key ingredient inside only costs a few dollars.
So what’s going on?
There is very little competition on the market which only makes matters worse. Last year, Auvi-Q, an alternative device designed by twin brothers who wanted an easy-to-carry option was recalled. The New York Times covered their amazing story in 2013 and the sale of their company to Sanofi. It was short-lived.
According to the FDA, “As of October 26, 2015, Sanofi has received 26 reports of suspected device malfunctions in the US and Canada. None of these device malfunction reports have been confirmed.”
So the entire product line was recalled because of 26 unconfirmed reports. 26 unconfirmed reports.
Apparently, a very similar device is also used to deliver other medications and no reports have been mentioned or product recalls announced. According to Kaleo Pharma, “on April 3, 2014, the FDA approved EVZIO, the first and only naloxone auto-injector intended to be available for emergency administration by family members or caregivers in cases of known or suspected opioid overdose. The company’s first product approval, Auvi-Q™ (www.Auvi-Q.com) (Allerject™ in Canada), was licensed to Sanofi US which launched the product in early 2013.”
The Virginia-based company recently regained the rights to the auto-injector from Sanofi US following a full device recall in the fall of 2015. “We now own the product. We are in the process of figuring out when and how best to bring Auvi-Q back to the market,” Spencer Williamson, president and CEO of Kaléo. According to the Richmond Times “earlier this year, Sanofi US and Kaléo terminated a 2009 agreement that called for Sanofi to manufacture and market the Auvi-Q auto injector.
“A Sanofi representative at the time said the company was able to retrieve some of the 26 devices consumers reported not working correctly but was not able to identify a malfunction in the device.”
The entire product line was recalled because of 26 unconfirmed reports that the company itself was not able to identify.
A competitor can’t come on the market soon enough. Stories of needles breaking and failed EpiPen injections riddle social media conversations and private food allergy groups. Consumers have been priced out by a product that Fast Company called a “faulty design,” and lives are at risk.
The rate of people with peanut allergy in the United States more than quadrupled between 1997 and 2010. A life-threatening food allergic reaction now sends someone to the E.R. once every three minutes in the U.S.
The food industry is getting in on it. Mondelez, formerly known as Kraft, recently acquired Enjoy Life Foods, a popular and well-loved brand in the allergy space, free from many of the top eight allergens and also free from genetically modified ingredients.
It was a $40 million company that was acquired for over $80 million.
What does Mondelez plan to do with the acquisition? Grow it into a billion dollar brand.
What are some other billion dollar brands? Cheerios, Lays, Pepsi, Starbucks….
And EpiPen.
According to Bloomberg, “In a 2007 purchase of medicines from Merck, drug maker Mylan picked up a decades-old product, the EpiPen auto injector for food allergy and bee-sting emergencies. Management first thought to divest the aging device, which logged only $200 million in revenue. Today, it’s a $1.2 billion-a-year product that clobbers its rivals and provides about 40 percent of Mylan’s operating profits.”
Food allergies are not a niche, it is a growing epidemic that is challenging how we think about our food and how it is made. Genetic factors don’t change this quickly, environmental factors do. Are we allergic to food or to what’s been done to it? A lot of families now pay more for free-from food, because we don’t know the answer to that question.
Researchers report that the costs of food allergies, from medical care to food to pharmaceuticals is $4,184 per child per year, costing our economy $25 billion, including lost productivity.
Researchers reporting in the Journal of the American Medical Association states that the costs of food allergies, from medical care to food to pharmaceuticals is $4,184 per child per year, costing our economy $25 billion, including lost productivity.
On top of that, the costs to families with food allergies is skyrocketing. After insurance company discounts, a package of two EpiPens costs about $415. By comparison, in France, where Meda sells the drug, two EpiPens cost about $85. Back in 2007, when the company was purchased, it cost $57. EpiPens wholesale price rose 400% since 2007 and 32% in the last year alone. EpiPen margins were 55 percent in 2014, up from 9 percent in 2008.
According to Bloomberg, the company’s marketing techniques play on the fears of parents and caregivers. There is no incentive here to find a cure or to stop the condition. Sales are explosive.
To discount this condition in any way is irresponsible, but it is just one of the conditions that is triggering a food awakening around the country.
In the last year, Target, Chipotle, Kroger, even General Mills and Cheerios have responded to this growing demand in the marketplace. Free-from foods are showing up in Dollar Tree stores.
These companies aren’t stupid. They see the escalating rates of diseases in their own employees, they feel the financial impact with their own health care costs, and they hear consumers that are saying they want to eat fewer fake, artificial and genetically engineered ingredients.
While the chemical companies selling these new ingredients say there is no evidence of harm, consumers are saying: there is no evidence since these ingredients were never labeled in the United States.
In other words, if you walked into an allergist’s office and asked if you were allergic to soy that has been in the food supply for thousands of years or if you are allergic to Roundup Ready soy, non-GMO soy treated with Roundup or organic soy, there would be no test to give you that answer. Next time, you are at the allergist’s office, ask which soy they are testing for.
With no labels on GMO ingredients in the US to trace their impact and no test to offer definitive answers, the biotech industry is able to claim that there is not a single documented case of these foods ever causing harm.
The explosion in EpiPen sales is significant. It’s significant to the families that use them and delivers significant revenue to the pharmaceutical company selling them, especially here in the United States. EpiPen actually represents 40% of Mylan’s profits.
A study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says yes, living in the United States increases your risk of allergic diseases……“significantly.”
“Living in the US raises risk of allergies,” says the headline.
According to the research, living in the United States for a decade or more may raise the risk of some allergies, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“These data indicate that duration of residence in the United States is a previously unrecognized factor in the epidemiology of atopic disease,” it said.
In other words, the longer you live here, the more likely you are to develop some kind of allergy, asthma, eczema or other related condition.
Food allergies have been skyrocketing in the United States in the last fifteen years. Not only has the CDC reported a 265% increase in the rates of hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions in a ten year period, but the sales of EpiPens, a life-saving medical device for those with food allergies, has also seen record sales growth according to the New York Times.
So what’s going on?
The study aimed to find out. Allergies reported in the survey included asthma, eczema, hay fever, and food allergies.
“Children born outside the United States had significantly lower prevalence of any allergic diseases (20.3%) than those born in the United States (34.5%),” said the study led by Jonathan Silverberg of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.
Let’s restate that:
Children born in the US have more than a 1 in 3 chance of having allergic diseases like food allergies, asthma or eczema, while kids born in other countries around the world had a “significantly lower prevalence” of 1 in 5.
On top of that, “foreign-born Americans develop increased risk for allergic disease with prolonged residence in the United States,” it said.
In other words, if you move here, your chances of developing any one or more of these allergic diseases increase.
The study went so far as to say that children born outside of the US who moved here showed “significantly” higher odds of developing these diseases.
What’s driving this? Is it really Purel and intense handwashing? And the hygiene hypothesis?
And are we allergic to food? Or what’s been done to it?
Because genetics don’t change that quickly, and the environment does.
This presents a risk not only to these children, but also to our economy, as the financial burden of these conditions and their associated health care costs impact not only families but also our country, our military and our productivity.
So what is triggering this escalating, US allergy epidemic?
According to Reuters report on the study and Dr. Ruchi Gupta, who studies allergies at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago but wasn’t involved in the new research, “This is definitely something we see clinically and we’re trying to better understand, what is it in our environment that’s increasing the risk of allergic disease?” said
“Food allergies have increased tremendously,” she told Reuters Health. “We do see people who come from other countries don’t tend to have it.”
Genetically engineered crops are created by inserting a protein from a different organism into the original crop’s genome. This is usually done to create a plant that is more resistant to insects or diseases.
The Food and Agriculture Organization within the World Health Organization has a structured approach to determining whether genetically engineered foods cause allergies, according to Venu Gangur, MSU assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, who also is a faculty member in the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center. “But it has a major flaw. A critical question in that process asks, ‘Does the protein cause an allergic reaction in animals?’ The problem is that there has been no good animal model available to test this.”
It’s food for thought.
The cost of food allergies is burdening more than just the families dealing with them, it’s burdening our schools, our health care system and our economy. It has become a billion dollar business in less than a decade for the company making EpiPens, so they have no reason to stop it.
Until there’s a cure, there’s EpiPen, but there used to be TwinJect and Auvi-Q, too. They are both gone, and consumers are left with a product on the market that was first originally used by the military, whose patent somehow hasn’t expired and whose design has invited countless criticism from both patients and practitioners for its broken needles. It leaves a lot to be desired and a lot of Americans asking the one question: Why 6 price increases in 6 years for a now $600 device?
It reminds us here of another company and their infamous tagline: Ask Why.
That company was Enron. And it’s time for both consumers and members of Congress to “ask why” we are seeing this outrageous increase in the price of EpiPens.
For the last ten days, we have brought attention to the EpiPen pricing issue, as we have heard from parents around the country who are stunned with the new price of a product that has been around for 50 years, especially as they head back to school and find themselves needing to buy multiple sets to keep their children safe. Like the single mom who just shared this image: a $925 price tag for one set of EpiPens with coupon and insurance.
As we began to shine a light on this issue, images flooded in when we asked parents to share pictures of their receipts. As one mom wrote, “I thought I was the only one.” She isn’t, and with the food allergy epidemic in full force, she is joined by millions of parents who share her concern.
How can a parent keep a child safe if they can no longer afford this life saving device? What cost-benefit analysis is being done by the company to justify the skyrocketing price tags – an almost 500% increase in just 6 years? And what value are they putting on the lives of Americans when they run their models, testing the price elasticity of their signature product that accounts for 40% of their revenue?
We have countless stories now, but here are two real-life stories of families impacted dramatically by the price-gouging and profiteering practices of Mylan Pharmaceuticals. Their pricing practices are placing the life-saving EpiPen out of reach of many families. Lives are in danger for the sake of share price and executive compensation. Perhaps the most trying issue in all of this is that the U.S. is the only country in the world where this price-gouging is happening. We also have one of the highest rates of food allergies.
The issue has taken on such concern that EpiPen Canada recently issued a statement on their Facebook page:
“IMPORTANT: Please note that recent news of EpiPen® price increases announced by Mylan, the US distributor of EpiPen®, apply to the US market only. They do not impact Canada (where EpiPen® is distributed by Pfizer Canada). In Canada, medicine prices are regulated and price increases are strictly controlled. As such, the price Canadians pay for EpiPen® has remained fairly consistent for several years.”
The company in the U.S. will argue that insurance covers these jaw-dropping costs, as well as a coupon that they offer. This statement is incomplete at best, as families with high deductibles find themselves paying the full price of between $600-800 while families around the world pay anywhere between $58 and $98. Families that don’t have insurance are simply out of luck, and many are praying that their child or loved one does not encounter a hidden ingredient in a meal that could end a life.
Read these stories and use this link to contact your representatives in Washington. It is time to put and end to pharma price gouging and profiteering.
See the gallery of images at the end of this article for more evidence of Mylan’s deplorable greed.
Elizabeth Bostic’s Story
I am the mother of a 9 year old with peanut and tree-nut allergies, a history of anaphylaxis, and asthma. We are a single income family with a high deductible insurance, and have watched the price of EpiPens rise for years. We need a set for home and a set for school. The last time I went to pick up my daughter’s EpiPenJR I was shocked when the price had shot up once again in less than a year. The price went up about $200 from the last time I had purchased them. At well over $700 a box at my local Publix pharmacy, I declined to purchase the Epipens. Even with the Mylan coupon the price was still over $600 a pack. I searched for a cheaper option and found that the only other option was the generic version of Adrenaclick. Only one local pharmacy would order one, and it was still expensive at over $500.
There have been times where a purse, belt, or bag with the EpiPens in it has been left accidentally in a hot car, and at over $600 a pack to replace the EpiPens, I hate to admit that I have chosen to forgo replacing the EpiPens. If the cost of the EpiPens were more affordable, I would have replaced them right away to be 100% certain of their effectiveness. My daughter is learning to be responsible and self carry her medications while out and about, a simple mistake, a little purse left in a hot car after a day out, or a lost Epi belt, is a very costly mistake, and discourages me from allowing her to carry her medications when I should be encouraging it at her age.
Jennifer DiMercurio’s Story
My husband left his job of seven years in October 2014. His father had to undergo Chemotherapy for his Leukemia and his job was preparing the next big wave of lay-offs. We decided it would be best for him to resign and for our family to take a trip to San Diego to see his parents. Once we returned, knowing my father-in-law was stable, my husband began a new job search. We had utilized Cobra insurance for several months and were looking to get our own policy.
We began the new policy in March 2016. We were paying more per month and our deductible was very high. Our son, Liam is 7 and has severe food allergies to the top 8 (- fish + sesame) as well as severe eczema. We have had to administer his Epi Pen on 8 different occasions. The medicine has saved his life and turned around some extremely severe reactions.
In May 2015 we had to administer epinephrine due to a reaction to a generic Benedryl. At the time we purchased 2 more Epi Pens. They used to let us replace the used one, but now they required a purchase of a 2 pack every time. We had to pay around $250.00 with the discount (the $0 Co-pay card). We had never paid that amount before but we knew our new insurance policy was different. My husband had just started a new job and wasn’t receiving insurance.
In October 2015 Liam had an exposure to an unknown allergen and had to receive another EpiPen. This time the Epi Pens were closer to $400. We still had one of his recent refills, plus another pen from his pack before. We decided we didn’t need to get more at that time. I homeschool my kids so they are with me all the time and we could manage safely with 2 EpiPens. My concern would be purchasing more when the old one expired in a few months, especially at the current price.
My daughter Sofia is 9, while without any allergies, has to receive a daily injection (6 days a week) for Growth Hormone Deficiency. Her levels are so low; we have never had any trouble getting her medication. The treatment is necessary for her health and strength. Thankfully despite the high cost of her medication they send it, never making us pay upfront. The doctors are always looking for ways to help, knowing how important it is. We have been fortunate to receive assistance from CVS/Caremark as well.
On Halloween I experienced my first severe reaction. I had previous allergic reactions to latex and have suffered seasonal environmental allergies my whole life. This time a washable paint from Crayola (later I noticed the disclaimer of the possible latex gloves worn during manufacturing). I went to the ER and received a prescription for my own EpiPens. The price for 2 Epi Pens was now up to $465. My husband had taken on another job with insurance, in addition to his current job. Unfortunately, the probationary period was lengthy, so we were still on our own personal medical insurance policy. We would be until May 2016. The increase also seemed to coincide with the recent recall of Auvi-Q. The insurance company didn’t care if we needed the EpiPens. Deductibles had to be fulfilled first. Even if that meant not getting your medication.
The weekend before Christmas 2015 I had another severe reaction. I had to self-administer my EpiPen. I felt instant relief. My throat was closing and I was getting ready to pass out. We had creatively pull the money together for the first 2 Epi Pens. Our savings was depleted and we now had growing medical bills for the ER visits, in addition to our usual specialist visits.
Now we were faced with the dilemma, risk having only 1 EpiPen for me or borrowing money from someone to get another set of 2. Thankfully someone was kind enough to help us out and I had 3 EpiPens. This turned out to be a great decision because two weeks later I needed to give myself another EpiPen. I had no idea what we were going to do if we needed any more. We were out of resources. I had begged my primary care doctor to help. He was in disbelief when he saw the rabidly increasing epinephrine prices. However, he could do nothing. I asked my new allergist if she knew she could provide any help. She gave me an EpiPen $0 Co-Pay card. This was not much help and I certainly didn’t get my Epi Pens for free. In fact, the assistant at the pharmacist counter thought there was a price mistake and went to talk to the pharmacist. No one could do anything. I began hearing about prices reaching even higher for some folks.
I have seen the medication save my son’s life numerous times and experienced the lifesaving medication myself, twice. It’s not an option. Thankfully we don’t need more than 2 EpiPens per person because I homeschool. I cannot imagine with school quickly approaching what some families are going to do. Especially if there is more than one person that needs the epinephrine in a household. When my daughter needs her medication we receive it and people bend over backwards to make it available. With severe food and other allergies this is not the case. Something has to be done. We need at least 2 EpiPens at all times. I shudder to think of children and adults walking around unequipped for a severe reaction.
This week, I received a note from my local Congressman’s office. His team wanted to make sure that I’d seen it. To try to put into words my gratitude for this man will be tough. He’s been a leader on this issue for years.
Congressman Jared Polis sent the following letter to his constituents about the recent GMO labeling bill passed through both houses of Congress despite massive public opposition. Thank you, Congressman Polis, for what you do for American families and children.
Dear Friend:
Last Friday, I was disappointed to see President Obama sign a bill that overturns food labeling laws in Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont for genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The standard set this by this new federal law will actually provide consumers with less information than the state laws it supersedes.
While this Monsanto-backed bill was packaged as a “reasonable” way to label GMOs, it actually infringes on states’ rights by preempting local laws and allows corporations to disclose information using QR codes—an inaccessible technology. I offered a “truth in advertising” amendment to reflect the spirit of a prior version of the bill by renaming it the Denying Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, since all this legislation does is keep Americans in the dark.
GMO labeling is about transparency, but this bill undermines that concept by allowing QR codes or digital web links to be an approved means of disclosing whether a product contains GMOs.
For approximately 1/3 of the American public who don’t own a smartphone, or the many Americans living in rural areas without reception in their grocery store, the QR code is not an effective method of disclosure. Having a smartphone should not be a prerequisite to obtaining information about what ingredients are in the food you eat. Consumers deserve what they expect: information conveyed in clear text, or a widely recognizable symbol. QR codes and web links are just not an adequate solution.
The labeling conversation centers on consumer access to information. From consumers who applaud the cutting-edge science behind GMOs, to those who might have environmental, ethical, or health concerns with their development, there should be clearly labeled products for everyone. That’s what a free market is all about. But a free market depends on accessible information. Consumers deserve to know what’s in their food, plain and simple.
Despite the passage of this bad bill, I am committed to working in Congress to defend your right to know what’s in your food.
I’m always eager for your input and your ideas. Please don’t hesitate to email me, call one of my offices, or send me a note through Facebook or Twitter.
On July 29, the DARK Act went into effect as President Obama quietly signed the bill despite hundreds of thousands of us asking him not to. This means the GMO labeling many of us across the country have seen on products could soon disappear.
But the fight doesn’t end here. The Center for Food Safety will be filing a federal lawsuit in the next two weeks asking a court to declare the law unconstitutional on a number of grounds and to restore our democratically decided upon labeling laws.
This will be a major battle to defend the rights of consumers and farmers to choose to avoid GMO foods and seeds. Once again, CFS’s legal and science team will be taking on the world’s most powerful industrial food and chemical corporations and their highly paid lawyers.
The Center for Food Safety is used to waging successful legal battles against powerful forces. As a result of past CFS litigation and other efforts, they have stopped numerous GMO crops from being introduced and commercialized; defended county GMO crop bans; banned GMOs from all National Wildlife Refuges in the U.S.; and many other victories protecting our food, our health, and our environment.
As we know, the DARK Act is a legislative train wreck. It preempts the GMO labeling laws of Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut, as well as seed and GMO fish labeling laws. In place of these laws, the bill gives the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) two years to establish standards for GMO labeling allowing companies and producers to use “digital” labeling (a.k.a QR codes) and 1-800 numbers to label food products that contain GMOs.
The idea that consumers would have to call or use their phones on each and every product they buy is absurd. And since more than 100 million Americans, mostly the rural elderly and low income, do not even own smartphones, they will not even have access to the digital labeling the law promotes. What’s worse, the law’s narrow definition would exclude many, and perhaps most, current foods containing GMO ingredients from any form of labeling.
CFS has no intention of letting this anti-democratic, discriminatory, fake labeling bill stand. But in all of their battles to defend our democratic rights and protect farmers and communities, they perform all of their legal work free of charge. In these lawsuits, CFS in-house attorneys and scientists spend many thousands of hours arguing these cases all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Private law firms would charge many millions of dollars for this amount of legal work and expertise. Even working on public interest salaries, these cases cost CFS hundreds of thousands of dollars in work and expenses.
We know this is a fight worth fighting, and they need our help.
An excellent perspective on how GMO “science” is pushed in universities today.
My name is Robert, and I am a Cornell University undergraduate student. However, I’m not sure if I want to be one any more. Allow me to explain.
Cornell, as an institution, appears to be complicit in a shocking amount of ecologically destructive, academically unethical, and scientifically deceitful behavior. Perhaps the most potent example is Cornell’s deep ties to industrial GMO agriculture, and the affiliated corporations such as Monsanto. I’d like to share how I became aware of this troubling state of affairs.
Throughout my secondary education, I’ve always had a passion for science. In particular, physics and mathematics captured my fascination. My sophomore AP physics teacher, Mr. Jones, became my main source of motivation to succeed. He convinced us students that our generation was crucial to repairing humanity’s relationship to science, and how we would play key roles in solving immense global issues, such as climate change. Thank you Mr. Jones! Without your vision, I would have never had the chance to attend such an amazing university.
I came to Cornell as a freshman, deeply unaware of our current GMO agriculture paradigm, and my university’s connection to it. After two years of school, however, I was reluctant to continue traditional study. I never felt quite at ease, jumping through hoops, taking classes and tests that didn’t inspire me, in exchange for a piece of paper (degree) that somehow magically granted me a superior life. I know many undergraduates fit right in with the university education model, and that’s fantastic. I certainly didn’t, and my mental and physical health began to suffer as a result. I was left with no choice but to take a leave of absence, and pursue another path.
Instead, I began to self-study nutrition out of pure necessity. Luckily, I found Cornell Professor Emeritus T. Colin Campbell’s legendary epidemiological research on nutrition and human disease. His evidence was so clear that I quickly transitioned to a plant-based diet. This personal dietary shift had profound benefits, dispelled my depression, and led me to a deep fascination with the precursor to nutrition: agriculture. I became particularly interested in agroecology. I was astonished to learn that there existed alternatives to chemical-intensive, corporate-controlled models of agriculture, and that they were far safer, more effective, and more sustainable. During my time away from Cornell, I participated in three unique seasons of agroecological crop production, with incredible results. I am immensely grateful for these experiences.
It’s impossible to study and practice agroecology without becoming deeply aware of the other end of the spectrum: the genetic modification of our food supply, ruled by giant agribusiness corporations.
Currently, the vast majority of US commodity crops (corn, soy, alfalfa, sugar beet) are genetically engineered to either withstand Roundup herbicide or produce Bt toxin pesticide. These “technologies” are ecologically damaging and unsafe. The majority of these crops go to feed animals in factory farms. The remainder generally gets converted into corn syrup, white sugar, vegetable oil, or biofuels — you know, good stuff! This combined approach of growing GMO commodity monoculture crops, and feeding them to factory-farmed livestock, is one of the most ecologically destructive forces our planet has ever seen. It’s also a leading contributor to climate change. In fact, some experts believe it to be the leading cause.
As Professor T. Colin Campbell will tell you, the foods that come from this system (animal products and processed foods) are responsible for causing the vast majority of chronic disease. That’s a story for another day.
Cornell’s GMO Propaganda Campaign
I came back to Cornell a changed person, with a drastically different perspective. I was in for quite a shock, however: I sat in on a course entitled “The GMO Debate.” I was expecting members of an intellectual community coming together, with proponents and critics of GMO food each giving the best verified evidence they had to support their cause. Given all that I had learned about GMO agriculture, I was excited to participate for the “GMO skeptic” side.
The GMO Debate course, which ran in the fall of 2015, was a blatant display of unscientific propaganda in an academic setting. There were a total of 4 active professors in the course, and several guest speakers. They took turns each session defending industrial agriculture and biotechnology with exactly zero critical examination of GMOs. In spite of the course’s name, there was a complete lack of actual “debate.” Here are some of the more memorable claims I heard that fall semester:
GMO food is necessary to feed the world
there is no instance of harm from agricultural GMOs
glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is safer than coffee and table salt
if you believe in science, you must believe in GMO technology
the science of genetic engineering is well understood
“what off-target effects?” … when asked about the proven biochemical risks of GE technology
Vitamin A rice is curing children of Vitamin A deficiency (even though the IRRI, the research institute responsible for rolling it out, says it won’t be ready for some years: http://goo.gl/mHcsoJ)
Current pesticides and herbicides don’t pose an ecological or human health risk
Bt is an organic pesticide, therefore Bt GMO crops are safe and pose no additional risk
Bt crops work just fine — but we are now engineering insects as a complementary technology — to make the Bt work better
“Are you scared of GMO insects? Because you shouldn’t be.”
GMO crops are the most rigorously tested crops in the history of food
“If [renowned environmentalist] Rachel Carson were alive today, she would be pro-GMO”
It gets better. During the semester, emails were released following a Freedom of Information Act request, showing that all four of the professors in the class, as well as several guest speakers, the head of Cornell’s pro-GMO group “Alliance for Science,” and the Dean of the College of Arts and Life Sciences were all copied in on emails with Monsanto. This was part of a much larger circle of academics promoting GMO crops on behalf of the biotech industry. Jonathan Latham PhD, virologist and editor of independentsciencenews.org, documented this in an article titled “The Puppetmasters of Academia.” I highly recommend giving it a read, for further context.
Perhaps saddest of all was the inclusion of several visiting African agriculture-academics in the course. They were brought here by the “Cornell Alliance for Science”. This organization was completely funded by a $5.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and appears to espouse only pro-GMO rhetoric. For those of you who are unaware, Bill Gates is a proponent of using agricultural biotechnology in Africa, India, and other developing regions. So in essence, a group of African representatives got indoctrinated into the industrial and GMO agriculture framework, and were sent home to disseminate this information … after all, who could question the expertise of an Ivy League powerhouse such as Cornell?
I then learned of Cornell’s deep historic ties to the biotech industry, which explained what I witnessed in the “GMO Debate” course. Notable examples include the invention of both the controversial bovine growth hormone, and the particle bombardment (“gene gun”) method of creating GMO crops. Both of these cases are connected to Monsanto.
To say the least, I was completely stunned.
What I’m going to do about all of this
You didn’t think I was just going to complain about a pro-GMO, industry-sponsored Cornell all day, did you? Good, because I have come up with a plan to create actual, lasting change on campus.
A student-led, expert-backed, evidence-based GMO course
I have decided to host an independent course on the current GMO paradigm, in response to Cornell’s course. It will be held on campus, but will have zero influence from Cornell or any biotech organization.Every Wednesday evening, from September 7th to November 16, we will host a lecture. This lecture series is completely free, open to the entire Cornell community and broader public, and will be published online (for free, forever) at my project, gmowtf.com.
There will be several experts and scientists coming in to lecture for this course. Frances Moore Lappé, of “Diet for a Small Planet” and “World Hunger: 10 Myths” fame, will be introducing the course on September 7, via video presentation. She will be speaking on how GMO agriculture is unnecessary to end world hunger.
Steven Druker is a public interest attorney and author of the powerful book “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public”, which Jane Goodall (in her foreword) hails as “one of the most important books in the last 50 years”. He will be giving two lectures that elaborate on the themes in the book’s subtitle and demonstrate that the GMO venture has been chronically and crucially dependent on deception, and could not survive without it.
Jonathan Latham PhD will be giving two lectures, on the dangers of Roundup Ready and Bt crops, respectively. He will also be participating in our special October 5 debate, representing the anti-GMO panel, alongside Michael Hansen PhD, a senior scientist for the Consumers Union. Jonathan hasdirect experience genetically modifying organisms, so his expertise is guaranteed.
Allison Wilson PhD is a geneticist and editor/science director of the Bioscience Resource Project. She will be giving a lecture on how GMOs are actually created, to dispel any industry myths of precision, accuracy, or deep genetic understanding.
Belinda Martineau PhD is a geneticist with an interesting history — she was on the team of genetic engineers that created the first commercial GM food crop, the Flavr Savr Tomato. She authored a book on her experience, titled “First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods”. Her lecture will be a historical and personal account of the science, regulation, and commercialization of genetically engineered foods, effectively giving context for today’s GMO paradigm.
My personal scientific hero, T. Colin Campbell, who started me on this whole journey years ago, will not be speaking on GMOs per se … but will address some critically important, related topics: academic freedom and scientific integrity. He began his Cornell career over half a century ago, and has “seen it all.” He has fascinating anecdotes that will illuminate these campus-wide issues beautifully.
Jane Goodall, if you’re reading this, you are personally invited to take time out of your busy schedule to come and give the final capstone lecture. I know how passionate you are about saving our species, our planet, and all of its beautiful inhabitants. Your wise presence in this project would take it to the next level. Alternatively, please consider a short video interview. This offer stands indefinitely. Same for you Vandana Shiva!
All in all, our independent GMO lecture series will focus on real threats and real solutions to our current ecological crisis … and perhaps most importantly, will feature 100% less Monsanto influence than Cornell’s course! Sounds good to me.
Taking it further
I’m on my second leave of absence from Cornell to work on this project, and due to my experiences, I have somewhat given up on a Cornell degree … not that I was ever intensely focused on attaining one. This GMO course is by far the most important thing I can do with my Cornell “career”. However, it is just the beginning of my plan.
Remember the $5.6 million Bill Gates gave Cornell through his foundation, to push the pro-GMO propaganda? Well, to coincide with our course, we’re launching an initiative to raise the same amount of money or more to sponsor more appropriate forms of agriculture, educational outreach, and activism. Go to gmowtf.com for more information, but in essence, this would finance:
Continued grassroots educational activism at Cornell, and similar programs in other compromised universities (UC Davis and Berkeley, University of Florida, etc.) across the country.
A plant-based, NON-GMO independent dining hall for Cornell students. It would source as close to 100% organic and local food as possible. Ideally, it would be cheaper than Cornell’s plan (plant-based eaters won’t subsidize expensive meat and dairy for omnivorous eaters).
gmowtf.com as a permanent, free, independent, constantly updated resource for GMO science, policy, news, etc. … also the GMO course would remain online
My dream: a research farm focused on rigorous analysis of agroecological practices. There is an infinitum of fascinatingly effective agroecological techniques that are underrepresented in the scientific community (in favor of faddist, ineffective GMO “technology”).
Completely paying off student debt for a group of 10-15 undergraduates who are willing to help spread this message to the Cornell community.
Mr. Gates, if you truly care about feeding the world in a safe and sustainable manner, and if you are truly dedicated to science and to the kind of open, fact-based discourse on which it depends, I implore you to learn the important facts about which you have apparently been misinformed — and which are being systematically misrepresented by the Cornell organization you are funding. You can easily gain illumination by reading “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth” by Steven Druker, one of the key contributors to our independent GMO course. You might find Chapter 11, on the ramifications and risks of altering complex information systems, of particular interest. You are, after all, the world’s most famous software developer!
As the chapter demonstrates, biotechnicians are significantly altering the most complex yet least understood group of information systems on earth — the ones that undergird the development and function of living organisms. Yet, they fail to implement the kind of safeguards that software engineers have learned are imperative when making even minor revisions to life-critical human-made systems. Can this be legitimately called science-based engineering?
Bill, feel free to reach out to any of the experts in our course, and don’t be hesitant to update your views on GMO agriculture in light of new understanding. A genuine scientist lives by this principle.
I Invite you all to go to gmowtf.com and explore my proposals more. Please bear with the construction of the site in the coming weeks, in preparation for our amazing GMO course!
We live in somewhat of a scientific dark age. Our universities have become extensions of corporate power, at the cost of our health, livelihoods, and ecology. This has to stop, yesterday. We cannot afford to spread lies to our undergraduate students. Cornell, please reconsider your ways. Until you do, I will be doing everything in my power to counter your industry GMO propaganda efforts with the facts.
An investigation by local journalist Eliván Martínez Mercado reveals that Puerto Rico has handed over hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds to multinational biotech corporations, such as Monsanto and Pioneer Hi Bred (now Dupont), even as the colonial territory’s decade-long debt crisis forced the closure of public schools.
“It is the philosophy that we have to give our soul away. It is a model of dependency.” —Argeo Quiñones, University of Puerto Rico
“Monsanto and Pioneer Hi Bred[…] received benefits from the bankrupted U.S. colonial territory in the Caribbean while their headquarters made billionaire profits worldwide,” Mercado reports. “Monsanto reported a global net profit of $2.3 billion only in 2015, while Pioneer Hi Bred reported $2 billion last year, according to their respective reports for investors.”
As Common Dreams has reported, Puerto Rico is faced with a staggering debt worth $72 billion—largely as a result of Wall Street speculation—and federal legislation passed last month put the island’s population under the auspices of what critics have decried as a “colonial control board,” which is poised to enforce austerity policies.
Yet Mercado’s investigation revealed that despite the debt crisis, multinational GMO corporations—condemned by environmental advocates as a “corporate cabal“—have benefited handsomely from the island’s corporate welfare policies.
The article originally published earlier this month in Spanish by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI), or the Center for Investigative Journalism, notes that under the island’s three most recent governors, the territory gave biotech giants “preferential tax rates, tax exemptions, industrial incentives and wage subsidies.”
Mercado continues:
Those wage subsidies come from the General Fund which is the money collected directly from Puerto Rican taxpayers. They also allowed Monsanto and Pioneer, for example, to receive 238 million gallons of free water from an underground water reserve in the south of the Island, between Salinas, Guayama, Juana Díaz and Santa Isabel.
“And so it was that 11 agricultural biotechnology enterprises found an oasis of easy money in Puerto Rico throughout 10 years of fiscal crisis,” Mercado writes.
An examination of public records showed that the biotech giants received $477.5 million in wage subsidies “because the Department of Agriculture considers them bona fide farmers.” The wage subsidy law is intended to allow farmers to pay farmhands a higher wage, to assist an industry that has historically struggled to retain workers.
“But agricultural biotechnology enterprises are not really the same thing as farmers,” Mercado argues:
They are dedicated to research and development, a scientific and corporate activity that for the last 10 years in Puerto Rico can be summed up in the following equation: over 1,694 experiments to develop genetically modified corn (55%) and soybean (37%) seeds, according to an analysis of the testing licenses granted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Moreover, the government of Puerto Rico allows Monsanto and other GMO giants to use far more land than other foreign “farmers”—and that’s because the government, paradoxically, also does not consider these corporations to be farmers.
Mercado writes that on this point the government relies on “Secretary of Justice Guillermo Somoza Colombani, who had decreed that these enterprises could rent more than 500 acres because biotechnology could not be considered an agricultural activity. ‘It is rather an activity primarily scientific in nature, whose results are not available for immediate consumption,’ explained Somoza in an opinion issued in 2012 after an inquiry from the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company.”
But the Puerto Rican government continues to treat biotechnology corporations as both farmers and non-farmers:
As a matter of fact, Monsanto Puerto Rico received $9.7 million in wage subsidies over the last 10 years, according to the Administration for the Development of Agricultural Enterprises (ADEA, for its Spanish acronym), while Monsanto Caribe rented the 768 acres of public land. They are different legal entities in Puerto Rico’s Registry of Corporations, although they work under the same economic strategy in their headquarters in Missouri.
A graphic illustrates the enormous amount of funds funneled to these multinational companies over the past ten years:
The corporations are additionally benefiting from industrial incentives for building infrastructure and purchasing agricultural equipment, as well as receiving municipal and property tax exemptions.
And because they are considered farmers, the biotech behemoths are allowed to withdraw as much water as they want—for free—from public sources.
“Out of the six corporations who have franchises to extract water from the southern water sources,” Mercado writes, “Monsanto Caribe and Pioneer Hi Bred extracted 238 million gallons in the last 10 years, according to reports from the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. If they hadn’t been considered bona fide agriculturists, they would have had to pay $476,389, which is the industrial cost for this amount of consumption. The water sources in the south have been in trouble because of ‘over-extraction’ and lack of rain.”
Those in favor of the enormous tax breaks and subsidies argue that the biotechnology sector is a major employer in the impoverished colonial territory.
Puerto Rican economist Ramón Cao “differs from this appraisal,” Mercado writes.
“It’s an important amount, but at what cost? Each employment represented an annual fiscal cost of $15,354 which is approximately the minimum yearly wage for an employee,” Cao told Mercado. “At that fiscal cost, they could have hired about 2,000 teachers a year, including employee benefits.”
Such massive corporate welfare benefits have contributed to Puerto Rico’s devastating crisis, observers argue. As Isaiah J. Poole of Campaign for America’s Future wrote earlier this month:
Add an obsession with giving tax breaks to the wealthy with the addictive drug of tax-free Wall Street debt, mix in the mysterious change that stripped from Puerto Rico the ability to declare a Chapter 9 bankruptcy, and you get the shame we see today—working-class American citizens stripped of economic opportunity, democratic rights and basic dignity, and told they have to bear with the ‘imperfect’ while the fat cats finish their feasting. At least for them, this crisis has not been a waste at all.
Argeo Quiñones, professor in the Department of Economics of the University of Puerto Rico, lamented the territory’s fondness for corporate tax breaks: “We have moved from foreign manufacturing enterprises to petrochemical industries, from the petrochemical industries to the pharmaceutical industries, from the pharmaceutical to biotechnology.”
“And that does not translate into a sustainable large-scale activity that could be identified as growth and development for Puerto Rico,” Quiñones said to Mercado. “It is the philosophy that we have to give our soul away. It is a model of dependency.”
It’s time for the GMO labeling movement to come together like never before.
Both the House and the Senate have passed the DARK Act, Monsanto’s dream bill designed to outlaw state GMO labeling laws and permanently keep consumers in the dark about what’s in our food.
Now, the DARK Act is on President Obama’s desk awaiting his signature. Pro-labeling allies have launched a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to call on the president to VETO the DARK Act, and we need you to help us get to 100,000 signatures.
Even if we lose, we’ll keep fighting. If the DARK Act is signed into law, consumers will be stuck with complicated QR codes that will need to be scanned with a smartphone. The law will also invalidate all state-based labelling requirements, and even prevent states from passing these laws in the future.
This QR code “compromise” is just the latest trick cooked up by Monsanto and their corporate allies. 100,000,000 Americans (most of them poor, people of color, or elderly) don’t have access to smartphones or live in areas with poor internet connectivity — meaning they’ll have no way of knowing what’s in the food they’re feeding their families.
The last few weeks have left many in the food labeling movement reeling. The New York Times editorial board recently chimed in, as Congress looked to pass “A flawed approach to labeling genetically modified food.”
But today, it is critical. Please call your Congressman TODAY and tell them to vote no on S.764. The number is 202-224-3121.
QR codes and apps to download discriminate against those who do not have access to this technology and the data plans to support it. American consumers deserve on package, GMO labeling. American food companies already have on-package label in place, as seen in the image above.
Today, the House votes to overturn this, to overturn the work done by millions of Americans and the food companies responding to them. As Congress tries to pass this legislation that pre-empts the Vermont law and dismisses the concerns of millions of Americans, we’ve received emails, texts and phone calls from many friends and colleagues asking the same questions:
What is going on? What is your take on this? And what can we do?
When I first learned in February of this year that QR codes were being floated as an idea to label GMOs, I was stunned and expressed deep concern in the discriminatory nature of QR code labeling, the ambiguity around them and then answered and responded to hundreds of calls and emails addressing this same concern from consumers.
I’ve been involved in the GMO labeling movement since the inception of my work around allergen labeling. I’ve been a lightning rod since the publication of my book in 2009, because just as allergens, sugars, proteins and fats are labeled on the package. I believe that GMOs also merit on package labels, as they are currently labeled by American food companies in 64 countries around the world. It’s in every presentation that I give.
With friends and colleagues, we’ve worked on state campaigns, served as spokespersons for the Colorado labeling campaign, created articles and videos to encourage consumers to get involved in this critical work and for several years, I served as board member of Just Label It, from which I resigned in February.
A group of us went to Washington DC this spring with the founder of Citizens for GMO Labeling, and we met with Senators on both sides of the aisles.
Because just like parenting, this work does not stop. For the last 20 years, GMOs have been woven into our food system, and addressing this issue takes tenacity, strength and dedication. We have our work cut out for us to bring transparency to our food system, and we have our work cut out in fixing the financing around it so that clean and safe food is affordable to all Americans who want it.
Consumers are making it crystal clear their feelings about GMOs. According to recent surveys by Packaged Facts, “In a global food and beverage market with retail value in U.S. dollars of more than $5 trillion, non-GMO products accounted for $550 billion of that total in 2014, according to market research publisher Packaged Facts. With sales of $200 billion for non-GMO foods and beverages, the United States accounts for 36% of the overall global non-GMO total.”
According to the Houston Chronicle, “the Food and Drug Administration, which has primary responsibility for food safety, said in a memo that narrow definitions in the bill “will likely mean that many foods from GE (genetically engineered) sources will not be subject to this bill,” including products such as oil made from gene-altered soybeans. The FDA wrote that the bill’s digital alternatives are “in tension” with other labeling requirements, such as those for nutrition.”
The bill throws the jurisdiction of both labeling and the definition of GMOs into the hands of the United States Department of Agriculture, presenting a conflict of interest, given their governance of food and farm policy.
And as I reflected on this legislation yet again this morning, I thought about the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They didn’t try to negotiate a deal between non-alcoholic companies and the alcohol companies, they simply drove change as consumers and concerned citizens.
We have to do the same.
As non-GMO and GMO companies negotiate this legislation, the opportunity shared by millions of consumers is to continue to drive change for on-package GMO labeling.
Consumers, especially mothers, will continue to do push for labels that can be read by their children not a computer.
The companies that understand this, that continue to use the on-pack labels they have already implemented overseas and in response to states’ and consumers’ demand in the U.S., will be the ones who ultimately earn the consumers trust.
Given how many organic companies are now owned by conventional food companies, it’s anybody’s guess who will move first and embrace on-package GMO labeling.
Right now, that landscape is wide open and so is the market share. The CEO who convinces his shareholders that this movement is not going to roll over with QR codes will be the one who ultimately drives shareholder return.
So while Congress may have been sold to the highest bidder, parents haven’t.
Today, it is critically important to take action.
Please call your Congressman TODAY and tell them to vote no on S.764. The number is 202-224-3121.
QR codes and apps to download discriminate against those who do not have access to this technology and the data plans to support it. American consumers deserve on package, GMO labeling.
Today, the U.S. Senate voted to limit further discussion of GMO labeling in America, lending support to a bill heavily favored by Monsanto.
65 Senators voted to suspend further discussion, limiting freedom of speech on this important topic, and 32 Senators believed that with 64 countries already labeling GMOs on pack and the food industry already executing on-pack labeling due to state initiatives that further discussion is needed.
These 32 aren’t the only ones. (You can view the Roll Call here).
There are so many ambiguities in the bill that the FDA has criticized it. The ambiguities in the bill are around the language that could exempt most GMO products on the market, the facts that still need to be addressed according to the FDA are the narrow scope of biotechnologies covered, the handing over of jurisdiction to the USDA with a two year window and vacuum, and the lack of enforceability, and penalties for noncompliance.
In other words, there are enormous loopholes in the definitions of GMOs under this bill, who governs the regulation and a lack of penalties. It’s like telling your kids they have curfew but then not checking to see if they were drinking and driving, if they got home on time, and then waiving any punishment should they break the rules.
As Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports, said following the cloture vote (the vote on limiting further discussion):
“We’re disappointed that the Senate has pushed this bill forward when important questions remain about potential loopholes that would sharply limit its effectiveness.
The FDA raised issues about language that could exempt most GMO products on the market. Moreover, this bill—which blocks state GMO labeling laws immediately—doesn’t require the USDA to establish the new national standard for two years, leaving a legal vacuum that would undermine GMO labeling already occurring in the marketplace.
We urge Senators to listen to the nine out of ten consumers who support mandatory, on-package GMO labeling and oppose this bill.”
Consumers Union is urging consumers to call their Senators at 1-855-977-1770 to oppose the Roberts-Stabenow GMO labeling bill, and to support meaningful, mandatory on-package labeling for GMO foods. To learn more, visit ConsumersUnion.org/RightToKnow.
While this Monsanto-backed bill was packaged as a “reasonable” way to label GMOs, it actually infringes on states’ rights by preempting local laws and allows corporations to disclose information using QR codes—an inaccessible technology. I offered a “truth in advertising” amendment to reflect the spirit of a prior version of the bill by renaming it the Denying Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, since all this legislation does is keep Americans in the dark.
My name is Robert, and I am a Cornell University undergraduate student. However, I’m not sure if I want to be one any more. Allow me to explain.
