Dec. 5, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
08:28
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| It's the food fight of 2015 GMO labeling. | |
| I just want to figure out what your thoughts are on this. | |
| Who wants to comment on GMO labeling? | |
| What do you know about, upset about? | |
| You're way up there, ma'am. | |
| I'll come to you in one second. | |
| Or come on down to the bottom of the stairs and I'll get to you next. | |
| Go ahead, ma'am. | |
| So I just recently took a shopping center tour with a nutritionist. | |
| And what I found was anything that was labeled as GMO-free, organic GMO-free, was either not at eye level, it was either higher up or it was lower down, or it wasn't labeled very clearly to where the products that, if they were sold over in Europe, they would be labeled with all of the GMOs. | |
| The products here, I'm not going to name any brands, but... | |
| Those are the ones that are at the views, the people that are paying to have their products where we would pick them up and easily purchase them, the ones that are on sale. | |
| You use that word easy. | |
| I think we actually make it hard to do the right thing and easy to do the wrong thing sometimes. | |
| Yes, ma'am. | |
| I think that the GMO labeling helps others to understand what they're putting into their body. | |
| Like sodium, if you have hypertension, it's important to know how much milligrams of sodium you're intaking every day, calorie counting. | |
| So I think it's very important for those reasons. | |
| Well, before you leave, let me just tempt you a little bit. | |
| What if, and this is what the opponents say, and they have some validity to this, what if GMOs aren't really a health risk? | |
| And that labeling them, therefore, doesn't actually make you healthier. | |
| Should they still be labeled? | |
| Thoughts on that? | |
| Hands up. | |
| Go ahead, ma'am. | |
| I actually, I agree with kind of what you're saying. | |
| Because in my experience, I've had both eaten organic and non-GMO and all that are the others. | |
| And I feel like we're just paying for the more expensive stuff. | |
| And it's just as healthy to eat the, you know, GMO. Okay. | |
| And over here, I think I have a different opinion. | |
| Go ahead, ma'am. | |
| We all need to make proper choices, and I believe people who don't care, it wouldn't matter anyway, and people who do care what they put in their body, they would need the knowledge to see it, to be educated properly, if they want the education. | |
| So you say, give us the choice. | |
| We're Americans, most things. | |
| And we've heard about the food label comparison. | |
| I think these are rational ones. | |
| So here's the deal. | |
| I sent my investigative reporter and one of my core team members, Elizabeth Leamy, to find out what's in this new law before Congress and why it's become such a hot-button issue. | |
| The fight over GMO labeling is heating up on Capitol Hill as consumer advocates mount a campaign to beat industry-backed legislation that would leave the nation without a mandatory labeling standard. | |
| That legislation was introduced by Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas in March. | |
| The law would allow foods to be voluntarily labeled as genetically modified, but not require them to be labeled. | |
| Allow foods labeled as natural to continue to contain genetically modified ingredients. | |
| And most controversial of all, this federal law would preempt state laws that already do require labeling of genetically modified foods. | |
| In July, the bill passed the House by a vote of 275 to 150. If it becomes law, it will strike from the books a law requiring GMO labeling in Vermont and jeopardize similar laws pending in Connecticut, Maine, and maybe future states. | |
| The Senate is set to vote on the bill this fall. | |
| What will they decide? | |
| Does your right to know hang in the balance? | |
| So why should you care about this bill and about companies growing GMO crops? | |
| Let me walk you through a reasonable argument. | |
| Farmers grow GMO crops like corn and soybeans for important reasons. | |
| They have been genetically re-engineered to survive chemical sprays like those found in the herbicide glyphosate. | |
| In Roundup, for example, that kills all those weeds and makes it easier for farmers to grow crops that we need. | |
| When farmers spray Roundup, these weeds die up, but the weeds get smart over time. | |
| And because they get smart, those same herbicides don't kill them. | |
| So we have to design new GMO crops that can withstand even more powerful herbicides. | |
| So now these strong weeds, as smart as they are, they still get knocked off. | |
| These new, updated, more powerful herbicides kill everything but these new GMO foods, and the cycle continues. | |
| Now listen, this is important. | |
| The GMO crops themselves aren't necessarily a risk to your health. | |
| What I and many others worry about is that these herbicides that can now be used in high doses can change our hormones and change the environment. | |
| Scott Faber is a senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group. | |
| He's been fighting for food safety and your food rights for almost 30 years. | |
| So, how big a deal is this bill? | |
| Well, this is a huge deal. | |
| Consumers in 64 countries around the globe, not just Europe, but countries like China and Russia have the right to know what's in their food. | |
| But if this bill passes this fall in the Senate, The American consumer will have no idea what they're eating. | |
| They'll be left in the dark. | |
| And it's no surprise that this bill passed the House. | |
| Big food and big biotech companies spent $50 million, $50 million just in the first six months of this year alone, to lobby Congress. | |
| We always knew the real fight would be in the Senate. | |
| And if we lose, we'll simply lose the right to know what we're eating. | |
| Science is being invoked in the arguments around this bill. | |
| Should it be? | |
| This is a fight about transparency, not technology. | |
| This is a fight about whether or not people can have basic information about food, just like knowing about salt and sugar and fat. | |
| We just want the facts and given the opportunity to figure this out for ourselves. | |
| But look, as you said, the science is incredibly clear. | |
| The widespread adoption of these GMO crops has led to an explosion in the use of glyphosate and herbicide that's now been linked to cancer and other very serious health problems. | |
| So I think very seriously the idea of presenting all sides of any scientific argument. | |
| So I tried. | |
| I reached out to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, representatives from Mike Pompeo's office. | |
| That's who introduced the bill. | |
| They all declined to come on, but they sent statements. | |
| I'm going to put them all on dros.com, but I'll give you an example of one. | |
| This is a statement from the Grocery Manufacturers Association. | |
| It said, What do you think about the assertion that it provides certainty? | |
| The only thing that's certain is that if this bill passes the Senate this fall, the American consumer will have no idea whether their food contains GMO ingredients or not. | |
| So I couldn't get him to come on the show, but I did speak to food manufacturers off the record. | |
| I was curious. | |
| I want to understand. | |
| These are rational people, and I think most are trying to do the right thing. | |
| So they find it hard to make labels for different states. | |
| I get that completely. | |
| Why would you want to make a different label in New Hampshire than you make in Vermont? | |
| It's right across the border. | |
| It's a pain in the neck, and it's confusing. | |
| But interestingly, they were sort of supportive of the idea Of GMO labeling, as long as it wasn't this big, huge label on every one of their products. | |
| So, just like we've talked about, we all want sugar on our labels, right? | |
| We want to have fat. | |
| We didn't used to, by the way. | |
| Now we have it. | |
| It helps you guys make decisions. | |
| You don't always make the right decisions, nor do I, but we have that choice. | |
| I also think we can put GMO labels Where those food labels are. | |
| And here's why it's important. | |
| Argentina just recently passed their GMO labeling laws and it didn't hurt the companies. | |
| In fact, it gave consumers confidence that they were getting what they were getting. | |
| This is the right time to do it because we already are revising those food labels on products. | |
| We have a perfect storm to do the right thing in America. | |
| So you can all, if you care, and many of you won't, Be able to see that it's a GMO in there or non-GMO, and then no one's going to care after that, and it'll be a done deal. | |
| So in the meantime, what can consumers do? | |
| Well, Gwyneth Paltrow is leading a petition right now. | |
| Go to justlabelit.org and add your name. | |
| We're at about a quarter million signatures now. | |
| We'd like to get to a half a million by the end of the month. | |
| Anything we can do to get folks to sign that petition and send that signal to Congress that you want the right to know is incredibly important right now. | |
| So knowing what you and your food makes a difference. | |
| If you do care about GMO foods, you may not, but if you do care about buying non-GMO foods, there's a non-GMO label. | |
| It looks like this. | |
| We'll see it on packages now. | |
| Or you can buy organic. |
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