We applauded when the Obamas told Americans they were planting an organic garden at The White House. Now we wonder why they didn’t just ask Monsanto to plant their latest GMO seeds. 
   President Obama appointed Thomas Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack, a well-known supporter of GMO crops, was voted Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization and was the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership.  He is credited with the proliferation of industrialized hog farming in the state of Iowa, putting tens of thousands of independent family farmers out of business. And it was well known that the Biotech Governor of the Year enjoyed the use of a Monsanto private jet during his governorship.
   Former Monsanto advisor Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior advisor to the FDA commissioner on food safety. The Organic Consumer Association reports Taylor has been “moving through the revolving door between the employ of GMO-seed giant Monsanto and the FDA and USDA” for the last few decades. The Association credits Taylor with the FDA’s decision to approve GMO organisms under the GRAS ruling (generally recognized as safe) and for “ushering Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply -- unlabeled.”  The Association says he also authored more than a dozen articles criticizing the Delaney Clause, a federal law (now overturned) that prohibited the introduction of known carcinogens into processed foods. Taylor is now reported to be the leading candidate to staff a new White House Food Safety Group.

   The Organic Consumer Association also reports that Dennis Wolff, the Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary who is also a dairy farmer using rBGH, is rumored as President Obama’s choice for the Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. The association warns that Wolff spearheaded Pennsylvania state legislation to prevent labeling rBGH milk and dairy products contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) bovine growth hormone.
   Safe food should be a fundamental right guaranteed to every citizen. The FDA is supposed to protect our food supplies, not cater to big business interests. Check out the Organic Consumer Association’s website for more details.