A campaign bankrolled by financially motivated pesticide and junk food companies is expected to lie – a lot. It’s what they always do when confronted by inconvenient facts and consumers seeking to protect their rights – like the Right to Know what’s in the food we eat and feed our families.

Prop 37 opponents have run one of the most deceptive misinformation campaigns in recent history – a $35 million deluge of one demonstrable lie after another to try and defeat a common sense measure that most Californians support.    

Today, the No on 37 campaign’s already tattered credibility was dealt yet another big blow with news that its “top scientist” is nothing more than a corporate shill willing to misrepresent himself and the University for which he works.

Meet Henry Miller – a spokesperson the No on 37 campaign has been all too eager to promote as an arbiter of good science and someone we can trust with our families health. Miller has been featured in No on 37 television ads, written outrageously deceptive opinion editorials, and has presented himself as an “unbiased” scientific expert.

And now he’s been caught misrepresenting Stanford University– forcing the No on 37 Campaign to pull and reshoot a statewide television ad identifying Miller as “Dr. Henry Miller, MD, Stanford University,” without disclosing his affiliation with the Hoover Institute, a right-wing think tank at the University. In other words, he works ON the Stanford campus as a corporate propagandist, but ISN’T a Professor at Stanford University.

The ad was pulled after the Yes on 37 campaign attorney sent a letter to Stanford pointing out that the university’s affiliation was being used in a political advertising campaign, in violation of university policy.  

Stanford also demanded that the campaign remove the campus from the ad’s background.

But this isn’t the most disturbing aspect of Miller’s sordid career. Before we trust anything he has to say about something as fundamental as our health, we’d do well to consider his two decades of work dedicated to undermining it:

• Miller shilled for Big Tobacco, where he helped Phillip Morris discredit the links between tobacco products, and cancer and heart disease;

• Miller advocates for the reintroduction of the toxic pesticide DDT, which was banned in the United States and has been linked to pre-term birth and fertility impairment in women;

• Miller aided Exxon’s  efforts to undercut the reality of climate change;

• Miller attacked the US Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to ensure proper vetting and testing of new drugs safety while urging it outsource more of its functions to private industries,

• And Miller claimed Japanese exposed to radiation from Fukushima “could actually have benefited” from it.

Miller isn’t the only dubious character the No On 37 stable, but his  one man “tour of lies” about Prop 37 includes some especially notable whoppers. He often repeats one claim that includes three lies in a single sentence, stating “The World Health Organization, American Medical Association, National Academy of Sciences and other respected medical and health organizations all conclude that genetically engineered foods are safe.”

The only problem is not one of these organizations has come to such a conclusion:

• A National Academy of Sciences report concluded that products of genetic engineering technology “carry the potential for introducing unintended compositional changes that may have adverse effects on human health.”

• The American Medical Association has adopted a position calling for mandatory safety assessments of genetically engineered foods.

• And the World Health Organization / United Nations food standards group, Codex Alimentarius, which sets the global science-based standards on food policy issues, states that mandatory safety studies should be required – a standard the US fails to meet.

In fact, within the past few weeks alone, independent peer reviewed studies have raised even more troubling questions about the impact of GMOs on our environment, and potential risks to our health.

Ultimately, to understand the No On 37 campaign’s credibility problems, just follow the money: the six largest pesticide corporations in the world have contributed nearly $20 million of its $35 million war chest. The two largest donors – Monsanto ($7.2 million) and Dupont ($4.9 million) – told us Agent Orange and DDT were safe. Now they’ve telling us we don’t deserve to know what’s in our food. And the kicker is that while Monsanto spends $ millions to deny our right to know in California, it supported labeling in Europe.

So who should we trust?

On the Yes side stands millions of California consumers and more than 2,000 leading consumer, health, women’s, faith-based, labor and other groups; 50 countries that already require GMO labeling; and a growing stack of peer-reviewed research linking genetically engineered foods to health and environmental problems.  

On the No side stands the largest pesticide, agribusiness and junk food companies in the world dedicated to saying and spending whatever it takes to hide the fact that most of the foods on store shelves right now are being genetically altered in a way  that could pose risks to our health and environment-but we don’t know which ones without labeling.

The central question of the Prop. 37 debate is this—Do consumers have the right to know what’s in the food we eat or is that decision better made by the likes of Henry Miller, Monsanto, and Dupont?

Stand up for your Right to Know-Yes on 37!

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On November 6th, California voters will have a historic opportunity to reclaim our right to know what’s in the food we eat from powerful special interests known for endangering our health, our environment and deceiving the public.

Proposition 37 – The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act – would simply require clear labeling of genetically modified foods (GMOs). These are foods that have been artificially altered by genes from other plants, animals, viruses, or bacteria – and are not found anywhere in nature.

Fifty countries around the world – representing more than 40% of the planet’s population – already require GMO labeling, including all of Europe, Japan, India and China.

Yet in the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires no safety testing of GMO’s, no long-term health studies have been conducted (UPDATE: First Ever Long Term, Peer Reviewed Study Finds Massive Tumors in Rats Fed Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Corn), and no labeling is required to alert unsuspecting consumers to the presence of these ingredients.  

The GMO Threat to Our Health and Environment

A growing body of peer-reviewed studies has linked GMO’s to allergies, organ toxicity, and other health problems. These studies must be followed up. The United Nations/World Health Organization food standards group and the American Medical Association have each called for mandatory safety testing of genetically engineered foods—foods many of us are eating, even though we don’t know it, every day.

Most recently, we’ve learned that Walmart will be selling a new sweet corn from Monsanto Company that has been genetically engineered with a Bt toxin INSIDE it. This toxin is known for disintegrating the stomach walls of insects, and causing kidney and liver damage in rats.

What’s it going to do to our bodies? We don’t know.  And because GMO foods aren’t labeled, Walmart’s customers don’t get to choose whether they want to be a part of the experiment.

Various environmental problems have also been linked to genetic engineering–including biodiversity loss, an overall increase in pesticide use, the emergence of super weeds that are threatening millions of acres of farmland, and the unintentional contamination of non-GMO and organic crops. And contrary to industry claims, GMO’s don’t increase farmer’s yields.

Ultimately, the free market is supposed to provide consumers with accurate information about products so we can make informed choices. Yet in the case of genetically altered food, and the risks it may pose to our health and environment, we are all being left in the dark.

Proposition 37 and Our Right to Know

Americans have made it abundantly clear that we support the fundamental, democratic right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children – particularly when it’s been genetically engineered in a laboratory, and especially given the growing health and environmental concerns linked to these products.

That’s why in just 10 weeks, nearly a million signatures were gathered by a volunteer army of concerned California citizens this spring, easily qualifying Prop 37 for the November ballot. Also this spring, the FDA received more than a million comments demanding that genetically engineered foods be labeled (more than any petition in the agency’s history) andpolling showed that approximately 90% of Americans (and Californians) agreed.

GMO labeling is not a new issue. To date, 19 US states have attempted to enact mandatory labeling laws through legislation—only to be blocked by the same entrenched special interests currently fighting Prop 37. That’s why we’re taking the question directly to consumers in the largest state in the union-and doing so knowing that victory here will be a victory for common sense food transparency everywhere.

For decades, we didn’t label foods with calorie or nutritional value information, but we do now, and many consumers use this information every day. Did prices go up when calories were added to a label? Of course they didn’t – and independent research shows they won’t if one more line of ink is added now either. Research also shows that Prop 37 has been carefully crafted in a way that provides far greater legal certainty for businesses than other consumer disclosure laws.

The No on 37 Campaign’s Growing Credibility Problem

There is no clearer David versus Goliath fight-anywhere in America–on this year’s ballot. On one side, is a truly grassroots people’s movement with overwhelming bipartisan support for the right to know what’s in the food we eat. On the other side, stands a who’s who of the world’s largest pesticide, agribusiness and junk food companies – a  $32 million war chest (almost all of which has come from special interests outside California) and a well-documented history of false product safety claims, discredited arguments, and outright doublespeak.  

Consider the “No” campaign’s two largest donors – Monsanto ($7.1 million) and DuPont ($4.9 million) – the same companies that told us Agent Orange and DDT were safe. And while spending wildly to fight our right to know what’s in our food in America, Monsanto also produced a series of adssupporting labeling of GMOs in Europe. In other words, Monsanto thinks Europeans have the right to know, but Americans don’t.    



Who Do You Trust: Big Pesticide or a Broad Based Public Interest Coalition?

The question before voters could not be starker: Whose side are you on? —  the discredited special interests like Monsanto and Dupont, or everyday California families; the more than a million individuals who stood up to get Prop 37 on the ballot; the tens of thousands  more who have joined us on Facebook; and the more than 2,000 consumer, environmental, farming, faith-based, political and labor organizations that have endorsed Yes on 37.

Opponents of Prop 37 have built a business model that relies on secrecy, inhibits consumer choice, and prevents small farmers, the organics industry, and truly natural food producers from competing on an equal playing field.

The time is now for all of us to reclaim our basic democratic right to know what’s really for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Prop 37 does one and only one thing-it gives California consumers the power to decide for ourselves what is best for our families.

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