David Bronner, who runs Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, has been a prominent voice in Washington’s GMO labeling Initiative I-522. He has been an activist for many years, mainly fighting for the legalization of hemp seed oil. Now his attention is turned to labeling genetically modified foods. Mother Jones’s Josh Harkinson profiles Bronner’s rise from psychedelic hippie to business-man/activist.
Bronner falls on the more measured side of the anti-GMO camp. “I have no in-principle objection to genetic engineering or synthetic biology,” he explains, pointing out his background in biology and his dad’s work for Monsanto. His beef with GMOs has less to do with ambiguous fears about “frankenfoods” than with the well-documented effects of the widespread deployment of herbicide- and pest-resistant genetically modified crops. While those breakthroughs were meant to cut down on the need for chemical inputs, studies have found that they’ve instead bred new superbugs and superweeds that, in turn, must be suppressed with ever more and stronger pesticides and herbicides. “Far from freeing us from the chemical treadmill,” Bronner says, “GMOs are doubling down on it.”
Read the full, original story here: “How Dr. Bronner’s Got All Lathered Up About GMOs”
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