The anti-biotech activist Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Farms CEO and recent White House nominee to a trade advisory committee, seems to enjoy highlighting bad news. Even when it’s bogus-when the news is in fact not bad at all-he manipulates it to serve his personal, ideological campaign against modern agriculture.
That’s what happened last week when the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the United Nations, claimed that the world’s most popular weed killer may cause cancer.
Hirshberg talked to every reporter who would listen, calling this one more reason to get behind his “Just Label It” initiative, which demands warning labels on packages of food with genetically modified ingredients.
“Even if it’s in debate and even if it’s in dispute,” said Hirshberg of the new cancer claim, “at least give consumers the right to know.”
You know what consumers have a right to know? Hirshberg is peddling a lie.
Glyphosate may be the most vetted technology ever developed. This makes sense, given its massive popularity. Around the world, farmers use it to grow healthy crops.
Every reputable agency that has studied glyphosate has reached the same conclusion: It does not threaten human health.
Studies consistently show that glyphosate is safe, even when exposure exceeds recommended levels by a factor of more than 100. Beyond that, who knows? But then again, who cares?
Gary Hirshberg does. He has an agenda-not a scientific agenda of truth seeking, but rather a political agenda that aims to scare people. Sadly, it has nothing to do with human safety or scientific truth.
Read full, original article: Opinion: Using Glyphosate politics to scare people is wrong
