(page409)

In a troubling development, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given in to activist hysteria and reversed his support of genetically engineered foods. Without any evidence, he proclaimed GE foods were "potentially harmful."

Nannies in the federal government want to put labels on eggs telling you not to cook them over easy because of potential salmonella contamination. With an average of five deaths a year over the last 13 years from salmonella (none tied to bad eggs), the Plain Dealer correctly asks, "Is this worth a warning label on egg cartons and a government-sponsored scare campaign? That's not the sort of thing a taxpayer ought to get over easy."

New genetically engineered rice could save the lives of two million children a year and prevent blindness in many more. Who could possibly be against such wonderful technology? How about the nannies from Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In a USDA forum, diet book author Barry Sears said, "We need to view food as a potential drug…as Americans are the fattest we have ever been." Could this be a harbinger of public policy to come?

Nanny nonsense abounds in this article from Penn State's Daily Collegian. The author wholeheartedly endorses Neal D. Barnard, president of the radical animal-rights group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and repeats Barnard's ridiculous claim that milk drinkers are "at higher risk for osteoporosis than those who drink little or no milk."

According to the Albany Times Union, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and other like-minded nannies are "waging the equivalent of a culinary Holy War against the use of dairy and meat products" in school lunchrooms. "They [PCRM] have this agenda that no one should eat animal products and they are not even doctors," says a Dairy Council spokesperson, correctly noting that a majority of the animal rights group's members are not doctors. ("Students target of a food fight," Albany Times Union, 2/22/00.)

Seizing upon the so-called obesity "epidemic," Harper's Magazine hopelessly distorts the facts, joining the chorus of nannies blaming restaurants. "Fast food franchises are like San Francisco's old bathhouses - places where high-risk populations indulge in high-risk behavior," they write, without an iota of evidence or an ounce of shame.

Claiming "the U.S. has become a hothouse for obesity," the Center for Science in the Public Interest's (CSPI) Michael Jacobson is pushing for new taxes on snack food and calorie listings on menus. ("Obesity in America," Nutrition Action Healthletter, March 2000.)

The Boston Globe's coverage of the genetically engineered food debate takes a wrong turn in this very anti-biotech article. The Globe doesn't acknowledge that Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust (the source for the article) is the founder of Chef's Collaborative 2000, a radically anti-GE and anti-choice group of nanny chefs.

The Iceland supermarket chain in Great Britain warned North American farmers that it will boycott all animal products that come from livestock reared on genetically engineered diets. "Farmers in America and Canada are about to sow. We want to send a message to them that we are serious about this and we want them to do something now," said an Iceland spokesman. No doubt, Iceland's activism is prompted by their chairman Malcom Walker, one of Greenpeace's major funders. ("Food store warns of extension to non-GM feed policy," Financial Times, 2/23/00.)