Organic Activists (page 29)

National standards for organic food will be released soon, and they will make clear that such products aren't safer or more nutritious than conventional products, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says. (Some people maintain that organic foods are actually more dangerous. Glickman said the final regulations "will be clear that these rules are not to disparage in any way any other kinds of foods."

Despite apocalyptic predictions from opponents of genetically improved foods, a panel of scientists has advised the Environmental Protection Agency that there is a "medium likelihood" that Starlink corn could cause allergic reactions in people and there is so little of the corn in the food supply that there is a "low probability" consumers could have developed allergies to it. The panel urged further study of the corn before it is approved for human consumption.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest's Michael Jacobson, who wants to force labeling of everything, tells the New York Times, "in the current environment, [a mandatory label for genetically improved food] would be almost a kiss of death on a product."

The next time you see an article by Olivia Wu in the Chicago Tribune, it's very likely it will feature a member of Chefs Collaborative spewing the group's anti-choice rhetoric. Why? Because Wu is also the editor of the Chefs Collaborative newsletter.

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says "the trend is unstoppable toward more and more labeling" for genetically improved foods. Glickman says the only reason he isn't calling for mandatory labeling is "because we don't have any of the testing and threshold mechanisms, or would really know how to do it." Glickman seems not to realize that activists (and the organic food industry that backs them) declared that labeling has "nearly the same effect as a ban."

Would you pay up to $4 a pound for a turkey that is no safer to eat and no tastier than one you could get for less than a dollar a pound? That's what you'll be doing if you buy into nanny hype and end up buying an "organic" turkey this Thanksgiving.

Gore won the popular vote (we think). Bush won the electoral college vote (maybe). The Natural Law Party’s John Hagelin won the nanny vote (we’re sure). Don Lovejoy rants…

Food choices around the world are needlessly imperiled because of nannies' successful scare campaigns. Italians are shaken to the point that they've declared only organic food can be served in school cafeterias (see our headlines from yesterday). Now the Italian Catholic church seems to be caught up in the hysteria. In a full-page ad in the church bishops' newspaper, the church said that by eating fast food, Italians have abandoned respect for "the holiness of food."

It’s bad enough that organic farming methods are intimately linked to a dramatic increase in deadly E. coli poisoning. Now the organic industry, which is bankrolling the fear marketing…

Former Greenpeace UK president Lord Peter Melchett asked the New Yorker to focus on anything but the science when writing an article on genetically improved foods. “If you write…