Obama's betrayal: no wonder the White House has its own garden

It's no wonder that President Obama planted a vegetable garden in the White House--if I knew that I was destroying the FDA, consumer health, and sustainable agriculture, I'd plant my own garden as well.

That's right. Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. No big deal--just a lobbyist for one the largest, most manipulative multinational biotechnology corporations that "owns" genetically engineered seeds that blow around and contaminate farms that do not even purchase Monsanto seeds to begin with. Then Monsanto drives these farms into debt with court battles over patent infringement.

Oh wait--it gets better. How can seeds be patented? In the case of J.E.M. Ag Supply v. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the Supreme Court legitimated the patenting of genetically engineered seeds. But who wrote the majority opinion? Clarence Thomas, former Monsanto attorney.

Back to Obama's betrayal, part II. Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety--the same person who sought to deny consumers the right to know whether their milk had been genetically engineered with Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). rBGH was previously owned by Monsanto.

Here's a little more on Michael Taylor:

Taylor is widely credited with ushering Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone through the FDA regulatory process and into the milk supply — unlabeled. A Government Accounting Office (GAO) investigated whether Taylor had a conflict of interest and or had engaged in ethical misconduct in the approval of rBGH...Taylor is also responsible for the FDA’s decision to treat genetically modified organisms as “substantially equivalent" to natural foods and therefore not require any safety studies. The “substantially equivalent” rule allowed the FDA to ignore evidence that genetically engineered foods, including soy, are in fact very different from natural foods and pose specific health risks. read more

Please sign the petition to let President Obama, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius know that Michael Taylor must resign, and Dennis Wolff should not be appointed.