http://truth-out.org/news/item/22770-meet-the-plush-gmo-mascot-frank-n-foode
[Multiple links in on-line article]
Meet the Plush GMO Mascot, Frank N. Foode
Sunday, 30 March 2014 11:26
By Rebekah Wilce, PR Watch | Report
Three years ago, CMD reported on Karden -- an adorable puppet used in
part to convince kids that gardening with sewage sludge was a fun
activity for all ages. (Karden, of course, failed to explain to the
kiddos that sewage sludge extracted from city waste supplies can contain
toxic and hazardous materials.)
Well, move over Karden the sludge puppet, there's a new toy in town!
Frank N. Foode is "your friendly neighborhood genetically modified
organism," who helps "make the science of biotechnology fun and
approachable."
This ear of corn sprouted eyes, white hair, and spectacles. The "cutest
corn plush" is the mascot of Biology Fortified, Inc., a new small
non-profit group based in Middleton, Wisconsin that promotes genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) and is responsible for the Biofortified blog.
"Few are able to resist getting their photo taken with" Frank, the group
gushes -- including "the late Senator George McGovern, food writer
Michael Pollan, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack," and more.
But don't worry! Frank "does not endorse products, least of all
genetically engineered food products," the group claims. Just GMOs and
the science of GMOs in general!
Not content to be alone in his travels around the world, getting
photographed with a random assortment of academics and confused
luminaries, a recent fully-funded Kickstarter campaign now makes
multiple plush "lovable Frank"s -- in other forms, branching out from
GMO corn to GMO papaya and the opportunity to "adopt-a-crop" and pick a
new GMO design (an opportunity not taken by anyone to date) -- available
to his adoring fans (all 210 backers).
And hey, Frank even tweets!
Frankly, My Dear...
According to Biology Fortified, Inc.:
"The science behind genetically engineered foods is complicated,
and often difficult for people to understand. Some people who think that
these foods are strange, dangerous, or monstrous call them
'frankenfoods' rather than try to understand them. At the same time many
other foods that we commonly eat are themselves very strange in their
own right -- often even more strange than the changes made through
genetic engineering. So we named our mascot Frank N. Foode™ to make
light of it all! Our hope is that this fun character can help get people
interested to learn and think about the issues surrounding plant
genetics and agriculture, and give people a personality who they can
follow around the world."
Jonathan Latham, co-founder and executive director of the Bioscience
Resource Project and editor of Independent Science News, holds degrees
in crop genetics and virology. He was a postdoctoral research associate
in the Department of Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison -- where
Biology Fortified co-founder, Karl Haro von Mogel, is a PhD candidate.
But Latham is no fan of Biology Fortified's work. Latham told CMD, "They
pose as pro-science but what they really offer is uncritical parroting
of corporate talking points. They also deploy classic PR tactics.
Whenever a real food safety issue occurs, or whenever a critical article
about biotechnology is getting attention online, they try to derail
legitimate discussion with red herrings."
While there are undoubtedly those who call GMOs "frankenfoods," many
critics focus on the "pesticide treadmill" that the most commonly grown
and sold GMOs -- "Roundup Ready" herbicide-resistant crops and those
with the pesticide Bt built in -- perpetuate, as CMD has reported. This
critique appears to have only been addressed in passing by the
Biofortified blog, which simply notes that the issue of pesticide
proliferation also "applies to non-breeding strategies including
chemical insecticides and biological control agents," a point which
critics of GMOs also make, as CMD has reported.
Other GMO critics are concerned about cross-contamination with non-GMO
crops and weeds, creating herbicide-resistant weeds. But the
Biofortified blog addresses this concern by calling "genetic
contamination" an "emotional term" and not only completely ignoring the
issue of weeds becoming resistant to Roundup® glyphosate herbicide, but
also ignoring the contamination of food, such as the 2000 contamination
of corn with GMO StarLink™ corn that led to a huge recall of Taco Bell
taco shells. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had
registered the GMO corn variety for commercial use for livestock feed
and industrial use only because it was judged to be "potentially
allergenic . . . in human food."
Friends of Frank
In his effort to popularize GMOs, Frank and friends produced a
auto-tuning video of scientist Norman Borlaug, father of the "Green
Revolution," an effort during the 1940s through the 1970s to increase
world food production, particularly in poor countries such as Mexico,
India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, through crop breeding and the
increased use of fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation. While the Green
Revolution led to increased food production, many criticize it for
creating social, economic, and environmental problems. The development
and use of GMOs in food production has been called the "second green
revolution."
Frank has some powerful friends. This video is being promoted on Twitter
by CropLife International, a trade association containing all of the
"Big 6" pesticide and GMO corporations -- Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dupont,
Dow Chemical Company, and Syngenta -- some of the biggest companies in
the world. CropLife America is an active member of the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its Energy, Environment, and
Agriculture Task Force.
Frank is also a friend of Jon Entine, founding executive director of the
Genetic Literacy Project and one of the GMO and pesticide industry's
favorite PR tools. He wrote his 2011 Scared to Death: How Chemophobia
Threatens Public Health for the American Council on Science and Health.
ACSH requested $100,000 in funding for the book project from the GMO and
pesticide corporation Syngenta as part of the company's PR campaign
around its weed-killer atrazine, which was the subject of a major
lawsuit, as CMD has reported. ACSH also receives regular operating
support from Syngenta, which the email pitch called the organization's
"lifeblood."
Frank's creator, Karl Haro von Mogel, recently met up with Entine in
Puna, Hawai'i on their way to meet Dr. Dennis Gonsalves, the developer
of GMO papayas. von Mogel wrote a gushing blog on his encounter with
Entine "In Dennis, I had met the highest concentration of Aloha yet on
the entire trip. If he were a plant, his leaves and roots exuded Aloha
into the surrounding air and soil. It was infectious," before planting
Frank in the papaya fields for a photo op. The two had presented
together previously at a June 2013 GMO panel organized by the Cato
Institute. And Entine has mentioned von Mogel in articles published in
Forbes and elsewhere at least four times in recent months.
Entine's and von Mogel's primary organizations -- Genetic Literacy
Project and Biology Fortified, Inc., respectively -- both claim not to
accept corporate funding.
Too Early for April Fool's
The campaign to mass produce Frank the mascot is "so grotesque and over
the top that it must be an April Fool's joke," says one campaigner for
GMO testing and labeling. But the campaign is too early for April Fool's
day, and may be too late to sway public opinion.
The American public has decided that, despite the platitudes of GMO
promoters, eaters have the right to know when food contains GMOs (as an
estimated 80 percent of the food supply in the United States does). The
movement to require GMO labels in the United States -- as the European
Union already does -- enjoyed support from 93 percent of respondents in
a 2013 New York Times poll. So far in 2014, 67 GMO labeling bills have
been introduced in 25 states, according to the National Conference of
State Legislators. Additional bills are pending in California,
Minnesota, Missouri, and Rhode Island; and campaigns in Arizona,
Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, and Oregon work to put the question on the
ballot for state voters.
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel