When more than 30,000 attendees arrive at the Anaheim Convention Center Friday for Expo West, North
America's largest trade show for the natural products industry, many may tread lightly.
How else is one supposed to act around folks creeping around in bio-hazmat suits?
]
Ah, but the members of the “Genetic Crimes Unit (GCU)” are not affiliated with a government regulatory agency nor a new mid-season drama on NBC. They are part of the Occupy movement, which is on the look out for toxic contamination and genetic modification in the world's organic food supply.
“Many
of the world's socially conscious organic and non-GMO brands will
exhibit nutritious food at the three-day Expo,” explains GCU spokesman David Bronner. “But in the background is
a vast sea of unlabeled products sold in America containing GMOs that
unsuspecting consumers eat without their knowledge.”
So when is Bronner going to start sounding Occupy-ee?
“In the name of Wall Street profits, chemical
corporations such as Monsanto genetically engineer crops to withstand
high doses of their toxic weed killers that contaminate our food and
water, and have not been proven safe. The California Medical Association
has called for labeling GMOs because of concerns over adverse allergic
reactions. Virtually every major country requires labeling of GMOs in
foods so their citizens can make informed choices, including all in
Europe, Japan and even China. But the US chemical lobby has so far made
sure Americans are kept in the dark.”
See, that didn't take long. And Bronner swears the bio-hazmat suits are not meant to alarm the
public, although he does say, “We have an emergency here.”
“We are
approaching this as a necessary civil defense against the unknown
long-term effects of eating GMO foods currently under investigation by
the GCU,” he says. “We will ID people and animals by asking them what they ate for
breakfast, lunch and dinner and then tag individual GMO victims with
bracelets. We will follow-up before Sept. 17, 2012 when worldwide
GCUs will investigate and Occupy Monsanto.”
Occupy Monsanto? Mercy. Next it will be the White House, to make a certain Chosen One keep good on a promise he made on the campaign trail in 2007:
Anyone who'd like to check out the spectacle at 800 W. Katella Ave. should note the bio-hazmat suits should be out in force by 10 a.m. Friday.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.