ANA wants GM foods labeled, please join effort ant tell FDA

[dcookRN]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 5, 2011

CONTACT:

Mary McNamara, 301-628-5198 [email protected] Adam Sachs, 301-628-5038 [email protected] www.nursingworld.org

ANA Joins ‘Just Label It’ Campaign

Silver Spring, MD – The American Nurses Association (ANA) has joined a coalition urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to label foods that have been genetically engineered. ANA, along with nearly 400 other groups representing health professionals, consumer and environmental advocates, parents, farmers and businesses, believes people have a right to know what’s in their food. The Just Label It campaign (www.justlabelit.org) is demanding that the FDA require labels on foods produced using genetic engineering.

ANA has been a vocal advocate in the issue of food policy. The association co-authored Principles of a Healthy Food System, which supports socially, economically and ecologically sustainable food systems that promote health, the current and future health of individuals, communities and the natural environment.

Everyone has a right to know what’s in the foods they eat. Tell the FDA to label genetically engineered foods; please send your comments to the FDA.

To learn more about ANA’s work on healthier foods please visit, http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/OccupationalandEnvironmental/environmentalhealth/PolicyIssues/HealthyFoodinHealthCare.aspx

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The ANA is the only full-service professional organization representing the interests of the nation's 3.1 million registered nurses through its constituent and state nurses associations and its organizational affiliates. The ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the rights of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

17 minutes ago

[dcookRN]

in addition, as stated in "Healthy Food in Healtcare" from the 2008 ANA house of delegates, the ANA wantes the FDA to reconsider the approval of rBGH (growth hormone injected into cows), as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and all countries in the EU have banned it. Please tell the FDA to ban and or label rBGH in dairy products and meat. As a nurse, I feel obligated to advocate for patients and communities, and dietary intake is a major factor in health and disease prevention, including the consumption of food additives, pesticides, herbicides, etc that have been shown to have negative health impacts and are in our food, and the food is not labeled as having these ingredients. I am proud of the ANA's stance on this issue.

[brownbook]

In the 1800's a monk named Mendel started cross breeding two different types of peas by removing their anthers and dusting them with pollen. He (wait for it) genetically modified the peas!!!!!!

All plants make their own pesticides and herbicides.

Get your doctorate in genetics or molecular biology then maybe I will listen to your argument about genetically modified food.

[OCNRN63, RN]

ANA has bigger dragons to slay. Stick to nursing and the people who do real nursing.

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

In the 1800's a monk named Mendel started cross breeding two different types of peas by removing their anthers and dusting them with pollen. He (wait for it) genetically modified the peas!!!!!!

All plants make their own pesticides and herbicides.

Get your doctorate in genetics or molecular biology then maybe I will listen to your argument about genetically modified food.

Thank you!

I just had a long debate with an RN colleague about whether organic produce contained more nutrients than commercial.

(Organic produce does NOT contain more nutrients, but try convincing someone driven by hysteria rather than reason of that.)

[MN-Nurse, ASN, RN]

in addition, as stated in "Healthy Food in Healtcare" from the 2008 ANA house of delegates, the ANA wantes the FDA to reconsider the approval of rBGH (growth hormone injected into cows), as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and all countries in the EU have banned it. Please tell the FDA to ban and or label rBGH in dairy products and meat. As a nurse, I feel obligated to advocate for patients and communities, and dietary intake is a major factor in health and disease prevention, including the consumption of food additives, pesticides, herbicides, etc that have been shown to have negative health impacts and are in our food, and the food is not labeled as having these ingredients. I am proud of the ANA's stance on this issue.

You could do a lot more to make people healthy if you told them simply to NOT eat any ground beef or drink cow's milk rather than rant about rBGH.

People aren't getting sick because of pesticides or hormones. They are getting sick because they are eating freaking cheeseburgers, french fries and corn syrup for every meal and topping it off by smoking, drinking and not exercising.

rBGH? Please.

[ebres]

You have got to be kidding me. What intelligent responses. Breeding plants selectively and inserting foreign DNA are entirely different. Please do some research and present yourself as an educated person. People get sick from pesticides and added hormones, this is widely accepted. Organic food is more nutritous than GM food, as monoculture depletes soil, and pesticides kill soil bacteria which are necessary in nutrient uptake. You compare plants making their own pesticides to glycophosphate and chemicals used as biological weapons in military conflicts? Who are you to criticize an effort to improve health outcomes by a registered nurse, and for that matter by the American Nurses Association? Not to mention the FDA scientists, researchers all over the world with various doctorates, many medical doctors, and entire advanced nations that have banned these substances because of their health risks? Real nursing as you call it, includes what is done by those who in addition to working as an RN in acute care or whatever setting bother to take their own timeto do work in the community, and I do not see how one can argue educating the public and labeling foods based on what they contain is a bad thing.

[ebres]

http://www.preventcancer.com/press/conference/jan23_96.htm

[ebres]

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/food/risks.htm

[OCNRN63, RN]

ANA should stick to nursing issues first, before branching out. There's plenty to do.

[ebres]

I thought health promotion, disease prevention, policies that impact health, etc were nursing issues.

[OCNRN63, RN]

I thought health promotion, disease prevention, policies that impact health, etc were nursing issues.

There are more important issues they could work on.