Monsanto not untouchable after all

http://www.care2.com/causes/senate-decides-to-let-monsanto-protection-act-die.html

Senate Decides to Let Monsanto Protection Act Die

 Genetically modified organisms have permeated our food supply without a single thought for how they affect our health or the environment.

For those fighting back against the bottomless pockets of the biotech industry, it often feels like there’s no way to overcome powerful companies like Monsanto, but today, a small victory has been won.

Multiple news outlets are reporting that the U.S. Senate will allow the greatly controversial “Monsanto Protection Act” to expire. Unlike their counterparts in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, who just days ago voted to extend the Act, legislative leaders in the Senate “will propose an end to a budget provision that protects genetically-modified seeds from litigation despite possible health risks,” reports RT.com.

In plain English, the Monsanto Protection Act would have made it impossible to hold biotech companies legally responsible, even if it’s scientifically proven that they’re dangerous for human consumption.

The biotech rider ”could override any court-mandated caution and could instead allow continued planting. Further, it forces USDA to approve permits for such continued planting immediately, putting industry completely in charge by allowing for a ‘back door approval’ mechanism,” the Center for Food Safety said earlier this month upon news the House was reviving the measure.

Thankfully, the massive public outcry against the Monsanto Protection Act seems to have penetrated the ears of the Senate, and it will kill the rider, officially titled the Farmer Assurance Provision under Sec. 735 of the Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill.

“This is a victory for all those who think special interests shouldn’t get special deals,” said Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley, in a statement. ”This secret rider, which was slipped into a must-pass spending bill earlier this year, instructed the Secretary of Agriculture to allow GMO crops to be cultivated and sold even when our courts had found they posed a potential risk to farmers of nearby crops, the environment, and human health.

As InfoWars reports, “It was last March that Obama signed the initial Senate spending bill into law, subsequently bringing the Monsanto Protection Act rider into legal validity as well. But the rider only extended until September 30th of this year.”

Assuming the Senate follows through on its proposal, the Monsanto Protection Act will take its last breath in just a few short days.