Hillary Clinton Goes to Bat for GMOs at Biotech Conference

The potential presidential candidate's old industry ties resurface

Hillary Clinton in Hampton, NH (Photo: flickr/cc/Marc Nozell)

Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world's largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidintial candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates.

While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term "'genetically modified' sounds Frankensteinish," and thus turns people off to GMOs. "Drought resistant sounds really like something you'd want," she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.”

"If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health." —Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association

Clinton's certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods.
U.S. campaigners rejecting the industry's push for genetically-modified crops have been pushing hard to get states to pass labeling laws.

"Hillary Clinton's views on GMOs are disappointing, but not surprising," said Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Union, in an email to Common Dreams. Unfortunately, Paul continued, Clinton's positions are "no different than those of previous administrations, including the Bush, Clinton and Reagan administrations, and they are taken straight from the biotech industry's talking points."
"Credible scientists, backed by independent (not industry-funded) studies are clear about the fact that foods containing GMOs are linked to a host of chronic illnesses," Paul continued. "The American Medical Association has called for pre-market safety testing and a recent pilot study found unsafe levels of glysophate, the key ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, in the blood, urine and breast milk of American women."

During the hour that Clinton addressed the conference she also addressed fears that current subsidies and tax breaks aren't enough, or won't continue to be there in the future. “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she assured the crowd, receiving vigorous applause in response.
"We should have an intensive discussion," Clinton said. “Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” so that the federal government can help biotechs with “insurance against risk.”
Clinton's ties to biotech have surfaced before, particularly her history with industry heavyweight Monsanto. The Rose Law Firm where Clinton worked in the 1980s represents both Monsanto and Tyson Foods.
Mark Penn, who served as CEO for one the world's largest public relations firms, Burson-Marsteller, which has also represented Monsanto, was a White House advisor under Bill Clinton and served as chief strategist and pollster to Hillary Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign.

During Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department heavily pressured other countries to use GMOs through a variety of methods, including bringing foreign journalists to the U.S. to "participate in a one-week biotech tour" so that they could help shift public opinion in their home country.

Yet Clinton's choices in her personal life indicate she's not so convinced that the science is in on genetically modified foods. According to Walter Sheib, who served as White House executive chef during the Clinton presidency, the job offered him the "professional challenge of fulfilling Hillary Clinton's mandate of bringing...nutritionally responsible food to the White House," meaning nearly everything he used "was obtained from local growers and suppliers."

And as Mother Jones reported in 2012, Scheib said that while Clinton's rooftop garden at the White House wasn't "certified organic," everything in it "was absolutely grown without pesticides and fertilizers. I guess it's what these days we call 'natural.'"

"If Hillary Clinton intends to run for office in 2016, she should think carefully about supporting a food and farming system that is proven to be detrimental to public health," said Paul, "unless she and her family are willing to give up eating organic and eat the same toxic food that she promotes to the general population."

Watch a video of Clinton's comments below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYW5nmS9ps

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Hillary Clinton at BIO Convention 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hypwb_SYaAc

Published on Jun 27, 2014

Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering questions as if a presidential contender, speaks to thousands at the BIO International Convention on June 25, 2014, at the San Diego Convention Center. She was interviewed by Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group based in Washington. For more on her appearances in San Diego, see Times of San Diego at

Seed patent primer: Is the use of GMOs preventing farmers from reusing their seeds?

Video: Hilary Clinton endorses GMOs, solution-focused crop biotechnology

XiaoZhi Lim | July 3, 2014 | Genetic Literacy Project

Image via Times of San Diego

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed her support for genetically modified crops and crop biotechnology. In a 65-minute keynote appearance at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) convention in San Diego in late June, Clinton conversed with Jim Greenwood, BIO president, on a wide range of topics including GMOs.
“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record,” Clinton said, adding that biotech professionals need to continue to try to make the case for GMO-skeptics. “There is a big gap between what the facts are, and what the perceptions are.”

Clinton noted that there are unwarranted fears surrounding GMOs because many people do not understand science or biotechnology and are easily swayed by code words and misguided perceptions. “Genetically modified sounds ‘Frankensteinish’ – drought resistant sounds really like something you want,” she said.

Clinton’s full talk is available in the video embedded below. Her comments on biotechnology begin at approximately 29 minutes in.
Clinton noted her own experiences of promoting drought-resistant seeds in Africa and meeting resistance to her efforts.
“We talk about drought-resistant seeds, and I’ve promoted them all over Africa. By definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant, I mean that’s the beauty of them. Maybe somebody can get their harvest done and not starve, and maybe there’s some left over to sell. And yet I’ve been involved in a lot of the political debates in other countries about whether or not to accept certain kinds of seeds,” Clinton said.
Clinton emphasized the need for a comprehensive educational effort to help farmers, governments and the public accept genetically modified crops.
“We created a program called Feed the Future, which is trying to help the farmers be educated enough to know that drought-resistant seeds, for example, are not going to hurt them,” Clinton said. “And this is painstaking work, doesn’t get solved overnight. You have to be working at the top with the departments of agriculture, with finance ministries, with prime ministers and presidents’ offices, and you have to be working from the bottom up. I don’t see the short cut for it.”
Clinton called for a new vocabulary in conversations about biotechnology that focuses on the benefits of improved crops.
“‘Genetically modified’ sounds Frankensteinish. ‘Drought resistance’ sounds really – something you want. So how do you create a different vocabulary to talk about what it is you’re trying to help people do,” Clinton said, encouraging biotechnology companies to be more thoughtful about the way their research is being communicated.
Clinton also said that she did not want to see the U.S. lose biotechnology companies as they move out of the country to elsewhere that might have a friendlier tax and regulatory system for biotechnology.
“I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she said.
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