I know I'm late to the party on this, and it's been over a month since I have posted, but better late than never, right? I received an article from a friend a few weeks ago talking about how Mike Adams over at Natural News (no link = no traffic) is claiming that the recent E. coli outbreak at Chipotle is a part of a conspiracy led by biotechnology companies such as Monsanto. While Mike Adams should hardly be a concern to any rational person, the real concern is how quickly and easily such unfounded theories spread. In agreement with Adams, some of the following remarks were highlighted in the article:
"I said this last week! Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so."
"From the first I heard about Chipotle's e.coli problem I smelled a rat!"
"I said that to my husband, I knew that Big Ag was behind it! You don't get e-coli in organic foods. Chipotle said they couldn't find anything in the food. Very suspicious!"
That last one truly is a pro-organic hail Mary. "You don't get e-coli in organic foods." Really? Do people actually believe this?
Let's make this clear: You can absolutely get E. coli from organic foods. You can also get it from genetically modified foods, and even non-GMO conventional foods. E. coli is a form of bacteria that can affect all of these types of foods, simply because there is no discernable difference between them. As Hank Campbell writes over at Science 2.0:
Anti-science progressives have waged a decade-long war on genetically-modified food but, to-date, not so much as a single stomach ache has been caused by any modified vegetables, with 400 million people having eaten GMOs, while persistent outbreaks in E. coli correspond to increases in organic food claims that it is nutritionally superior or better in any way at all than ordinary farm-raised food, despite numerous studies showing the opposite. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has refused to recognize "organic" food as distinguishable in any way from any other food, except in growing process, because it simply isn't.
For the record, I do not consider myself pro-GMO per se. I am, however, pro-science, and it does not take a scientist to see that the anti-GMO crowd relies on conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific claims to push their agenda. For this reason, I prefer to label myself as anti-anti-GMO.
