Another GMO and Glyphosate Regulation to Comment On (Updated)

(Edited to reinsert a sentence that should have been visible yesterday and wasn't.)

In the excitement generated by California's success in banning glyphosate, this web site has not forgotten that there are other contaminants and GMOs out there that may be doing some of you more harm than glyphosate and "Roundup-Ready" (E. Coli) corn are doing you.

Sensitivity to these things is genetically determined. This web site basically belongs to two celiacs who are super-sensitive to glyphosate, with some help from a Cherokee who has much more trouble with sugar and alcohol than with gluten and glyphosate. I got into a conversation about this with a gentleman I met at church, who is Black. He said, "But what runs in my family is sickle cell anemia. My son has asthma, too--but when you were reacting to glyphosate sprayed along the railroad, he had no reaction at all, even though he lives two blocks above the railroad." If I'd been observing the young man, I might have noticed some reaction, but I don't doubt that he lives with other reactions that are much more unpleasant for him. And although none of us has noticed a reaction to BT corn (the other popular kind of GMO corn that most of us were eating before E. Coli corn hit the market), this web site used to have e-friends in India who claimed that people there were reacting to BT corn the way caterpillars react to BT infection, which is a horrible thing to watch; we feel for those people.

So I opened an e-mail about this proposed change in USDA regulations, which would require clear, readable labelling for most but not all GMO products in food...First, the link to the USDA site:

https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=AMS-TM-17-0050-0004

I'm on the mailing list of an organization that's come up with a clever idea for processing these things. They send everyone a form containing some facts, and if you click on "submit" the form to the appropriate agency, a tab pops up with a form that requires you to add an original comment that shows you're a human with some human interest in the issue.

Here's what I typed. (You can refer to this Comment Tracking Number, or make your comments entirely your own. You can send them your own documents.)

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Your Comment Tracking Number: 1k2-93tw-9ijf

Your comment may be viewable on Regulations.gov once the agency has reviewed it. This process is dependent on agency public submission policies/procedures and processing times. Use your tracking number to find out the status of your comment.

Comment:GMO corn and soy may have been modified specifically in order to treat them with glyphosate. As you've probably noticed, there's a mania for "gluten-free" food these days because many people who don't even have the celiac gene (which I have) are having celiac-like reactions to grain products. We now know that glyphosate affects celiacs just as wheat gluten does, only more intensely, and has similar effects on some non-celiacs. We need no loopholes. In order for people who've invested heavily in producing "gluten-free" food to serve their market, and for celiacs and glyphosate-sensitive people to have any chance of being healthy, we need not only to have ALL GMO products plainly marked on food labels, but to have specific GMO's identified. (Celiacs can tolerate BT corn but have drastic reactions to E. Coli or "Roundup Ready" corn; on the other hand some immune-compromised people have horrible reactions to BT corn.) 

In fairness, I'm a celiac and the highly refined GMO corn syrup in some things I eat has not noticeably affected me--apparently the glyphosate is processed out of it. So I understand the argument that highly refined GMO products might not count. But others might not be so lucky, or the buildup of glyphosate residues in the environment might make me more sensitive too...and since other people will undoubtedly be sensitive to any new GMOs as those come on the market, you can save those people years of pain by requiring all GMO products to be not only clearly but SPECIFICALLY identified on food labels.

(I don't have a file to upload for you, but if anyone wants to read about the experience of a celiac with glyphosate-contaminated and GMO gluten-free food, I have a blog: priscillaking.blogspot.com. It has a search feature you can use to skip all the book and cat posts and read only the ones with "GMO" and "glyphosate" as topics, or, alternatively, click on the "Labels" at the end of this post: https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/03/this-web-site-loves-vegetables-here-is.html. I'm terser and raunchier about this on Twitter, as @5PriscillaKing, and my recent relevant tweets probably show up under #GMO, #glyphosate, and #Monsanto or @MonsantoCo.)

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Note that the fact sheet I'd already forwarded to them cited some of the information you can find at regulations.gov/document?D=AMS-TM-17-0050-0004, about what's in the proposed new rule, what needs to be in it, and who's being blamed for the loopholes. Your comments may actually be more interesting to the USDA if you read and cite this information yourself rather than sending them one more form...I don't know who's reading these things or how tired their eyes are.

(As Real Twits know...Twitter does not have a contract banning any potentially erotic content, so my Twitter account has no rule against mentioning body parts and I've even retweeted some graphics containing unprintable words. And I've tweeted some gruesome details about the celiac reaction to gluten and glyphosate. All this web site is going to tell you about that, due to our contract, is that this reaction is much more of a gross-out than our posts about cold-blooded animals.)