Campaign group says the US presidential hopeful must give back the $335,000 she received from Monsanto's GMO lobby group

As former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton emerges victorious in the Nevada caucus, her ties with Monsanto, the most hated corporation on the planet, continue to give US voters serious concern about what a second Clinton administration would do regarding the growing movement in America to label GMOs.

With Bernie Sanders the picture is crystal clear. He has been fighting Monsanto since the early 1990s, when he took them on over their GMO cattle drug rBGH. And on GMO labelling he recognizes that “The overwhelming majority of Americans favor GMO labeling”. And he says, “We cannot allow the interests of Monsanto and other multinational food industry corporations to prevail”. In fact, he’s been described as an “immovable object” on the issue. It is even reported that current attempts to kill mandatory GMO labelling in the Senate could prompt a Sanders filibuster to block them.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s history of backing the biotech industry is said to date as far back as her early days in Arkansas as a lawyer with the Rose Law Firm, which represented Monsanto and other agribusiness giants.

And only this month Bill Gates’s pet pro-GMO PR project – the Cornell University Alliance for Science – featured a photo and a prominent quote from Hillary's controversial 2014 keynote address to biotech industry lobbyists, in which she says she stands in favor of using the industry’s “seeds and products” because of their “proven track record.”

In the speech she tells the industry lobbyists how her State Department sold GMO technology around the world, and she even gives some PR advice to the GMO vendors on how to overcome consumer concerns about GMOs. The speech, for which she got a $335,000 speaking fee, is stuffed full of misinformation.

Clinton even has Monsanto lobbyists raising millions of dollars in campaign contributions to return her to the White House.

Food Democracy Now! has launched a new campaign asking the public to sign a petition imploring Hillary to dump Monsanto’s lobbyists and give back the Monsanto-tainted money.

Food Democracy Now! commented in a campaign bulletin, “It’s time to end Monsanto’s hold on the White House and American policy once and for all. We can’t have another Monsanto-loving President in the White House. Every voice counts.”

Tide is turning

Dave Murphy, executive director of Food Democracy Now!, is confident that the campaign can make a difference and help cut American politics free from Monsanto’s vice-like grip.

Murphy says, “The tide is beginning to turn against Hillary over her Monsanto connections. She’s out of touch with the American people. Most farmers told me they’re supporting Bernie Sanders because they see him as an alternative to Hillary’s toxic corporate interests.”

Sign the petition, “Demand Hillary Dump Monsanto's Lobbyists Now!”