Victory on Organic Body Care and Cosmetics Products
In a milestone victory after years of work by the OCA and the organic community to demand an end to blatant labeling fraud in the organic marketplace the National Organic Standards Board voted 12 to 1 at their November 2009 meeting to direct the USDA National Organic Program to enforce the law for organic personal care products – just as they do for organic food. This means that shampoos, body care products, and cosmetics that claim to be organic but are not certified would be forced to drop their organic label and advertising claims, or else reformulate their products (getting rid of petrochemicals and problematic synthetic ingredients) to meet "USDA Organic" or "made with organic ingredients" standards.
The Organic Consumers Association is initiating a letter-writing campaign asking the USDA to take quick action on the NOSB recommendation. While we wait for the USDA to begin enforcement actions, we're calling on consumers to boycott fake, falsely labeled organic body care brands, and instead to buy only USDA certified organic products.
LEARN MORE AND TAKE ACTION:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/index.cfm
Get GMO Vaccines out of Organic
Vaccines are allowed in organic animal husbandry, but genetic engineering is excluded from organic. There is one exception: genetically modified vaccines. Under current law, genetically modified vaccines must be petitioned for use and reviewed by the National Organic Standards Board to be included on the National List of allowed substances. The problem is, the USDA National Organic Program hasn't been enforcing the law. Instead of asking the USDA to enforce the law, the National Organic Standards Board is instead recommending that the USDA change the law to remove the GMO vaccine review requirement. The recommendation they passed would require non-GMO vaccines to be used whenever they are available, so it's not quite as bad as it could have been, but it would still allow any type of GMO vaccine to be used without review, as long as a certifier could be convinced that there were no non-GMO alternatives.
The Organic Consumers Association is taking action to prevent this misguided recommendation from being adopted by the USDA. We're calling on the USDA to enforce the current law, and to disallow GMO vaccines, unless there is absolutely no other alternative to saving the animal's life. The USDA should train certifiers on identifying genetically modified vaccines and preventing their use.
LEARN MORE AND TAKE ACTION:
http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14175206
Victory on Organic Animal Welfare
Current organic regulations prescribe livestock living conditions which accommodate the "health" and "natural behavior" of animals. The regulations require access to the outdoors, pasture for ruminants, clean bedding, and appropriate shelter, while placing restrictions on confinement. However, many organic consumers and farmers have complained that the current regulatory language is insufficiently precise.
The National Organic Standards Board passed a recommendation last week that attempts to remedy this situation, by adding measurable standards for the treatment of animals and prohibiting practices like tail docking and debeaking (cutting off animals' tails or beaks) that hadn't been expressly addressed before. As the NOSB minority opinion points out, the recommendation isn't perfect and doesn't go far enough. For instance, it could have limited the frequency of milking for dairy cows to twice a day, and could have required certifiers to monitor the overall health of farms by keeping track of animals that die prematurely or have to be taken out of organic production.
Nevertheless, the Organic Consumers Association supported the recommendation, as we believe that it will encourage the USDA to enforce and strengthen existing laws. Please write to the USDA to ask them to do a better job of enforcing current animal welfare standards and use the new NOSB recommendation as the starting point for even stronger and better defined requirements.
Get Nanotechnology Out of Organic
Over the objections of the OCA and thousands of our members, the National Organic Standards Board decided to table the recommendation to prohibit nanotechnology in organic. The NOSB member who fills the scientist slot, Katrina Heinze of General Mills, delayed the process by insisting that the Board consider a compromise position that wouldn't exclude nanotechnology from organic altogether, but would classify it as a "synthetic" that could be petitioned for use in specific instances. Please write to the NOSB and tell them to ban untested, unlabeled and hazardous nanotechnology products and ingredients in organic.
LEARN MORE AND TAKE ACTION:
http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=13948781
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