Press Releases

VISTA, CA – This month, Dr. Bronner’s, family-owned maker of the top-selling natural brand of soap in North America, is running a full page advertorial by company president David Bronner in several major magazines. The advertorial, titled “How to Cover Up the Pesticide Industry’s GMO Scheme and New 2,4 D ‘Agent Orange’ Crops: Slate’s William Saletan Shows How It’s Done,” in original form was published by The Huffington Post on August 4, 2015. To read, go to:https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bronner/how-to-cover-up-the-pesti_b_7907016.html

The advertorials – which total over $250,000 in ad space – run between September 1 and September 30 in The New Yorker, Boston Globe Magazine, Forbes, The Atlantic, Roll Call, Politico, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Reason, VegNews and The Natural Food Merchandiser. However, Scientific American, The Economist and The New Republic refused to run the ad, deeming it too controversial.

“We are running these ads because the public needs to know that rather than reduce pesticide inputs in agriculture, GMOs are causing them to skyrocket in amount and toxicity,” says David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s. “Unfortunately, recent high-profile pro-GMO articles in Slate and other publications amount to pro-industry puff pieces that provide cover and support to the chemical and junk food industries as they scheme with politicians to pass federal legislation that would prevent the labeling of GMO foods. I appreciate that most media outlets we approached recognize the importance of allowing space for well-articulated hard-hitting advertorials to help inform this one-sided debate, but others disappoint, whether out of skittishness over controversy or pro-GMO bias,” continues Bronner.

This summer Rep. Mike Pompeo’s (R-KS) bill, H.R. 1599, commonly known as the DARK Act – or “Deny Americans the Right to Know” Act was passed in the republican-controlled House of Representatives. Now being debated in the Senate, this bill would block all states from labeling genetically engineered foods, and make it much harder for the FDA to ever mandate national labeling. Dr. Bronner’s supports the labeling of genetically engineered foods because virtually all GMOs grown in the United States are engineered by chemical companies to survive high doses of toxic herbicides which contaminate our food, water and bodies. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer recently listed Glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen,” the leading herbicide used on GMO crops, and the pesticide industry is now “stacking” tolerance to more toxic herbicides, like 2,4 D which composed one-half of the dioxin-contaminated defoliant Agent Orange.

“Some major media outlets still have journalists and scientists that recognize and stand up to industry influence,” explains Bronner. “In the August 20th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, in ‘GMOs, Herbicides and Public Health,’ two respected experts on pesticides and children’s health call on the FDA to mandate labeling of GMO foods. The Guardianrecently ran an excellent exposé entitled, ‘Pesticides in paradise: Hawaii’s spike in birth defects puts focus on GM crops’ and The New York Times published a revealing article on September 5th entitled, ‘Food Industry Enlisted Academics in G.M.O. Lobbying War, Emails Show,’ ” Bronner concludes.

To read these articles, see:

New England Journal of Medicine:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1505660#t=article

The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/23/hawaii-birth-defects-pesticides-gmo

The New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/us/food-industry-enlisted-academics-in-gmo-lobbying-war-emails-show.html

Dr. Bronner’s commitment to healthy and sustainable agriculture, corporate accountability, and consumers’ right to know is part of the company’s mission to put into practice the social and ecological principles that inform Dr. Bronner’s philosophy printed on the company’s iconic soap labels.

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For further information on Dr. Bronner’s, please visit: https://info.drbronner.com.