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 San Francisco Chronicle

Pesticides' effect on generations of field-workers

Long-term study looks at how widespread chemicals affect generations of field-workers in Salinas Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

A portion of this article is being re publisehd with permission of the author

By Stephanie Lee

September 23, 2013

Health problems prevalent

Good health is precarious for many of Monterey County's 422,000 residents. One-third of adults are uninsured; a quarter of children are in poverty. From 2002 to 2012, the percentage of special-education students with learning disabilities fell, but those with autism, intellectual disabilities and speech impairments increased, according to county data. Researchers wanted to understand the health problems that might be getting overlooked.

Then there were the pesticides. About 9 million to 10 million pounds were used annually throughout the county during the late 1990s. The amount has dropped slightly, though the county still ranks sixth in the state for pesticide use.

Eskenazi submitted a proposal to the National Institutes of Health to study low-income pregnant women and environmental effects on their children, and won the funding.

Now she just had to find moms.

Gonzalez moved to Salinas from Michoacán, Mexico, two decades ago, landing a job in the fields. She was among thousands of farmworkers in Monterey County who rise before dawn to gather an estimated three-fourths of the nation's salad greens.

In late 1999, Gonzalez became pregnant with her fourth child, a boy. During a checkup at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, a volunteer with Eskenazi's study talked her into enrolling.

So began a series of annual or biannual visits to the researchers' trailer outside the hospital. During her pregnancy and delivery, Gonzalez gave them samples of blood, urine, cord blood and breast milk, let them inspect her house and answered dozens of questions about her lifestyle. She was among 601 pregnant women in the initial stages of the study.

Gonzalez's son, Richard Luna, was born in July 2000, one of more than 500 infants in the Chamacos project born between 2000 and 2002.

From the time they were 6 months old, and every one to two years after, researchers analyzed their urine, blood, saliva, teeth and hair. The kids had physical exams and took tests that assessed their motor skills and intelligence.

Much of what the scientists later reported was troubling. They found, for instance, that mothers in the study have higher traces of pesticides in their systems compared with the general U.S. population. Children with high prenatal exposure to pesticides show greater signs of developmental delays than those with low prenatal exposure.

There are limits to what researchers can learn. They can know Richard's blood pressure, IQ scores or pesticide levels. But they don't have enough information to link those factors to his poor eyesight or asthma, or tell his mother whether her time in the fields played a role in those issues. None of their research attributes a health problem to a single direct cause, and they stress that not every potentially harmful factor is equally dangerous in everyone.

"People aren't exposed to one thing," Eskenazi said. "They're exposed to everything around them, including air pollution and alcohol and smoking."

First focus: pesticides

Still, researchers have a lot of educated guesses.

They began their study by examining organophosphate pesticides, a commonly used type known to harm the human nervous system.

One of the researchers' first findings, in 2005, showed the chemicals' presence in the urine of the women in their study group in greater quantity than women of child-bearing age in the general U.S population.

Scientists also noticed that the higher the mother's pesticide levels prior to delivery, the higher the chance their baby would demonstrate abnormal reflexes, such as passive leg movements, after the first three days of life.

The finding preceded many others. At age 5, youths who had been exposed to high levels of pesticides in the womb were more likely than others to score high on tests that determine the likelihood of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

When the children were 7, researchers noted a 5.5-point drop in overall IQ scores for every 10-fold increase in the mothers' pesticides level during pregnancy.

The findings may resonate beyond the valley and across the nation, other researchers say.

"They're helping us understand the links between early exposures and health outcomes that are significant not only in terms of children's functioning and well-being in their early years, but also ... over the entire life course," said Frederica Perera, director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health in New York, which has collaborated with UC Berkeley.

Other scientists have reached similar conclusions about the same exposures. In a 2011 study of New York City children, for example, Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that those with prenatal exposure to pesticides were likely to lag in mental development in their early years.

More than just a study

More studies will follow. Right now, the UC Berkeley team is examining baby teeth for traces of banned fungicides that contain manganese, a chemical element toxic in high doses.

Eskenazi's intent is not to scare residents, but to give them meaningful knowledge. "In my heart, this is more than just a study for me," she said. "This is a population I deeply care about."

The professor plans to keep up the studies as long as there is funding - and Gonzalez and her son plan to keep showing up. Maybe, the mother says, they can help their neighbors understand what is all around them.

"We are all breathing it in," she said.

This article was produced for The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships (ReportingonHealth.org), a program of USC Annenberg's School of Journalism. Stephanie M. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @stephaniemlee

Please click here and watch this video of a CBS news report on an autistic boy.

This is a photo of the boy's stomach lesions.

Then look at this photo of hog's stomach that ate GMO feed. Note that 80% of our American food is now GMO.

The grief and outrage I feel is compounding. A mother kills her own autistic son and attempts suicide with her partner because she feels they would all be better off dead. No one knew what to do with their previous cries for help with his erratic behavior besides restrain him for days. The system failed them.

Earlier this week the parents of the girl who died from a peanut allergy, even though her father was a doctor and injected her with three epi pens, spoke out and asked for the system to do something about allergies. The system failed them.

The mothers of babies with 4-8 X more anacephaly,  ( warning image is disturbing) severe brain birth defects, in Washington state, who are downstream from the orchards sprayed with glyphosate, are not speaking up. Their grief and struggle may be too great.They may not have any idea how severely the system is failing them.

If you have read any of our previous blogs about glyphosate, GMOs, autism, allergies, stomach ulcers, cancer, IBS  and skyrocketing other illnesses, you know where this is headed. You may say that we can't blame everything on GMOs and/or glyphosate, but as a mother, for me, the correlation is clear. The autistic boy's behavior, thrashing and biting, was according to his mother, believed to be due to gastric pain. Her suspicions were confirmed when gastric specialist discovered that he had hundreds of lesions in his stomach, just like the pigs who ate GMO feed and also behaved erratically. We know now that GMO feed has this same effect on pigs: inflammation and lesions on their stomachs and fighting and biting. Scientists also know that pigs have very similar digestive systems to humans. See the pig study by Dr. Judy Carman, Howard Vlieger and other scientists here.

But not once in the news piece do they address WHY are these lesions on his stomach. Not once do they look to his food. For most of us mothers of children with allergies, autism, asthma or auto immune diseases, WHY these symptoms are occurring is not something most of our western medical doctors address. They only prescribe medicine to alleviate the pain. They do not know why.  The system fails to ask and it fails to act.

Here is the thing about failure. It is not the "be all end all", it is not conclusive. Failure is simply a failure to take action. Actions can always be taken. We always have the opportunity to take new actions.

When we Moms ask, and try to take action to get our children or ourselves tested for glyphosate the labs will not perform the test. They say "They do not do that test." We can imagine asking to be tested for "GMO foreign proteins" would get the same response. It all seems futile though, unnecessary even, especially to Moms like me who have read stacks of books to take care of our children's illness this past year... in our guts, we know...

It does not take another two year study for this mother to see that GMOs and Glyphosate, (which GMO's are doused with), are something to avoid. What outrages me is that our system is failing to ask WHY and they are failing to act NOW to protect our children, especially of the mothers who do not know about GMOs and Glyphosate.

We will do a petition...to the CDC or the EPA or the AAP...yes we will, and we will get the wording fine tuned so that they just might start to wonder if there is something to our request. But in the mean time, Moms, we need to keep sharing. Because in the end, it is up to us. Our children's lives are literally in our hands.

We need to support our millions of American Moms who are struggling every day and let them know about GMOs and Glyphosate as well. We need to support them. We can call, meet with and email our friends with kids with autism, allergies, auto immune diseases and asthma. Ask them  to watch Anthony Samsels's interview on autism and the glyphosate link and watch Howard Vlieger's DVD on how GMOs affect pigs.  Listen to his radio interview with Melinda Hemmellgam here.

We need to share how important it is to eat organic and non GMO. We Moms see our children's allergy, autism, autoimmune disorder and asthma symptoms improve in a matter of days or weeks after eating organic and non GMO. Click here for testimonials.This and many other horrific tragedies are avoidable, they did not and do not need to continue to happen. We must eat organic and non GMO.

The future of our families and country depends on it.

Just ASK your friends and community to take one or two ACTIONS that will change the course of their children's lives and their lives forever.

They are worth it. Every child is.

Thank you.

Zen Honeycutt

To share with your community, host a World Food Day Community Outreach Week Oct 12-19th, get free flyers, give them to your local supporters and you all just hand them out during the week everywhere as you run your errands or together on the weekend.

Dear Friends
The last week or two were weeks of what looked like insurmountably bad news. Daunting. Unbelievable and disheartening.

1) The EPA RAISED the glyphosate levels to unbelievable amounts. We know now that breast cancer cells proliferated upon the introduction of only parts per TRILLION of glyphosate ( see our blog  "Proof of GMO Harm"). We know that the chemicals in Agent Orange caused hundreds of thousands of birth defects and deaths.  And yet the EPA has granted Monsanto's and Syngenta's requests to raised the levels of these and other chemicals by double, triple, quadruple and higher amounts in the part per million. For example:  2-4 D and other chemicals have been increased in the feed crops that the animals we eat , eat: barley hay from 1.4 to 30 ppm and aspirated grains from 30 to 108 ppm.
Glyphosate levels were increasd in Sunflower seeds to  85 ppm,  Tea 5 ppm, Beans 5 ppm, Quinoa 5 ppm, Bananas .2 ppm, Sugar Beets 25 ppm, Dry Peas 8ppm, Pork 5 ppm etc. 

Image from Occupy EPA

2) Moms Across America Zen Honeycutt was able to interview Anthony Samsel and found out that 160 of our foods are contaminated with glyphosate. See the full list here.

3) Birth defects in babies are a reported 4-8 X higher down stream from three orchard areas in Washington State that use heavy glyphosate sprays. See article here.

4) TPP: Many of us found out that an international trade agreement called TPP ( Trans Pacific Partnership)  that could threaten everything we are working for by fast tracking ( and keeping secret) trade agreements between nations that could eliminate GMO labeling, allow corporation to sue countries for blocking sales of GMOs and force more sales of GMOs. Go to www.flushtheTPP.org to find out more and support the cause by hosting a Meet the Congress! event on MAA website.

We believe that some of the worst news a mother could hear is that the food we eat is causing harm to our family and the toxins in our environment that have been deemed safe by our own EPA are causing birth defects. On top of it our own government appointed officials may take away our rights to be able to choose our food and protect our families from these toxins. This is unacceptable.


But there MUST be Good news right? 

Of course there is! Moms and our fantastic supporters are an undauntable bunch! 


1) The biggest good news is that we are now creating PARTNERSHIPS between organizations that will expand and support all of our intentions nationally and around the globe. Moms Across Africa, Moms Across Canada and Moms Across Ireland have Facebook pages and we are working on developing an international coalition! We are connecting with several other orgs and will announce partnerships soon!


2) Moms Across America's Kathleen Hallal spoke at the  Justice Begins with Seeds Conference in Washington State last weekend and I spoke in my CT home town in front of 62 people, 20 teens from FRESH, a gardening program, who are out to transform the food industry! We are continuing the global movement for Moms, who buy 85% of the food, and supporters to be the ones to make a change in our health and freedom.

3) 14 year old Rachel Parent from Canada went on national TV and stood her ground debating Kevin O'Leary. Click here for the link. Inspiring! If she can speak up, we all can too!!

4) Kauai Hawaii and NY made giant steps forward in labeling GMOs and eliminating toxins from our environment and bodies. 

5) Moms Across America is just getting started! Our next endeavors are:

 GMO Free Shopping Day! Sept 7, 2013 GMO Free Moms and YOU Moms Across America supporters are the perfect candidates to host a GMO Free Shopping coaching session at your local grocery store! More info on www.gmofreemoms.org. Please post any and all of your events on www.momsacrossamerica.com so your local supporters can find you!

World Food Day  Oct 16, 2013 Moms Across America GMO FREE SCHOOLS Educational Outreach. Gather a group of Moms to hand out flyers at drop off or pick up and educate your entire school about how they can make GMO free lunches! Flyers coming soon. Post your event soon!

RECALL ROUND UP: Date: ASAP- Glyphosate information door hangers to distribute in neighborhoods.

GMO Free DINING : Date: ASAP- Flyers to give to restaurants to encourage them to go GMO Free. Chef Patrick Stark supporting us with great tips!

We are disturbed by the bad news...but the good news is you. 
Moms Across America is an international coalition of unstoppable moms and we have tremendous reach and power because we buy 85% of the food. It's up to us Mommas and our tremendous supporters.
The Good news are our Dads. The good news is our Teens. The good news is our kids, doctors, nurses and politicians who supports this effort. The good news is that we are not alone and we are growing!
We are continually and deeply inspired by the people like you who know this situation is daunting and huge and yet KEEP GOING ANYWAY.
Thank you for being unstoppable!

Zen Honeycutt
Kathleen Hallal and the MAAM Team

P.S. We need your help. We need professionals..a non profit developer, social media gurus, graphic designers, writers, researchers and media support. Please also donate and encourage your favorite organizations to donate and support the Moms who buy 85% of the food to go GMO free and Organic and eliminate toxins from our food supply. Every dollar helps!

Anthony Samsel on the Effects of Glyphosate ( RoundUp) on the immune system, allergies, autism, ADHD, bipolar disorders, behavioral problems, aggression, obesity, liver cirhosis, depression and numerous diseases.

If you have seen Part 1 of the Samsel Interviews or "Samsel on Unsafe Meat and Potatoes" you want to get straight to Part 2. I will be brief, but I do want to presence WHY this information is so urgent for us.

This information leaves us hungry for more, not because it is "good news" but because it makes so much sense. It reveals the connection between so many diseases and illnesses that are affecting our loved ones...our children that we would die for, out fathers that we admire and respect, our mothers that we cherish and our friends that make us laugh so hard we cry. This information gives us access to caring for them.

This information gives us a way to say.."Hey you can get better!" You can tell them we know why now...and we can do something about it.

So, although this can be overwhelming, I ask you to just be present to the love you have for you family members when you watch this and come from that love when you share this information. When you have "bad" news to give someone, it is much easier to digest if it is served with love. And when you are present to that love, you get that YOU are the good news, THEY are the good news, your LOVE is the good news. And together your partnership in eating organic and having new adventures in growing your own food, cooking from scratch, discovering local farmer's markets, connecting with local CSA's or Co-Ops, those connections and the strengthening of our communities and our country is the good news.

Thank you to the brilliant, generous and caring Anthony Samsel for sharing his time and research with us. Thank you to the talented and committed Ryan Wirick for the amazing editing job in finding all the images to assist us in understanding this challenging information. We are forever grateful for your immense contributions to our movement.

Thank you for sharing this with the media, your congress people and with everyone in the world. It is up to us.

With gratitude for your partnership in creating health and freedom,

Zen Honeycutt

Part 1 of the Effects of Glyphosate: Interview of Anthony Samsel by Zen Honeycutt of Moms Across America

When Anthony Samsel of the Samsel and Seneff study on Glyphosate and Modern diseases http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416 agreed to allow me to interview him, something told me to get a hustle on and drive to his nearby home state as soon as possible. After hours on remote winding roads and towns so small that if you sneezed, you'd miss them, I was skeptical about the level of validity I would find. Would someone so brilliant live in the middle of nowhere?

When I arrived I saw the acres of beautiful flower, herb and vegetable gardens, large greenhouse and gorgeous music room with bass, cello and two grand pianos (and a third for the grandchildren). I saw the stack of the latest college text books on genetic engineering in his upstairs music recording studio, all of which he admitted to having read, and wall hangings of the elements, listened to him speak for a few moments...and I could tell I was in the presence of an extraordinarily valid and brilliant mind, maybe even a genius. I knew he had chosen this area specifically because it was remote. He mostly researches, cares for his wife who has health issues, plays music, writes and tends the garden all day. He told me he grows 10 months worth of his own potatoes and carrots ( I would later understand why...watch the video clip on my last blog and you will too), and cans and stores his own food in a root cellar. He is a man of veracious learning and love for living. He adores his wife and family and is passionate about contributing to the world.

What he has to say I not only believe because he has studied more studies on the subject than I could or would in a lifetime, (see his 43 page paper which is a mere section of his research results) but because I have met him and I could sense in my bones that this is a man who cares more about the future of our children and planet than himself. He is hacked daily and there has been a surveillance  black box padlocked and chained to the pole out side his house. There are people who would like to stop him from sharing what he knows, but they will not succeed. He is committed to people knowing the truth and he has absolutely no reason to fabricate anything. He has no need for money or attention. He has everything he wants. He only wants health for his family and our planet. He is a man of facts and science.

What he has uncovered, and will continue to share, will impact the future of our entire nation and planet.

50% of our children will have Autism by 2025 at the rate we are currently going. Millions more will be sick with debilitating diseases and disorders. This is unbelievably outrageous. But it is not crazy. It makes absolute sense when you look at the past history and trend in connection with the levels of glyphosate in our food supply.We will be a nation crippled by convenient toxins with a generation of compromised adults if we do not listen, speak up and alter the course of our future. Our workforce, technology, economy and health care system could be compromised for the sake of greed. 

Please watch and share this important interview with every Congress person, parent, nurse, doctor, health care provider, pre school director, food service director, or person who eats. It's up to us, we buy the food. Thank you.

His last words on this clip..."We are creating this..."

By feeding our children 31.5 million GMO school meals a DAY, even more hospital and senior center meals,  by eating the 160 foods that are contaminated with glyphosate, click here for the list , by eating the 80% of our fast, cheap, easy and tasty food that is GMO and therefore heavily doused in glyphosate, and contaminated at levels thousands of times higher than what has been shown to cause breast cancer....we are creating this. Chips, soda,french fries, corn tortillas, candy, snacks, cookies, breakfast cereal...anything with corn, soy, sugar, wheat, high fructose corn syrup and hundreds more ingredients, are 80-90% likely to be contaminated with glyphosate and contributing to this disaster of a health crisis we are experiencing in America. To add insult to injury, the EPA just raised the allowable levels of glyphosate despite thousands of comments against this pandering to big chemical companies. They raised the levels of pesticides and herbicides in our food crops simply because big chemical companies ask them to. And we accept this...not on purpose...but when we don't speak up...when we don't demand otherwise and cause change...we allow this to...we are creating this too...

Is this really what we want to be creating?

Please take action today to create something else...to create health and freedom in America..to be informed, to have choice and to be healthy. Please host an event in your home town by adding it the the Moms Across America map today...a GMO Free Tea, or Potluck or GMO free Movie night... and share this information, share about GMOs ( which are doused in glyphosate) and the 160 non organic food crops. Because this is UNACCEPTABLE. Moms and supporters will not stand for this. We will stop this. But first we need everyone to know. We need numbers all across the country to rise up and share this with everyone they know. We need to be the ones to protect the future of America.

Please do whatever you can to create a new future. One that we Americans can be proud of and live to enjoy.

Thank you.

Zen Honeycutt

P.S. Part 2 of the Samsel interview here.

If there was ever a time when I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and go "LA la la la la la la...I can't hear yooooou!!!!"

It was when scientist Anthony Samsel said: "There are some 160 of our foods contaminated with glyphosate."(Listed below)  Samsel is a chemist, retired Arthur D. Little Inventor and co author of the paper :  "Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases."  The Samsel-Seneff paper can be found at the journal-Entropy, ISSN 1099-4300 www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy 

Glyphosate is the active chemical ingredient in Roundup, a registered trademark of Monsanto, the most widely used herbicide in the world. Hundreds of millions of pounds of this chemical are used each year. It is used on parks, school yards and city landscaping. It is sprayed on the soil prior to planting crops that are raised in a no-till non-organicproduction system. It is also used as a desiccant and applied preharvest on a wide number of crops destined for the food chain. Glyphosate based herbicides are sprayed directly GMO plants. GMO plants are genetically engineered to with stand glyphosate herbicide. The animals and the people that eat these crops that have absorbed glyphosate either through the soil or from being repeatedly sprayed with glyphosate are subjected to numerous health concerns.

Glyphosate is designed to kill all plants that it touches except those that are genetically designed to withstand it. It does this by chelating or "tying up " vital nutrients in the plant. It ties up; calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, copper,nickel, cobalt, boron, molybdenum, selenium and potassium and makes them unavailable. Glyphosate also kills good microorganisms in the soil (that would normally protect the plant from disease) and causes a rapid growth of bad organisms that cause disease that kills the weeds. The weed dies because it essentially has a weakened defense system. As one scientist said "It basically gives the plant AIDS, weakens it's immune system".

We are now learning that glyphosate can do the same thing to us. By eating food that contains glyphosate residue we have glyphosate in our bodies. Glyphosate attacks the beneficial microorganisms in our digestive tract and triggers a host of varying health issues for us and our children.  

Thankfully we now have the Samsel and Seneff scientific paper “Glyphosate and Modern Diseases” this 43 page peer reviewed scientific paper shows that glyphosate has "insidious" effects on the American population. Especially our children. .

Here is Anothny Samsel in his own words in an interview with Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America:

THANK YOU to the over 3500 people who signed up to march in 44 states and 177 parades on July 4th!

Thank you to all who donated! Every penny went towards empowering millions to educate themselves about GMOs, get them labeled and offer GMO free solutions!

Thank you to our sponsors who made the GMO info flyers, banners, stickers, buttons and decals possible at a great rate!

Thank you to our supporters, from graphics, website, data entry, PR support, getting the word out and supporting Moms.

THANK YOU.  You truly are what makes America GREAT!

Here are the awesome sponsors and supporters that we hope you will support as well. They rock.

 The CA Guild and President Bob McFarland

 LabelGMO's and Pamm Larry

 3rd Generation Farmer Howard Vlieger for the DVD talk.

   Robyn O'Brien 

                  Dr.Bronner's       Neil's Yard Remedies Organic 

 Organic Valley                     Nutiva

   Nature's Path                            GMO OMG

 Jeffrey M. Smith and Institute for Responsible Technology and Laurie Cohen Peters

 Organic Consumer Association   Green America/GMOinside                              

 NON GMO Project  JustLabelit.org

    Vandana Shiva

And Special Thanks to ProImageSigns.com Fountain Valley for the great car decal. Meghan Thomas for website, Dorothy Winchester for data entry, Shel Spaulding-Moore and Kimberly Capwell for PR.  Lauren Weinstein Intern extraordinaire, Scott and Barbara at Magnum Screen Prints, Pennworthy and Associates for the promo materials, Mike Reinmann for the Howard Vliger DVD, OMG.com for future partnership, our husbands and family for your patience, Landmark for the empowerment, and of course, Moms, for your love.

Other Non GMO Companies we hope you support.

Moms Across America March 2013

From Sea to Shining Sea

Kathleen  in Huntington Beach,  California     Zen and MAAM in Madison, CT

See a compliation video of parades:

From June 29^th to July 7^th, all across America Moms and supporters are joined into 172 parades to letting an estimated 1 million of  their neighbors know about GMOs directly and millions more via media and word of mouth. This was an act of generosity and courage on a grand scale, an example of what makes America great! What awesome and generous people!

 What makes America great is not the party in the White house or the rise in our economy, it is not the amount of wars we have won or popularity of our President. What makes America great are the individual actions of the people, and all people have Moms. Moms in America make the vast majority of all purchases, therefore we drive the economy. We are the social planners, of  church communities and school activities, therefore  we run our communities. Moms have the say so in the home about meals, health, chores and school homework, guiding our future generations to create the prosperity and success of America. In one sense you could say the state of America is the responsibility of our Moms. If there is anything you don’t like about America, we citizens, including Moms, need to take a close look at our role in that.

Have we taken ownership of it?

What can we do that we have not done before?

What is something new we could create in that area?

The power in being a Mom is taking on our role in America. That is why our car decals say ”Bring it ON! I’m a MOM!” and "Label GMOS!"

On July 4^th, we took on GMOs and did something new. For most of us, we had not marched in a parade since Girl Scouts and we never even considered being an activist. The majority of us are not radicals, we are not political, we are not doing this for certain religious reasons, we are simply Moms who care about the future of our children. We know that 64 other countries have banned or label GMOs and we march for that freedom here in the USA. We are angry about GMOs but we Moms know that other Mom’s are most likely to consider information when it’s delivered in  non threatening way. Moms know that love works. So we marched with patriotism and pride to be in America’s biggest traditional community event. We marched with love, a friendly attitude and joyous smiles. We were supported by wonderful husbands, partners, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and kids. People who care about health and freedom marched for no personal gain. We took on GMOs, were mostly received with cheers and wonder, ( when have most Moms been CHEERED at for talking about GMOs before??? Never! This was so empowering!!!) and we have never been prouder of our great nation.

Sierra Madre, CA                                                          Boise Idaho

Riverton, NJ                               Savoy,  IL                       Carnation, WA

Love was all the motivation we need to march down our main street, bravely in the rain alone, like Mom Samantha in Frankfurt, Kentucky or in 107 degree heat like Jessica Denning and over 70 supporters, in Carmichael CA We sang, chanted, waved, smiled and cheered along with the surprised and delighted supporters. We also looked our neighbors in the eye and gave them GMO info flyers or held a banner and signs that brought a new message to thousands lining the streets that did not know about GMOs. We could see them wondering, turning to their neighbors and asking “What is a GMO?”. Our hearts leaped for joy when a neighbor said “Genetically Modified Organism.” Mom’s Mission Accomplished.

Huntington Beach, CA  Biggest Parade on West Coast   Dedicated Dad on Unicycle

Lake Forest, CA       Bee Car            Alameda, CA SF Bay area Longest Parade

The love for our children is our fuel. We have a never ending source of that love. This is just the beginning. Moms Across America will not stop until GM food is labeled and off our tables. We will continue to stand for, march for, sing for and chant for “Empowered Moms, Healthy Kids”.

Mendocino, CA                                                      Springfield, Missouri

Blaine, WA                                                                        Madison, CT

Denver , CO                                                               Lancaster , PA

With Love, from Moms Across America

With Thanks to our partners the CA State Grage, LabelGMOs.org and sponsors Dr. Bronner's , NYR Organic, Nature's Path, Organic valley, OMG ohmygreen.com and Nutivia and everyone who donated.

I just had what I believe could be a brilliant idea for the marchers that will be participating in our marches across the country. I was hoping to get Moms and Kids and whoever else would like to show support of labeling to join our group along the parade route. It would be a powerful visual statement to everyone along the route, if people kept jumping out of their seats to join us in marching against GMOs and we ended up with a huge group marching with us by the end of the parade....a huge and loud group. How do you best visually represent a large number of people....A mob that is loud is good....but in a parade....visually represented by a long line of entrants ....how bout a line of supporters several blocks long?????

Even if many people in the town support labeling (most do...and many are strong proponents) how do you get that many people convinced to join in a parade they had only come to watch??? I got to thinking what would entice many to join in....what is irresistible??? We can have people in our group running over and grabbing those who vocalize support....good....we could hand out flyers asking people to get up and march to show their support....good....we might get some that way....but what would seem just too fun to join in????  A CONGO LINE!!!! Who can resist joining a congo line....a loud, enthusiastic, and rambunctious and quickly growing congo line???  "LA - BEL   G  M  O's" ....boom  ......           " LA - BEL     G  M   O'S".....boom. 

To get things started keep some of your members in a line to start of the route marching at the beginning of the parade and distribute whever you can spare spaced out along both sides of the parade route....have one person who is marching working each side of the route handing out flyers and coaxing people to join in....have the people who have been planted in the crowd along the route enthusiastically join in. Each person joining in will be given a warm welcome and honored with a lei or a hat or a button....maybe just a hug. This should create a chain reaction along the route that will feed on itself....if it slows down, instruct members to slip out of the line and get into the crowd again to re kindle the movement of audience members into the congo line. Ask marchers to bring drums to create the congo beat...maybe even some other instruments and percussion.

I am going to give this a try....if anyone else does, let me know how it worked.

kim