In a tweet attacking GMOs this Sunday, Green Party candidate Jill Stein posted a link to a website that is known for pushing debunked pseudoscience, namely the widely discredited vaccine-autism link, among others.
Citing an article from OrganicConsumers.org, Stein said, “The prime purpose of GMOs has been to increase pesticide use and corporate control of our food system.”
The GMO debate aside, Stein’s source for the tweet is highly suspect. A simple search through the website’s archives reveals hundreds of headlines that mirror the worst of the anti-science web.
An article shared by Organic Consumers from August, 2015 titled “Vaccine Studies Debunked,” praised the work of Dr. Brian Hooker, whose vaccine research was slammed by experts and retracted by his publisher in 2014, saying he “played fast and loose with statistics to show a link between autism and the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.” In spite of the retraction, Hooker’s claims spread like wildfire in anti-vax circles on the Internet.
The prime purpose of #GMOs has been to increase pesticide use and corporate control of our food system. https://t.co/vArNnf7bf1
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) August 14, 2016
The above-mentioned article is just one amid dozens on Organic Consumers promoting anti-vaxxer-themed pseudoscience and conspiracies. Not one article citing the benefits of vaccines was found in the website’s archives.
In the same month, OC shared an article titled “Why the Chemtrail Conspiracy is Real,” which promoted all the usual anomaly-hunting lunacy that proprietors of this bizarre claim use to spread their paranoia.
After the tweet, Stein clarified to CNN that her call for a moratorium on GMOs only applies to “new genetically modified organisms being introduced into our ecosystems, including our agricultural system and our food supply, until independent research free from industry influence shows decisively that GMOs are not harmful to human health or to the health of our ecosystems and that they are necessary.”
But Stein’s call for “research free from industry influence” gives her cover to ignore the established science on GMOs, which clearly states that they pose no risk to human health.
According to a 2016 wide-reaching study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, no health risks have been associated with commercially available genetically engineered foods as opposed to non-genetically engineered foods.
Charges of pandering to the anti-science contingent of her voters have dogged Stein for months now, thanks to her insistence on using anti-vaxxer talking points during some of her on-the-record comments. Although Stein has responded by confirming that she’s pro-vaccine, many agree that she’s consciously utilizing dog-whistle language to ensure she doesn’t alienate her supporters on the anti-science left.
Another prime example was a recently-surfaced video showing Stein agreeing with a woman who claimed wi-fi signals in schools were harming the brains of children. Again, a topic that is backed up by zero scientific evidence found a sympathetic ear in the Green Party’s candidate.
The anti-science label attributed to Stein has been called an outright “smear” by her supporters, but as bits and pieces of quackery continue to emerge from her mouth and her timeline, there’s no doubt that it’s a label that’s richly deserved.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore (Flickr)
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