Senator?Barbara Mikulski?(D-MD) has announced the end of the controversial Monsanto Protection Act. Snuck into a federal government funding resolution in 2012, as a rider, the act protected biotech giant, Monsanto, from legal review and challenges brought to federal courts that would halt the sale or planting of GMO seeds as long as they had been approved by the USDA.?Thanks to push back by public interest groups such as Food Democracy Now!, the Center for Food Safety and Food and Water Watch, along with thousands of concerned citizens, renewal of the Monsanto Protection Act was blocked. Mikulski, in a statement, said:? ?I have never supported the Monsanto provision, and I continue to oppose it. When I became Appropriations Chairwoman and inherited this problem, I promised I would work to solve it. The Monsanto provision is not included in either of the Senate or House FY14 Agriculture Appropriations bills, and that is a good thing. There?s no reason for it to be included in a short-term CR, either.??This is a major victory for America’s farmers, our democracy and our food supply.

Under threat of a lawsuit, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally responded to a nearly four-year-old petition, calling for the immediate withdrawal of the vast majority of arsenic-containing compounds used as feed additives for chickens, turkeys and hogs. A lawsuit filed by?Center for Food Safety(CFS), the?Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy?(IATP) and seven other U.S. food safety, agriculture, public health and environmental groups called upon the FDA to respond. The FDA will withdraw three of the four arsenicals and all drug approvals associated with them. Of the 101 drug approvals for arsenic-based animal drugs, 98 will be withdrawn. Arsenic is added to poultry feed?for the purposes of inducing faster weight gain on less feed, and creating the perceived appearance of a healthy color in meat from chickens, turkeys and hogs. A 2006 IATP report estimated that more than 70 percent of all U.S. chickens raised for meat are fed arsenic, and testing of supermarket bought and fast food chicken found that much of it?contained some level of arsenic. Organic arsenic compounds?like those added to animal feed?are directly toxic to animals and humans, but also that they convert to cancer-causing, inorganic arsenic inside of chickens, in manure-treated soil and in humans.? Although the withdrawal is long overdue, we are happy to this necessary action finally come to fruition.