Susan Sarandon

Actor

“We’ve had GMOs in the US for nearly 20 years. Instead of bringing certainty and security they have raised more and more worrying questions about their effectiveness, their necessity, and even their safety. Polls show that the majority of US citizens – and in fact citizens everywhere – either want them labelled or taken out of the food system altogether. It’s important to keep pressing our elected representatives to act in accordance with this strong public mandate.”

Daryl Hannah

Actor

“Humanity is at a critical fork in the road, a global tipping point. Now is the time to acknowledge the dangers genetically modified crops bring to seed, soil and biodiversity. Now is the time we must focus on and invest in the resilient agricultural practices that will allow us to thrive – for the sake of human health, the survival of other species and the wellbeing of the planetary ecosystem as a whole!”

Frances Fisher

Actor

“It is absolutely essential that the public is educated about the dangers of GMOs. Most people have no idea that the “healthy food” they think they’re eating has been genetically modified. It is frightening and immoral that companies are tampering with Mother Nature in order to supposedly produce cheaper crops. To understand how this food crisis is affecting human beings, see the award-winning documentary, GMO-OMG.”

Deepak Chopra

Author, public speaker, and physician

“GMO foods are becoming a predominant supply of our food, interfering with hundreds of millions of years of biological evolution on our planet. Multinational interests and special interest business entities are basically claiming ownership of all of life, Our house is burning, spaceship earth going around the sun, is in peril and we are all passengers in this ship. If we create artificial life now by interfering with the process with genetically modified organisms, that will affect everything from flora to fauna, to our plants, to our trees. The only thing that can save us at this moment is a mass shift in the collective consciousness. Let’s create a critical mass for a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier and happier planet.”

Marianne Williamson

Spiritual teacher and author

“It concerns me greatly, as it concerns millions of others around the world, that as a species we’re indulging in such irresponsible behavior toward our earth, our food supply, our children and our future. It’s heartbreaking how we’re serving the economic benefit of a few at the expense of potentially immeasurable suffering on the part of so many. This is not simply the 11th hour; it’s a quarter to midnight. And we must repudiate the madness in every way we can.”

Neil Young

Singer and songwriter

“I support the Letter from America because it speaks truth to power, showing the harm GMOs have caused American farms and farmers, our environment, our health and even science and democracy. Please take this seriously on behalf of all living things.”

Tommy Hilfiger

Fashion designer

Robert Kennedy Jr

Attorney & activist

“An informed and engaged public is one of our greatest weapons against widespread threats to health and environmental justice. An uninformed public, on the other hand, is the bane of democracy, providing easy pickings for tyrants, religious fanatics, corporate shills and polluters who seek to privatize the public commons. Initiatives like the Letter from America highlight clearly the problems we have faced in the US in the 17 years we have been planting and eating GMOs. They help tip the balance away from a media that acquiesces to corporate science and corporate power – and therefore encourages lack of public engagement – and bring crucial information out into the light of the public domain.”

Amy Smart

Actor

“GMOs do not belong in our food chain or in our bodies. I absolutely want to steer clear of them and educate people on the risks that are involved in dealing with GMOs. Please ban them! At the least, label them.”

Mariel Hemingway

Actor and author

“There are major concerns about the short and long term impacts of GMOs on human and animal health. I’m very concerned about any food I put into my body, and I wouldn’t want to ingest something if I didn’t know where it came from. The fact that Monsanto is spending so much money to make sure GMOs are not labeled and to keep people uninformed should make everyone concerned about the impact GMOs can have on our bodies.”

Sara Gilbert

Actor and author

“Genetically modified foods may increase deadly allergies in children, have been shown to inadvertently damage butterfly populations, and threaten to financially devastate traditional farmers aroudn the world. Each time a natural farm is muscled out, we lose access to non-GMO food.”

Adam Gardner

Musician, founder Reverb

“If GMOs are safe, then why do the companies that use them have a problem being honest and transparent with their customers? Consumers have a right to know what they are purchasing and what they are putting in their bodies.”

Ed Begley Jr

Actor, director & environmentalist

“Say NO to GMO! I have!”

Paul Hawken

Environmentalist, journalist & author

“All organisms are genetically modified…by evolution. When we talk about GMOs in the modern context, the question is “modified by whom and to what end?” The toxic herbicides like Roundup that GMO crops are resistant to destroy the wildlife of the soil, the intricate webs of mycelia and organisms that create healthy, resilient farmlands. As we kill of soil life, it causes carbon to be released into the atmosphere which in turn requires increased application of synthetic fertilizers to make up for the loss of fertility. The proponents of GMOs are multinational companies with powerful economic interests, and what they are saying in essence is that we they can produce more life from the soil in the form of food if we allow these companies to employ a technology that destroys the life of the soil. This Alice in Wonderland logic is borne out in the recent requests by companies to approve new GMOS varieties that require ever more toxic herbicides. Why? Because weeds are becoming resistant to the current herbicides. This is a spiraling process of destruction that does nothing for hunger, climate, the land, wildlife or quality of life.”

Alice Waters

Chef, restaurateur, activist & author

“As chefs, we are on the frontlines of feeding America and we have an enormous stake in ensuring transparency in our food system. It is our duty to nourish our guests, both in body and soul. However, we can’t prepare the best food we know how when information about the ingredients we purchase is hidden from us with labels that are missing basic facts. This includes foods that are genetically engineered or contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs).” — From the Chefs’ Petition in Support of Prop 37

Alain Braux

Chef & author

“As a French chef, I care deeply about food and how it is manipulated and damaged in biotech labs. As a nutritionist with children as clients, it hurts me to see more and more of them with so many food allergies. I strongly believe there is a connection between these increasing digestive system diseases and GMOs. If we care about the future of our health and that of our children, we must stop GMOs invasion or we will face an epidemic of health issues nearly impossible to stop. Stop GMOs and stop the destruction of our Earth.”

Anna Lappe

Author, activist, Founder of the Small Planet Institute

“In a world rocked with volatile markets, a volatile climate, and diminishing natural resources, we need to turn our attention to investing in the proven sustainable intensification techniques that create resilient communities, not to the still-hollow promises of GMO promoters.”

Raj Patel

Writer, activist & academic

“Europe would do well to learn from the US’s mistakes. We have superweeds, and farmers are suffering. The public health cost is unknowable, not least because scientists themselves are afraid to criticise the industry – a GMO-manufacturing pesticide company has recently been exposed for hunting down a researcher who dared raise questions about a pesticide. If you value science and the public interest, the US offers abundant reason why the EU should stick to the precautionary principle. Far too little is known about GMOs, and what little we’ve been able to glean demonstrates it has little to offer, beyond profits for chemical companies.”

Wendell Berry

Writer, poet and environmentalist

“The inevitable aim of industrial agri-investors is the big universal solution. They want a big product that can be marketed everywhere. And the kind of agriculture we’re talking about that leads to food security and land conservation is locally adapted agriculture. And they can’t do that. Industrial agriculture plants cornfields in Arizona; locally adapted agriculture says, what can we fit in this place that will not destroy it? Or what can nature help us to do here? That’s the critical issue.”

Dr Joseph Mercola

Natural health expert, founder mercola.com

“Genetically engineered foods have never been proven safe for consumption, and there are definitive correlations between the results from GMO animal-feeding studies and the patterns of human disease we’re now seeing. The solutions are there, we just need to overcome the chemical technology industry’s iron grip on our food supply, and that begins in the home of each and every one of us, with the food choices we make every day.”

Sayer Ji

Researcher, author, lecturer, founder GreenMedInfo

“The consequences of the widespread adoption of the agrochemical-dependent GM food production system in my country are so dire that I fear that much of the damage it has wrought to our collective health and environment is now entirely irreversible. You are fortunate enough to still have an opportunity to put the health and rights of your citizens first, and avoid falling prey to the type of false marketing and questionable science that promotes a food production system that requires the gradual destruction of the microbial, flora and animal biodiversity of the arable surface of the earth (arguably this planet’s greatest treasure) in favor of a few chosen, proprietary GM crops.”

Anthony Gucciardi

Founder, Natural Society

“Never before have we seen such an awakening in not only the United States, but the world at large in regards to the disturbing takeover of our food supply. And at the forefront of this direct attack on the very substances we feed ourselves and our families, stands genetically modified organisms — GMOs. Spearheaded by the highly-hated biotech juggernaut Monsanto, it’s essential that we support key initiatives like The Letter From America in order to voice our opposition to Monsanto’s endless corruption of our crops. Across the board, we see Monsanto stocks falling and GMO farmers jumping ship. Going forward into 2015, it’s easy to see that now is the time to act. Now is the time to take back our food supply.”

Dr Andrew Weil

Doctor, naturopath, teacher and writer on holistic health

“The dangers of GMOs are unknown and possibly great. At the very least, consumers should know whether foods they buy are genetically modified so that they can choose to use them or not. I do not understand how anyone can oppose putting this information on products.”

Sally Fallon Morell

President and Co-Founder, Weston A Price Foundation

“Both genetically engineered plants themselves, and the herbicide routinely used with them, pose grave health consequences, especially to growing children. The planet needs to come to its senses and return to traditional seed selection and breeding.”

Robyn O’Brien

Mom campaigner, founder Allergy Kids Foundation

“The landscape of childhood has changed. Today, 1 in 3 American children has allergies, asthma, ADHD or autism. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in US children under the age of 15. Diet can be a first line of defense and knowing if our food has been genetically engineered to withstand record doses of toxic weedkillers is information that anyone anywhere should have access to. We know if our milk is pasteurized and if our orange juice comes from concentrate. Knowing if our food has been genetically engineered gives us information into how it is produced. Information about what we eat is a fundamental human right.”

Vani Hari, the Food Babe

Food activist, writer and speaker

“In the US our food is missing a very important label – one that President Obama, the FDA and the USDA have made a concerted effort to deny us from having. This label is for foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are in 90% of our processed food. These genetically altered foods have only been in our food supply since 1996 and studies into long-term health impacts were not conducted before they were approved. We have the right to know what we are eating.”

Rachel Parent

Youth advocate, campaigner, founder Kids Right to Know

“I’m concerned about my future, and the future of our planet. Unfortunately, the Biotech Companies are only concerned about their bottom line. They want us to believe that GMO crops will feed the world, be better for our environment, provide more nutrition, and use less water, but the truth is, they want to control seed supply and sell more pesticides. Sadly, they’re willing to do this at any cost, including our health and the environment. I believe we have to go back to our roots of sustainable farming, crop diversity, and minimal use of harmful pesticides, before it’s too late!”

Daniel Bissonnette

Youth advocate and campaigner

“Why is it that the least nutritious, most sugary and GMO, food coloring-filled cereals are marketed towards us children?”

Alicia Serratos

Youth advocate and campaigner

“GMOs are bad for our environment, our pollinators, our farmers and our families. Independent studies show they could be harmful. I want to keep my family, friends and everyone else healthy and safe and keep GMOs out of our food”