Improving the public health and the political system at the same time? Tara Cook-Littman '97 is doing her best.
Cook-Littman, a New York City prosecutor-turned-health counselor-turned-food policy advocate is a director of a grassroots organization called GMO Free CT, CT referring to the state of Connecticut. Through GMO Free CT, she helped get the nation's first GMO labeling law passed.
GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, have been controversial in recent years. GMO foods are foods in which DNA has been genetically engineered, in part "to withstand the application of toxic herbicide and chemicals, and so those foods are coated in chemicals," Cook-Littman says.
Because of the modifications made to the food, activists have expressed concern about possible health risks. In Europe, GMO food is subjected to more stringent evaluations. Further, any food products that contain more than a certain percentage of GMO ingredients must be labeled as such. The United States, on the other hand, has not introduced such policy, in part because the science linking GMO foods to health problems has been debated.
Cook-Littman first became involved in the food policy movement eight years ago when she was not feeling well and her doctor suggested medication. "I just didn't want to go on the medicine, and I thought there had to be a better way," she says. So she did some research.
"Everything pointed to the food that I ate. I went on an all-organic, mostly vegetarian diet and got better," she says.
When she realized the change in what she ate could significantly affect her health, Cook-Littman decided to get her certification as a health counselor to share that knowledge with others.
Cook-Littman has been fighting to get GMO foods labeled ever since. If food was labeled, she argues, "we may choose not to eat it." Because of this, she strives to pass laws in the U.S. that require GMO foods to be labeled.
Connecticut passed the first GMO labeling law in the nation 2013. "The problem, however, is that there's a trigger clause, so that the law won't go into effect until other states pass similar requirements," Cook-Littman says. Specifically, four other states with an aggregate population of 20 million people have to pass a similar law, and at least one state that passes it must be adjacent to Connecticut.
Cook-Littman explains that some of the differences between GMO food policy in the United States and in Europe stems from cultural differences. The GMO industry, including powerful corporations like Kellogg and Nestle, have "a foothold in [the United States] because there's too much money in our politics. These companies have a lot of power and a lot of money," Cook-Littman says, and use these resources to lobby politicians to protect the industry.
Cook-Littman says that her time at Brandeis helped push her in the direction of advocacy. "I always found that Brandeis encouraged people to fight for social justice. That was at the root of what Brandeis was about, so it really fostered people who wanted to go out and make a difference and fight for what they believed in," she says. In particular, the Women's Studies program "made her realize that [she] could pursue a career and be a mom and be a powerful woman without being afraid of that."
To that end, Cook-Littman and GMO Free CT, which was founded in 2012, are working with activists in states throughout the Northeast, including Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New Hampshire. They have also been working with other farther-away states including Florida, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan.
The organization aims to pass legislation and to educate people about what is in their food and what the relevant environmental and ethical issues are. The states that are closest to achieving labeling laws, Cook-Littman says, are New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont.
One of the major obstacles when founding GMO Free CT was that it is difficult to organize a grassroots effort. "You don't have a lot of funding, you're just people trying to use your voice," she says. This differs starkly from the wealthy companies GMO Free CT is lobbying against.
The organization was able to overcome these challenges, though, by mobilizing people. Firstly, "if you don't have a lot of money, using social media is a way to get the word out to a lot of people at one time ... so we really harnessed social media on Facebook and Twitter," Cook-Littman says. GMO Free CT also "held very big rallies in Hartford where the people came out and showed up in support to let their legislators know what they wanted."
Individuals who would like to get involved have a number of options. Cook-Littman advises interested students to "educate [them]selves, avoid bad food as much as [they] can, and educate [their] friends and family about them." Further, "everybody should be calling state legislators, state representatives, state senators, federal representatives, federal senators and letting them know that we have a right to know what's in our food, we need to know what's in our food, and that we want GMO labeling," she says. Ultimately, though, the battle over GMO foods is only partly about the foods themselves. Certainly the content of the food is important, and GMO Free CT will continue working in other states to get labeling laws passed so that the Connecticut bill will trigger.
But Cook-Littman frames the issue another way as well. "The problem is that in this country, the way politics is set up is such that corporate interests consistently trump personal rights, and that's what's happening here," she says. It has thus become a bigger issue:
"The legacy of what we did here in Connecticut is really not just about GMO labeling. It's about using your voice, taking back our government, and making sure that the people are heard, our interests are not trumped by corporations trying to protect their bottom line."