Around the nation, people in the other 49 states are watching and waiting to see if we make an informed decision in November. Only the future of generations to come is at stake.

Jeffery Smith, world expert on GMOs and author of “Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods,” testified at a state committee hearing on GMO labeling in Connecticut in September.

He told legislators that genetic engineering is an “infant science” and is irrevocably polluting the gene pool and threatening human health and nature.

Smith is not anti-science, but would like to see responsible testing done to let the science “grow up.”

Humans should not be guinea pigs, and right now we are.

Women are not going to be warned by any government agency that their reproductive health is at risk, because those agencies have been instructed to fast-track bioengineered products.

Smith explained that for the 16 years GMOs have been in the food system, the federal government, including the FDA, whose GMO policy was written by a former attorney at Monsanto, has been promoting biotechnology.

GMOs have been linked to illnesses from cancer, food allergies and most recently to infertility in animals and humans, due to the manner in which engineered genetic material  (called Franken genes) take up residency in those consuming them.

Engineered genes entering the food chain from Roundup Ready plants are designed to break open the stomachs of insects, but also create punctures in human cells.

A filmmaker Zofia Hausman testified to the same committee that she filed in an Iowa town where infertility was high and where there “had not been a live birth in five years.”

In the amniotic fluid of those women whose babies died, genetic material engineered by Monsanto had been found.

We need a choice whether to consume GMOs or not. Corporate ads on television and in the mail are heavily claiming the poorest will suffer if labeling passes.

Actually, we all will suffer, poor or not. European citizens who did pass labeling laws did not see their costs rise.

Wake up and let’s set a good example for the nation. Passing 37 is only a small step in the process.

Ellen Karnowski lives in Kelseyville, Calif.