Push for GMO Labeling on Food

News Analysis

For better or worse, we’ve been eating the fruits of bioengineering for decades. While some consumers remain skeptical of the long-range health impact of this relatively recent technology, bioengineered products can be difficult to avoid, as the federal government doesn’t require that packages identify these gene-altered foods. But one state may soon make a demand where the feds fall short: its own label requirement for lab-created ingredients.

We have the right to know what we are buying and putting in our children’s mouths.” Ballot initiative campaign website.

The organization behind the proposed labeling law-the Organic Consumers Association-needs to collect 500,000-plus signatures to see their initiative on the 2012 California ballot. If enough signatures are collected, it will give California voters a chance to decide if the state will become the first in the nation with a mandatory label requirement for genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

“It’s a basic consumer right we are asking for—given the conflicting data and our mistrust in an industry that has been proven to hide negative findings, we have the right to know what we are buying and putting in our children’s mouths,” states the 2012 ballot initiative campaign on their labelgmos.org website.

Farmers have long used techniques (such as hybridization and selective breeding) to exploit desirable traits in both plants and animals, but the technology to manipulate the actual DNA of an organism and mix its genes with an unrelated species is a very recent phenomenon. According to supporters of the California ballot initiative, there is enough data to suggest health risks associated with this new technology, and wary consumers have the right to avoid them.

Despite decades of public outcry to label and even ban this lab-created food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has seen no need for identifying bioengineered products. Since 1992 FDA policy states there is “no basis for concluding that bioengineered foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way, or that, as a class, foods developed by the new techniques present any different or greater safety concern than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.”

Other governments have come to a different conclusion. In 1998 the European Union required labels for bioengineered food, and many other countries around the world have since made similar requirements. As a result, many U.S.-produced foods can’t be sold overseas, as there isn’t proper labeling to identify the product’s bioengineered ingredients.

After facing a dead-end in changing federal label requirements, U.S.-based GMO label advocates have since turned their efforts to enacting laws at the state level. While California may become the first state to require labels, it isn’t the first to try. Oregon attempted a similar initiative in 2002—Measure 27; but a coalition of biotech industries mounted a convincing ad campaign that prompted voters to doubt the value of the measure. Companies such as Monsanto, DuPont, General Mills, and PepsiCo joined forces against Measure 27 in the Coalition Against Costly Labeling Laws. Their $5.5 million campaign hit voters where it always hurts: their wallets.

“What would Measure 27 do?” the Coalition asked Oregon voters. “Measure 27 is a badly written and costly labeling law that would: create a complex, misleading labeling scheme for food products; dump more red tape and regulations on family farmers, grocers, and restaurants; create a new state bureaucracy that would cost taxpayers hundreds millions of dollars; and force Oregon residents to pay millions more in higher food and beverage prices.”

With several billion dollars invested in GMO products, this same coalition is likely to pour money into swaying California voters as well. The industry assures consumers that their gene-altered products are not only safe to eat, but also save money by increasing crop yields, and benefit the environment by reducing the use of pesticides. But unlike other technological innovations, the biotech food industry is not interested in identifying its creations from their natural counterparts. For all their proposed benefits, public stigma against GMOs has convinced industry leaders that identifying their technologically-enhanced food on store shelves would be bad for business.

“What’s the issue? If they are so great, why not advertise them?” asks labelgmos.org. “Why does the industry that profits from them fight labeling so vehemently and put so many of their resources into keeping their presence in our foods a secret? Why are corporate rights continually given precedence over consumer rights?”