SHALL WE WORRY ABOUT GM LABELING?

LABELING OF TRANSGENICS.

 In the US there is a fierce war about the labeling legislation of GMs. At least one half of consumers want it; industry pours millions to avoid it. May be some people would ask why should be worry about what happens in the US. But this is a very shortsighted question: whatever happens in the US with transgenics will subsequently happen in the rest of the world.

US STATES WEIGHING LABELS ON GENETICALLY ALTERED FOODS (from an article by David Klepper, Associated Press, in http://www.twincities.com, Jan. 22, 2014, cited in Above the Fold, www.EnvironmentalHealthNews.org, Jan. 23, 2014)

In the absence of federal regulation, states from Rhode Island to Hawaii are considering laws to require labels on food items containing genetically modified ingredients.
Currently, only Connecticut and Maine have laws requiring labels for genetically modified foods. But those requirements won't kick in until other states adopt their own rules. Bills to do just that are expected in more than two dozen states.
Seventy percent of processed foods contain at least one ingredient made or derived from genetically modified crops, known as GMOs, according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. The industry-backed Grocery Manufacturers Association puts the number between 70 and 80 percent.
Voters in California and Washington rejected ballot proposals in the past two years that would have required GMO labeling. And in New Hampshire, state lawmakers on Wednesday defeated a GMO labeling bill. Among other arguments, opponents said any labeling requirements would likely face a legal challenge.
The issue may be decided in Washington, where both sides are pushing for a federal standard on how GMO foods are labeled. The Food and Drug Administration now allows producers to voluntarily label their items as genetically engineered or not.
Meanwhile, last month the Grocery Manufacturers Association wrote to the FDA asking whether foods "derived from biotechnology" could be allowed to be labeled "natural."

Some businesses aren't waiting for government action. Whole Foods announced last year that it plans to label GMO products in all its U.S. and Canadian stores within five years. And Golden Valley-based General Mills recently announced it would no longer use GMOs in its original Cheerios recipe.

Full article: http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_24972369/states-weighing-labels-genetically-altered-foods?source=rss

Comments by the Blog’s Editor:

There has been a strong controversy almost right from the creation of GMs, not only on labeling, but on the very nature of the products themselves. Whether they are safe for human consumption, their effect on the environment, the possible legal questioning of their characterization as food, business, economic and social matters, including some ethic and may be even religious considerations. Each of us can have our own position in the controversy, and I also have mine, but I don’t want to get into those details right now. The only point I want to make and strongly underline is that the consumer does have THE RIGHT TO KNOW what he or she eats, the same RIGHT TO KNOW the number of calories, proteins or carbohydrates, the amount of trans fats per serving, whether it is sweetened with sugar or with maple syrup, or artificial sweeteners, etc.etc.

The stubbornness of the industry opposing GM labeling responds to one clear reason: they know that most consumers - right or wrong - distrust GMs and would rather choose – right or wrong - GM free products. This is why they oppose GM labeling, not the childish reasons they pour fortunes in media to prevent. They know that even in the cases in which labeling proposals were defeated (always just barely defeated), most of the people that voted against would choose a GM free product if given the alternative. And the alternative is GM labeled products.

The biotech industry is desperate. They are hell scared by GM labeling. And they are trying to confuse the matter proposing loopholes and escape options to divert consumers’ and authorities’ attention. And they try to scramble in terms such as “natural” in their proposals to the FDA regarding product labeling. If the GM product is “natural”, then it is equal to the one found in Nature and then, why should it be labeled as GM? But an artificial genetic modification is worlds away from “natural”. We expect FDA be sharp enough to avoid this trap.

This “natural” thing is an insidious proposal. But no less insidious than their spending millions in media trying to confuse inadvertent consumers.

And I want to underscore it again: this has nothing to do with transgenics being good or bad. This is something quite different: it is a matter of preserving the right of consumers to know what they eat.

Jorge Casale, Editor.