A question for our Legislature, whose leaders reportedly are looking to get more done this year than last: to enact or not to enact the GMO labeling bill?
It would be hard to find a bill with more legislative support: 155 of our 200 lawmakers are sponsors. Think of all those happy press releases. Plus the support is bipartisan — in fact, a supermajority of the state GOP delegation is on board. The long sponsor list reflects the fact that 93 percent of Americans agree that genetically modified food ought to be labeled as such.
Opponents of labeling, including agribusiness giants like Monsanto, say over and over again that there’s no difference between genetically modified food and conventional food and imply that anybody who wants GMO labeling is a Luddite cousin of the anti-vaccination folks, the climate change deniers and the creationists. And it’s true that those who favor GMO labelling lack hard evidence that GMO’s present a unique health risk. Slate columnist and labeling opponent William Saletan has called GMO labeling an ill-advised fixation that “only pretends to inform you” with useful knowledge.
In last year’s encyclical on our responsibility to take care of God’s creation, Pope Francis offered a broader perspective that included a distinction between GMO science and GMO business. “Although no conclusive proof exists that GM cereals may be harmful to human beings, and in some regions their use has…helped to resolve problems, there remain a number of significant difficulties which should not be underestimated.” The science of GMO’s may be benign, Francis wrote, but the business of GMO’s as presently conducted destroys ecosystems, reduces plant diversity, and concentrates productive land in the hands of a few wealthy oligopolies.
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine made a similar point: whether or not GMO’s by themselves present health risks, they are the corollary in our agricultural system of a very copious use of herbicides. Monsanto sells “Roundup Ready” seeds that have been genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides. Monsanto also sells “Roundup,” its brand of the herbicide glyphosate that can be applied as liberally as needed because the seeds are have been genetically engineered to withstand it. Weeds offer no competition and crop yields go up.
Because we now have crops that have been genetically modified to resist glyphosate, we now dump 250 times as much of it on our amber waves of grain as we did 20 years ago. Maybe the crops won’t hurt you but what about the herbicides? And despite Monsanto’s insistence that glyphosate is safe, the International Agency for Research on Cancer determined last year that it is a “probable human carcinogen.” Also, not at all surprisingly, resourceful weeds that are resistant to glyphosate are emerging that will require agribusiness to up its herbicide ante.
Another argument that agribusiness often makes against GMO labeling is that any regulation of this agricultural practice should happen at the federal level, so that there can be one uniform standard, and we can reduce costs to industry and eliminate confusion for consumers. Well, a loud amen on that one. Let’s ask the folks who have been calling for the reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban what they think our odds are. The only work that Congress has put into GMO regulation has been to try, at the behest of agribusiness, to keep states from regulating it themselves.
Which brings us to Vermont, where a 2014 law requiring the labeling of genetically modified food will take effect this July, unless Congress intervenes or unless the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rules otherwise. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, having been unsuccessful so far in its effort to persuade Congress to outlaw regulation by the states, has sued Vermont, contending that the labeling law burdens their First Amendment right to free speech. The Grocery Manufacturers lost in District Court and a panel of the Second Circuit has heard their appeal. Eight states, including Massachusetts, filed an amicus brief in support of Vermont’s GMO law. Two of those eight states, Connecticut and Maine, have passed GMO labeling laws, but those laws will take effect only when several other contiguous states do the same.
So here we are in Massachusetts. GMO labeling may not be a perfect proxy for what we ought to do to protect our food supply, but even GMO labeling opponents agree that the runaway use of herbicides is one big problem we would have less of without the existence of GMO seeds. We’re next door to Connecticut and almost next door to Maine, and they’re watching. If we pass the GMO labeling bill, we’re joining with our New England neighbors. If we don’t, we’re making Monsanto happy.
If I’m going to believe the experts that climate change is dangerous, I’m also going to believe the experts when they tell me that GMO is not dangerous.
Labeling something makes it appear important and dangerous — and the experts agree GMOs are not dangerous. Such, Monsanto and the lot are evil — but let’s not use medieval fear-mongering, and instead making better decisions based on the actual facts as we understand them.
If the problem is herbicides, lets deal with herbicides. But you realize that GMOs allow us to use less herbicides, right? While we’re at it, let’s vastly lower the amount of antibiotics used in factory farming. But let’s not blindly call out something that isn’t actually the problem that we fear just because it’s new and different. It’s 2016. We, as a society, should be better than that now.
I went back and forth with a few folks here about this last time it was discussed in a post, and basically nobody could counter the science that shows GMO is entirely safe and may even be a net positive for the environment with anything credible. Nor could anyone link to credible peer reviewed arguments about GMO posing a danger to people’s health. Chipotle’s vaunted no GMO policy clearly hasn’t made the chain, now under a DOJ investigation, any healthier
Many of the supporters of labeling here agreed that there are no adverse health effects from eating GM and it’s just a sourcing label, like Made in the USA, and I can be brought on board with that purpose. What I don’t want is to spread fear and misinformation to the public.
This particular bill has two troubling sections that I would want amended in order to give it my support.
The first finding is in the area of public health:
Well so far science hasn’t identified anything of concern regarding the public health effects regarding this consumption, so we aren’t promoting public health with this labeling at all. Nor are dealing with risk management since there are no unintended environmental effects either. None.
So this language empowers the government to investigate dangers that don’t exist. This is regulation in search of a problem, the very definition of dumb government. It would arguably impose restraints on our life science community and biotech industry which we usually celebrate around here for it’s cutting edge innovations, including GM products like Golden Rice which has helped eliminate Vitamin A deficiency. And I don’t think I need to remind the BMG community that many modern vaccines are derived from genetically engineered components. There is no public health basis for slapping this label on products, and it is scientifically misleading to imply there is.
Injured citizens? Really. Well we created a market for more frivolous lawsuits. Awesome.
Additionally, I see nothing here about the ethical issues regarding the production methods Monsanto uses, it’s abuse of patent law and USAID programs, or other sourcing issues regarding GMO products that it’s advocates claim the labels are supposed to address. I do see claims about an implied public health threat, the need to impose regulations on one industry while explicitly protecting another, and the need to have a legal redress for possible ‘injured citizens’ of GMO products in the future. None of which is backed up remotely by a single scientific citation in the law.
I do give credit to the bill drafters for using scientifically and medically accurate definitions of genetically engineered, and again, the proposed label itself simply will say ‘genetically engineered’ which is a statement of fact. But those problematic elements of the law should be amended, and it would be great if the law also included a scientifically vetted public education campaign so people would know why this label is being added (hint: it’s not public health) and reassurance that the products are entirely safe for public consumption and the environment. Which they are according to a near universal consensus of scientists just like climate change, vaccines, and evolution.
… it was pointed out to you last time, also, that it was about peoples right to know how their food was… eh… conceived and not particularly about “safety”. I certainly eat both bacon and steak in unsafe amounts… but I wouldn’t eat bacon labelled as steak nor would I eat steak labelled as bacon.
Your argument boils down to the notion that since it is ‘safe’ to eat (whatever that means… bacon is also ‘safe’ to eat…) then labelling is superfluous. But I cook in a kitchen with four different kinds of salt, three kinds of cinnamon, a wide variety of peppercorns and allspice, many many herbs, various cultivars of garlic, onions, shallots, at least two different kinds of olive oil, three iterations of sesame oil, peanut oil, and a profusion of vinegars and wines, etc… And when I shop for ingredients for a meal (and I prefer to shop per meal) I take my time and pick things that are likely to both taste good and go together. GMO foods are not modified for taste. They are modified for disease resistance and shelf life…and I want to know that when I’m shopping. I’m not necessarily adverse to purchasing them, but a hardier, GMO, grain ‘built’ for shelf stability, for example, is likely to cook slightly differently and I want to know that so I can adjust. Risotto, for example, is an art form and varieties of ‘normal’ grains cook differently under different circumstances and this is true for GMO foods also.
So, it’s not true that labelling is superfluous.
The law begins with it’s first finding related to public health and goes on to even create a situation where an ‘injured party’ can sue a food manufacturer for improperly labeling the food, both aspects of the law implying it’s a potential health risk. There is a greater scientific consensus on the safety of GMO food than there is with climate change.
We are also cutting our state’s climatologist while simultaneously funding the regulatory regime needed for this labeling and any of the assorted enforcement provisions it will require. No where does the law state this is solely about a consumers right to know how their food is sourced for religious or social justice purposes like Hester is implying. It goes right into a public health finding that is superfluous and not substantiated by science.
That said, the actual label itself is not objectionable. It simply says ‘genetically engineered’ which is a factual statement, but I strongly feel the the public health language is misleading and has to be removed and that the new labeling has to be backed by an education campaign informing the public about what GMOs actually are and reminding them that they are safe to eat.
The Whole Foods (really Whole Paycheck) crowd already shops there because Whole Foods does label everything, to an nth degree, about where the food comes from and how it’s made. It doesn’t bother to advertise it won’t ever support unions or health insurance for it’s employees, but that’s another topic for another discussion.
It’s the Market Basket or MacKinnon’s shopper wondering where this label suddenly came from that I worry about, or the Chipotle customer wondering why their well publicized non-GMO products still gave them e-coli. The FDA was literally the first legislative victory of our movement, it barely has the resources to investigate actual public health concerns like Chipotle’s supply chain or the safety of Big Pharma. We shouldn’t stretch the limited budgets of our local agencies on snipe hunts authored by pseudo science and the libertarian corporations like Whole Foods profiting off it.
How does a non-legislator, no-resident of Massachusetts get to make amendments? I am unfamiliar with that part of the Constitution and the Joint Rules of the legislature.
In principle I go with the more info the better with regard to what I put in my body and I categorically reject the idea that labelling for something automatically means its dangerous. We have a right to know and a right to choose IMO.
Just as we deserve the right to have country of origin labeling (COOL) for our products. There is no certainty that pork and chicken raised in the US and processed in the US is safer than those products raised in the US, shipped to China and returned here, but I want the label.
I also know that fish caught in the wild in certain countries is generally done with more environmental concern than say, shrimp farm raised in Thailand, so I want more information.
Seriously — how else can I, as a consumer, avoid food produced under the Monsanto umbrella?