Full list: GMO News

by Andrew Stein
May 7, 2013
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Associated Press
5/7/13
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MONTPELIER — The Vermont House Judiciary Committee has approved a bill requiring labeling of food products containing genetically modified organisms.

If it passes the House, as expected, the Senate will likely take it up in January.

Critics are warning that if Vermont enacts such a law, it will attract a lawsuit from the food or biotech industries.

Rep. William Lippert, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told his colleagues on Tuesday that the public interest in labeling is worth that risk.

By Ronnie Cummins, Katherine Paul, Times Argus
29 April 13
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Monsanto’s lobbyists are out in force in Vermont, lobbying politicians in the hope of scuttling H.122, Vermont’s labeling law, which would require mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

They’re repeating ad nauseum their propaganda claims that GE foods and crops are perfectly safe and therefore need no labeling, that transgenics are environment- and climate-friendly, and that genetically modified crops are necessary to feed the world.

But as consumers become wiser, Monsanto has had to resort to attacking democracy instead of merely trying to defend its indefensible products.

One of Monsanto’s major propaganda points, designed to discourage state officials from passing GMO labeling laws, is that state GMO labeling is unconstitutional. Last year, the company threatened to sue the state of Vermont if lawmakers passed a GMO labeling law.

Biotech industry lawyers claim federal courts will strike down mandatory state GMO labeling for three reasons:

1. Because federal law, in this case FDA regulations, pre-empts state law.
2. Because commercial free speech allows corporations to remain silent on whether or not their products are genetically engineered.
3. Because GMO labeling would interfere with interstate commerce.

These claims simply don’t hold up. State GMO labeling, and other food safety and food labeling laws, are constitutional. Federal law, upheld for decades by federal court legal decisions, allows states to pass laws relating to food safety or food labels when the FDA has no prior regulations or prohibitions in place.

There is currently no federal law or FDA regulation on GMO labeling, except for a guidance statement on voluntary labeling, nor is there any federal prohibition on state GMO or other food safety labeling laws.

In fact, there are more than 200 state food labeling laws in effect right now in the U.S., including a GMO fish labeling law in Alaska, laws on labeling wild rice, maple syrup, dairy quality, kosher products, and laws on labeling dairy products as rBGH-free.

U.S. case law does indicate that commercial free speech in certain instances allows corporations to remain silent about what’s in their products. However, federal courts have consistently ruled that when there are compelling state interests – health, environment, economic – states can require corporations to divulge what’s in their products or how they were produced.

When it comes to GMOs, states can clearly make the case for compelling state interests, according to Consumer Union’s senior scientist, Michael Hansen. He says: “There is a compelling state interest in labeling of genetically engineered foods and that is due to the potential human health and environmental impacts of genetically engineered foods.”

Hansen also argues that Codex Alimentarius, a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations relating to foods, food production and food safety, guarantees nations the right to implement mandatory labeling of GMO foods. The standards support the argument that GMO labels do not constitute a restriction of free trade, as long as they are applied to both domestic and international producers.

Similarly state GMO labels, as long as they do not discriminate against particular producers, but rather apply to all producers – state, national, and international – do not constitute a restriction of interstate commerce.

The U.S. government, under massive global pressure, has signed on to the Codex Alimentarius, which serves “as a risk management measure to deal with the scientific uncertainty” associated with genetically engineered foods. And according to Hansen, there most certainly is significant scientific uncertainty about the potential health impacts of genetically engineered foods.

States and localities have the right and the power to pass their own legislation, especially when the federal government fails or refuses to act on matters of compelling interest. Although large corporations now control the federal government, we still have room to organize and govern ourselves, especially at the local level.

Vermonters are engaged in a fundamental battle, for the right to know what’s in our food, the right to choose what we buy and eat, and the right to regulate out-of-control corporations that are threatening our environment, our health and future climate stability.

Without bio-democracy there can be no democracy. Without a balance of powers between the federal government, states and local home rule, there is no republic, but rather a corporatocracy, an unholy alliance between indentured politicians and profit-at-any-cost corporations.

The battle for food sovereignty, beginning here in Vermont, is a battle we cannot afford to lose.

By Dave Gram
5/3/13
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MONTPELIER — With time ticking down in this year’s Vermont Legislative session, it’s becoming clear that lawmakers won’t pass a bill requiring labels on genetically modified food before wrapping up their work for 2013.

The House Judiciary Committee isn’t expected to finish its work on the measure and send it to the full House for debate until next week. On Friday afternoon, committee members were digging into the legal weeds, examining opinions from the Hawaii attorney general, an industry group and legislative lawyers in Oregon on how well such a measure might hold up in court.

With just a week or two left on the legislative calendar, supporters of the GMO labeling bill said their best hope was to get a positive vote in the House before adjournment and to ask the Senate to tackle the issue when lawmakers return for the second year of their two-year biennium in January.

Sen. David Zuckerman of Burlington, vice chairman of his chamber’s Agriculture Committee, said Friday that there was no chance his panel would be able to review the GMO labeling bill and bring it to the full Senate for debate before the end of the 2013 session.

Lawmakers are tentatively scheduled to finish up their work by next Friday. There was widespread speculation that the session may extend into the following week if negotiations over several open bills drag on.

Andrea Stander, executive director of the farm advocacy group Rural Vermont, said by January, “the landscape may have changed significantly,” with action on the issue in other states. Among those are Connecticut, where legislation is pending, and Washington state, which is set to vote on a referendum in November calling for labeling of food containing genetically modified components.

The Vermont bill would do that for most foods, but would exempt animal products, including meat and dairy products. That’s despite the fact most Vermont dairy cows are fed corn from genetically modified seed, according to members of the House Agriculture Committee.

Executives from Monsanto Co., DuPont, and Dow Chemical, among the world’s largest developers of biotech crops and the chemicals used to help produce them, told Reuters this week they are putting together a campaign aimed at turning the tide on what they acknowledge is a growing public sentiment against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) used as ingredients in the nation’s food supply.

Last year, the industry spent $40 million to defeat a labeling measure in California. But similar initiatives are underway now in more than 20 states, and the move by the big biotech firms is designed to thwart the spread of such initiatives, which the companies say would confuse consumers and roil the food manufacturing industry.

The big biotech firms are still working out details of their plan, but it will likely have a large social media component, the company executives said. The group will focus on conveying what it says are the many benefits of biotech crops. Participants have not yet set a budget for the campaign, Enright said.

The most popular gene-altered crops withstand dousings of weed-killing chemicals and produce their own insect-killing toxins. Biotech corn, canola, soybeans, and other crops are used in human food and animal feed around the world and biotech companies say they are heavily regulated and thoroughly tested.

Proponents of labeling for GMO foods said momentum is on their side. Various groups have held rallies over the last several weeks in Washington, D.C., and at several state capitols to press the issue.

“They should be worried,” said Scott Faber, executive director of the Just Label It campaign, which has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to require labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients.

In fact, supporters of a Washington state measure similar to the failed California initiative said Tuesday they had raised more than $1 million from supporters.

In introducing a U.S. labeling bill Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio said consumers have a right to know what type of ingredients are in their food.

“Consumers deserve to have clear, consistent, and accurate facts about the food products they purchase,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in a statement. Blumenthal was one of 31 lawmakers who co-sponsored the bill.

Law makers and anti-GMO activists are responding to growing public concern about possible health risks associated with GMO foods. While there is no scientific consensus that foods made with GMO ingredients are harmful, activists argue that people have a right to know what they are eating.

Last month, grocery retailer Whole Foods said that it would require suppliers to label any product made with genetically modified ingredients. And the Natural Products Association, which represents 1,900 food industry players, has called for a uniform standard for GMO labeling to apply nationwide.

“This is a rapidly growing movement,” said Dave Murphy, a spokesman for Food Democracy Now, a group pushing for GMO labeling. “We’re not giving up until we have labeling. We’re just not going away.”

Monsanto and other biotech crop companies say mandatory labeling would confuse consumers and could deter them from purchasing foods made with genetically modified ingredients.

By Morgan Korn, the Daily Ticker
Mon, Apr 29, 2013
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Few Americans were aware of the dangers of industrial farming and processed food before Michael Pollan published his best-selling books “In Defense of Food” and the “Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

In his new book “Cooked,” Pollan urges more Americans to home-cook their meals. Cooking, he says, will lower obesity rates and re-connect individuals with “the material world.”

Eating the right foods are as important as eating foods that are not genetically modified, Pollan argues in the accompanying clip. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are “plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology, or genetic engineering,” according to The Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit organization that tests food products for GMOs.

“This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding,” it says.

Soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, zucchini, summer squash and sugar beets are high-risk of being GMO. Dairy and animal products also expose consumers to GMO crops because animals are fed a diet rich in corn and grains. About 70% to 80% of processed foods sold in the U.S. are made with genetically engineered ingredients.

Sixty-four countries around the world, including Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Russia and European Union member states, have significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs.

Last November California voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have required all food to be labeled as GMO or non-GMO. Opponents of the measure, including Monsanto (MON), Dupont (DD), Dow Chemical (DOW) and PepsiCo (PEP), raised more than $45 million to defeat the proposed labeling law.

Supporters of labeling say that GMO foods damage the environment and present serious health risks like organ failure. Genetically modified seeds have also become resistant to pests and invasive weeds. Last week Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced a bill that would require the labeling of GMO ingredients.

The Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act would force food manufacturers to label fruits, vegetables, processed foods and seafood as genetically altered. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed genetically altered foods to be sold without labeling since 1992 and does not require safety studies of such foods.

Washington state has introduced a ballot initiative titled I-522 that seeks labeling and transparency of these foods. Whole Foods (WFM) announced in April that it would label all products containing GMOs in its U.S. and Canadian stores by 2018.

Pollan says there has been a lot of support in Washington by local farmers and residents to pass the state’s GMO bill. Telling people where their food comes from should be a “fundamental right,” he argues.

“Many people are absolutely fine with genetically modified food,” he says. “This is not an argument that it’s dangerous. But the way food is produced is relevant to the consumer. There are people who care. Personal responsibility should rule. But personal responsibility depends on information.”

Consumers across the country are becoming more aware of the GMO labeling issue. The fastest-growing category in the super market today is products labeled GMO-free, Pollan notes. The organic food industry grew at 7.7% in 2010 and the organic industry is creating jobs at four times the national rate, according to the I-522 Web site.

Agribusiness giant Monsanto has been one of the most vocal opponents of GMO labeling. The company generates revenue from seed sales and the licensing of its genetic seed technology to other corporations. Monsanto has been spending millions of dollars fighting these labeling proposals because they could dramatically impact the company’s earnings and stock price.

by Andrew Stein
April 16, 2013
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More than 6,800 Vermonters and 175 businesses have signed a petition calling on the state Legislature to pass legislation that would require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods sold in Vermont.

House Bill 112, which has the support of the Agriculture and Forest Products Committee, would do just that, with some exceptions. And the House Judiciary Committee is slated to take up the bill this Thursday.

The groups that organized the petition  — Vermont Public Interest Research Group, NOFA Vermont and Rural Vermont — gathered with representatives from various Vermont grocery cooperatives on Tuesday at Montpelier’s Hunger Mountain Coop.

All 17 of the state’s member-owned cooperatives support the House bill, and the co-op staff made a public plea to legislators to pass the legislation.

Krissy Ruddy of Hunger Mountain Coop said Vermont co-ops in 2011 generated more than $88 million in revenues and served more than 30,000 members. But this bill, she said, extends far beyond the scope of the state’s local cooperatives.

“This isn’t a natural foods issue. This isn’t a co-op issue,”she said. “This is really a human issue because we all eat, and we all deserve to know what it is that we’re eating.”

Ruddy and other co-op representatives present at Tuesday’s press conference said that their customers are consistently asking for information about GE foods.

Annie Gaillard, who manages Hardwick’s Buffalo Mountain Coop, said her customers want to know what foods are genetically modified, but providing them with an answer takes her down rabbit holes that rarely have an end.

“They can know if there is gluten in their products. They can know if there’s too much salt in products,” she said. “People go in (the store) because they’re trying to make healthy foods choices, and this is a choice they’re not being given.”

Allison Weinhagen of Burlington’s City Market said that a survey of 1,400 customers found that more than 95 percent of the store’s clientele support a GE labeling law.

“They want to know what’s in their food, as they should,” she said. “They have every right to know what they’re eating, what they’re putting in their bodies, and what they’re putting in their kids bodies … so they can decide what’s best for them and their families.”

This is a problem for Gov. Peter Shumlin and some legislators who say they support GE labeling. These lawmakers don’t want the state to get tied up in a costly lawsuit that they might not win.

For more on the ins and outs of this bill, including the loopholes and the legal protections, read this story.

Apr 19, 2013 
By Kyle Midura
Full Article and Video