Center for Food Safety Legal Petition Spearheads Coalition of Consumers, Public Interest Organizations and Food Companies in Demanding FDA Require Labeling
55 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS JOIN IN SUPPORT OF CENTER’S LEGAL PETITION
Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS or the Center) applauded the submission of a record-breaking one million public comments to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calling on the agency to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods. CFS filed the legal petition 180 days ago in October, 2011. More than 450 organizations, businesses and associations came together to support the CFS legal action in the Just Label It Campaign. Several Just Label It participants also joined the Center’s petition, and together, the groups collected and submitted over one million public comments to FDA demanding the agency label genetically engineered food.
At issue is the fundamental right consumers have to make informed choices about the food they eat. FDA currently requires over 3,000 other ingredients, additives, and processes to be labeled, but not transgenic ingredients. “The public has spoken, loud and clear: FDA should require the labeling of genetically engineered foods,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “Providing basic information doesn’t confuse people, it empowers them to make informed choices. Absent labeling, Americans are left in the dark, unable to choose for themselves whether to purchase GE foods.”
In the U.S. there is overwhelming public demand—consistently near 95%—for the labeling of GE foods. The U.S. policy of not requiring GE labeling makes it a stark outlier among developed and developing nations. Nearly 50 countries have mandatory labeling policies for GE foods including South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, China, Australia, New Zealand, the entire European Union, and many others. In the last year, thirty-six bills dealing with the labeling of genetically engineered foods have been introduced in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.
Although there are very few engineered fruits and vegetables, transgenic varieties predominate in commodity crops: currently, the great majority of U.S. corn is genetically engineered, as is high percentages of soybeans, cotton, and sugar beets. Approximately 70 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain GE ingredients.
The FDA,[i] USDA,[ii] and EPA[iii] have never done any long-term human health nor environmental impact studies of GE foods or crops, despite the fact that FDA’s own scientists have concluded that these foods could pose serious risks[iv]. Laboratory and field evidence shows that GE crops can harm beneficial insects,[v] transfer GE genes to neighboring crops [vi] or wild relatives, and increase herbicide use, thereby generating intractable herbicide-resistant weeds [vii]. Many of the public comments focused on these health and environmental impacts.
CFS’s legal petition explains a myriad of scientific and legal grounds supporting the labeling of GE foods. The current lack of any labeling makes GE foods misleading, in violation of FDA’s duties. GE foods’ differences from conventional foods are underscored by the fact that they are patented for their novelty, yet they remain unlabeled. GE crops have also shown they carry with them significant novel environmental harms, such as transgenic contamination of non-GE and wild crops, and massive increases in pesticide use. Finally, the public’s underlying fundamental right to know what they eat and feed their families supports labeling.
In a 1992 policy statement, FDA allowed GE foods to be marketed without labeling on the basis that they were not “materially” different from other foods. In so doing the agency severely limited what it considered “material,” targeting only changes in food that could be recognized by taste, smell, or other senses. This outdated standard—applying 19th century oversight to 21st century food—has no statutory basis and was created by FDA despite a lack of scientific studies or data to support the assumption that GE foods are not materially different from conventional foods.
“Consumers are being misled about the foods they are purchasing,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “FDA’s two-decade old decision is bad policy based on outdated science and must be revoked. The American consumer deserves the same fundamental freedoms and choices of other nations’ citizens.”
Earlier this month CFS’s legal petition got some support from another important source—the U.S. Congress. On March 12, 2012, a bicameral letter signed by 55 Members of Congress was sent to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg calling on the agency to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods. The bipartisan letter was led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and was supported by more than 70 businesses and organizations including Stonyfield Farm, the National Cooperative Grocers Association, the National Organic Coalition, Beanitos, Inc., Consumers Union, Organic Valley, PCC Natural Markets, the Organic Farming Research Foundation, and a number of farming and fishing associations.
Comments to FDA are still being collected on the Center’s website at www.centerforfoodsafety.org
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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents 200,000 members across the nation. On the web at: www.centerforfoodsafety.org and www.truefoodnow.org
[i] Statement of James Maryanski, FDA Biotechnology Coordinator, Before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, October 7, 1999.
[ii] Sally McCammon, USDA, “Regulating Products of Biotechnology,” Economic Perspectives, US Department of State, Vol. 4, #4, October 1999.
[iii] “Genetic Genie: The Premature Commercial Release of Genetically Engineered Bacteria,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, September, 1995. From PEER, 2001 S Street, Washington DC 20009.
[iv] Discovery documents from the lawsuit Alliance for Bio-Integrity et al v Shalala, May 1998. Center for Food Safety, 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington DC, 202-547-9359.
[v] Rosi-Marshall, E.J. et al. (2007). Toxins in transgenic crop byproducts may affect headwater stream ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104(41).
[vi] Final Environmental Impact Statement on Roundup Ready Alfalfa, USDA APHIS, December 2010, Appendix V, V-64 to V-65
[vii] Weed Science Society of America (2010). Glycine-resistant weeds by species and country. Available online here.
[viii] Weed Science Society of America (2010). Glycine-resistant weeds by species and country. Lawrence: Author. Available online here.
