US (OR): GMO labeling bill heads to House floor

The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, which would create a national framework for the voluntary labeling of genetically modified foods, often called GMOs, recently passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, H.R. 1599, was voted 275 in favor to 150 opposed.

Results from a University of Vermont study showed no evidence that attitudes toward bioengineered ingredients/genetically modified organisms (G.M.O.s) are strengthened, either positively or negatively, due to a desire for labels indicating a food product contains bioengineered ingredients/G.M.O.s. The study was presented July 27 at the annual conference of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association in San Francisco. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have all said that GMOs are fine for consumption.

“The bill will help to bring greater clarity to food labeling for American consumers by removing the current patchwork system of wide-ranging and diverse state labels on foods”, IFB President Richard Guebert said in the news release.

H.R. 1599 now goes to the Senate, which is working on their own version.

As Common Dreams reported last Thursday, HR1599 “was backed by the food industry, including the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Monsanto Company, which have poured money into defeating GMO labeling initiatives”. Opponents of the bill, including environmental and food activists and liberal Democrats, argue that it would deny people the right to know what is in their food. If it passes and is signed into law, the federal GMO bill would nullify Vermont’s GMO labeling law.

Many of those who support the labels say they have no problem buying food containing GMOs, but they think there should be more accountability in the food industry.

The good news is that so far, there is no companion bill in the Senate. The law came into existence in part because of consumer pressure but also because a few beef and pork producers, particularly in the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota, and Wyoming, believed that slaughterhouses took advantage of the availability of Canadian and Mexican cattle and pigs whenever U.S. animal prices got high. It’s important for Americans to know that having “natural” on any U.S. food label doesn’t guarantee anything about how the food was grown.

The study’s analysis predicted how different demographic groups will react to labeling, Dr. Kolodinsky said.

Really – we label everything from pillows with warning labels – “this tag not to be removed” to our trousers. Oregon’s House members are divided on the bill.

It’s unclear whether President Barack Obama would sign the legislation.