Lawmakers Reintroduce Bill to Label Genetically Engineered Food

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) reintroduced legislation Thursday to label genetically engineered (GE) food.  The Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act would require the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to label GE food and foods containing GE ingredients.  “Consumers have a right to know what is in the foods they eat and parents have a right to know what they are feeding their families,” Boxer said.  “We cannot continue to keep Americans in the dark about the food they eat,” DeFazio said. “More than sixty other countries make it easy for consumers to choose. Why should the U.S. be any different?”  In 1992, FDA stated that it had no basis for concluding that bioengineered foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way, or that, as a class, foods developed by the new techniques present any different or greater safety concern than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.  FDA currently supports voluntary labeling in which food manufacturers indicate whether their products have or have not been developed through genetic engineering, “provided such labeling is truthful and not misleading.”  “The public wants more information about the food they are buying and how it’s grown,” said chef Tom Colicchio, who joined the lawmakers and advocates from Just Label It, Food Policy Action, Environmental Working Group and Center for Food Safety at a press conference announcing the bill. “I applaud Sens. Boxer and Blumenthal and Rep. DeFazio for their leadership and urge their colleagues to join them in standing up for the 93 percent of Americans who want to know whether their food has been genetically modified.”  To date, the Just Label It campaign has collected 1.4 million signatures on its petition to FDA seeking mandatory labeling of GE foods.