Day 11: Learning to understand GMOs and the importance of labeling

We spent today at Vermont Law School (VLS) learning about genetically engineered (GE) foods from Carrie Scrufari, an LLM Fellow with VLS' Center for Agriculture and Food Systems. Just to clarify, genetically modified organism (GMO) and GE are often used interchangeably, but they are technically different. GMOs have been around for decades through plant cross-breeding, while GE is the issue people are concerned with now, which includes practices such as splicing genes, crossing genes within different types of organisms (think flounder genes in a tomato to prevent it from freezing in the winter), or inserting pesticides in seeds through bacteria, among others. (Here's a more detailed explanation if you want it). I'm going to refer to this issue in terms of GE foods (because that's what the issue is), even though we usually hear about GMO labeling or non-GMO. 

http://visual.ly/gmo-genetically-modified-organism

Between Carrie's presentation today and various conversations we've had about GE over the course of this trip, I still don't know how I feel about them. There are definitely pros and cons, but the main issue is a gross lack of transparency and extremely biased "scientific" facts in both directions. Some purposes of GE foods include: enhanced nutritional quality of seeds/crops, drought resistance, increased growth rate, enhanced ripening, altered freezing properties, and prevented spoilage. Arguments for GE claim that the US government's regulatory system evaluates safety sufficiently, that pesticide use has gone down since more GE products have entered the market (because the pesticides are inserted in the seed, less needs to be sprayed), and that GE foods are equivalent to their non-GE versions, so there's no reason to label them and provide unnecessary misleading information to consumers.

Rather than arguing that GE foods are bad and should be banned, I want to talk about the importance of labeling. In a country that values freedom of choice and freedom of knowledge, why are consumers being denied the opportunity to know what's in their food? Europe, unlike the US, follows the precautionary principle, which states that if evidence points toward potential of harm to public health and/or the environment, we should pursue options that avoid harm, even if the harm isn't yet fully understood or proven. In this case, we don't have the scientific evidence to make concrete, unbiased conclusions about GE foods' safety, so the least we can do is let consumers decide for themselves. There are huge conflicts of interest among the three regulatory agencies and major biotechnology and agricultural companies, such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Syngenta (which collectively control 53% of global proprietary seed sales), which has also prevented the passage of GE labeling laws all over the country. Currently, 32 states have introduced GE labeling bills, but only Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut have passed laws. With so much corporate control over lawmaking, passing GE labeling laws has proved a real challenge, but I truly don't believe labels will increase costs, impede international trade, confuse consumers any more than they already are, or even deter the majority of Americans to stop buying from the Big Food and Big Ag companies that already control their respective industries. You can read more about the nationwide Right to Know GMO coalition and campaign for mandatory GE food labeling at their website: http://www.righttoknow-gmo.org/. 

A significant part of Carrie's presentation also dealt with major gaps in the US government's regulation of GE foods. There are three federal agencies that have regulatory power over GE foods: the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) decides if a GE plant is safe to grow or poses a plant pest risk to the environment or interstate commerce; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decides if GE food, feed, and additives are safe to eat; and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decides if GE seeds (and pesticides) are safe for the environment. 

This is an incredibly loaded issue. I feel like it's almost impossible to get educated about it in an unbiased way, but I am definitely accumulating knowledge. One concept that is clear, however, is the significance of GE foods on so many parts of the food system - the environment, the global food supply, the economics of food and agriculture, soil and plant biodiversity, human health, animal health (through their feed but also in animal testing), government agency regulation, state and federal labeling bills/laws, the organic industry and pollen drift, and corporate America, among so many other moving parts. Kristi Marsh said it best in this article (that you should definitely read, by the way), "In the end, I feel no one knows the full answer."