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The U.S. has a new federal law that will, for the first time, require labeling of genetically modified ingredients in food. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law Friday, and the secretary of agriculture has two years to finalize the labeling standard.

The new law, which was largely supported by the food industry, puts the U.S. in line with 64 other countries that also require manufacturers to label genetically modified foods. Two-thirds of Americans also support labeling GMOs. But while labels for genetically modified foods might seem sensible - or at the very least, harmless - the issue obscures some very important facts about the GMO debate.

Most notably, the law doesn't align with scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs ― or the reality that the U.S. food system is largely made up of genetically modified foods. Here's what the science really says about genetically engineered foods.

The scientific community agrees: GMOs are safe

When it comes to scientific consensus on GMO foods, it's not even close.

A recent analysis of over 1,000 studies, conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and released in May, concludes that there's no safety reason to justify labeling GMOs except perhaps a consumer's right to know. They also found that GMOs are generally safe and don't seem to harm the environment, reports The New York Times.

In January 2015, a Pew poll surveyed both the general public and scientists from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and found that 88 percent of scientists thought GMOs were "generally safe." To put that in perspective, only 87 percent of scientists in the poll agreed that human activity is causing climate change.

Why do most scientists think this way? Because time and again, scientific research on the safety of genetically modified foods has proven them safe to eat. The American Medical Association stated back in 2012 that there is "no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods" and that "voluntary labeling is without value unless it is accompanied by focused consumer education." The aforementioned AAAS has also announced in 2012 their support for GMO foods, warning that labels could " mislead and falsely alarm consumers." The World Health Organization, another independent, non-corporate organization, also concludes that all the GMO products available on the market are safe for people to eat.

From a regulatory perspective, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies genetically engineered plants as safe, indicating that foods made from these plants are as nutritious as non-genetically engineered foods and are no more likely to cause an allergic reaction than non-genetically engineered counterparts.

But that message has not gotten to the public: In the same poll, 57 percent of the American public thought GMOs were "generally unsafe."

Human beings have been genetically modifying food for millennia

In their 2013 editorial against GMO labeling, the magazine Scientific American compares ancient agricultural methods like breeding to the genetic splicing that creates disease-resistant crops:

We have been tinkering with our food's DNA since the dawn of agriculture. By selectively breeding plants and animals with the most desirable traits, our predecessors transformed organisms' genomes, turning a scraggly grass into plump-kerneled corn, for example. For the past 20 years Americans have been eating plants in which scientists have used modern tools to insert a gene here or tweak a gene there, helping the crops tolerate drought and resist herbicides. Around 70 percent of processed foods in the U.S. contain genetically modified ingredients.

Genetically engineered foods hold a great deal of promise for poor communities

You've probably heard of "golden rice," a genetically modified food enriched with Vitamin A. It was created for poor communities in Southeast Asia and Africa, where the primary food staple is rice, but children are going blind for lack of essential nutrients like vitamin A.

In April, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded the creators of golden rice with the Patents for Humanity Award, which recognizes private sector researchers for their contribution to global health.

But as William Saletan of Slate notes in his year-long investigation on the safety of GMOs, golden rice still isn't commercially available, even though it was invented 16 years ago. Saletan attributes this delay to a ferocious anti-GMO movement spearheaded by Greenpeace. From Slate:

Two years ago anti-GMO activists destroyed a field trial of the rice in the Philippines. Last year they filed a petition to block all field tests and feeding studies. Greenpeace boasted, "After more than 10 years of research 'Golden' Rice is nowhere near its promise to address Vitamin A Deficiency." And a million more kids are dead.

Consumers already have a label for non-GMO foods

GMOs are in the majority of America's food supply. An estimated 95 percent of sugar beets, 94 percent of soybeans, 90 percent of cotton and 88 percent of feed corn are genetically engineered, reports USA Today.

But foods that label themselves "organic" have to comply with non-GMO rules, and so anyone who is concerned about avoiding them need only to steer himself toward the organic sections of the supermarket.

BEFORE YOU GO

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What The Science Really Says About GMOs And Food Safety

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The U.S. has a new federal law that will, for the first time, require labeling of genetically modified ingredients in food. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law Friday, and the secretary of agriculture has two years to finalize the labeling standard. The new law, which was largely supported by the food industry, puts the U.S.

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Labeling GMOs is right because it follows the principle that people have a right to know what they are putting into their bodies. People had this right and when the FDA said that all foods should have nutrition labels, it made it easier for people to exercise that right. Labeling genetically modified food gives the power to the people and lets them decide if they think it is safe for them to eat it. The big food companies have no right to keep information hidden from the public when they are the ones getting affected.

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Producing and selling GMOs is wrong because it will lead to health problems, environmental issues, and GMOs do not work to feed a hungry world. Scientists have found that genetically modified food is not good for the human body because new genes made in a lab are injected in our food; this can lead to serious long-term problems. GMOs can hurt species in our environment and they can contaminate the soil and water resources. People have argued that engineering food can help end world hunger but that is incorrect. In fact, GMOs take money and resources that can be used to develop better technology to help the problem.

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One of the benefits of genetically modified foods was supposed to be higher yields, more food and less hunger world-wide. Has that happened? GMO expert Jeffrey M. Smith discusses this part of the GMO equation and whether or not GMOs are in fact, helping feed the hungry around the world.

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Why New GMO Labels Might Not Tell The Whole Story

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Full Story: http://indianapublicmedia.org/news/gmo-labeling-bill-concerns-pro-labeling-consumers-102506/ New GMO regulations have proponents and opponents switching sides. What the rules say about what producers are required to list on your food labels.

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Beginner Ab Workout for Women & Men at Home

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How Will the Newly Passed GMO Labeling Bill Impact You? Claudia & Coach break down H.R.1599

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Unlock rewards and help keep HASfit free by donating now - https://www.patreon.com/hasfit Visit http://hasfit.com/coach-kozak-vlog/what-is-the-gmo-food-labeling-bill/ for the transcript Download the HASfit app: Android http://goo.gl/q1rpi0 -- iPhone http://goo.gl/6N3gfS Start a Free Fitness Program Calendar: Which program is right for me?

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Corn, potatoes, apples, soybeans... about 80 percent of the food in America's grocery stores is genetically modified, and a new report from a leading science organization finds it's generally safe for humans and the environment.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine concluded Tuesday that tinkering with the genetics of what we eat -- adding a gene from another species -- doesn't produce the "Frankenfood" monster some opponents claim it does. But it isn't feeding the world with substantially increased yields, as proponents predicted.

The 408-page report was two years in the making and included a review by 20 experts of more than 900 studies. It received more than 700 public comments, as well.

The authors conclude that there's "no substantiated evidence that foods from GE [genetically engineered] crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops," and that regulators need to make their safety focus more on the end-product of the food that's made rather than the nuts and bolts of how it's made.

The report also found that when farms switched from conventional crops to the engineered varieties, there was no substantial change in their yield. Production in general is increasing in agriculture, but U.S. Department of Agriculture data don't show that genetically engineered crops are increasing at a higher rate, despite experimental results suggest that they should, the report said.

Both supporters and detractors of genetically modified foods "claimed victory," said CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus.

"People who were against GMOs are very happy because it said GMO crops didn't increase yields, which was the whole premise of doing that. And obviously, the GMO companies said they're not harming health," Agus said on "CBS This Morning."

While the report said there's no evidence of environmental problems caused by genetically modified crops, pesticide resistance is a problem. Farms that use genetically modified crops in general are helped, but it may be a different story for smaller farmers and in poorer areas of the world.

Most of the modified plants are soybean, cotton, corn and canola, and in most cases, genetic tinkering has made them resistant to certain herbicides and insects.

"Farmers in general are gaining," with less pesticide use and a bit higher yield, academy committee chairman Fred Gould said at a Tuesday news conference.

The report waltzed a bit around the hot political issue of whether or not genetically modified food should be labeled. The study's authors said labels aren't needed for food safety reasons but potentially could be justified for the sake of transparency and social and cultural factors - along the lines of "Made in America" labels. That stance was praised by some environmental and consumer groups, but criticized by some scientists as unnecessary because the food poses no unique risks.

"Transparency is key," said Agus. "All of us have a right to eat whatever we want ... at the same time, if we're going to learn from it and say what food affects me, I need to know what's in it," he added.

The nuanced report also said it is important not to make sweeping statements on genetically engineered foods.

The National Academy, established by President Abraham Lincoln to provide scientific advice, has issued reports before saying it could find no safety problem with eating genetically modified food. But Gould, of North Carolina State University, said this report is different because his study team started by listening to critics of such foods and examined anew hundreds of studies.

"To some extent we know more about some genetically engineered food than we do about other food," committee member Dominique Brossard of the University of Wisconsin said. "There are limits to what can be known about any food. That's something we're not used to hearing as consumers."

Many scientists who work on the issue but weren't part of the study team lauded the report as sensible, but not surprising. Mark Sorrells, a fellow at Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, said the report is "very well balanced, accurate, and reiterates much of what has already been published many times."

"Science is science, facts are facts," said Bruce Chassy, an emeritus professor of biochemistry and food science at the University of Illinois, in an email. "There's just no sound basis for their opposition just as there was never any scientific basis to believe GM plants should be viewed any differently than any other."

One dissenter was Charles Benbrook, who used to be at Washington State University but is now a private consultant. He said he feels the risks of genetically engineered food are more serious than more mainstream scientists think they are, and that the human health assessments aren't ample enough.

Some groups critical of genetically engineered foods criticized the report before it came out. Food & Water Watch said the National Academy is taking funding from biotechnology firms and using "pro-GMO scientists" to write its reports.

The report was funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the New Venture Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the academy -- none of which have direct connections to the agricultural biotechnology industry. It was peer reviewed by outside experts and committee members are vetted for financial conflicts of interests, said academy spokesperson William Kearney.

As for the corporate side, Eric Sachs of Monsanto Scientific Affairs, said, "After 30 year of research and assessments, the science and safety behind GE crops has been well-established and strongly supported by the scientific community..."

Still, Agus said Monsanto's original premise that genetically modified crops would increase yield dramatically and reduce worldwide hunger has yet to be proven. "We haven't seen that data yet," Agus said.

Unlike many scientists, Marion Nestle of New York University, who was a reviewer but not a report author, said, "The report reveals how little is known about the effects of GE foods."

If the people behind the report want to end the polarization over these foods, Nestle said, "This won't do the trick."

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Major science group weighs in on safety of genetically modified foods

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Corn, potatoes, apples, soybeans... about 80 percent of the food in America's grocery stores is genetically modified, and a new report from a leading science organization finds it's generally safe for humans and the environment.

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Figures from the United States Department of Agriculture show herbicide use skyrocketing in soybeans, a leading G.M. crop, growing by two and a half times in the last two decades, at a time when planted acreage of the crop grew by less than a third. Use in corn was trending downward even before the introduction of G.M. crops, but then nearly doubled from 2002 to 2010, before leveling off. Weed resistance problems in such crops have pushed overall usage up.

To some, this outcome was predictable. The whole point of engineering bug-resistant plants "was to reduce insecticide use, and it did," said Joseph Kovach, a retired Ohio State University researcher who studied the environmental risks of pesticides. But the goal of herbicide-resistant seeds was to "sell more product," he said - more herbicide.

Farmers with crops overcome by weeds, or a particular pest or disease, can understandably be G.M. evangelists. "It's silly bordering on ridiculous to turn our backs on a technology that has so much to offer," said Duane Grant, the chairman of the Amalgamated Sugar Company, a cooperative of more than 750 sugar beet farmers in the Northwest.

He says crops resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's most popular weedkiller, saved his cooperative.

But weeds are becoming resistant to Roundup around the world - creating an opening for the industry to sell more seeds and more pesticides. The latest seeds have been engineered for resistance to two weedkillers, with resistance to as many as five planned. That will also make it easier for farmers battling resistant weeds to spray a widening array of poisons sold by the same companies.

Growing resistance to Roundup is also reviving old, and contentious, chemicals. One is 2,4-D, an ingredient in Agent Orange, the infamous Vietnam War defoliant. Its potential risks have long divided scientists and have alarmed advocacy groups.

Another is dicamba. In Louisiana, Monsanto is spending nearly $1 billion to begin production of the chemical there. And even though Monsanto's version is not yet approved for use, the company is already selling seeds that are resistant to it - leading to reports that some farmers are damaging neighbors' crops by illegally spraying older versions of the toxin.

High-Tech Kernels

Two farmers, 4,000 miles apart, recently showed a visitor their corn seeds. The farmers, Bo Stone and Arnaud Rousseau, are sixth-generation tillers of the land. Both use seeds made by DuPont, the giant chemical company that is merging with Dow Chemical.

To the naked eye, the seeds looked identical. Inside, the differences are profound.

In Rowland, N.C., near the South Carolina border, Mr. Stone's seeds brim with genetically modified traits. They contain Roundup Ready, a Monsanto-made trait resistant to Roundup, as well as a gene made by Bayer that makes crops impervious to a second herbicide. A trait called Herculex I was developed by Dow and Pioneer, now part of DuPont, and attacks the guts of insect larvae. So does YieldGard, made by Monsanto.

Another big difference: the price tag. Mr. Rousseau's seeds cost about $85 for a 50,000-seed bag. Mr. Stone spends roughly $153 for the same amount of biotech seeds.

For farmers, doing without genetically modified crops is not a simple choice. Genetic traits are not sold à la carte.

A GENETICALLY

MODIFIED CORN SEED

A NONGENETICALLY

MODIFIED CORN SEED

Seed brand

(serial no. P8613)

Seed brand

(serial no. P1916)

Coated with PPST 250 and DuPont Lumivia, an

insecticide and fungicide.

Also coated to protect the seed against soil-borne diseases and insects.

For about 50,000 seeds.

For about 50,000 seeds.

A gene resistant to Roundup, Monsanto's main glyphosate-based herbicide.

A genetically modified trait that is harmful to some insects.

A gene that makes crops impervious to another herbicide.

A genetic trait developed by Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer that breaks down the gut wall of insect larvae.

Mr. Stone, 45, has a master's degree in agriculture and listens to Prime Country radio in his Ford pickup. He has a test field where he tries out new seeds, looking for characteristics that he particularly values - like plants that stand well, without support.

"I'm choosing on yield capabilities and plant characteristics more than I am on G.M.O. traits" like bug and poison resistance, he said, underscoring a crucial point: Yield is still driven by breeding plants to bring out desirable traits, as it has been for thousands of years.

That said, Mr. Stone values genetic modifications to reduce his insecticide use (though he would welcome help with stink bugs, a troublesome pest for many farmers). And Roundup resistance in pigweed has emerged as a problem.

"No G.M. trait for us is a silver bullet," he said.

By contrast, at Mr. Rousseau's farm in Trocy-en-Multien, a village outside Paris, his corn has none of this engineering because the European Union bans most crops like these.

"The door is closed," says Mr. Rousseau, 42, who is vice president of one of France's many agricultural unions. His 840-acre farm was a site of World War I carnage in the Battle of the Marne.

As with Mr. Stone, Mr. Rousseau's yields have been increasing, though they go up and down depending on the year. Farm technology has also been transformative. "My grandfather had horses and cattle for cropping," Mr. Rousseau said. "I've got tractors with motors."

He wants access to the same technologies as his competitors across the Atlantic, and thinks G.M. crops could save time and money.

"Seen from Europe, when you speak with American farmers or Canadian farmers, we've got the feeling that it's easier," Mr. Rousseau said. "Maybe it's not right. I don't know, but it's our feeling."

Feeding the World

With the world's population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, Monsanto has long held out its products as a way "to help meet the food demands of these added billions," as it said in a 1995 statement. That remains an industry mantra.

"It's absolutely key that we keep innovating," said Kurt Boudonck, who manages Bayer's sprawling North Carolina greenhouses. "With the current production practices, we are not going to be able to feed that amount of people."

But a broad yield advantage has not emerged. The Times looked at regional data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, comparing main genetically modified crops in the United States and Canada with varieties grown in Western Europe, a grouping used by the agency that comprises seven nations, including the two largest agricultural producers, France and Germany.

For rapeseed, a variant of which is used to produce canola oil, The Times compared Western Europe with Canada, the largest producer, over three decades, including a period well before the introduction of genetically modified crops.

Despite rejecting genetically modified crops, Western Europe maintained a lead over Canada in yields. While that is partly because different varieties are grown in the two regions, the trend lines in the relative yields have not shifted in Canada's favor since the introduction of G.M. crops, the data shows.

For corn, The Times compared the United States with Western Europe. Over three decades, the trend lines between the two barely deviate. And sugar beets, a major source of sugar, have shown stronger yield growth recently in Western Europe than the United States, despite the dominance of genetically modified varieties over the last decade.

Jack Heinemann, a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, did a pioneering 2013 study comparing trans-Atlantic yield trends, using United Nations data. Western Europe, he said, "hasn't been penalized in any way for not making genetic engineering one of its biotechnology choices."

Biotech executives suggested making narrower comparisons. Dr. Fraley of Monsanto highlighted data comparing yield growth in Nebraska and France, while an official at Bayer suggested Ohio and France. These comparisons can be favorable to the industry, while comparing other individual American states can be unfavorable.

Michael Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said that while the industry had long said G.M.O.s would "save the world," they still "haven't found the mythical yield gene."

Few New Markets

Battered by falling crop prices and consumer resistance that has made it hard to win over new markets, the agrochemical industry has been swept by buyouts. Bayer recently announced a deal to acquire Monsanto. And the state-owned China National Chemical Corporation has received American regulatory approval to acquire Syngenta, though Syngenta later warned the takeover could be delayed by scrutiny from European authorities.

The deals are aimed at creating giants even more adept at selling both seeds and chemicals. Already, a new generation of seeds is coming to market or in development. And they have grand titles. There is the Bayer Balance GT Soybean Performance System. Monsanto's Genuity SmartStax RIB Complete corn. Dow's PhytoGen with Enlist and WideStrike 3 Insect Protection.

In industry jargon, they are "stacked" with many different genetically modified traits. And there are more to come. Monsanto has said that the corn seed of 2025 will have 14 traits and allow farmers to spray five different kinds of herbicide.

Newer genetically modified crops claim to do many things, such as protecting against crop diseases and making food more nutritious. Some may be effective, some not. To the industry, shifting crucial crops like corn, soybeans, cotton and rapeseed almost entirely to genetically modified varieties in many parts of the world fulfills a genuine need. To critics, it is a marketing opportunity.

"G.M.O. acceptance is exceptionally low in Europe," said Liam Condon, the head of Bayer's crop science division, in an interview the day the Monsanto deal was announced. He added: "But there are many geographies around the world where the need is much higher and where G.M.O. is accepted. We will go where the market and the customers demand our technology."

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Doubts About the Promised Bounty of Genetically Modified Crops

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Figures from the United States Department of Agriculture show herbicide use skyrocketing in soybeans, a leading G.M. crop, growing by two and a half times in the last two decades, at a time when planted acreage of the crop grew by less than a third.

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Genetically modified crops on the market are not only safe, but appear to be good for people and the environment, experts determined in a report released Tuesday.

But the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are not just asking people to take their word for it. They're putting the evidence up on a website so skeptics - and they know there are plenty of them - can check for themselves.

"You can't just continue to have an opinion without backing it up with data," said Fred Gould, distinguished professor of entomology and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University.

"Part of our approach here was to make this not just a report," added Gould, who chaired the expert committee that released the report. "This is all on a website. We hope that this report will open a conversation, not make some kind of a proclamation."

It's aimed not only at regulators, industry and other experts, but at the general public, as well.

"They really want somebody to say this is good or this is bad, we came to the conclusion that making any sweeping generalizations about genetically engineered crops is not appropriate," Gould told NBC News.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the huge debate over GMOs, only two types of genetically engineered crops are in wide use - one engineered to carry genes from a common bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt for short) that kills insects that eat it, and one that makes crops resistant to weedkillers.

But more than 90 percent of corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the U.S. is genetically modified.
Related: FDA Says No Need to Label GM Plants
"The committee delved into the relevant literature, heard from 80 diverse speakers, and read more than 700 comments from members of the public to broaden its understanding of issues surrounding GE crops," the report reads. Panel members read more than 900 reports.

"It was tiring but worthwhile, because it really brought to our attention a lot of studies we would not have looked at," said Dominique Brossard, chair of the department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin.

"Our process was really, really inclusive and attempted to address as much as possible the concerns that were raised by public comments."
Related: Congress Orders FDA to Label GM Food
A lot of concern centered on health effects. "The committee received a number of comments from people concerned that GE food consumption may lead to higher incidence of specific health problems including cancer, obesity, gastrointestinal tract illnesses, kidney disease, and such disorders as autism spectrum and allergies," the report reads.

"The committee also examined epidemiological data on incidence of cancers and other human-health problems over time and found no substantiated evidence that foods from GE crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops."

Their conclusions:

There is no evidence of large-scale health effects on people from genetically modified foods

There is some evidence that crops genetically engineered to resist bugs have benefited people by reducing cases of insecticide poisoning

Genetically engineered crops to benefit human health, such as those altered to produce more vitamin A, can reduce blindness and deaths die to vitamin A deficiency

Using insect-resistant or herbicide-resistant crops did not damage plant or insect diversity and in some cases increased the diversity of insects.

Sometimes the added genes do leak out to nearby plants - a process called gene flow - but there is no evidence it has caused harm.

In general, farmers who use GM soybean, cotton, and corn make more money but it does depend on how bad pests are and farming practices.

GM crops do reduce losses to pests

If farmers use insect-resistant crops but don't take enough care, sometimes pest insects develop resistance

Outside experts said the report was thorough.

"I would certainly hope the report will reduce public concern about the safety of GE foods," said Ruth MacDonald Chair of the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Iowa State University.

"This is yet another document that adds to the long list of those that have reached the same conclusion that there is no evidence that GE foods are a risk to human health."

David Stern, president of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell, said the report will not end the debate.

" The report will provide fodder for friends and foes of GE, because each conclusion is accompanied by caveats," he said.
Related: GMO Salmon Ruled Safe to Eat
Gould said now people can look up the facts to answer their concerns. "Up until now we have been arguing in a content-free environment," he said.

And the report likely will not end arguments that all the experts are tainted because they work with companies that stand to profit from selling GM foods.

"Unfortunately, we can expect charges of industry bias in the Academy, even though this panel specifically sought input from well-known anti-GE activists," said Alan McHughen, a geneticist at the University of California, Riverside.

"The academy came under criticism (by academics including me) for engaging such non-experts with little or no scientific expertise, but that criticism now seems misplaced," McHughen added. He said it was important to listen to and to then rebut arguments.

And Gould said all the vested interests are revealed on the website. "They can look to see if something we reference is funded by industry," he said

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Genetically Modified Crops Are Safe, Report Says

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Genetically modified crops on the market are not only safe, but appear to be good for people and the environment, experts determined in a report released Tuesday. But the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are not just asking people to take their word for it.

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The political cartoon uses a widely known fictitious story to spread the word. Everyone knows the story of how Snow White ate a poisoned apple given by an old woman and she fell into a deep sleep. Well, in this story the big companies are the old woman trying to poison the people, Snow White. The cartoon also shows that the big food companies spend millions of dollars to keep the information out of the public's reach.

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88% of scientists say GMO foods are safe; 37% of Americans do.

Americans love conspiracy theories: The 1969 moon landing actually occurred on a Hollywood set. Fluoride in drinking water was a communist plot. Paul McCartney is dead. Elvis is alive.

Most of these kooky notions are harmless, but some are not, especially when people ignore overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of discredited theories or simple fear-mongering. For example, increasing numbers of parents refuse to vaccinate their kids, which opens the door for renewed outbreaks of dangerous diseases. Some politicians insist that human-caused climate change is a hoax, which impedes efforts to deal with the threat.
OPPOSING VIEW: Chipotle makes a sound decision
And now, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, most Americans believe that food altered by genetically modified organisms - GMOs - is harmful. Based on the misinformation, companies are beginning to ban food that contains GMOs.

Burrito chain Chipotle is the latest, following General Mills' decision to take GMO ingredients out of plain Cheerios last year. The companies say they're doing the right thing for consumers. What they're really doing is validating ignorance and hysteria.

Science is losing the battle by a shocking margin. A recent Pew survey found that although 88% of scientists say GMO foods are safe, only 37% of Americans do.

Much of this is a result of anti-GMO crusaders' exploitation of mistrust about how foods are genetically modified.

GMOs are essentially a faster and more far-reaching way of doing what farmers have been doing for centuries by cross-breeding strains of plants (or selectively breeding animals) to make them better and more disease-resistant. GMOs dramatically accelerate the process by inserting genes with a desired trait - bug resistant, weed-killer resistant, faster growing - into a plant's genes.

That does sound strange and potentially dangerous, but for decades, study after study has found that GMOs are no more dangerous than non-GMOs. The European Union concluded after looking at more than 130 research projects over 25 years that GMOs "are not per se more risky than ... conventional plant breeding." The American Association for the Advancement of Science said, "The science is quite clear: Crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe."

This is not to say that all questions about GMOs have been answered or that research should stop. But GMOs now account for more than 90% of U.S. corn and soybeans, and hundreds of millions of people have eaten GMO foods for years without apparent ill effect.

Amid the GMO alarmism, some food companies are taking a stand against a much more serious threat. McDonald's, Costco, Tyson, Perdue and Chipotle have joined the move to phase out routine use of human antibiotics in poultry to promote faster growth. Overuse encourages the growth of drug-resistant super bugs that are a grave threat to human health.
USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view - a unique USA TODAY feature. To read more editorials, go to the Opinion front page or sign up for the daily Opinion e-mail newsletter.
That's the difference between solving a real problem and pandering to a made-up one, a distinction GMO renouncers apparently don't get.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1FmydPU

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GMO food bans pander to ignorance: Our view

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88% of scientists say GMO foods are safe; 37% of Americans do. Americans love conspiracy theories: The 1969 moon landing actually occurred on a Hollywood set. Fluoride in drinking water was a communist plot. Paul McCartney is dead. Elvis is alive.

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The Senate is expected to vote as early as Thursday on a bill that would require businesses to label genetically modified foods. Unfortunately, it would allow companies to use confusing electronic codes for scanning instead of simple, clear labels.

This bill, a bipartisan compromise negotiated by Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, and Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, is being pushed through Congress because some lawmakers from farm states want to pre-empt a Vermont law that requires labeling for some genetically modified foods that went into effect on July 1 (Vermont is giving companies six months to comply) and to prevent other states from enacting similar laws. The Senate bill follows an failed effort in March to block state labeling laws. The House passed a bill last year that would pre-empt states from enforcing such laws.

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Cereal for sale in Montpelier, Vermont. Credit Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor, via AP

While most scientists say that genetically modified foods do not pose a risk to human health, consumers should have a right to more information about what they are eating. Polls have found that a vast majority of Americans favor mandatory labels. Dozens of countries, including all 28 members of the European Union and Australia, already require similar disclosures.

Researchers have found that labels do not dissuade people from consuming genetically engineered food, which has been a big worry of farm groups and businesses. It is no surprise then that some companies, like Campbell Soup, have voluntarily agreed to label their products.

The biggest problem with the Senate bill is that - instead of requiring a simple label, as the Vermont law does - it would allow food companies to put the information in electronic codes that consumers would have to scan with smartphones or at scanners installed by grocery stores. The only reason to do this would be to make the information less accessible to the public.

Another problem is that the bill might not cover some kinds of genetic engineering. The Food and Drug Administration warned that the bill "would result in a somewhat narrow scope of coverage" - for example, food that includes oil made from genetically engineered soybeans might not need to be labeled.

The bill's sponsors, however, contend that under the Department of Agriculture's analysis, the bill would require labeling of products that contain genetically engineered soybeans and refined oils. This lack of clarity is troubling, and certainly needs to be resolved. Exempting large categories of genetically modified foods would make the labels useless.

In addition to Vermont, labeling laws have been passed in Connecticut and Maine, but those measures will go into effect only if neighboring states adopt similar legislation. Clearly, a strong federal standard would be preferable to a patchwork of state rules. But the Senate bill needs more work.

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Opinion | A Flawed Approach to Labeling Genetically Modified Food

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The Senate is expected to vote as early as Thursday on a bill that would require businesses to label genetically modified foods. Unfortunately, it would allow companies to use confusing electronic codes for scanning instead of simple, clear labels.

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The political cartoon shows on the left that the state requires producers to have labels on food that is genetically modified. The list in the woman's hand clearly shows that almost everything on the shelves is modified. It would be better of the store just labeled the food that was not tampered with and was safe to eat.

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In the debate over the labelling (or non-labelling) of genetically-modified foods, one of the most common refrains is that consumers "have a right to know" what they're eating. I've commented briefly on that here before. (See "Should Companies Label Genetically Modified Foods?") But it's an important and complicated topic, so I'm going to say a little more here.

We first need to distinguish legal from moral rights. Legal rights are established through legislation or through precedents set by courts. But when people say they have a "right to know" what they're eating, they're not usually referring to a legal right (especially given that, as far as genetic modification goes, there just is no such legal right in the U.S. or Canada). No, when people say they have a right to know what they're eating, they're talking about a moral right to that information - they mean that it is ethically obligatory for someone to provide it to them. But simply claiming a right doesn't cause that right to spring into being. It needs to be justified some way, grounded in some strong ethical argument.

So, when does someone have a moral "right" to some piece of information? The philosophical literature on rights is enormous. I'll just offer here what I think is a fairly straightforward explanation of the ethical grounding of rights, without going into too much philosophical detail.

Rights are mechanisms for protecting important human interests. In free societies, for example, we have a right to security of person and a right to own property and a right to free speech, because we see these things as crucially important to living a good human life. We may have other interests or needs, but not all of them are protected by rights. Why? Well, it's worth remembering that when someone has a right to something, this imposes obligations on other people. In some cases (as in the right to free speech) it means an obligation not to interfere. In other cases it means an obligation actually to provide something (for example, if I've performed my job as promised, I have a right to be paid and my employer has a positive obligation to provide me with my wages). It's also important to note that, given that rights impose obligations on other people, we need at least to consider just how burdensome those obligations are, before we assert the correlative right with any certainty. (For example: even if you desperately need a kidney, you don't have a right to mine while I'm still using it.)

Now, let's consider information. Given what we've said above, we can say (at least roughly) that an individual has a right to a piece of information when having that information is necessary for promoting or protecting his or her most important interests. Some of my favourite examples:

In a democracy, we have a very strong moral right to know who the candidates for political office are. If we don't have that information, it's impossible to exercise our rights (and duties) as citizens. The intellectual tradition supporting this right goes back through over 2,000 years of democratic theory.

We also have a strong right to know our medical diagnoses. Gone is the day when "doctor knows best" was the rule. Today, we consider it essential to let patients play a leading role in decision-making about their own care, and information about diagnosis is crucial for that. In only the rarest of exceptional cases is it considered ethically permissible to withhold that information from a patient.

When arrested by the police, you have a very strong right - legally, but also morally - to know what you've been charged with. The police are agents of the state, and it is pretty clearly impossible to defend oneself against the awesome power of the state without knowing the charges laid against you. The right to that piece of information, then, is rooted in important limits on the power of the state, going back at least to the Magna Carta.

What about the right to know what we are eating?

To illustrate, let's consider a trio of imaginary (but not implausible) cases where an individual might want to know something about what they're eating, and consider whether in addition to wanting the information, that person has a right to it.

First, imagine you're eating chicken gumbo in a New Orleans restaurant. Suddenly, you feel a tightening in your throat. You start to panic - you're allergic to shrimp, and though no shrimp was listed among the ingredients when you read the menu, you worry that there might well be some in there. You summon the waiter and ask if there's any shrimp in the gumbo. The waiter hesitates: "The gumbo recipe is the Chef's most closely-guarded secret. I'm not allowed to tell you that!" Do you have a right to this information? Of course you do. Having this information is utterly central to your wellbeing: this is literally a matter of life and death. You don't just want it. You don't just have an interest in it. You have a right to it.

Next, imagine you're a waiter or waitress at a restaurant. As you set a plate of cheese tortellini in front of a customer who says to you: "I'm a vegetarian. So I need to know, was the cheese in this tortellini made with rennet from a calf's stomach, or is it from a vegetable source?" You reply, "I'm sorry, but I have no idea. I don't have that information, and I don't know how to get it." Stunned, the customer replies, "But I have a right to know what I'm eating!" Does she? Probably not. Vegetarianism is pretty respectable these days, and is often rooted in very deeply-held concerns about health or animal welfare. But it may be nearly impossible, and certainly burdensome, for the restaurant to provide the information.

Finally, imagine again that you're a waiter or waitress. As you set a plate of food down in front of a customer, the customer asks: "Were any 'minorities' involved in the production of this food? Do you have any foreigners working in the kitchen?" Appalled, you stammer: "Excuse me?!" The customer continues, "I don't like immigrants, and I don't like the idea of them touching my food. I have the right to know what I'm eating!" Does this customer have the right to that information? Most of us, I think, would say no, of course not. She might see that information as really important - important to letting her live her life the way she wants to - but few of us would agree that anyone else is obligated to help her live out her racist values.

I think examples like these help make clear that no one really thinks that we have a right to know everything we might want to know about the food we eat. When it comes to debates over the right to a specific piece of information about what we're eating, we need to think seriously about whether a) that bit of information is central to protecting an individual's interests, b) whether those interests are ones that we can agree, socially, are in need of protecting, and c) whether recognizing such a right would impose undue burdens on others.

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Note: coincidentally, today happens to be "International Right to Know Day," though its goal is to raise awareness of the right of citizens to information held by governments, not by food producers.

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Addendum:
This has been such a popular (and controversial) blog entry that I wanted to add 3 notes:
1) A few people found the racism example above inflammatory. Sorry about that. The intention was merely to illustrate that there are some bits of information about our food that almost no one thinks we have a right to.
2) Over on my Business Ethics Blog, I did a related piece on the Consumers' Right to Information.
3) I will soon be posting something here on the Food Ethics Blog about voluntary labelling and the producer's right to tell.
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Further Addendum:
I wrote a scholarly article on this topic, which you can find here: Corporate Decisions about Labelling Genetically Modified Foods

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In the debate over the labelling (or non-labelling) of genetically-modified foods, one of the most common refrains is that consumers "have a right to know" what they're eating. I've commented briefly on that here before. (See "Should Companies Label Genetically Modified Foods?") But it's an important and complicated topic, so I'm going to say a...