Soon you will see the words partially produced with genetic engineering in the fine print on many food packages.
And none of that effort had anything to do with your health.
Youd be forgiven for thinking it does.
Now, anti-GMO activists get their turn.
Food companiestried and failedto shut it down.
Politically, its a heartwarming story: grassroots groups score a victory over Big Food.
The only problem: GMO labels arestupid.
For example, some GMO crops use more pesticide than conventional crops, but others actually use less.
If youre worried about pesticides, GMOs are a red herring.
Anti-GMO talking points are pretty much all misdirections: the real issues all straddle the GMO/non-GMO border.
To be very, very clear: genetically modified food does not pose any credible risk to human health.
GMO safety is controversialpolitically, but notscientifically.
And yet GMOs still sound scary.
Instead, theyve been riding a nearly information-free wave of fear.
Where there are clear dangers, nobody dances around them.
They come right out andsay it: Smoking causes cancer, heart attacks, and serious lung disease.
Compare that to what GMO labeling groups have to offer.
Nearly all of them lean on non-arguments like Europe labels them.
They typically say there hasnt been enough testingtechnically true, depending on how you define enough.
Even when pro-label groups give a shot to cite science, health risks get short shrift.
Want to dig further?
The link does not work.
And this was themostevidence-based argument I found.
Neither does theirWhy Label?
Page, but that links to aTED talk by chairman Gary Hirshberg.
Hirshberg does mentionone studythat found the insecticidal toxin inBt cornshowing up in the blood of pregnant women.
Sounds scary, right?
Steering clear of GMO-labeled food will not help you avoid this toxin.
It wont even do what the people campaigning for labelswant it to do.
As weve mentioned before,the things people dont like about GMOs are not GMO-specific problems.
Here are some things labeling wont help with:
It wont help you avoid pesticides.
Both the insecticidalBt toxinand the herbicidal Roundup chemical,glyphosate, are used in both GMO and non-GMO crops.
It wont eliminatesuperweeds, since this ecological problem isnot GMO-specificeither.
It wont prevent allergies, or make allergies easier to track down.
GMOs are alreadytested for similarities to common allergensbefore they can be approved.
So if GMO labeling doesnt help you, the consumer, to make better choiceswho does it help?
It helps people who have been crusading against imaginary risks to feel better about themselves.
And it helps brands likethe Just Label It campaigns 700 partnersthat sell non-GMO products.
And both sides argue that consumer confusion will result if they dont get their waywhichever that ison the issue.
Nice try, but the problem is that consumers arealreadyconfused.
Both sides have to stop treating GMOs as all good or all bad.
So do we, as consumers.
And seeing partially produced with genetic engineering shouldnt scare us off.
Illustration by Sam Woolley.
