The Grocery Manufacturers Association filed notice Wednesday that it plans to appeal last week’s federal court ruling in which a judge declined to halt Vermont’s law requiring the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms.
“The court’s opinion in denying our request to block the Vermont law opens the door to states creating mandatory labeling requirements based on pseudo-science and web-fed hysteria,” Pamela G. Bailey, president of GMA, said in a news release. “If this law is allowed to go into effect, it will disrupt food supply chains, confuse consumers and lead to higher food costs.”
U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss last week ruled that the first-in-the-nation law, which is due to take effect in July 2016, can move forward pending the outcome of a lawsuit seeking to strike it down.
GMA takes issue with a state-by-state labeling approach. “This court ruling shows why Congress should pass the voluntary uniform GMO labeling bill quickly and federally preempt state mandatory GMO laws,” Bailey said in the statement.
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What is wrong with the system that is already in place? Products that promote GMO free are already labeled as such, and the people are seeking those products who are already buying GMO free. This seems like an over reaching philosophy trying to pass as law more than anything else. For all those GMO advocates, is this labeling law fully succeeds is it going to change consumer behavior? If not then what is it accomplishing, besides raising costs for consumers. Let’s not start a pilgramage here when you’re really only preaching to the choir.
Instead of fighting a lawsuit based on a stupid law, perhaps the AG should be going after food companies that are misleading consumers with false “GMO-free” labels. The other day I picked up a jar of “all natural” peanut butter at the supermarket. It consists exclusively of ground peanuts in their own oil, nothing else. It was labeled “GMO-free.” In my opinion this label is fraudulent because there are no GMO peanuts to begin with. There are only a handful of crops that are the products of GMOs, and peanuts aren’t one of them. So, by definition, any all natural peanut butter cannot possibly have any GMOs in it in the first place. Therefore by labeling their product “GMO-free” they are trying to gain a false advantage with the consumer. I believe the supermarket is now full of products that use a misleading “no GMOs” label in this way.