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NEWS | Massachusetts Activist and Legislator Disappointed with Upcoming GMO Labeling Standards

Boston — A federal law that requires mandatory labeling on genetically modified food (often called GMOs) was enacted in 2016, and the national disclosure standards will be released in July 2018. However, activists and legislators who proposed GMO labeling bill in Massachusetts were unsatisfied with the federal law.

What are genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? GMOs are plants, animals, microorganisms that have genes transferred from other plants, animals, or microorganisms. Basically, genes can even be transferred between unrelated species. This process does not occur in nature or by crossbreeding methods (in crossbreeding, genes can only be transferred between related species), but only happens in laboratory. The food produced by using genetic engineering are called GM food or GMOs.

The GMOs are artificially created to have desirable traits: being resistant to particular insects, viruses, or certain herbicides, producing higher yields, generating certain drugs, or containing more nutrients. For example, scientists introduced the gene of toxin from bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to corn and cotton in order to protect these plants from being eaten by insects, so farmers can reduce the usage of insecticides; some crops were genetically altered to be tolerant to herbicides, so farmers can spray herbicides to kill weeds without harming the crops; Golden Rice contains higher level of vitamin A than regularly bred rice to address children’s vitamin deficiencies.

According to Huffington Post, most crops, such as soybeans, corn, cotton, beets, Hawaiian papaya, and yellow squash, and alfalfa are genetically modified. Many crops are used for producing oil, corn syrup, and sugar, which are added to processed foods or used for feeding livestock.

In American supermarkets and grocery stores, GMOs are everywhere. The most common GM foods include soy flour, corn flour, protein powder, soy oil, corn oil, syrups, sugar, canola oil, etc. Meat, pork, poultry, eggs are made from livestock fed with GMO alfalfa. Most dairies contain rBGH, a genetically modified hormone that makes cows produce more milk. Many foods containing GMO derivatives include tofu, ice cream, infant formula, bread, candies, Vitamin supplements, tomato sauces, margarine, pasta, cereal, crackers, and chips.

As technology develops, more GMOs are expected to be sold in the market. In 2015, FDA approved brand new salmon, an Atlantic salmon that is genetically modified by Massachusetts based Aqua Bounty Farms to grow faster than regular salmon. In November 2017, the first non-browning GMO apple, Arctic Apple, reached to grocery stores in the Midwest.

Based on United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, in the U.S., 94 percent of soybeans, about 89 percent of domestic corn, and 85 percent of cotton are genetically modified.

While a 2016 study from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine indicates that there is scientific consensus that GM crops are safe, criticisms on GMO safety do exist, and they do not come from nowhere.

According to a review published on an international journal, the scientific consensus that GMO is no riskier than conventional foods is misleading, and those studies concluding that GMO is as safe as regular food were performed by biotech companies that promote and sell GMOs.

And independent scientists warned that GMO’s long-term effects on human health and the environment have not been fully studied and might be risky. Some studies show that GMOs are associated with infertility, immune problems, and unpredictable harm to organs.

As the research results are nuanced and the debate about GMOs has never been over since GMOs were introduced into the market in the 1990s, some Americans are concerned about the GMO safety. ABC News’ survey shows that 52 percent believe GMOs are unsafe, and that about 93 percent of Americans think that government should establish mandatory labeling law.

Without mandatory labeling, consumers are not able to make informed decisions about whether they would like to consume GMOs. Consumers have the right to know what is in their food no matter if they support or oppose GMOs.

In 2015, the House of Representatives in Massachusetts proposed a bill that required foods and seeds produced using genetic engineering be labeled. As of early 2016, about 70 similar bills in 30 states were proceeding. Vermont, the first state that required mandatory labeling, would have “Right to Know GMOs” act in effect on July 1, 2016.

While these bills were still proceeding, former president Barack Obama signed the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS) law that preempted state bills in July 2016. Then, the U.S. became the 65th country in the world that demands mandatory labeling on GMOs.

Under the new law, USDA must draft specific standards within two years after enactment of the law. The rules are still under construction.

However, some activists and legislators worry about its effectiveness because the NBFDS is so broad that there is flexibility for USDA to interpret.

Deirdre Cummings, the legislator director of Public Interest Research Group in Massachusetts (MASSPIRG), who advocates for consumer rights, has been calling for GMO labeling since the late 1990s and lost a labeling campaign in 2000.

Cummings has opposed the new law, “Under the federal law, the definition of GMO is poor and weak. Consumers don’t want meaningless labels. They want the law to help them make decisions.”

Todd M. Smola, a Republican member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives who petitioned for labeling in the state, said, “The federal law has nullified what we were trying to push in Massachusetts, because the federal law does not require explicit labeling on GM food packages as the state bill did.”

The Massachusetts bill clearly mandated that “food intended for human consumption that is entirely or partially genetically engineered” shall be subject to the labeling, and that food with genetically engineered materials exceeding 0.9 percent of total weight of the food shall be labeled in conspicuous text — “Produced with Genetic Engineering.” Moreover, companies not obeying the rules would face civil penalties up to 1000 dollars per day per unlabeled product.

Under the federal law, there is uncertainty about which foods should be considered GMOs, what level of bioengineered ingredients contained in food triggers labeling, and how these foods should be labeled.

The law does not say if the highly-refined foods, such as oils and sweeteners that are derived from GMOs but contain no GMOs in themselves, should be labeled. But the European Union, which has the most restrictive rules, regulates not only final product but also food in process — mandatory labeling of highly-refined substances.

Similar to the Massachusetts bill, the federal law exempted food produced by small companies, provided by restaurants, and foods derived from GMO-fed animals.

Different from the Massachusetts bill, the law provides more labeling choices for food manufacturers to show GMO ingredients: on-package text, a symbol, and electronic link such as a QR code that consumers can scan with smartphones to get information. Besides, the law does not clarify punishment for food companies that do not comply with the law.

Activists are concerned about the accessibility to QR code. A recent study by USDA shows that 62 percent of interested consumers believe that they can access to the digital link and identifies the major technological challenges for the rest of the consumers: lack of scanning devices, unusable apps, and unavailability of the internet in rural and low-income areas. 

While many consumer activists are disappointed with the new law, food companies are happy about it. have endorsed the federal law. When the bipartisan bill for national labeling was proposed, >span class="Hyperlink0">over 1100 food companies supported it.

Smola believed that the new law is a compromise to big biotech companies, “These companies that had fought us for years eventually get around labeling because the law does not require them to label all the bioengineered ingredients.”

“Most industrialized countries require strict labeling, but our country didn’t do it,” said Cummings, “because our industry is too close to the regulatory agencies.”

Not only most developed countries such as 28 countries in EU, Japan, and Australia, but also developing countries including China, Brazil, Malaysia, and Indonesia have established mandatory GMO labeling laws earlier than the U.S., the largest producer of GM crops in the world, has the law in place.  The EU, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have the strictest threshold – 0.9 percent –  for GMO ingredients in food, while South Korea has 3 percent and Japan has 5 percent.

As the rules in the U.S. are still undecided, Smola suggested that consumers who want to avoid GMOs can buy products labeled as non-GMOs. The U.S. government allows food companies to label their products as non-GMOs as long as the products are organic or have non-GMO certification from third-parties. So the products without any labels might be GMOs.

In October 2017, USDA collected stakeholders’ comments, which will be taken into consideration before filing the final rules. The rules were supposed to be released in July 2018. But USDA is lagging behind the deadline.

Cummings said, “For those biotech companies, the more delay, the better. So nobody knows what would happen.”