table talk / By Ari LeVaux

Just Label It

GMO labeling advocates make their move

(Oct. 27, 2011)  Several polls in recent years have shown that about 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms. That’s about as close to a consensus as you’re going to get in this country. But amazingly, in this supposed bastion of freedom and democracy, we’re still denied the fundamental right of transparency with regard to what’s in our food. It’s a right that more than 50 other nations, including China and Russia, protect with mandatory GMO labeling.

It’s ironic that China and Russia, those big scary authoritarian countries known for communism, corruption and rampant human rights violations, are more responsive to citizen concerns about what they put in their bodies.

GALLERY >

The glaring disconnect between America’s celebrated democratic ideals and the FDA’s refusal to budge on GMO labeling may be about to crumble, says Andrew Kimbrell of the Center For Food Safety. His organization is part of a broad coalition of groups petitioning the FDA for mandatory labels on foods that contain GMOs. Hundreds of other organizations have joined the effort, representing consumer advocates, farmers, concerned parents, businesses, environmentalists, and members of health-care and faith-based communities. The goal of the coalition, called Just Label It, is to collect enough petition signatures that the FDA acts on it, or enough signatures to compel President Obama to force the FDA to do so.

There are three reasons Kimbrell believes that now, despite decades of undue biotech industry influence on FDA policy, the agency’s GMO armor is ready to crack.

“First of all, Obama promised, when he was a candidate, to impose labels,” Kimbrell says, referring to a 2007 stump speech recorded by Food Democracy Now in which the junior senator from Illinois promised to “let folks know whether their food has been genetically modified, because Americans should know what they’re buying.”

“Second,” Kimbrell says, “the coalition behind this campaign is uniquely broad-based. We’ve got the Organic Trade Association, food companies, big consumer representation, environmental and agriculture organizations. It’s not unrealistic that we’ll get millions of people signing the petition.

“And finally,” he says, “we have extra leverage because it’s an election year. With 90 percent of Americans wanting this, and millions of comments coming his way, Obama can do the math.”

Kimbrell blames the FDA’s unresponsiveness to consumer concerns on a revolving door between the agency and the biotech industry. “The FDA,” he says, “is composed of people who will soon be back in the industry.”

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