WASHINGTON and DES MOINES, Iowa – This year, Congress is likely to encounter an uptick in issues regarding commercializing bio-engineered organisms for human consumption.
Currently, FDA is reviewing an application for approval of bio-engineered salmon, and since last spring, several bills have been introduced to label foods containing bio-engineered ingredients.
Most recently, U.S. Representatives Mike Pompeo of Kansas and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina introduced a bill that would give FDA sole authority to require mandatory labels on foods found to be unsafe.
The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014 would head off state, and even municipal attempts, to require labels on GMO products, such as the law signed by Vermont governor Peter Shumlin earlier this month.
“Both sides of the equation want consumers to have platforms available to them to know the food products they’re choosing,” says Iowa Biotechnology Association Executive Director Joe Hrdlicka, above. “I think even more importantly, both sides of this equation want consumers to have nutritious healthy food.”
Hrdlicka says the federal solution is preferable to a patchwork of local labeling laws, and points out that the marketplace itself has been pushing for genetic modification in certain foods.
“Some people like seedless watermelons,” Hrdlicka observes. “Some people want the ability to have orange juice, where there might be a drought where the oranges are currently being grown. So crop modification helps us deal with with some of those issues, and with biotechnology entering into the equation. . . it helps us become more exact.”
Proponents of mandatory labels beyond what’s outlined in the Pompeo-Butterfield bill maintain that the issue is rooted in a consumer’s right to know what’s in his or her food.
