The U.S. Senate has heard the consumer's cries as it rejected a bill that would have allowed food companies for voluntary labelling of GMO food.
The anti-labeling bill sponsored by Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, would have created a voluntary national labeling standard for food containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The Roberts bill, which opponents called as Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, was outvoted by 48 to 49. Common Dreams reported that the bill needed 60 votes to pass.
But a compromise will almost certainly have to be crafted. The bill would have favored food corporations over the consumers, who strongly supported the labeling of food with GMOs.
Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, said in the Vermont Biz, "Consumers everywhere simply have the right to know. We are not asking manufacturers to change their production processes. We are simply asking them to tell consumers what is in the products that go on store shelves... I hope that now we can all come together to find a path forward to a strong mandatory disclosure policy that can be applied across the board and across the nation."
The Consumers Union had released an open letter to the Senate urging them to vote down the bill because it goes against the 90% of the Americans that want mandatory GMO labelling. Common Dreams reported that the letter said:
"Consumers have overwhelmingly said that they want [GMO] food to be labeled as such, and states have begun to respond to their requests...The Senate should not disregard these views by eliminating state laws relating to food labeling and failing to replace them with a meaningful national standard for mandatory, on-package labeling."
But certain legislators argued that labelling food that has GMO will be more costly to American consumers. In a study by the Corn Refiners Association, reported in The Grubstreet, a "nationwide labeling will spike families' individual grocery bills by $1,000 a year." This is due to companies spending more for repackaging or reformulating their products to avoid the label.
Another argument presented by the Science of Us said that, the GMO labeling would mislead consumers into thinking that GMO ingredients are harmful or the food containing them are unsafe even though science has proven that GMO food can be safely consumed.
Though the bill has already been rejected, this national issue is still far from over, as groups in different parts of the country are persistent in claiming their consumer rights.
