If the House passes the bill, Connecticut will be the first in the nation to mandate labeling of GE food. Vermont’s House of Representatives recently passed a similar bill, which will be voted on by Vermont’s Senate in January of next year. Currently, 24 other states are considering similar legislation this year.

“The news from Connecticut is a great example of the growing momentum in the fight for GE labeling and the consumer right-to-know,” said Scott Faber, Executive Director of Just Label It.

A federal GE labeling bill was recently introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Polls show that more than 90% of American consumers want to know about the food they’re eating, a right held by citizens in 64 countries around the world that already require mandatory labeling of GE foods.

More GE foods, such as salmon engineered to produce growth hormones year round and apples engineered to keep from browning, could soon end up in the food supply without any independent or long-term studies, and most importantly, without labels.

HB-6519 will now have a strong chance of being considered in the House, and will be an important step in getting us closer to a national labeling solution.

For more information on HB-6519 and Connecticut’s initiative, visit www.gmofreect.org.

The proposed herbicide-resistant crop would combine weed-killers glyphosate and 2,4-D, a controversial ingredient used in Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange.  All in the name of profit from selling seeds, pesticides, and herbicides to farmers, these greedy companies want to rush untested and unproven crops from their factories to our dinner tables. In particular, 2,4-D corn requires large quantities of 2,4-D herbicide to be applied to farm fields. The drifting of 2,4-D has been linked to major human health problems such as cancer, liver dysfunction, and Parkinson’s disease.

“The USDA’s decision to conduct further review of 2,4-D corn is extremely important step in the regulatory process, brought about by strong consumer concern,” said Scott Faber, Executive Director of Just Label It. “The truth is, we just don’t yet know the full impact of these crops on both the environment and our health.  Until we do, these crops should not enter the marketplace.”

Although we might not all agree on the science concerning the long-term effects of eating genetically engineered foods, we should be able to decide for ourselves whether to feed them to our families. Unfortunately, if this new corn were to be approved, we wouldn’t be able to make that choice since genetically engineered foods aren’t labeled.

We commend the USDA on its decision to conduct proper review of this GE crop, and urge them to continue with proper regulatory framework in the future.  Our government processes must be open, transparent, and honest in order to protect our families and our children. In addition, we urge our leaders in Washington to listen to the more than 90% of Americans who support labeling of all genetically engineered foods.

Vermont continues to be a leader in the fight for GMO labeling nationwide.  After being passed through both the House Agriculture Committee and House Judiciary Committee, H.112, the Vermont GMO labeling bill, was passed today by an overwhelming majority of 99-42 in Vermont’s House of Representatives. Thanks to many Vermonters who have made their voices heard, state leaders are recognizing the strong support of this issue in Vermont and across the country.

More GE foods, such as salmon engineered to produce growth hormones year round and apples engineered to keep from browning, could soon end up in the food supply without any independent or long-term studies, and most importantly, without labels.

H.112 will now have a strong chance of being considered in the Senate when lawmakers return next January, and will be an important step in getting us closer to a national labeling solution.

For more information on H.112 and Vermont’s initiative, visit www.vpirg.org/gmo.

The potential of genetically engineered foods to cause allergic reactions is a big reason for opposition to these crops.  It is also one of the concerns that led 64 countries around the world to label these foods for their citizens while 27 countries banned them entirely.

Introduced into the US food supply in the mid 1990s without labels, there were protocols put in place to ask questions about the allergy-causing possibilities, but there has been no test that offers definitive answers.

In other words, if you walked into an allergist’s office and asked if you were allergic to corn that has been in the food supply for thousands of years or if you are allergic to a new corn product, genetically engineered to produce its own insecticide and introduced into our food and now regulated by the EPA as a pesticide, there would be no test to give you that answer.

With no labels on these ingredients in the US to trace their impact and no test to offer definitive answers, the biotech industry is able to claim that there is not a single documented case of these foods ever causing harm.  Don’t ask, don’t tell.

But with the widespread introduction of genetically engineered ingredients into the U.S. food supply, a frequently asked question is: Are rates of allergies higher in the United States than they are in other countries?

Previously, it was anyone’s guess.

But a new study just released in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says yes, living in the United States increases your risk of allergic diseases……“significantly.”

“Living in the US raises risk of allergies,” says the headline.

According to the research, living in the United States for a decade or more may raise the risk of some allergies, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“These data indicate that duration of residence in the United States is a previously unrecognized factor in the epidemiology of atopic disease,” it said.

In other words, the longer you live here, the more likely you are to develop some kind of allergy, asthma, eczema or other related condition.

Food allergies have been skyrocketing in the United States in the last fifteen years.  Not only has the CDC reported a 265% increase in the rates of hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions in a ten year period, but the sales of EpiPens, a life-saving medical device for those with food allergies, has also seen record sales growth according to the New York Times.

So what’s going on?

The study aimed to find out.  Allergies reported in the survey included asthma, eczema, hay fever, and food allergies.

“Children born outside the United States had significantly lower prevalence of any allergic diseases (20.3%) than those born in the United States (34.5%),” said the study led by Jonathan Silverberg of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

Let’s restate that:

Children born in the US have more than a 1 in 3 chance of having allergic diseases like food allergies, asthma or eczema, while kids born in other countries around the world had a “significantly lower prevalence” of 1 in 5.

On top of that, “foreign-born Americans develop increased risk for allergic disease with prolonged residence in the United States,” it said.

In other words, if you move here, your chances of developing any one or more of these allergic diseases increase.

The study went so far as to say that children born outside of the US who moved here showed “significantly” higher odds of developing these diseases.

What’s driving this?  Is it really Purel and intense handwashing? And the hygiene hypothesis?

And are we allergic to food?  Or what’s been done to it?

Because genetics don’t change that quickly, and the environment does.

“These data indicate that duration of residence in the United States is a previously unrecognized factor in the epidemiology of atopic disease,” it said.

This presents a risk not only to these children, but also to our economy, as the financial burden of these conditions and their associated health care costs impact not only families but also our country, our military and our productivity.

So what is triggering this escalating, US allergy epidemic?

According to Reuters report on the study and Dr. Ruchi Gupta, who studies allergies at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago but wasn’t involved in the new research, “This is definitely something we see clinically and we’re trying to better understand, what is it in our environment that’s increasing the risk of allergic disease?”

“Food allergies have increased tremendously,” she told Reuters Health. “We do see people who come from other countries don’t tend to have it.”

As discussed in a previous column, allergic reactions occur you’re your body perceives something to be a threat.  They can also be a symptom of a hypersensitive immune system – our bodies armed and ready to launch an attack againstany perceived threat.

A growing number of doctors are also suggesting that food allergies might be a symptom that something is wrong with our food system.  In other words, in light of the sudden explosion in food allergies: are we suddenly allergic to food?  Or what’s been done to it?

Someone with food allergies has an immune system that perceives a food protein to be “foreign”, unidentifiable.   And it launches an inflammatory response to drive out that foreign invader.

Today, we have new, foreign proteins that have never existed in our food supply that have been genetically engineered into our food. These proteins are so new that they have been patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and never before existed up until their introduction in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Now correlation is not causation, but the concern over the unknown health impacts of these new proteins in the food supply is in part what led 64 countries around the world to label genetically engineered foods when they were first introduced fifteen years ago and 27 countries to flat out ban them.

According to Science Daily:

“Genetically engineered crops are created by inserting a protein from a different organism into the original crop’s genome. This is usually done to create a plant that is more resistant to insects or diseases.

The Food and Agriculture Organization within the World Health Organization has a structured approach to determining whether genetically engineered foods cause allergies, according to Venu Gangur, MSU assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, who also is a faculty member in the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center. “But it has a major flaw. A critical question in that process asks, ‘Does the protein cause an allergic reaction in animals?’ The problem is that there has been no good animal model available to test this.”

It’s food for thought.

We don’t have labels on these genetically engineered foods in the US, at least not yet.  Bipartisan legislation was recently introduced, and efforts have been made to urge the FDA to take action so that American consumers can enjoy the same freedoms enjoyed by consumers in over 60 countries around the world (including all of the member states of the European Union, Australia, Japan, the UK, Russia, China and India) and have access to whether or not their food and the foods they are feeding their families contain these genetically engineered ingredients.

Do we really want out slogan to be: Come to America, but don’t forget your  asthma enhalers and EpiPens?  We could quickly earn the title of the United States of Allergic Disease.

We are so much more than that.

And while you can currently look for “Non-GMO” or “USDA Organic” foods which by law are not allowed to be produced with these new proteins, clean food is a right that should be afforded to all Americans, not just those who can afford to opt out and purchase foods labeled “non-GMO” or “USDA Organic”.

With mounting scientific evidence pointing to the role that our increasingly re-engineered food supply, hopped up on additives, artificial dyes, artificial growth hormones and genetically engineered ingredients hardwired to be routinely doused with chemicals (all added since we were kids), is having on the health of our children, it’s time to clean up our food and label genetically engineered ingredients for the health of our families and the health of our country.

This article was originally posted on Prevention.com

The AquaBounty’s “AquAdvantage” GE salmon is the first genetically engineered animal intended for human consumption.  These salmon are genetically engineered to produce growth hormones year-round to make the fish grow at twice its natural rate.  Despite this new technology, there have been no long-term studies on the safety of eating genetically engineered salmon, nor has the environmental or economic impact of this salmon been adequately evaluated.

On December 21, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration released an Environmental Assessment with a “Finding of No Significant Impact” on the controversial AquaBounty AquaAdvantage transgenic salmon. The FDA action was widely viewed as confirmation that GE salmon is on the fast track for approval, in the face of widespread public outcry.

Over 54,000 Just Label It supporters submitted comments to the FDA, stressing the importance of thorough human health, environmental, and economic impact studies in regards to GE salmon. They also noted that if the FDA decides to approve the AquaAdvantage GE salmon, clear, mandatory labeling is an absolute must when marketing to consumers, as well as fish farmers, fish retailers, food companies and restaurants, to allow people to make informed purchasing decisions.

Numerous consumer, health, and fishing groups have also continued to express concern regarding the effects of the first GE animal entering the marketplace.   Joining together as a coalition, these groups recently launched the “Campaign for Genetically Engineered (GE)-Free Seafood”, in an effort to bring food retailers on board.  Over 2,500 stores across the United States are currently represented.

“Each and every American has the right to know what they are eating and feeding their families,” said Scott Faber, Executive Director of Just Label It. “Until the further effects of this technology are clear, consumers should have a clear choice as to what they put on their dinner plate.”

The Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act was introduced today by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR).

“Americans want to know more, not less, about their food,” said Katey Parker of Just Label It, which has more than 650 partner organizations. “More than 90 percent of Americans want the same rights as consumers in 64 countries around the world.  It’s time to trust American consumers with information about genetically engineered ingredients so they can make the best choices for themselves and their families.”

More than 1 million Americans have petitioned FDA to require labeling on packaged food containing GE ingredients.

To view the Senate version of the bill, click here.

To view the House version of the bill, click here.

Robert Paalberg’s essay, “The World Needs Genetically Modified Foods,” claims that genetically engineered foods have been forced out of the U.S. marketplace by consumer demand.  This is nonsense. To the contrary, GE foods have shown dramatic growth in the American food supply over the last 16 years, now constitute the vast majority of our corn and soy, and show no signs of slowing.

Scientists are already sounding alarms over the rising use of herbicides that have accompanied GE crop growth. Now GE salmon have been engineered to produce growth hormones year ‘round and GE apples have been engineered to keep from browning. These foods, on the fast track to approval, could end up in the food supply without any independent or long-term studies of human health or environmental impacts.

Paalberg argues that GMO naysayers are undermining efforts to feed the world’s people.  Yet recent data suggests that some GE crops actually generate lower yields than non-GE varieties.

For example, field trials of GE soybeans revealed a 50% yield drop vs non-GE varieties. Early field tests suggest that a new GE corn seed designed to withstand drought will increase corn productivity by just 1% – exactly the same as traditional breeding and farming practices.

If the impact of a mandatory labeling law is, as Paalberg says, “surprisingly small,” then why not give consumers the right to choose what they are eating and feeding their families?  The science is already mixed. Until we know more about the impacts of GE foods, labeling seems the prudent course.

As Tom Philpott points out in his latest article on Mother Jones, Monsanto’s monetary growth is divided into two categories: “seeds & genomics”, meaning seed sales, and “agricultural productivity”, essentially chemicals, such as RoundUp in its many forms.  While Monsanto’s seed sales increased by 10% in the last year, its chemical sales accounted for an astounding 36% increase.  In other words, increasing herbicide use is Monsanto’s biggest moneymaker.

As Gary Hirshberg noted in a recent Huffington Post article, “GE crops have been primarily engineered not for any increased nutritional value or consumer benefit, but to make it easier to control certain insects and spray herbicides on growing crops, killing weeds but leaving the genetically transformed crops unharmed.  The technology is a real moneymaker for the industry, which charges much more for the GE seeds, and then sells more herbicide to the farmers planting the seeds.”

It is important to note that along with the introduction of GE crops came industry claims that this technology (inserting herbicides and insecticides into the plants themselves) would decrease the need for external application. A close examination of GE crops over the past sixteen years shows that, despite these claims, herbicide use has actually increased significantly.

A peer-reviewed paper published last summer showed that the three major GE crops in the U.S. – corn, soybeans, and cotton – have increased overall herbicide use by more than 527 million pounds between 1996 – 2011, compared to what it likely would have been in the absence of GE crops.  In 1996, the year GE crops were introduced, about 14 MM pounds of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicides, were sprayed on the three major GE crops, corn, cotton, and soybeans, accounting for about 4% of total pesticide use on these crops.  In 2012, nearly 300 MM pounds were sprayed, a remarkable three-quarters of total pesticide use on these three crops.

Additionally, a U.S. Geological Survey study has shown that we may literally be living and breathing the chemical glyphosate, now a common component of the air and rain in the Midwest during spring and summer, with levels rising in many aquatic ecosystems.

So why exactly are these herbicides needed? Namely, nature’s brilliant ability to adapt.  Called “superweeds,” at least 23 species of weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, and are emerging at an alarming rate, now present in 50-75 million acres where GE soy, corn, and cotton crops grow in 26 states.

Several chemical companies are responding by designing GE seeds that tolerate multiple or higher-strength herbicides, such as 2,4-D and Dicamba. But because these chemicals were used previously, weeds resistant to them are already widespread. In fact, 28 species worldwide are resistant to 2,4-D and/or dicamba; by 2019, it could cause enormous increases in herbicide use, including a many-fold increase in the pounds of 2,4-D currently applied to American corn crops.

When is comes to insecticide use, the story is not much different.  Seed hybrids specifically made to ward off corn and cotton insects are now experiencing the existence of “superbugs”.  An alarming paper came out in the fall showing that corn borers are now becoming resistant to one of the Bt insecticides that was bred into corn since 1996.

This trend is expected to continue in 2013. In a recent Ag Professional piece, Mike Gray, an agricultural entomology professor at the University of Illinois, was cited as anticipating “a sharp increase in the use of planting-time soil insecticides with corn rootworm Bt hybrids. On average, nearly half the producers indicated they intend to use both a soil applied (at-planting) insecticide with their corn rootworm Bt hybrid this spring.”

Weed scientists are beginning to speak out against the “pesticide treadmill” strategy: trying to combat resistant weeds by spraying more and more herbicides on them – despite negative environmental and human health effects.

“Such a grossly excessive level of reliance on a single pesticide is profoundly unsustainable,” says Gary Hirshberg. “While the technology is so young and there is apparently so much to learn, consumers need to have the same rights held by citizens around the world, to choose whether or not to buy these foods and indirectly support this cycle of increased overall chemical usage.”

Image via New York Times

If a review of a GE crop fails to comply with the law, and require further analysis, this provision overrides a court-mandated review and allows continued planting before further USDA review takes place.  Ultimately, this rider points to the reduction in oversight of genetically engineered foods, and the ability of powerful interests to interfere with our right to know about our food.

In Mark Bittman’s latest opinion column in the New York Times, he sheds light on the meaning behind the rider:

“Congress is (again) protecting corporations from the public interest. This is all the more reason that food derived from genetically modified organisms should be so labeled, especially since the vast majority of Americans want them to be.”

Bittman goes on to point out that the USDA has already been overly supportive of GE crops, having approved the planting of genetically engineered beets when the court made a move to stop it a few years ago.  He also notes that genetic engineering has not been faring as well as anticipated.  With over a dozen weed species now resistant to Roundup Ready seeds, which account for 90% of soybean and 70% of corn production, chemical companies have resorted to making inflated claims and using more herbicides (and pesticides) than ever.

Bittman reinstates the necessity to move cautiously in regards to new biotechnology, of which the rider now allows companies to do the opposite:

“It’s smart to prudently explore the possible benefits and uses of genetically engineered materials in agriculture, and to deploy them if and when they’re proven to be a) safe (otherwise, no) and b) beneficial to society at large (otherwise, why bother?). I don’t believe that any G.E. materials have so far been proven to be either of these things, and therefore we should proceed cautiously.”

We have a right to know about our food, and our federal agencies need to do a thorough job evaluating genetically engineered (GE) crops and GE foods, before they are introduced into our homes.

Click here to see Jon Stewart’s shed some light (and laughter) on the Monsanto Protection Act.

Additionally, the survey revealed that “32 percent of parents who learned about GE foods in the news are significantly more likely to increase their organic purchases.”

“The USDA Organic label is basically the gold standard for consumers to be sure that the foods they are buying are produced without genetically engineered ingredients,” said OTA’s CEO and Executive Director Christine Bushway. “It is important for parents to know they have a choice when buying food for their families.”

It’s no mystery that parents want the most healthful food options for their families.  When asked the reason for their changing food purchasing habits, 30 percent expressed the desire to avoid pesticides and fertilizers, while 29 percent cited their top reason was to avoid antibiotics or synthetic hormones.

Robyn O’Brien, mother and founder of the AllergyKids Foundation, learned about the presence of genetically engineered ingredients in our food when one of her children suffered from a dangerous allergic reaction. “We realized we were pretty food illiterate when it came to processed foods,” she remembers. “Here in the U.S., these genetically engineered ingredients are not on the labels, so we’re not about to make an informed choice.”

Click here to hear more about Robyn’s personal story.

Has your family become more aware of genetically engineered ingredients in food? If so, have your shopping habits changed? Share in the comments below.