California: Genetically altered foods face labeling

22dec99  Wall Street Journal

SACRAMENTO -- Two Senate Democrats here don't want to wait for the federal government to decide whether consumers should be warned when they buy genetically modified foods. They want California to act now. 

In the days following last week's U.S. Food and Drug Administration hearing in Oakland on the question, Sen. Tom Hayden of Los Angeles already has drafted, and Sen. Byron Sher of Stanford says he's seriously considering, legislation to require labeling of such foods. 

Sen. Hayden's proposal, to be introduced in January, goes further, requiring the labeling of genetically engineered seeds, in addition to modified raw and processed foods. Sen. Sher says "that might be a logical part of disclosure. It's possible we may take different approaches [but] I haven't had a chance to look at his bill."

Supporters of genetic engineering say gene splicing has given farmers a valuable tool to grow healthier and more-abundant crops. But opponents, including some organic farmers, are concerned the technique could create mutant pollens and food products that could harm beneficial insects and neighboring plants and aggravate allergies in people.

Sens. Hayden and Sher say mandatory labeling is needed as much for consumer choice and public information as for any purported health concerns raised by the altered food products. "I want to know what I'm putting into my stomach," says Mr. Hayden. "My primary concern would be the preservation of the democratic process against manipulation and invisibility."

But the California Farm Bureau Federation, which staunchly opposes mandatory labeling, says such laws would unnecessarily frighten consumers, force a big jump in labeling and food-testing costs that would be passed on to consumers and, ultimately, hurt food sales.

"We're not against consumer information if it tells you something," says Cynthia Cory, director of marketing and labor for the 85,000-member state farming organization. "But we are against warning labels when we think they're warning you about something that's not a threat."

Even so, Ms. Cory, a geneticist by training, admits it's the advocates of genetically engineered foods who must shoulder the blame for much of the consumer confusion. "It's understandable that people are scared," she says, "because these are scary words, because the science community and firms that have come up with [the technology] have done a really bad job -- an abysmal job -- of educating consumers."

Sen. Hayden says that's where his labeling proposal comes in. His measure would define seeds or food as genetically engineered if they have been "altered or produced through genetic modification from a donor, vector or recipient organism" using DNA techniques.

"Public anxiety, it would seem to me," says the senator, "would be increased by the secrecy, or has been increased by the secrecy. Anybody that's an advocate of the marketplace should favor consumer information and consumer choice."

These proposals come at a time when both agribusiness and the political and regulatory worlds are abuzz over the future of genetically modified foods, in which scientists splice a single gene from one organism to another. Indeed, the FDA's Dec. 13 hearing in Oakland was the last of three such meetings the agency has held nationwide to help it decide whether stricter safety and labeling rules are needed.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) introduced legislation in Congress to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.. And just last week, a group of class-action lawyers filed a suit against Monsanto Co. in federal district court in Washington, D.C., alleging that the St. Louis-based company didn't adequately test the safety of its genetically modified corn and soybean plants. In addition, the suit alleges that Monsanto's patented genes give it too much control over how staple crops are used.

A Monsanto attorney attacks the suit's "outrageous allegations," and says he doesn't "have much doubt we will defeat this lawsuit." 

Here in California, meantime, an all-volunteer group opposed to genetically modified foods has begun a low-budget, Internet-based petition drive to place a mandatory-labeling provision on the November 2000 ballot. 

"It seems to me that in a free society we should have a right to know and to have public disclosure," says Robert Cannard, a Sonoma Valley organic farmer leading the effort.

Stuck somewhat in the middle is Peggy Lemaux, a research scientist and cooperative extension specialist at the University of California-Berkeley. Ms. Lemaux says she's served as a liaison between the university and the public for 10 years. She opposes mandatory labeling "because I don't think food should go in the direction where there would be legal battles over the labels on a can of tomato paste."

But if lawmakers determine there must be labels, her choice is something that says the product "may contain a genetically modified organism." In that regard, it would serve to notify consumers and, perhaps just as important, put the financial onus on nonmodified producers to determine that their products are free of genetic engineering and that they could label them as such.

"If there is a consumer desire for non-[genetically altered] foods," she says, "an industry will arise to fill that role."