Agriculture giant Monsanto has recently threatened to sue the state of Vermont over a push for legislation requiring the point-of-sale labeling of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) sold as food or in food or medicinal products. The bill in question, H-722, is currently languishing in the Vermont House Agriculture Committee, even though the majority of its members support its passage (6-5), causing advocates for the popular measure to cry foul.
Some believe that legislators, weary of court cases like those brought on by the state’s recent bid to shut down Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, are reluctant to engage in what would likely become a protracted legal battle with another powerful mega-corporation—especially one they already faced in a 1994 suit over labeling of dairy products from cows injected with bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which the state lost.
“Elected officials are abandoning the public interest and public will in the face of corporate intimidation,” say Vermont farmer Will Allen and Organic Consumers Association National Director Ronnie Cummings in a co-written piece for Alternet decrying the bill’s delay. “What happened to the formerly staunch legislative champions of Vermont’s ‘right to know’ bill? They lost their nerve and abandoned their principles after Monsanto representatives recently threatened a public official that the biotech giant would sue Vermont if they dared to pass the bill.”
The pair argues that the Legislature has adopted a policy of foot-dragging on the process, with an immediate goal of staging more hearings that will push any decisive action on the bill past its recess date in early May. Previous public hearings gave forums to experts whose compelling scientific arguments about the health hazards of GMOS, and exposure of inaccurate claims that the FDA had done safety testing on products with GMOs when in fact the industry had done the testing, only increased public support for the measure; the number of letters, calls and emails received in support of H-722, say Allen and Cummings, was the highest since the Civil Unions bill in 1999-2000.
Sponsored by 11 Vermont representatives, H-722 would require mandatory labeling of all food produced using genetic engineering. The bill would also forbid the labeling of GMO food with the word “natural,” much like a similar measure being pursued in California by activists who are collecting signatures to bypass what they’ve called a corporate stranglehold on their state’s legislators and regulatory officials. (If successful, that measure will appear as a direct ballot initiative on California’s Nov. 2012 ticket.)
According to Vermont Public Research Interest Group, “It is estimated that 70 percent of all packaged food sold in the United States contains genetically engineered ingredients, yet consumers have no way of choosing whether or not to buy these foods because they are not labeled.”
“This is a consumer right-to-know issue,” says VPIRG’s Falko Schilling. “Just as we require nutritional labels on food so that shoppers can make informed choices, consumers should have the same access to information about whether their food has been genetically engineered.”
More than 50 nations around the world have passed laws requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods, including arguably less developed countries than the United States, such as China, Russia and Mexico. Supporters of the Vermont Right to Know campaign are planning an action on April 12 at the state capital in Montpelier in conjunction with the next round of public hearings.
