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Wall Street
Journal tests for GMO-free products
April 5
Dear Health Freedom Fighters,
Thursday's Wall Street Journal contains a
major in-depth article titled "Laboratory tests belie
promises of some 'GMO-free' food labels." The Wall Street
Journal purchased and tested 20 products with labels that
read "Non-GMO" or "GMO-Free." They found
that 11 of the products had evidence of some GMOs and another
5 had even higher levels of contamination.
Virtually all of the products currently sold
that are labeled Non-GMO or GMO-Free are made with organic
ingredients. Since organic crops are suppose to be free from
genetic engineering, you would think that organic products
would be able to safely make the claim of Non-GMO or GMO-Free.
Unfortunately, with over 70 million acres
of genetically engineered crops planted in the United States,
organic crops are being polluted with the pollen from these
gene-altered plants destroying the purity of organics.
The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered
Foods hopes this Wall Street Journal article will serve as
a wake-up call to the natural products industry to get more
aggressively engaged in the battle over genetically engineered
foods.
While companies such as Eden Foods, Nature's
Path Foods, Spectrum Organic Products, Whole Foods Markets,
United Natural Foods and others have been actively engaged
in working to pass the Genetically Engineered Food Right to
Know Act into law, many others have not. The time has come
for the entire natural foods industry to join in the battle
over genetically engineered foods.
Note: Please visit our "Friends of The
Campaign" web page to see companies that have supported
our efforts:
http://www.thecampaign.org/friends.htm
Passing the Genetically Engineered Food Right
to Know Act into law is the fastest way to put the brakes
on the rapid growth of genetically engineered crops in the
United States. When mandatory labeling legislation was passed
in Europe in May 1998, in a matter of months nearly all the
grocery chains and food manufactures removed GMOs from their
products. Why? Because consumers do not want to buy genetically
engineered foods. And when there is no demand, there will
soon no longer be a supply.
Please keep in mind that there are only four
countries in the world that are commercially growing genetically
engineered foods. These are the United States, Argentina,
Canada and China. In Europe, genetically engineered crops
are only being grown in test fields, and those are often destroyed
by anti-GE activists.
The problems created by uncontrolled pollen
drift into organic fields can not be over emphasized. Genetically
engineered crops are a direct assault on the organic division
of the natural products industry.
THE CAMPAIGN'S
POSITION ON
"NON-GMO" AND "GMO-FREE" LABELING
The Food and Drug Administration issued a
Notice on January 18, 2001 titled "Draft Guidance for
Industry: Voluntary Labeling Indicating Whether Foods Have
or Have Not Been Developed Using Bioengineering."
This non-binding document questioned the use
of the term GMO-Free arguing that it could be misleading to
consumers. The FDA's position is that GMO-Free indicates a
product is 100% free of GMOs and that this was not possible.
(The FDA failed to mention that the reason this was not possible
is that the USDA and EPA have allowed crops to be polluted
by pollen drift.) They also suggested a term such as "not
developed using bioengineering" would be a more appropriate
label.
The FDA should use similar criteria to what
the government requires for Alcohol-Free and Non-Alcoholic
beer. The term Alcohol-Free requires a beer to be 100% free
of alcohol. The term Non-Alcoholic indicates a beer that has
less than 0.5% alcohol. The government requires that next
to the term Non-Alcoholic is a statement indicating that the
product can contain up to 0.5% alcohol. So Non-Alcoholic beer
does contain low levels of alcohol.
Therefore, the position of The Campaign to
Label Genetically Engineered Foods is that the term Non-GMO
should be permitted with an asterisk referencing a statement
on the package indicating to what level it is tested. For
example, the statement could say Non-GMO*. When you referred
to the asterisk, it would say something like: * Tested to
a level of 1% or lower.
The Campaign agrees that labels indicating
GMO-Free are probably misleading because it is now virtually
impossible to obtain organic foods that are 100% free of pollution
from genetically engineered crops.
But we also feel it is a sad state of affairs
that our government has allowed this genetic pollution to
occur in the first place because of their faulty regulations.
The Wall Street Journal article posted below
is quite long. But it is worth spending the time to read this
detailed report.
Craig Winters
Executive Director
The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods
The Campaign
PO Box 55699
Seattle, WA 98155
Tel: 425-771-4049
Fax: 603-825-5841
E-mail: mailto:label@thecampaign.org
Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org
Laboratory
tests belie promises of some 'GMO-free' food labels / StarLink
began turning up in 10 percent of corn at processors
-- Wall Street Journal
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