Even Congress Wants GMOs Labeled | Rodale News

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Submitted by: Emily Main 2012-03-14

It's very clear that the U.S. public wants genetically engineered, or GE, foods labeled. Since its launch in October of last year, the "Just Label It" campaign has garnered more than 900,000 signatures to its petition asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require any food containing GE ingredients to be labeled. That's more than any other FDA petition in history.

Read More: What Are GMOs?

And it looks like Congress, at least, is listening. On Monday, 55 Republican and Democratic politicians from the U.S. House and Senate signed a letter in support of the Just Label It petition and supporting the 92 percent of Americans who, survey after survey shows, want labeling of GE foods. In their letter, the congressmen and senators write:

"At issue is the fundamental right consumers have to make informed choices about the food they eat…The agency currently requires over 3,000 other ingredients, additives, and processes to be labeled; providing basic information doesn't confuse the public, it empowers them to make choices. Absent labeling, Americans are unable to choose for themselves whether to purchase GE foods…. We urge you to fully review the facts, law, and science, and side with the American public by requiring the labeling of genetically engineered foods as is done in nearly 50 countries throughout the world."

Read More: The New GMOs: Even More Toxic

GE foods have gone unlabeled for so long because when the FDA was reviewing their safety back in the '80s and '90s, biotech companies convinced the agency that GE foods were fundamentally no different than non-GE foods. However, the FDA's own scientists in 1996 said that, based on the available evidence, fiddling with the DNA of a crop could increase people's food allergies to that crop and lower its nutritional value. A recent study found that genetically modified plant genes caneven survive in your digestive tract.

Check out the list of senators and congressmen who signed the letter and thank yours if you see his or her name.

Then, sign the Just Label It petition, if you haven't already, and add your name to the growing chorus of Americans who want the right to know just what they're eating.