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The Pros And Cons Of The Labeling Of Genetically Modified Foods

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In contrast, even though many recent surveys reveal that more than 70% of packaged foods contain GMO in the US market, there are no regulations to mandate the labeling of GM foods by the US government. Currently, the US federal government does not require any mandatory labeling of GM foods, unless the nutrition of GM foods has been changed or some toxins and allergens have been added to the GM foods (McLure). According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), there are also no mandatory programs to regulate foods from genetically engineered (“GE”) plants. The only voluntary regulating program is the Plant Biotechnology Consultation Program, which was created in the 1990s to ensure foods made from the new GE plants are safe and…show more content…
Those agencies share the oversight responsibilities of GM foods as Anderson states in his article (Anderson). The “New Leaf Superior” potato case described by Anderson in his article regarding who is responsible to label the GMO potato that contains a harmful substance Bt, clearly demonstrates why there are many GM food issues happened in the US. In this case, neither the FDA nor the EPA takes any action to require the “New Leaf Superior” potato labeling as either GM food or containing a pesticide, even though Bt is harmful to humans (Anderson). This kind of incident happens to many GM foods which allow food producers pushing a significant amount of unsafe GM foods into the market without any warning labels. As a result, consumers are unable to identify unsafe GM foods, and expose themselves to many dangerous health effects when consuming GM foods.
Although the US government does not currently impose any regulations to mandate the labeling of GM foods in order to protect consumers’ health, the majority of Americans support the mandatory labeling of GM foods in the US. According to the article written by Clabough, Vermont Governor has signed the legislation on April 23, 2015 to require labeling of the GM foods, which is the first state in the US imposing regulation to mandate the labeling of GM foods (Clabough). Moreover, people in California are also very keen to have the mandatory labeling of GM foods in
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