Like much that transpires in politics, most of the anti-genetic engineering campaigns we’ve seen over the past 30 years are not what they seem; they are more propaganda than populism. An example is this year’s Proposition 37 on the California ballot, which would require the labeling of certain “genetically engineered” foods. Several aspects of this initiative are important to Californians. For a start, as public policy it fails dismally. Prop 37 flunks every test: scientific, economic, legal and common sense. Genetically engineered foods are not in any way a meaningful “category,” which makes any choice of what to include wholly arbitrary. Nor are they unsafe or any less “natural” than thousands of other common foods. Therefore, as federal regulators have said, a mandatory label erroneously implies a meaningful difference where none exists.
View the original article here: Prop 37: An Initiative in Need of Its Own Warning Label
