By January 2022, products that have been bioengineered, or have an ingredient in them that’s been bioengineered, will require a disclosure telling consumers about the presence of GMOs, thanks to a mandate from Congress. You might already see this new label make its way onto select foods and brands starting this year.
The new labeling system might make people wonder, as they frequently have in the past—are GMOs safe?
Good news: The majority of food safety experts agree that genetically modified organisms, from plants to animals, are generally safe for human consumption.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found in a 2016 review of more than 1,000 studies that GMO crops don’t pose a health risk to humans.
Related on the SLP
In a press release, the committee announced that it “found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between current commercially available genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops.”
The World Health Organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the European Commission reached the same conclusion. The US FDA works closely with the EPA and USDA to evaluate the safety of new GMO crops and ingredients.
