Legislation introduced in U.S. Congress to label genetically modified foods

U.S. congressional representative, Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), recently introduced five bills into the U.S. House of Representative for labeling and safety testing of GM foods. The five bills include:

• The Genetically Engineered Food Right To Know Act of 2002, which "requires food companies to label all foods that contain or are produced with genetically engineered material."
• The Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act of 2002, which "requires all genetically engineered foods to follow FDA's current food additive process to ensure they are safe for human consumption" and authorizes the FDA to "contract out for independent testing of a genetically engineered food and to seek input on the food safety process from the National Academy's Institute of Medicine."
• The Genetically Engineered Crop and Animal Farmer Protection Act of 2002, which establishes a "Farmer Bill of Rights."
• The Genetically Engineered Organism Liability Act of 2002, which "places all liability from negative impacts of genetically engineered organisms squarely upon the biotechnology companies that created the genetically engineered organism."
• Real Solutions to World Hunger Act of 2002, which restricts genetically engineered exports to those nations "already approved in the U.S. and approved by the importing nation."

The bills which have over twenty co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and have been endorsed by the Sierra Club, National Farmers Organization, Center for Food Safety, Organic Trade Organization, and the American Corn Growers Association.
(July 2002)