The Center for Food Safety challenges new federal labeling laws for GE foods.
The Center for Food Safety filed a motion for summary judgment last week in its lawsuit that challenges new federal labeling laws for genetically modified foods.
The lawsuit, filed in July 2020 by the Center and other food advocacy groups, argues that the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, which took effect in 2019, is unlawful.
Under the new rules, the plaintiffs argue, the majority of genetically modified foods will go unlabeled; tens of millions of Americans will be discriminated against by the allowance of quick response code disclosures, labeling terminology is limited to “bioengineered,” as opposed to the widely known terms “genetically modified organism” and “genetically engineered,” and state laws pertaining to the labeling of GE foods and seeds will be invalidated, plaintiffs state in court documents.
‘“Consumers have fought for decades for their right to know what’s in their food and how it’s produced,’” Meredith Stevenson, Center for Food Safety attorney and counsel for the case, said in a CFA press release Monday. ‘“But USDA instead used its authority to label GE foods by obscuring this information behind QR codes and unfamiliar terminology and omitting the majority of GE foods. Fortunately, the law is the consumers’ side.’”