The House of Representatives have passed a controversial bill on the 'national food uniformity'. This contentious labelling law would effectively take away the power from local & state governments to enforce labels on food safety on foods and beverages that are likely to cause cancer, defects in birth, allergy reactions or poisonings due to substances like mercury, like those required in California and other states. The bill would also curtail citizens in local municipalities and states from passing laws that would require genetically engineered foods and ingredients like Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) from being labelled.
Authorities of the organic consumers association have stated that the senate would soon be voting on this bill. They explained that the "National Uniformity for Food Act,' would lower the standards on food safety by upstaging the state food safety laws that are not 'identical' to federal law. Explaining that due to this controversial law hundreds of laws and regulations of the states on the safety standards of food & beverages would be risk, including those that are controlling the safety of commodities like milk, fish and shellfish that have a high risk of early contamination.They further stated that large supermarket chains and food manufacturers, who are being spearheaded by the powerful Grocery Manufacturers of America, are pushing for the bill. They explained that the big food corporations and the biotech industry are beginning to see that the consumers are understanding and are becoming more and more concerned about food safety, genetic engineering, and chemical-intensive agriculture, and are reading labels more closely.
They felt that these companies were getting increasingly concerned that the common people are now putting in an effort to know about the hazardous technologies such as genetic engineering and food irradiation, about pesticide and mercury residues. They explained that due to this the big companies are afraid that their products will be rejected if there were truthful labels on the food products.
Stating that this industry-sponsored bill is gaining momentum and that efforts are needed to stop the bill, they appealed to the people to Act immediately. The association members have asked that the people to act in unison to preserve the local and regional democracy and protect themselves and their family from unsafe foods by letting their local senator know of their views against the bill.
