For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.
The campaign to get Americans to adopt a vegetarian diet by demonizing meat-eating won’t disappear anytime soon. For the most part, producer groups and their allies understand that and have crafted effective strategies to push back.

Likewise, the movement to force FDA to order mandatory labeling of big, bad biotech foods continues to gather momentum. The Right2Know rally at the White House late last year that featured a formidable coalition of organic industry trade groups, consumer advocates, environmentalists and a collection of various anti-corporate, anti-GMO activists all pushing for what seems to an increasing percentage of people as a pretty straightforward request: Label those foods made with ingredients derived from genetically engineered crops.

Of course, the implication is that we need to know about GMOs because they’re dangerous. Unlike labeling to tout a food product’s “whole grain goodness,” or “heart-healthy contents,” the GMO labeling lobby wants those statements to stand in for the skull and crossbones plastered on households products deemed deadly if consumed.

Unlike the veggie campaigners, however, the food industry wants to ignore the GMO activists, hoping they’ll eventually grow tired and give up the fight-apparently.

So far, rather than a positive message about the real benefits and future potential of biotechnology, the response that seems to resonate most with the industry is exemplified in an article in last month’s Forbes titled, “Labeling of Biotech Foods Is Unnecessary and Unconstitutional.” As if the title isn’t combative enough, writers Henry Miller and Gregory Conko argued that labeling of GM foods would be but counterproductive.