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SACRAMENTO — A television spot opposing Proposition 37, the genetically engineered food labeling initiative, was pulled briefly this week to better identify a think-tank researcher attacking the ballot issue.

The controversy came as the opponents of the ballot measure, with $35 million in contributions from the food industry and biochemical firms, expanded a week-old television advertising blitz.

Proposition 37 would require retailers and manufacturers of processed foods to label fresh produce or manufactured, packaged food that contain or likely could contain ingredients made from plants or animals whose DNA has been manipulated in a laboratory.

The first television ad featured a family farmer from the Central Valley saying the proposition would raise prices for consumers and put California agriculture at a competitive disadvantage with other states and countries.

The second No on 37 spot that began airing Tuesday featured an academic, identified on screen as “Dr. Henry I. Miller M.D., Stanford University, founding dir. FDA Office of Technology.” He is standing in an ornately vaulted campus walkway.

Miller contended that the ballot measure “makes no sense at all” because it mandates that some foods be labeled while others are exempted by the proposed law. “It just gives an indication of the arbitrary and completely illogical nature of this ill conceived proposition,” Miller says.