For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.
The White House is 313 miles from my Brooklyn neighborhood, but in early October, 50 or so people set off walking there, as part of the Right2Know campaign. Along the way they were joined by hundreds of others, and rallying in Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, they called on regulators to insist that genetically modified or engineered foods/organisms (known as GEs, or GMOs) be labeled as such, and for President Obama to keep his 2007 campaign promise to do this.

The effort felt in line with the Occupy movement – with the voicing of frustrations that even in simple, common sense ways there seems to be a system working against the majority of us (even back in a 2001 ABC News poll, 93% of people said they wanted GE food labeling). But it was also just one more effort in a decades-long fight – Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich has introduced a Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010 – and as far as I can tell the latest effort to fail to get the job done.

There’s a lot of debate about whether or not it’s safe to eat GM foods, but what’s being argued for is simply that they be labeled. We’re living in a time where it’s illegal not to tell consumers if a product is made in a room where nuts are handled, but food can be tinkered with at the DNA level and no one is obligated to say so.