A reluctant no to I-522

The battle over labeling foods for genetically modified ingredients holds a mirror to deviating interests. Of the two sides, the advocates for I-522 are the soulful agitators, those traditionally aligned with the public interest. The United Farm Workers, Washington Conservation Voters, natural food markets such as PCC.

The opponents? Monsanto and Big Agra, bigfooting behemoths with an appetite for suing small farmers and pulling the wings off of flies (the latter is just a rumor, mind you.)

The impulse is to embrace David over Goliath and vote for I-522. But labeling needs to be done the right way, and I-522 falls short. Should citizens let the perfect be the enemy of the good? That’s up to Washington’s David-oriented voters. With I-522, the perfect is the enemy of the middling.

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One problem is the nature and uniformity of labeling. A wake-the-kids “genetically modified” label affixed to a bag of sugar produced from genetically modified sugar beets seems a wee extreme, especially since there is nothing to distinguish its contents from natural sugar. And there are products such as cheese that use genetically modified enzymes that are exempt.

Another nebulous area is whether to label meat and dairy products as genetically modified if the animals in question consumed GM feed. The initiative says no, consistent with global labeling standards. But are these byproducts truly unsullied by GM ingredients? Are we?

There are two I-522 suppositions that need to be tackled head-on: Are such foods a health concern and does the public have a right to know? The Legislature assigned the Washington State Academy of Sciences to analyze the initiatitive’s implications. On health, the report states, “There have been no statistically significant, repeatable evidence of adverse human health consequences due to GM products. Given the current state of knowledge and evidence, GM foods are considered to ‘not differ’ in safety as compared with foods with non-GM ingredients.” Regarding nutrition, the report reads, “GM plants and animals are ‘substantially equivalent’ to their non-GM counterparts. The chemical composition and nutritional value of GM products falls within the range of values found in non-GM products.”

Still, vigilant consumers and fans of Aldous Huxley have a right to know. The key is to integrate the GM label into the rest of the ingredient list rather than set it apart like a cancer warning on tobacco.

Predictability and uniformity are the keys, and the Legislature should address the problem this next session. Labeling will happen, and Washington should be in the vanguard.

We need to handle it right, however. A reluctant no to I-522.

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THis is an editorial cartoon by Michael de Adder . Michael de Adder was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. He studied art at Mount Allison University where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing and painting. He began his career working for The Coast, a Halifax-based alternative weekly, drawing a popular comic strip called Walterworld which lampooned the then-current mayor of Halifax, Walter Fitzgerald. This led to freelance jobs at The Chronicle-Herald and The Hill Times in Ottawa, Ontario.

 

After freelancing for a few years, de Adder landed his first full time cartooning job at the Halifax Daily News. After the Daily News folded in 2008, he became the full-time freelance cartoonist at New Brunswick Publishing. He was let go for political views expressed through his work including a cartoon depicting U.S. President Donald Trump’s border policies. He now freelances for the Halifax Chronicle Herald, the Toronto Star, Ottawa Hill Times and Counterpoint in the USA. He has over a million readers per day and is considered the most read cartoonist in Canada.

 

Michael de Adder has won numerous awards for his work, including seven Atlantic Journalism Awards plus a Gold Innovation Award for news animation in 2008. He won the Association of Editorial Cartoonists' 2002 Golden Spike Award for best editorial cartoon spiked by an editor and the Association of Canadian Cartoonists 2014 Townsend Award. The National Cartoonists Society for the Reuben Award has shortlisted him in the Editorial Cartooning category. He is a past president of the Association of Canadian Editorial Cartoonists and spent 10 years on the board of the Cartoonists Rights Network.
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