GMO Labeling to Appear on Washington Ballot

Gregory Conko, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says consumers have a right to know if products they purchase have negative health consequences. However, requiring producers to provide notice of genetically modified ingredients misleads people into believing a health risk exists, Conko said.

“The use of recombinant DNA techniques—what’s generally referred to as biotechnology, genetic engineering, or genetic modification—to modify foods does not itself make a food more or less safe, or change the nutritional value of a food,” said Conko. “So labeling a product as ‘genetically modified’ gives consumers no useful information.”