Biotechnology and the Food Label
Should the food label serve to communicate required information about whether food is the product of biotechnology or contains ingredients that are produced using biotechnology? Unlike most other regulatory authorities throughout the whole world, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has resisted the urgings of interested parties to require such information to appear on a broad-scale basis. This position finds root in both science and law. Specifically, from a scientific perspective, FDA has concluded that there is nothing inherently unsafe or mysterious about food biotechnology. As a result of this conclusion, any effort by FDA to require biotechnology-related information to appear on the food label would be inconsistent with FDA's statutory authority and with the labeling policies and precedents that have derived from that authority. At the heart of these policies and precedents is the notion that to be required to appear on the food label, information must be essential and material to a consumer's ability to choose food wisely.
Keywords: biotechnology, material, materiality, label, labeling, Section 201(n), mandatory labeling, voluntary labeling
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