AAAS: Legally Mandating GM Food Labels Could Mislead Consumers

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Board of Directors has released its statement on labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods. The said organization concluded that foods containing ingredients from GM crops pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques. The board further stated that legally mandating labels on GM foods could therefore "mislead and falsely alarm consumers" and would bring the people to the misconception that GM crops are untested.

The AAAS has reiterated that for GM crops to receive regulatory approval in the United States, each of them must be subjected to rigorous analysis and testing. It added that the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Medical Association (AMA), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the British Royal Society, and every other respected organization that examined the evidence came to the same conclusion: consuming foods containing ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming the same foods containing ingredients from crop plants modified by conventional plant improvement techniques.

The organization thus stands that crop improvement by the modern molecular techniques of biotechnology is safe.

View AAAS Board of Directors' full statement on labeling of GM foods at http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2012/media/AAAS_GM_statement.pdf.