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Hillmen Messenger

The School Newspaper of Placer High School

Hillmen Messenger

The School Newspaper of Placer High School

Hillmen Messenger

Prop 37 genetically modified food

Prop 37 is an initiative that will negatively impact Californians and voters need to take a stand against trial lawyers looking to make a dollar.

“Prop 37 is extremely misleading and I hope it fails,” said Shannon Spears, Agriculture teacher at Placer High School.

Should this initiative be passed into legislation, it will require certain foods in grocery stores to be labeled if they contain a genetically modified ingredient. It also creates an opportunity for trial lawyers to sue farmers, producers, and manufacturers over labels. This proposition was written by a trial lawyer, for trial lawyers, and voters need stand up to special interest campaigns.

The fiscal impact that this new law would have on the people of California is also enough to vote “No” on Prop 37. California families would have to spend over four hundred dollars more on food per year, an amount that will be devastating to many during this prolonged recession.

However, families would not be the only ones paying for a useless law. The State of California would have to go from a few hundred thousand dollars on regulating labels, to over one million dollars to regulate the labeling of genetically modified foods. With money stretched so thin between different state organizations, proponents of the proposition never stopped to consider where that money will come from. Would it come from our schools? Parks? Public assistance? Who would feel the heat of yet another budget cut to deal with unnecessary legislation?

Prop 37 should not be passed into law because of the fiscal impact, but also because of special interest exemptions.

If it is required to label canned soup in the grocery store “genetically modified”, the same soup should also be labeled in a restaurant. Under this law, this would not be so. The same goes for soy milk and cow’s milk. Soy milk is required to be labeled, but cow’s milk does not, even if the cow is fed genetically modified feed.

“I don’t mind my food being labeled, but if it is something we are really going to do, then it needs to be done without exemptions and everyone should be required to label” says Spears regarding special interest exemptions.

All of this is not even of any importance, unless voters educate themselves on the science behind genetically modified foods.

Spears comments that, “anyone who calls foods that are GMO’s ‘franken foods’ or uses examples to scare people to change their minds to gain funding, is not a viable resource.”

Consumers have eaten genetically modified foods for over twenty years, and there have not been any reported deaths or illnesses related to the consumption of these crops.

The American Medical Association even said in an official statement that, “There is no scientific justification for special labeling of bioengineered foods, as a class, and that voluntary labeling is without value unless it is accompanied by focused consumer education.”

With no scientific backing, and an overall negative impact on the families, students, and people of the great State of California, it is imperative to educate yourself and others on bioengineered foods and to vote “No” on Prop 37.

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