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Remarks On Genetically Modified Foods And International Regulation, Jean Halloran

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

I will try and be brief since everybody has heard from me already. I’m just going to talk about something which probably none of you have heard of. Ten or twenty years ago, people had really not heard of it but after GATT, the general arrangements for tariffs and trade, it acquired special status, which was that if you are using a food safety standard in which you can develop byproducts, then it is assumed that your standard is a legitimate one and you cannot be challenged by the World Trade Organization on that standard.

Regulating Genetically Modified Foods: Is Mandatory Labeling The Right Answer?, Gregory Conko

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Thank you. It’s a very common mistake to believe that consumers could only have a choice if the government requires mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food. My question back to you, Jean, is, exactly what kind of information do consumers get if all you do is label the product as “Genetically Engineered?” We can take this up later in the debate part of our panel discussion. I think the one thing that we can all agree on, however, is that the food label is a very important source of information to consumers.

Regulating Genetically Modified Foods: Is Mandatory Labeling The Right Answer?, Jonathan Adler

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here, and I appreciate the invitation. What I want to talk about are some legal issues relating to labeling and, in particular, constitutional issues relating to mandatory labeling for genetically modified foods or food products that may contain genetically modified components. This is a separate issue from whether or not the FDA, or some other agency, has sufficient statutory authority at present to mandate labeling, and that is something worth discussing. Even if they do have such authority, or even if Congress tomorrow were to give the FDA such authority or were to …

Panel Remarks On Regulating Genetically Modified Foods: Is Mandatory Labeling The Right Answer?, Michael Rodemeyer, Jonathan Adler, Greg Conko, Jean Halloran

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Thank you to all of our speakers. I can assure everybody in the audience that you will not be specialists on this topic after today, since we can easily spend a whole afternoon on this topic. Let me ask Jean first of all, do you want to respond to anything you’ve heard from the speakers after you?

Remarks On Genetically Modified Foods And International Regulation, Mark Mansour

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

First of all, I want to thank you all for having us here for a wonderful program. To start out, I had intended to address some issues that Jean Halloran has raised. The first point regarding the Committee on Food Labeling, why the United States is opposed to regimes and the considerations of the past couple of years, is very simple. It’s not a matter at looking at trade cases rather because the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as Dr. Hoover stated before, does not provide a consumer’s right to know.

It’s not to say the consumer’s right to know …

Remarks On Genetically Modified Foods And International Regulation, Tony Van Der Haegen

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Thank you. I certainly don’t want to interfere in the American debate about labeling, since I have already enough problems with European consumers, but what I would like to do today is not only to talk about our legislation a bit, because it’s so detailed and complex, but also to talk about the European/ American trade relations, in particular as it relates to biotechnology. First of all, I would like to say there is a strong trans-Atlantic relationship as far as trade is concerned between the EU and the U.S. We have to realize that we have a trade level …

Remarks On Genetically Modified Foods And International Regulation, Thomas N. Sleight

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

I’m going to speak on a slightly different perspective here. I guess the first question I have is how many farmers do we have in the audience? Val, I marked you down as an organic farmer here today, as I learned that today. I don’t think we have many, and I’m going to take a fantastic leap of judgment saying that the students that are here at the University of Richmond School of Law are not preparing for careers in agriculture. So, I’m going to come from a farmer’s point of view. I will jump back and forth between my …

Regulating Genetically Modified Foods: Is Mandatory Labeling The Right Answer?, Jean Halloran

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

hank you. Consumer Union, which is the organization that I work for, favors labeling genetically engineered food. At the base of our view on this issue is the view that genetically engineered food is different than regular food. I know some of our previous speakers have spoken about how this is all just one big continuum from conventional crops, but when you look at spider- silk goats, which are goats genetically engineered to produce spider silk in their milk that do in fact exist already on a test farm, the ordinary persons sees something different. To the ordinary person, a …