ok we're ready to start everybody's here it's ten o'clock good morning everybody i'm state assemblyman jeffrey do you know it's welcome to the bronx for those of you who are not fortunate enough to live here i hope you don't mind coming to the bronx but we don't want to go to manhattan while i represent the eighty first century district which happens to be this district i'm very pleased to be here because this is my alma mater i'm also chair of the assembly standing committee on consumer affairs and protection we're here today to discuss one bill and only one bill the bill is assembly bill a thirty five twenty five and a sponsored by assembly member linda rosenthal who's sitting to my right leg and also with us and david buchwald we have a few more coming i'd like to welcome everybody to this hearing to examine the impact of possible state labeling requirement for foods contain engine genetically modified organisms or g m o as proposed in thirty five twenty five day and the effects that the bill would have should become law in recent years a consumer's ability to know if the food he or she eats contains g m o is has become an increasingly contentious issue consumer and food advocates argue that a labeling requirement would require would provide consumers with a better understanding of the foods they purchase retail agricultural and biotechnology advocates contend that such labeling requirements would be unnecessary costly and perhaps unlawful recently the remand house of representatives passed legislation that would require foods containing g m o is to be labeled but the vermont state senate has not acted on similar legislation connecticut and maine have also passed labeling legislation but both states contain conditional effective dates namely that other states must enact similar legislation before their laws would take effect at a consumer affairs and protection committee meeting on june third this bill thirty five twenty five a was brought before the committee but it did not have enough votes to be reported by the committee nor was it defeated in the committee the bill will come up again in the future in light of the growing demand for labeling foods containing g m o as well as interest from consumer affairs committee members and other assembly members we have come together today to hear testimony from advocates and interest groups are either for or against labeling in addition we look forward to receiving written testimony from anyone interested in participating in the process and we ask that you submit such written testimony within one week from today august sixth now for the sake of time and to leave time for questions afterwards i'm going to ask the witnesses please do not read your testimony we're all capable up here of reading please summarize your testimony get your major points across we have very strict time requirements and i'm going to enforce them we've asked each with this to limit their testimony to five minutes in five minutes you can say a lot and then there will be questions from members of the committee each witness will be sworn and your testimony is being recorded in addition i ask that the audience be silent at all times i know that there are many enthusiastic people here on either side of the issue but any kind of noise or outburst of cheering or whatever or si that's only going to delay the hearing and any kind of stuff like that will come out of the time of whatever side the particular person is on so please let's just listen to the testimony we really want to get information here the members here most of whom are on the consumer affairs committe very much want to get as much information as possible so when the time comes that the bill comes before the committee again everybody can make an intelligent decision as to how to proceed and with that i will call the first witness and that is michael senior scientist at consumers union that's the policy and advocacy arm of consumers reports and we're headquarters in yonkers new york and i want to thank you i'm here to testify in support of the eight three five to five a a bill that would require labeling of foods that have been derived from genetically engineered ingredients as i will discuss in my testimony unlike other developed countries the u s does not require genetically engineered foods to be proven safe before they can go on the market despite detected before hand there could also be on expect the facts just as they are sometimes are with pharmaceutical products despite extensive pre market testing for all these reasons it's important to label genetically engineered foods so negative effects can be noticed and identified and so consumers who simply want to avoid these new foods can do so if they wish and the points i'd like to make is there is global agreement the genetic engineering is different than conventional breeding and that there should be required safety assessments before these products come on the market the human safety problems that could arise from g e are the introduction of new allergens or increasing levels of naturally occurring allergens change levels of plant toxins and changes in nutrition there can also be unintended effects there's been global agreement through codex alimentarius that's the food standards setting organization of the u n they've done a number of topics on this the u s is alone among all the developed countries we do not admit the genetic engineering is different than conventional breeding our policy which was put out in one nine hundred ninety two was promulgated by then vice president dan quayle it was as if the regulatory initiative so the f d a says a genetic engineering is an extension of conventional breeding there's no required safety assessment  there's only these safety consultations where the companies make their own decisions i would point out that in two thousand and one the f d a also put out a policy statement that admitted that genetic engineering is different than conventional breeding and does raise safety issues yet the f d a is still regulating e under the ninety two policy in june of last year the the american medical association's house of delegates they change their position to one where now they support mandatory pre market safety assessment as they said quote  supports mandatory pre market systematic safety assessments of engineered foods i'd like to say there's also evidence a health problems the f d a is poised to approve a genetically engineered salmon it's been engineered to reach market weight in half the time of wild salmon however the company's own data suggests there could be allergy problems a problem with these safety assessments that are done on engineered plants is there's very few long term feeding studies are usually ninety days are shorter there was a carefully designed over analysis of one thousand published feeding studies that looked at animals eating g e corn or soy and they found damage in the kidney liver and bone marrow which could be potential indicators of onset of chronic diseases however no animal test or obligatory for g m o has cultivated on a large scale last october there was a long term two year feeding study that found that g e corn caused tumors in premature death the study eric giles sarah leni and colleagues was viciously attacked in the media by pro g e an industry affiliated scientists in what appears have been an orchestrated campaign what wasn't said is that the french food safety agency and the european food safety authority have functionally agreed with dr sara ling that such a long term safety assessments must be done in fact on june twenty eighth the european commission announced that they were spending three million three million euros to fund a two year cancer  study on the same g e corn friday and k six o three that dr sara laney and his colleagues used i then finally would like to say that in addition we have no independent safety testing of these crops in the u s because of intellectual property rights concerns when farmers buy these crops they have to sign a product stewardship agreement which forbids them from giving such a stage to researchers in two thousand and nine twenty six public sector scientists took the unprecedented step of writing t a and they protested that quote as a result of restricted access no truly independent research can legally be conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology and quot that led the editors of scientific american deposits of perspective the status quo we also believe that safety and environmental protection depend on making plant products available to regular scientific scrutiny agriculture technology companies should therefore immediately remove the restriction on research from there and user agreements  we concur and believe that only truly independent safety tests can give us answers about the safety of g e foods in the mean time it's crucial that these engineered foods be labeled so if people experience any negative effects they and their doctors can identify them so in some because of these safety concerns raised by the long term feeding studies because of the allergy issues and because consumers have a right to know what they are eating c u supports labeling of engineered foods finally at least sixty two countries which together include more than half the world's population including all the european union china india japan korea australia russia brazil and south africa require labeling of engineering foods and finally a number of polls from  ninety five to two thousand and eleven have found between seventy percent in one hundred five percent of americans polls mandatory labeling that new york times came out with their poll that was at ninety five such laving is important because consumers have a right to choose the foods they eat and to avoid any unintended help the facts at the bottom line see you supports mandatory labeling of g e foods and so strongly supports a three five to five day thinking thank you  brought to our attention with respect to this bill is whether or not constitutionally we can do this there's been legislation with respect to other areas that have been stricken that is the claim is that this federal any opinion as to whether or not this legislation with pass constitutional muster yes i do believe that would pass constitutional muster if you look at that particular case the i d f a versus am a story i know it very well because it was some of our testimony that helped to get that bill passed in vermont and that was a bill that would require labeling of milk and dairy products from cows have been treated with rb g h and with the problem with that bill is the state didn't say it had any state interest it said there was mere consumer curiosity they would not admit that there could be a for example an unintended how consequence if there's an unintended health consequences that's a compelling state interest and i would also point out that that decision was in one thousand seven in two thousand and ten there was the sixth district court outside of cincinnati because in this fate of ohio they tried to say you can't label milk as are b g h free and the state indeed on appeal the court ruled that yes milk from treated cows is different and that labeling is valid so i think that shows there is not a problem and i would also point out what is preempted at the federal level is ingredient labeling so that's why this bill and the other bills that i've been heard in other states are very clear not to say this is ingredient labeling this is just that process  of whether genetic engineering has been used and so the f d a they formally don't have a position on genetic engineering so they can't really preempt these kinds of labeling so you're saying t the f d a has it has neither said genetically engineered foods is bad or good they simply haven't taken sides yet well what they did is in one nine hundred ninety two they said it's an extension of conventional breeding therefore we're go treat it the same under the law but then what they did in two thousand and one is with this pre market biotech notification they actually put out a statement saying genetic engineering is different because of this insertion of mutagenesis they would want data on each separate transformational event but they're continuing to regulate under the ninety two policy not the two thousand and one policy and i would argue that the two thousand and one policy is them admitting that they got it wrong in hundred two and again globally there's an agreement that genetic engineering is a different and the reason that's important for codex is because that's functionally written into the deputy overeem it's i'm sure you read the article from creech article in sunday times on the potential destruction of the florida orange crop do you have any thoughts on that yeah i thought that was an interesting article although what upset me about it is it didn't talk about any and it turns out that that insect normally comes from asia they found a parasitic wasp that perfectly control falls this disease in the re union islands and in perth the ricoh there have been releases in florida that haven't worked that well yet but that's because they think that there's a genetic strain of paris a toy that maybe that's the problem but but the bottom line is there's a biological biological control that is working that more money could be looked at and that's not mentioned at all in the article that is that that there's another way to treat that that same problem it has cured the problem as i said in other countries and there could be further work done here so that and there was actually the week before this article on how we need engineered potatoes and the problem with that article is it didn't mention these other agro ecological techniques to get to the same and point side and that i caused any other unintended consequence no in in fact the scientists that have been doing some of the releases here darpa dr marjorie hoyer and colleagues she's a good scientist at the university of florida she actually did some of the first work genetically engineered spider mites so they're looking for the methods and i have a review article from last year about the the greening disease and how  many places do think these the pairs of toys and natural enemies are useful in the management of the insect that vectors the disease and so when you're spraying all the time you're killing all those natural enemies so we need to pay attention to some of that naturally ecology because with the greening we don't know whether that's going to work down the road they spent millions on it and yet there are these wasps that have worked in other countries if only some that same money could be  go into finding the right strain we could probably get it to work here as well ok i should point out by the way that walla walla local city council i think has hearings on every bill before it they don't really have any bills before it we have thousands of bills so it's not typically the case that we hold a hearing on a specific bill but some bills obviously merit a detailed discussion and that's we're doing here today and the sponsor of the bill she's not like really but she is the sponsor of the bill i want to give her first the opportunity to ask some questions and then we'll go to the other members here if they have any questions  thank you assembly member dinner with first of all for convening this hearing as you as you just said we have a lot of bills in in the assembly and most of them did not get a hearing but you know i'm happy and i know the audience is happy that you've decided to convene this just to discuss this one important bill because it is something that we all need a lot of education about and there are so many experts out there from both sides and i'm honored to be invited to be here on the panel i'd like to ask dr hansen i know you've been traveling for years around around the world basically testifying and providing your expert opinion on  about your assertion that independent research can't be done on these genetically engineered crops and that researchers have to get permission from the companies before doing any of the research yeah that's actually that's one of the huge problems since these are joined since these having to leave patents the companies control them so any research you want to do with them there is an agreement that you have to come to with the a company that's why you know when farmers buy the seed it says in their technology agreement they can't even give the seed to researchers the only way they were searcher can get it is they have to go to the company and i should have brought it here with me but just last week there was an article in the inn it was the connecticut news junkie and it was about labeling and what's happening in connecticut and all the states in the northeast and the mon spokes person there said these are the have most heavily tested products but they said because they are patented there are no independent safety tests and that's just that's what the real problem is i said you know that's  why all those scientists wrote to the e p a and that's why if you look at it most of the independent safety testing that is being done there they've all been studies that have been done outside the us because i can actually give you examples i know scientists here in new york city for example who did work showing that b t that the end of toxin flows out of the roots of the plant and can actually adversely affect soil so they found it for one months in a variety and when dr sasaki went back and said i would like to test it on these other priorities monsanto said sorry we don't agree with your research so we're not going to give you access so he had to stop that work and move to something else so that's a real problem because the way i put it is where would we be today if the tobacco companies got to control what kind of research gets done that should be unacceptable particularly for health and safety and the scientists should be able to take these foods and do whatever they want with them in terms of scientific justification and that's why i think there is a real problem because we need independent so in the absence of those kinds of tests  your opinion on labeling as the yes very label it and that's that this is the global language that was gotten through codexes labeling serves as a risk management measure to deal with scientific uncertainty and the scientific uncertainty there's uncertainty in the genetic engineering process itself you have no control over where you're inserting things so you can disrupt stuff and cause all sorts of problems so that it's unknown what the health consequences should be that's why you label because if something shows up down the road that's the only way you can track it because none of us are saying that these foods are unsafe enough that people are going to be dropping over you know and acute dying tomorrow it's the long term effects so that's why you have to have to be able to track that and just if you would briefly say what is the the in all the other countries that do demand labeling how do they how do they deal with that well the there's actually different forms of labeling in the different countries so for example the european union they require everything to be labeled  if there is more than nine tenths of a percent of any ingredient is engineered that fact has to be on the label they also require labeling even if you can't detect any engineered protein or d n a and what that and australia they say you tast if you can detect this transgenic material you asked and then they have various thresholds one percent or two percent so it varies like that and then some countries companies like monsanto work over there to try to you know get rid of these labeling requirements or if they conceded the battle in those countries well what's actually interesting is when the european union required labeling over ten years ago monsanto actually took out advertisements in both the french and in the united kingdom saying that they supported labeling that there was going to be this new labeling regime coming in and that they supported it so in terms of working against it the way that happens is it's the u s that hasn't supported labeling so the pressure would come on you know bilateral agreements and that way so that's how the companies would be working on that front but why did they say ten years ago they supported labeling a broad bean as the public in europe wanted that frankly i mean that's that's why we have now there sixty four countries around the world that require labeling and new ones come in every year just this year for example india is the newest country they their labeling started in january and the fact that the f d a has basically sat on the sidelines is seems to me is actually aiding and abetting the anti labeling push by those companies well i think what the big problem is is you know it's twenty years later and we we have global agreement genetic engineering is different than conventional abrading there should be required safety assessments us cannot meet that standard we can't meet the global standard the u s knows it behind closed doors they did with that so we have to get some kind of safety assessment and until we get that we have to have labeling not the engineered animals that might be on the market like the salmon they're going to require data but the first data package is very poor that one so the so i mean it seems that the state by state mandatory  labeling laws is the way to go in the absence of enthusiasts in the absence of the f d a taking it i think states have to take strong action because that's often how you get federal action is action will be taken in a few states and then it often leads moves to the federal level so when the federal government won't take action it's up to the states to lead and this is happened before in new york in california and other states have led before and i think they need to lead again thank you very much thank you thank  currently that add to that federally approved way when we have the state of alaska passed a mandatory labeling bill for any fish that are engineered would have to be labeled an alaska that was passed a few years ago and has not been challenged as being unconstitutional so there is a mandatory labeling line one of the states that's been in act that it just hasn't come into force because there ha this engineered fish still hasn't been approved yet one of things i can agree with you with is the fact that there still needs to be additional testing in terms of determining what's good or what's bad about seed or the crop and doing independent testing on that absolutely and whether it's safety testing or environmentalists casting that's that's why those scientists wrote to the e p a because for example if a scientist wants to as they can't do it that's why they complained to the agency and there have been some changes but no there is not this independence and that's the big problem is there any testing that