Dennis Tuuri

Full PEAPAC Analysis

PEAPAC Explanation: Measures 27 would impose tough new labeling requirements on foods that have been impacted by genetic engineering.

PEAPAC Recommendation: We support truth-in-labeling laws, but think this Measure goes too far. Additionally, we do not think the initiative process is the best arena to be making decisions about the complex and difficult questions that GE has brought to the surface. We agree that caution is in order in this new scientific area. But we also think GE is a potential great blessing from God. We urge a No vote on Measure 27, and hope the 2003 Legislature will hold hearings on this difficult topic.

PEAPAC Commentary: We defend and promote “truth in labeling” laws since they are an outgrowth of Biblical commands. Reflecting biblical ethics, the free market system places great value on honest dealings in commerce. For instance, a relevant application of the 9th Commandment (which prohibits false witness) is found in Amos 8:5, where some merchants would “make the ephah small,” or in the words of the NIV, “skimp the measure.” What looked like a bushel-full was really only a partial bushel. The principle is that we should be able to know what just what it is we are buying. A genetically altered food purporting to be, for instance, a tomato, may actually be something quite different at the most basic level of the substance of a thing – its genetic structure.

At this point in our understanding of genetics, we simply do not know very much about the effect of such engineering on our health. We cannot say it is either good or bad for us. Now, if people want to buy such new products, that’s their right and choice. But it’s also our right to an honest weight and measure, a clear delineation of just what it is we are buying. But this Measure goes too far, For instance, it defines as “genetically engineered” any food that is “grown, manufactured or processed using means or methods that could not occur in nature.” Labeling would be required for products “derived from animals treated with GE [genetically engineered] hormones or drugs, whether or not they are present in the final product. This is an example of how the specific wording of this Measure seems far too overreaching. Additionally, the citizen initiative seems like the wrong place for this sort of legislation to be debated and enacted. To make definitive pronouncements in the area of genetic engineering requires a level of expertise that we think the citizenry of Oregon is not called to. These matters are best dealt with in the Legislature through a process of public hearings and gathering of scientific testimony, so we recommend a No vote.