President Barack Obama, while being one of the most historical presidents in United States history, has signed a very appalling bill. Following the Democratic National Convention, therefore being overshadowed in the controversy, President Obama signed the DARK bill. The acronym correctly states what it does, leaves what we have the right to know in the dark, instead of bringing it into the light. The bill fundamentally denies certain Americans the right to know what is in their food. If the bill is enacted, many GMO foods would be exempt from labeling their products. For the foods that will be “labeled”, they will be labeled through QR codes easily accessed through smartphones (According to fortune.com). The term “easily” does not really apply to low-income Americans who will not have the technology to see what is in the foods that they are taking home.
GMOs are genetically modified organisms or sometimes called GEs (genetically engineered foods) that are produced in laboratories. The big deal with GMOs is that they are essentially genes from the DNA of a species that is extracted and inserted into the DNA of an unrelated species. According to nongmoproject.org, GMOs are mostly used to produce a desirable trait, usually herbicide tolerance. In this case, the harmful weeds that grow around the crops are killed with toxic herbicides while the crop remains alive and intact. GMOs are required to be labeled in 64 countries around the world, including Japan and Australia. Many other developed countries consider GMOs to be harmful and unsafe and often require restrictions and sometimes even bans on the production and distribution of GMOs.
Some Americans argue that GMOs are helpful to fixing the problem with starvation and poverty, which in America is at the least 14.5% (45 million people) of the population. However a majority believe that GMOs are harmful to the environment and believe they should be labeled. Products that have been known to contain GMOs are papayas, milk, corn on the cob, squash and zucchini, and “natural” foods (be careful with this label). (According to motherjones.com)
Although not much has been said about the bill and not much is known, most Americans (those who have had the benefit of finding out about this bill) are opposing the bill and considering it as a discriminatory act against lower class Americans. The FDA has claimed that GMOs are safe for consumption, yet consumers still believe that they should still have the right to know what is in their food. Despite the fact that some of us just pick up things in stores out of hunger without looking at the label, there are those that do. This bill hurts them in a way, especially if they do not have access to smartphones or if they feel that it is completely unnecessary and time-consuming to pull out a mobile device and scan a can of fruit to see what is in it.
