GMO Labeling Disinformation Campaign May Suffer Defeat in Washington State

Anti-biotech luddites tried to scare the
citizens of Washington State into voting for the I-522 initiative
that would have mandated labels on foods containing ingredients
derived from genetically modified crops, even those crops are as

safe or safer than conventional or organic crops. Styled as a
“right to know” initiative, the scientifically dishonest proponents
of labeling actually hope that confused consumers would mistake
them as “warning labels,” and thus avoid purchasing foods made from
cheaper and more environmentally
friendly biotech crops.

All the votes are not yet in – a lot of in Washington State
residents vote by mail, but the trend looks promising. As
Politico
reports:

Washington state’s GMO labeling measure appears to be going down
in defeat, early results show.

With slightly less than a million votes counted, the current
tally on Ballot Initiative 522, which would require the labeling of
foods that contain genetically modified organisms, show those
opposed leading by about 536,000 (54.8 percent) to 442,000 (45.2
percent). The figures represent about a quarter of the state’s 3.9
million registered voters, but not all of the votes have been
counted.

The delay in the final vote total is due to the fact that
Washington is a mail-in ballot state, and it will count any ballots
postmarked by Nov. 5, even if those ballots arrive at the end of
the week. As a result, the tally on election night often only
reflects about 60 percent of the votes that ultimately will be
received, according to Brian Zylstra, a spokesman for Washington’s
Office of the Secretary of State.

If that holds true in this election, with 997,566 ballots
counted on election night, another 665,044 could be in the
mail.

Here’s hoping that good sense will ultimately prevail among
Washington voters and this scientifically ignorant measure fails.
It’s a pity that the food and farming industries have to
waste so much money to counter this egregious anti-biotech
propaganda.