Fined for Trying to Find Out Who's Funding Anti-GMO Labeling Campaign?

A group fighting for disclosure over the millions being poured into the campaign to defeat Washington’s GMO labeling initiative lost their legal challenge on Friday.  Instead, the group got slapped with a $10,000 fine.

The fight centers around the state’s I-522, which would require genetically modified food and seeds to be labeled as such.

In their legal challenge against the No on 522 Campaign and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) submitted in September, the newly formed, pro-GMO labeling group Moms for Labeling state that the No Campaign “illegally conceals the identity of the campaign’s donors” and that donations to the campaign are “laundered through the Grocery Manufacturers Association,” and, as such, the GMA, whose members include Nestlé, Welch’s and Del Monte, is acting illegally as a political committee.

The GMA made a $5 million contribution to the No Campaign at the end of September, bringing its total to the campaign to over $7.2 million. So far, the No Campaign has raised over $17 million, with other big donations coming from some of the same groups that successfully fought California’s GMO-labeling initiative last year. In comparison, the Yes on 522 Campaign has raised just under $4.7 million so far.

On Friday, a judge dismissed Moms for Labeling’s lawsuit.