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Photo Credit: TRIBUNE PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE – Allison Barnwell works the phone bank for the Yes on 92 committee, which supports the labeling of genetically altered foods.   

With less than four weeks to go, the GMO labeling campaign is firing on all cylinders – organizing a benefit concert and farm-to-table dinner this week, stepping up phone-banking and grassroots efforts, and touting the release of two studies that boost their case for the Nov. 4 ballot.

Consumer Reports weighed in Tuesday morning with a national study that shows that most foods labeled “natural” actually contain genetically modified organisms.

To that end, the not-for-profit organization announced they’re asking the federal government to ban the use of “natural” labels on food.

“Virtually all the samples that made only a natural claim had GMOs,” says Urvashi Rangan, director of the safety and sustainability center at Consumer Reports. “And yet more than 60 percent of people in our national survey though that natural meant no GMOs.”

Consumer Reports of New York independently tests products and doesn’t participate in advertising. However a Consumers Union senior staff scientist appears in one of the TV ads for Measure 92. The group’s scientists have also been using language that is in favor of the GMO labeling effort.

“The federal government hasn’t mandated that GMOs be proven safe before they’re used in your food,” Rangan says in the latest news release about the “natural” label testing. “There hasn’t been enough research to know whether GMOs are harmful to people, but scientists around the world agree genetically engineering has the potential to introduce allergens or other unintended changes that could affect human health… .”

Meanwhile last week a study by Portland’s EcoNorthwest cited the cost of the GMO food labeling measure at less than a penny a day, which contradicts studies touted by the opposition.

The opposition, meanwhile, disagrees with that sentiment and points to two studies: one conducted for the state of New York and another conducted for the state of Washington. The New York study done in May by scientists at Cornell University, showed the cost to families in New York at about $500 per year. The study was funded by the Council for Biotechnology Information, whose members include six of the so-called “Big 6” biotech companies: BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta.

The Washington study, conducted by the Washington State Academy of Sciences last October, says GMO labeling would bring multiple costs that would be passed on to consumers. Their scientists attest that genetically modified foods “have been effectively found ‘safe’ given the current state of knowledge/evidence.”