America has been attempting to mask genetically modified products, or GMO products, since 1996. That means, that for 19 years, Americans have been unaware of what they’re putting in their bodies. This issue needs to be resolved once and for all. America needs to stop masking GMO products, and start labeling them.

GMO products are living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering, or GE.

Both USA Today and Consumer Reports state that approximately 80 percent of the food Americans eat today have been genetically modified. At this point, one might be thinking GMO products can’t be bad for your health if they’ve been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. However, the biotech companies that are commercializing GMO crops claim to have done their own safety tests, which the FDA only briefly reviews. Even with these reviews, there have been multiple animal studies with GMO foods with negative findings from the National Library of Medicine stating that they found organ damage, infertility and immune system changes on rats that were tested for three months.

While America is an extremely advanced country, 64 other countries have made labeling GMO products a requirement while America has not. These countries are Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Germany and Denmark and more.

In 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act over the urgent pleas of more than 250,000 Americans who asked that he use his executive authority to veto it. For those who are unaware of what the Monsanto Protection Act is, you must be introduced to the corporation Obama is working with called Monsanto.

According to Monsanto’s site, Monsanto Company is a publicly traded American multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in Creve Coeur, Greater St. Louis, Missouri. Basically, they play the leading role in genetically modifying foods all over the world.

Monsanto claims they own 90% of the world’s seeds and have been working with the farmers of America, not to mention the United States government. The Monsanto Protection Act bars federal courts from stopping the sale and production of genetically modified foods, which contributes to the need of GMO labeling because the production of GMOs are not legally allowed to be halted.

Americans, along with the rest of the world, deserve to know what they’re consuming on a daily basis. As an American, not a single day goes by where you don’t eat a genetically modified food. The knowledge of what has and hasn’t been modified needs to be shared through labels.