Jacob Gersen

An op-ed by Jacob E. Gersen and Benjamin I. Sachs. Every year, 5.5 million people are sickened by norovirus, a highly contagious gastrointestinal bug. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus is the leading cause of food-borne illness in the United States and is spread primarily by “infected food workers.” Last year cooks, waiters and other workers were involved in about 70 percent of the outbreaks. This is just one example of the critical role that food workers play in our nation’s economic and public health systems. And yet, while we often tailor employment rules for work that has a special impact on the public, the law has yet to recognize food workers as a distinct class — an approach that harms consumers, the economy and the workers themselves. Sick restaurant workers provide a particularly vivid example of the kind of legal reform that’s needed.

There's a "food fight" going on in Colorado, one that will appear on the ballot that gets mailed to you next week. Prop 105, one of four statewide ballot questions, would require labeling of some genetically modified food...Another expert told us that Colorado could run into trouble if it wished to require GMO labels on food products merely passing through Colorado on the way from one state to another, but that the state could require GMO labels on all foods produced here, regardless of whether it was intended for export out of Colorado. "The products are produced by and in Colorado and I know of no principle of federal law that would preclude such a law," replied Jacob Gerson, a professor of law with Harvard.