In 2000, Genetically Engineered Food Alert was launched by seven organizations (Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, National Environmental Trust, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network North America, and The State PIRGs) to lobby the FDA, Congress and companies to ban or stop using GMOs.[8][9][10] One of their activities was testing food for the presence of GMOs via a lab called Genetic ID, the vice president of which was Jeffrey M. Smith.[11][12]