The argument over genetically modified food has been dominated, in recent years, by a debate over food labels — specifically, whether those labels should reveal the presence of GMOs.

The battle, until now, has gone state-by-state. California refused to pass a labeling initiative, but Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont have now passed laws in favor of GMO-labeling.

Opponents of GMO labeling, including some of the biggest food manufacturers, have turned to Congress, and this week they achieved their first notable success.

A solid majority of the House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of a law that would block states from mandating GMO labels.

The debate in Congress followed familiar lines. Opponents of the bill, such as Chellie Pingree, a House Democrat from Maine who is also an organic farmer, argued that it’s important for consumers to know what they are eating.

Food labels, she pointed out, already tell consumers many things. “We know how many calories are in it, thanks to the labels. We know how much vitamin C we get per serving. We know if a fish is farm-raised or wild-caught, and we want to know those things. Shouldn’t we also be able to know if the food we are buying has GMO ingredients?” she asked.

Opponents of the bill called it an infringement of the public’s right to know what’s in their food.

Congressional supporters of the bill, meanwhile, argued that mandating labels on foods containing GMOs actually is misleading, because it suggests to consumers that GMOs are somehow risky to eat — which they are not, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

“Mandatory labeling of genetically engineered products has no basis in legitimate health or safety concerns, but is a naked attempt to impose the preferences of a small segment of the populace on the rest of us,” said Republican Mike Pompeo of Kansas, the bill’s primary sponsor.

Supporters of the bill also argued that mandatory labels would raise the cost of food.

This bill now goes to the Senate, where no similar legislation has been introduced.

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Anyone who’s fought cancer knows that it’s not just scary, but pricey, too.

“A lot of my patients cry — they’re frustrated,” says Dr. Ayalew Tefferi, a hematologist at the Mayo Clinic. “Many of them spend their life savings on cancer drugs and end up being bankrupt.”

The average U.S. family makes $52,000 annually. Cancer drugs can easily cost a $120,000 a year. Out-of-pocket expenses for the insured can run $25,000 to $30,000 — more than half of a typical family’s income.

“These drug prices are completely unsustainable,” Tefferi says. “Pharmaceutical companies are in greed mode, and it’s sad. It’s what I call completely unregulated.”

According to a 2013 study, these steep drug prices cause about 10 to 20 percent of cancer patients to skip or compromise the prescribed treatment. Another study found that the launch price of cancer drugs, adjusted for inflation, increased by an average of $8,500 a year between 1995 and 2013.

To make the point, Tefferi recruited 117 other doctors from across the U.S. who share his concerns. Together, they agreed on seven recommendations to make cancer drugs affordable that they want the federal government to consider. The recommendations are laid out in a commentary Thursday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The proposals include allowing the importation of cancer drugs across the U.S. border. Drugs are cheaper in other countries, like Canada, they argue, so why not let people with cancer bring them in for personal use?

They also favor legislation that would stop drug companies from delaying access to cheaper generic versions of their drugs. Tefferi points to Gleevec, or imatinib generically, as an example. It’s used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia and some other cancers. “That drug should have gone generic three or four years ago,” he says. “But Novartis is doing all sorts of maneuvers to prevent it.”

The doctors recommend a change that could have an even bigger effect: creating a committee to review newly approved cancer drugs and propose a fair price based on their benefits.

“There are tons of drugs [out there] that are very expensive, but they don’t work well,” Teferri says. “There needs to be a body that does a critical assessment of a drug’s value and helps determine what the price should be based on how much it really helps. It needs to be a true, honest and transparent discussion.”

The doctors also argue that Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices.

Unlike private insurance, current law prohibits the government-sponsored insurance program from negotiating the cost of drugs with pharmaceutical companies. That means the government program is overcharged and pays the high prices drug companies typically set.

For its part, PhRMA, the main trade group for drug industry, wrote a response to the doctors’ commentary that said lowering drug prices would discourage innovation. The trade group also said that cancer drugs represent only one-fifth of total spending on cancer treatment.

But Leonard Saltz, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the doctors’ proposals are on target.

“I think they, like me and many others, have a deep concern that this is a serious problem that’s interfering with access to care,” says Saltz, who co-wrote an influential New York Times editorial on cancer drug prices in 2012 that explained why Sloan-Kettering wasn’t using a new, more expensive medicine for colorectal cancer. Saltz didn’t take part in the latest commentary.

But can a group of doctors voicing their concerns in a journal article really change anything? “This is going to be a very difficult issue to resolve,” Saltz says. “No one effort will resolve it, but any effort to engage more people in the discussion and to raise awareness will be helpful.”

Saltz adds, “Congress is the organization that’s going to be able to make a difference here.”

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A wave of wage increases in cities across the country, as well as at several major businesses, continued on Wednesday.

University of California President Janet Napolitano announced that the minimum wage for direct and contract employees in the U.C. system working 20 hours or more per week will be raised to $15 an hour over the next three years. The first hike will be to $13 an hour on Oct. 1, 2015. The minimum wage will then jump to $14 a year later, and hit $15 an hour on Oct. 1, 2017.

In a statement, Napolitano said, “… our community does not exist in a vacuum. How we support our workers and their families impacts Californians who might never set foot on one of our campuses.”

She continued, “This is the right thing to do — for our workers and their families, for our mission and values, and to enhance UC’s leadership role by becoming the first public university in the United States to voluntarily establish a minimum wage of 15 dollars.”

The move is expected to affect 3,200 workers in the university system, according to a U.C. spokesperson. The plan will also institute stronger oversight of contract employees. Spokesperson Dianne Klein told NPR that officials found some contract employees weren’t being paid adequately. “Contractors or subcontractors have been paid less than minimum wage, [and] workers have operated in poor conditions.”

On the other side of the country, a state panel in New York recommended the minimum wage for fast-food chain restaurant employees be raised to $15 an hour. The Fast Food Wage Board, appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, passed a motion to raise the wage in a 3-0 vote, with gradual increases until July 1, 2021, when the full hike would be implemented. State Labor Commissioner Mario J. Musolino can accept, reject or modify the board’s recommendation.

Bloomberg reports the panel was convened by Cuomo to bypass Republicans in the state Senate, who have fought previous initiatives to raise the minimum wage.

The New York State Restaurant Association told Bloomberg that raising wages one sector at a time is wrong.

“From day one Governor Cuomo’s wage board has sought to silence the business community and force through an unfair and discriminatory increase on a single sector of one industry,” [Melissa] Fleischut said in a statement emailed Wednesday. “The result is an extremist policy that will force business owners in this low profit margin industry to cut hours, lay off employees and use technology to help offset skyrocketing labor costs.”

In a statement to NPR, Bill Lipton, director of New York’s Working Families Party, which pushed heavily for the wage hike, said: “Two and a half years ago, $15 was considered a crazy dream — now it’s close to becoming reality for over 180,000 working families. Hopefully, not too long from now, we’ll look back with amazement that we as a society ever allowed corporations in any industry to force millions to work full-time yet still live in poverty. “

And in a third major move on the minimum wage Wednesday, Washington, D.C.’s Board of Elections approved language on an initiative that, if approved, would raise the minimum wage in the District to $15 an hour by 2020. The Associated Press reports supporters will have to gather about 23,000 signatures to get it on the ballot next year. Currently, D.C.’s minimum wage is $10.50 an hour.

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