Straight Goods has received a lot of requests for information on genetically modified food and we agree that this is an important issue. Here are clippings from British newspapers such as The Guardian, The Herald, The Daily Express, and more, dealing with the issue of GM food, its safety implications, and the alleged US FDA cover-up of the risks involved in growing and distributing these products. Links are provided at the end of certain articles for interested parties to get more information. Thanks to reader Richard Wolfson and intern Fara Taratabai.
The Guardian
U-turn by Blair on GM food
GM food: special report
Paul Brown, Nick Watt and David Hencke
Monday February 28, 2000
Tony Blair yesterday embarked on the biggest U-turn of his premiership when he admitted for the first time that genetically modified foods could pose a health risk.
In a move which was welcomed by environmentalists, Mr Blair said he understood the "legitimate public concern" which he had dismissed as over-reaction only last year.
www.newsunlimited.co.uk/gmdebate/0,2759,68900,00.html
INDEPENDENT (London) 27 February 2000
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment correspondent
Blair: GM may be a health risk
[British Prime Minister] Tony Blair today admitted that genetically modified foods may damage human health almost exactly a year after he said he was so confident of their safety that he ate them himself.
His dramatic U-turn comes in an exclusive article in the Independent on Sunday which senior government sources and environmental campaigners alike last night hailed as a turning point both on GM policy and in the "greening" of Downing Street.
In the article, Mr. Blair, who a year ago expressed his "frustration" at the outcry over genetic modification, acknowledges that there is cause for "legitimate public concern" over the technology he has long championed.
US covered up GM food fears
By Joanna Blythman, Rob Edwards and Pennie Taylor
Sunday Herald (Scotland) 27 Feb 2000
GENETICALLY modified foods should be withdrawn until rigorous safety testing is conducted, an American lawyer will tell a meeting in Edinburgh tomorrow as the world's richest nations gather to discuss the safety of GM foods.
Steven Druker, an attorney from Iowa, has begun a law suit that could lead to the recall of all GM foods on the market. He has accused the US Food and Drug Administration of ignoring the advice of its own scientists and covering up their concerns before approving GM products for consumption.
Two years ago he successfully sued the FDA to force the release of its internal scientific papers which prove that FDA scientists had serious concerns about the safety of GMs.
www.sundayherald.com
www.scotsman.com
GUARDIAN (London) Monday February 28, 2000
David Hencke and Rob Evans
How US put pressure on Blair over GM food
President Clinton was briefed to put intensive pressure on Tony Blair to open up Britain and Europe to US genetically modified food and crops during private talks at the Downing Street summit in 1998, papers released to the Guardian revealed yesterday.
Within 24 hours of US protests, Britain had acted to modify proposals to try to open the way for more GM food being sold in Britain and the rest of the European Union.
New Zealand Salmon Research Halted
By The Associated Press 26 Feb 2000
BLENHEIM, New Zealand (AP) - A controversy involving leaked secret documents, deformed fish heads and gargantuan salmon has ended with a New Zealand company agreeing to kill all its genetically engineered fish.
More than a year after New Zealand King Salmon Co. Ltd. was first accused of breeding mutant chinook salmon in the so-called "Franken-fish" experiment, the company announced Friday it would bury the remains of the specially grown fish and suspend its research.
King Salmon's chief executive, Paul Steere, said the company made the decision after it had successfully introduced an additional growth hormone gene into chinook salmon and passed the trait down three generations.
He denied the decision to suspend the project was influenced by political, ethical or scientific resistance.
Opponents of the project have fought for more than a year to stop it after leaked secret papers showed deformed heads and other abnormalities had occurred during the breeding program.
Canadian Senate Hearings
Senate Hearings / Health Canada - transcript(s)
For those of you interested in the Canada Senate Hearings on GM foods, the first of the transcripts, of Dec.7/99, is on the web, at:
www.parl.gc.ca/36/2/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/RULE-E/04EV-E.HTM
There have been 3 sessions since then: February 22, 23 and 29. The next meeting has been tentatively scheduled for March 13.
Lawyer's challenge to US over GM safety claims
The Guardian GM food: special report
Paul Brown Environment Correspondent
Tuesday February 29, 2000
The United States administration was challenged yesterday to explain the assumptions which had led it to claim that genetically modified foods were safe when documents produced by its own scientific advisers said its methods were fundamentally flawed.
Lawyer Steve Druker said the US food and drug administration (FDA) was guilty of a "deliberate ploy to deceive the world" by claiming that genetically engineered plants were substantially equivalent to normal plants.
Mr. Druker issued his challenge at the GM food safety conference in Edinburgh, hosted by the British government, where some skeptics have been invited to take part but most speakers are in favour of the technology.
Reuters: UK: February 29, 2000
EDINBURGH - Scientist Arpad Pusztai, who triggered concerns about genetically modified food last year, said yesterday he was convinced more needed to be done to ensure the technology was not harmful to animals and humans. He called in an interview with Reuters for international collaboration to examine GM products.
"That conviction has been growing," said Pusztai, attending an international conference in Edinburgh on GM foods. "In the United States there are 42 genetically modified foodstuffs, so there is plenty to look at. We ought to do it as soon as possible."
Pusztai said industry must also be involved in the effort but in an indirect way because consumers would have no confidence otherwise in the research.
UK Daily Express 29 Feb 2000
Cover-up over GM food safety exposed
By Simone Rosamond and John Ingham
A SAFETY cover-up over genetically modified foods was exposed yesterday at a conference designed to calm fears about the technology.
An American lawyer revealed written evidence that the American Food and Drug Administration had overruled its own scientists to claim that GM foods are safe.
Tuesday, February 29 9:25 PM SGT
Consumer advocates throw down gauntlet on transgenic foods
EDINBURGH, Feb 29 (AFP) - Genetically-modified foods face a consumer revolt if biotech corporations, scientists and policy-makers fail to overhaul the way they vet the safety of these novel products, consumer watchdogs said Tuesday.
Speaking at a forum on the future of transgenic foods, they said that in industrialised countries, especially Europe, growing numbers of the public felt the safety assessment process was determined by a narrow elite and driven by corporate greed.
For many people, they said, food products risked being authorised that could be dangerous for the health and the environment.
cnniw.newsreal.com/cgi-bin/NewsService?osform_template=pages/cnniwSt
Cover-up claim on the safety of GM foods; Challenge to US as Edinburgh talks open
Source: The Herald 29 Feb 2000
THE US government was yesterday accused of a massive cover-up on the safety of genetically modified foods and ignoring its own scientific advice with potentially devastating effects for the world.
An American lawyer alleged the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which licenses GM foods in the US, had not only ignored its scientific advisers, but set "shoddy" safety standards.
Hidden risks of grafting genes into foodstuffs
GM food: special report The Guardian
By Paul Brown 1 March 2000
Food allergies which can kill pose a risk when genes from other plants and animals are grafted into foodstuffs without the consumer knowing, Carston Bindslev-Jensen told the conference. He said if a fish or nut gene was grafted into a tomato it would not affect the look of the salad but it might kill a person with a serious allergy to fish or nuts.
www.newsunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,141868,00.html
Canadians might be interested to tune into this CBC show this Saturday on Quirks & Quarks
Quirks and Quarks March 5
Hello, Here's what we are working on for this week's show.
Our lead item deals with the Biotech Food Fight. On one side of the table, we have the consumers, wary of a new technology that they don't trust and often don't understand - a technology they have dubbed "Frankenfoods". On the other side, the scientists who assure us that genetically modified foods are not just safe, but hold the promise of feeding millions of starving people around the world.
We'll hear both sides of the debate, in a report from Edinburgh on this week's International Conference on GM Food Safety.
Bob McDonald
Quirks and Quarks
science@www.radio.cbc.ca
12:09 - 1:00pm on CBC Radio with host Bob McDonald
Tel (416) 205-6124 Fax (416) 205-2372
www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign for Mandatory Labelling and Long- term Testing of GE Food
500 Wilbrod Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N2
email: rwolfson@concentric.net
natural-law.ca/genetic
Subscription to genetic engineering news of 12 months is $35 (payable to BanGEF at above address)
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