Genetically Engineered Foods Archives

Exactly as predicted. Only the company lobbyists said different. Archive.

Comments? (100% within 5 years. Prediction by Walt.)
Misty L. Trepke
http://www.searching-alternatives.com

Two-Thirds Of ALL Crops
In US Now GM Contaminated
By Geoffrey Lean
The Independent - UK
(First published 3-7-4)
5-10-4

More than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are
now contaminated with genetically modified material - dooming
organic agriculture and posing a severe future risk to health - a
new report concludes.

The report - which comes as ministers are on the verge of approving
the planting of Britain's first GM crop, maize - concludes that
traditional varieties of seed are "pervasively contaminated" by
genetically engineered DNA. The US biotech industry says it is "not
surprised" by the findings.

Because of the contamination, the report says, farmers unwittingly
plant billions of GM seeds a year, spreading genetic modification
throughout US agriculture. This would be likely to lead to danger to
health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce
pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering "drug-laced
cornflakes" to the breakfast table.

The report comes at the worst possible time for the Government,
which is trying to overcome strong resistance from the Scottish and
Welsh administrations to GM maize.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to
the problem in North America in a report published on Friday, and
said the Government had not paid enough attention to it. The MPs
concluded: "No decision to proceed with the commercial growing of GM
crops [in Britain] should be made until thorough research into the
experience with GM crops in North America has been completed and
published". It would be "irresponsible" for ministers to give the
green light to the maize without further tests.

Peter Ainsworth, the committee chairman, accuses the Cabinet
of "great discourtesy" to Parliament by making its decision on the
maize last Thursday, the day before the report came out, and plans
to raise the issue with the Speaker of the House.

This week's statement by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for
the Environment, is expected to fall short of authorising immediate
planting of the maize, and provide only a muted endorsement for the
technology. She will make it clear that the Government wants the GM
industry to compensate farmers whose crops are contaminated. This
could make cultivation uncommercial. The US study will increase the
pressure on her to be tough.

Under the auspices of the green-tinged Union of Concerned
Scientists, two separate independent laboratories tested supposedly
non-GM seeds "representing a substantial proportion of the
traditional seed supply" for maize, soya and oilseed rape, the three
crops whose modified equivalents are grown widely in the United
States.

The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the
maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were
contaminated with GM genes - just eight years after the modified
varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US.

The degree of contamination is thought to be at a relatively low
level of about 0.5 to 1 per cent. The reports says
that "contamination ... is endemic to the system". It
adds: "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant
varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge
wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that
manipulates life at the most elemental level." There could
be "serious risks to health" if drugs and industrial chemicals from
the next generation of GM crops got into food.

Lisa Dry, of the US Biotechnology Industry Association, said that
the industry was "not surprised by this report, knowing that pollen
travels and commodity grains might co-mingle at various places".

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=498693

Re: Exactly as predicted. Only the company lobbyists said different. Archive.

Re: Exactly as predicted. Only the company lobbyists said different. Archive.

Re: Exactly as predicted. Only the company lobbyists said different. Archive.

Re: Exactly as predicted. Only the company lobbyists said different. Archive.