EU takes tough line on GM food labelling E.U. 2002
No labels are required, etc. U.S. 2001
Testing for GM food still a hit-and-miss affair U.S. 2001
When anti-GM choice becomes just a memory Canada/ E.U. 2001
GM: The cover-up UK 2006
EU takes tough line on GM food labelling Andrew Osborn in
Strasbourg and John Vidal The Guardian Weekly 11-7-2002, page 5 United States efforts to break down European resistance to genetically modified
food products suffered a setback last week after the European Parliament voted
for the toughest GM labelling and traceability rules in the world.
In a vote that drew massive lobbying
from US biotechnology companies and consumer groups, the assembly - which has
real power to shape future legislation - took heed of consumer concerns and
decided that all derivatives of GM food and animal feed products sold in the
European Union should be subject to labelling. It also tightened the current 1%
threshold for genetically modified organisms in foods, reducing it to 0.5%.
Effectively this means that tens of thousands of products such as crisps, soft
drinks, breads, cakes, chocolate and sweets could now be labelled GM. Consumer
groups estimate that at least 30,000 food products contain derivatives of GM
maize or soya.
However, the parliament stopped short by three votes of demanding GM labelling
on products of animals reared on GM foods. Eggs, milk and meat will not be
labelled even if the animals were reared on GM foods.
The vote is an embarrassment for the British government and its food standards
agency, both of which said that the European Commission's proposals would be
unworkable.
The vote will also infuriate US firms such as Monsanto, which believe that
labelling GM food will stigmatise their products and confuse the consumer, and
US industry bodies that believe the new labelling laws, if passed, could affect
$4bn of trade a year.
In voting for such a tough regime MEPs may have sown the seeds of a fresh trade
war; the rules are likely to be so repugnant to Washington that it will seek to
challenge their legality in the World Trade Organisation.
But environmentalists and green groups were delighted. "This is a victory for
consumer choice," said Jill Evans, a British Green MEP. "It sends a message to
Tony Blair and his American friends."
Before the new regime can come into force, the parliament will have to vote on
the issue once more, before the end of the year, and then broker a deal with EU
governments. Each stage of the legislative process is certain to
be subject to intense lobbying. Chris Davies, a British Liberal Democrat MEP,
warned that it was far from certain that the new rules would survive in their
present form. "These rules were passed by extremely narrow majorities. I am not
sure we will be able to get the necessary majority next time round."
Although US biotech firms may not like the new rules, there is a crumb of
comfort for them. No new GM crops have been approved by the EU since 1998
because of public anxiety, but the latest vote is the beginning of the end for
that moratorium. A new regime could be up and running within a year and a half. Return to TOP of page New Scientist January 18, 2001 Genetically modified foods will not require labels in the US,
according to new regulations from the Food and Drug Administration
published on Wednesday. The FDA has maintained its position that GM
foods are not substantially different from other foods. But the
proposed new regulations have angered anti-GM activists who had hoped
for labelling requirements. "It's clear the FDA has bent over backwards to placate the biotech
industry," says Joseph Mendelson, legal counsel for the Genetically
Engineered Food Alert campaign, a Washington DC-based campaign group.
A recent Harris poll found 86 percent of Americans wanted
mandatory labelling of GM foods. The European Union and Japan already
have mandatory labelling legislation. At least two bills have been
introduced into the US Congress that would override the FDA
regulations and require labelling, but it is unclear whether they
will ever become law. "Not produced through bioengineering" The new regulations will mean that manufacturers of GM foods have
to formally notify the FDA before putting them on the market, but in
practice, manufacturers were already voluntarily informing the FDA.
The labelling of non-GM foods will be permitted. Until now,
producers had worried that the FDA would consider such labels to be
unsupported health claims. But GM-free labels cannot actually use the
term "GM" or "genetically modified," since the FDA considers all
foods to be "genetically modified" through traditional breeding
techniques. Instead, the labels will have to say the food was not
produced through bioengineering. And producers will have to back up
the labels through testing and record-keeping, a requirement that
also angers advocates. "It is the traditional food producers, those who are not using
this technology, who face the expense of testing and the expense of
certification. It is a subsidy for the biotech industry and a tax on
traditional food producers," says Andrew Kimbrell, president of the
Center for Food Safety, a pressure group based in Washington, DC.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group, applauded
the new regulations, which will go into effect in 60 days. Correspondence about this story should be
directed to: latestnews@newscientist.com Return to TOP of page The Economist via NewsEdge Corporation March 30, 2001 If GM labelling is to mean anything, someone will have to come up with a fast, affordable and reliable test that can
trace the presence of a broad variety of GM ingredients. And the tests will have to work with samples taken from
foodstuffs anywhere along the supply chain - from raw grain to packaged product. Last autumn, Friends of the Earth, an environmentalist group, sent an assortment of foods to the testing
laboratories of Genetic-ID, a biotechnology company based in Iowa. After $7,000-worth of DNA tests, Friends of
the Earth - which is opposed to the use of genetically modified (GM) foods - got the result it was hoping for. One
of the products, some taco shells made by Kraft Foods, turned out to contain StarLink, a GM maize that had not
been approved by America's Food and Drug Administration for human consumption.
The revelation wrought havoc on the year's maize harvest and on the bottom line of Aventis, StarLink's
manufacturer. Across America, tortillas, tacos and other maize- based foodstuffs had to be withdrawn from grocery
shelves. Meanwhile, shipments of freshly harvested maize had to be tested and certified as safe - or else converted
into animal feed. The cost to Aventis: an estimated $500m. Return to TOP of page Naomi Klein The Guardian Weekly 12-7-2001, page 21
Europeans would be forgiven for thinking that the war against genetic tampering
in the food supply has been all but won. There are labels in supermarket, there
is mounting political support for organic farming, and Greenpeace campaigners
are seen to represent such a mainstream point of view that the courts have let
them off for uprooting GM crops.
With 35 countries worldwide that have, or are developing, mandatory GM labelling
laws, you'd think that the North American agricultural export industry would
have no choice but to bow to the demand: keep GM seeds far away from their
unaltered counterparts and, in general, move away from the controversial crops.
You'd be wrong. The real strategy is to introduce so much genetic pollution
that meeting the consumer demand for GM-free food is seen as not possible. The
idea is to pollute faster than countries can legislate - then change the laws to
fit the contamination.
A few reports from the front lines of this invisible war. In April Monsanto
recalled about 10% of the GM oilseed rape seeds it had distributed in Canada
because of reports that the seeds had been contaminated by another modified
rape-seed variety, one not approved for export. The most well-known of these
cases is StarLink corn. The genetically altered crop (meant for animals and
deemed unfit for humans) made its way into much of the United States corn supply
after the buffer zones surrounding the fields where it was grown proved wholly
incapable of containing the
wind-borne pollen. Aventis, which owns the StarLink patent, proposed a
solution: instead of recalling the corn, why not approve its consumption for
humans?
And there is the now famous case of Percy Schmeiser, the Saskatchewan farmer who
was sued by Monsanto after its genetically altered oilseed rape seeds allegedly
blew into his field from passing trucks and neighbouring fields. Monsanto says
that when the seeds took root, Mr Schmeiser was stealing its property. The court
agreed and a few months ago ordered the farmer to pay the company $20,000, plus
legal costs.
Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path, an organic food company in British
Columbia, told the New York Times last month that GM material is even finding
its way into organic crops. "We have found traces
in corn that has been grown organically for 10 to 15 years. There's no wall
high enough to keep that stuff contained." Indeed, there is so much genetic
contamination in North American fields that a group of organic farmers is
considering launching a class action suit against the biotech industry for lost
revenues. Last month the grounds for this case received a significant boost.
Loblaws, Canada's largest supermarket chain with 40% of the market, sent out a
letter to all of its health food suppliers informing them that they were no
longer permitted to claim that their foods were "non-GM". Company executives
argue there is just no way of knowing what is genuinely GM free.
At first glance Loblaws' decision doesn't seem to make market sense. Although
roughly 70% of foods sold
in Canada contain GM ingredients, more than 90% of Canadians tell pollsters
they want labels telling them if their food's genetic make-up has been tampered
with.
In North America supermarkets are part of a broader agricultural strategy to
present labelling as simply too complicated. In part this is because chains such
as Loblaws are not only food retailers but manufacturers of their own private
lines.
What does all this mean to Europeans? It means that labels in Europe could soon
be as obsolete as the scratched-out ones in Canadian supermarkets.
When we look back on this moment, munching our genetically modified health-style
food, we may well remember it as the precise turning point when we lost our real
food options. Geoffrey Lean The Independent 17 September 2006
Britain's official food safety watchdog has privately told supermarkets that it will not stop them selling an illegal GM rice to the public.
Documents seen by this newspaper show that the Food Standards Agency assured major manufacturers and retailers 10 days ago that it would not make them withdraw the rice - at the same time as it was telling the public it should not be allowed to go on sale.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth has already found GM material in two types of own-brand rice sold in Morrisons supermarkets - in direct contravention of food safety regulations - and believes the GM rice is likely to be widespread throughout Britain.
But the agency has not carried out its own tests for modified rice in products on the market, and has not instructed retailers to do so. It says that the rice is safe, but some scientists disagree.
Last night, Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Environment Secretary, described the agency's conduct as "a massive scandal" and said it "smelt of a cover-up". He said he would be asking for an official investigation into whether the agency had broken the law.
Legally, no GM material is allowed to go on sale in Britain or any other EU country. But last month the Bush administration admitted it had found a modified material, which had not even received safety clearance in the US, in long-grain rice intended for export.
The unauthorised rice, which is listed as LLRICE601, was developed by Bayer CropScience to tolerate weedkiller, and tested on US farms between 1998 and 2001. The company decided not to market it. Nevertheless it has turned up widely in US rice, possibly because pollen from the tested rice spread to conventional crops. The European Commission says that it has been found in 33 of 162 samples of rice imported from the US.
The EC last month banned any further imports unless they could be proved to be clear of the GM rice, and instructed governments to test products already on the market to make sure that they did not contain it.
The European health and consumer protection commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, said it should not be allowed to enter the food chain "in any circumstances".
Two big Swiss supermarket chains have already banned all US long-grain rice from sale.
The Food Standards Agency publicly announced that "the presence of this GM material in rice on sale in the UK is illegal under European food law", adding: "Food retailers are responsible for ensuring the food they sell does not contain unauthorised GM material."
But on 5 September, a senior agency official, Claire Baynton, privately met major retailers and food manufacturers. According to records of the meeting seen by The Independent on Sunday, she said the agency did not expect companies to trace products and withdraw them.
The agency says it told the companies at the meeting that it was their responsibility to ensure that the food they sold did not contain GM material, but that it would not "require" them to test for it or withdraw products if found.
It says that it has "not carried out tests of products on the market" and "has not issued any instructions to retailers" to do so. The agency says that modified rice does not present a safety concern and is advising people who may have US rice at home to continue to eat it. But some scientists say it could give cause for "concern over its potential allergenicity".
Friends of the Earth has found GM material in two samples of Morrisons American long-grain rice and American long-grain brown rice, although it was not able to verify that it was LLRICE601. Morrisons accepts that selling any GM rice is illegal. It cleared its shelves of the products "as a precautionary measure" immediately after being informed of the findings.
Clare Oxborrow, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "The discovery of illegal GM ingredients is very worrying. The Food Standards Agency has failed to take action to identify and withdraw contaminated food, so it is likely that more illegal rice will reach the plates of unsuspecting customers.
"Instead of down-playing this contamination incident, and delaying action, the agency should be taking urgent steps to prevent illegal GM rice from being sold in our shops." Return to TOP of page This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
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Trade war threat grows as lobbying by US firms fails
No labels are required for genetically modified
foods, says US regulator, and other foods cannot be called
"GM-free"
Testing for GM food still a hit-and-miss affair
http://www.biotech-info.net/hit_and_miss.html
When anti-GM choice becomes just a memory
GM: The cover-up
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1604094.ece