• Welcome
• Events
• Local Info
• Publications
• Campaigns
• News
• Help wanted
• FAQs
• Membership
• Contacts
• Links
• Search

Is GM really safe?

"These [genetically engineered] products are absolutely safe. For the most part you wouldn't know [if you were eating them] but the point being that you wouldn't need to know." - Bryan Hurley, Monsanto spokesperson There is a great deal of controversy about the safety of genetically engineered foods. Advocates of biotechnology often say that the risks are overblown. "There have been 25,000 trials of genetically modified crops in the world, now, and not a single incident, or anything dangerous in these releases," said a spokesman for Adventa Holdings, a UK biotech firm. During the 2000 presidential campaign, then-candidate George W. Bush said that "study after study has shown no evidence of danger." And Clinton Administration Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said that "test after rigorous scientific test" had proven the safety of genetically engineered products. Is this the case? Unfortunately not, according to a senior researcher from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Jane Rissler. With a Ph.D. in plant pathology, four years of shaping biotechnology regulations at the EPA, she is one of the nation's leading authorities on the environmental risks of genetically engineered foods. Dr. Rissler has been closely monitoring the trials and studies. ... GE Crops Can't Be Contained A test conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that 16 of 20 vegetarian foods labeled as being "free" of genetically engineered products actually contained GE soybeans. As Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path Foods, noted: "You cannot build a wall high enough" to prevent genetic pollution of wild and organic crops. In August, a team of Belgian researchers were surprised to discover that Monsanto's GE soybeans contained "a DNA segment... for which no sequence homology could be detected." "No one knows what this extra gene sequence is [or]... what its effects will be," said Greenpeace-UK's Doug Parr. "If Monsanto did not even get this most basic information right, what should we think about the validity of all their safety tests?" full story: http://www.coastalpost.com/03/08/12.htm