Report : More Testing of all GM Foods.

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Report : More Testing of all GM Foods.
1
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 11:26am

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/29/MNG1F7V0P91.DTL


All genetically modified foods should be subject to greater scrutiny, rather than singling out products created by genetic engineering techniques, according to a report released Wednesday by a U.S. scientific advisory committee.


Currently, only genetically engineered products -- foods implanted with genes from another organism -- are subject to an extra layer of safety testing before reaching consumers. Foods modified by other methods, such as conventional cross-breeding techniques, are not.

"All evidence to date indicates that any breeding technique that alters a plant or animal -- whether by genetic engineering or other methods -- has the potential to create unintended changes in the quality or amounts of food components that could harm health," said committee chairwoman Bettie Sue Masters, a biochemistry professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Any time scientists alter a molecule's genetic composition, they risk sparking other unintended changes to its DNA.

The report was commissioned to advise the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on how to test genetically modified foods for safety.

"It's like focusing all your attention on canned peas, rather than frozen peas," said Jennifer Hillard, a volunteer at the Consumer Interest Alliance in Ontario (San Bernardino County) and the only consumer advocate on the committee. "The idea is, 'Are the peas safe?' Why are we focusing all the attention on the one technology, and letting all the other technologies slip through?"

Consumer advocates charged that the report, the last in a series on food safety from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, sidestepped some of the more contentious issues and revived a decades-old debate over which products federal agencies should flag for safety testing.

They expressed concern that a broader scope for testing would distract attention and resources from the products scientists know the least about and are the most likely to be dangerous to consumers.

"They have muddled the picture of genetic engineering by bringing in these other techniques which, for the most part, have been safe," said Jane Rissler, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "There is far more uncertainty about genetically engineered foods."

According to the report, four of the five breeding techniques most likely to produce unexpected changes in a food's chemical makeup involve genetic engineering. Not all unintended changes pose a threat to human health, Masters said.

Scientists trying to gauge the impact of genetically modified foods on humans are faced with a challenge because industry technology is outpacing scientific research. The report called for the creation of a public database, similar to the one developed for the human genome project, that could help scientists keep track of genetic changes in food.

The report also called for a better system of tracking foods after they reach the grocery store shelves. It did not, however, recommend that genetically modified foods be labeled.


(Me: I think they SB labeled.)

cl-Libraone~

 


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Avatar for merlins_own
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Registered: 09-25-2003
Thu, 07-29-2004 - 4:23pm
You know, I'm still not freaking out about any of this as yet. For one think, I can't afford to shop in "organic food" stores and for another, even without GM, our air, our rain, our ground water, the seeds and soil and fertilizer and use of hormones is so changed nowadays, anyway, I'm not sure ANY FOODS are truly pure and safe to eat, even without GM. :=O Since I've been eating all this in my food all my life, I don't see what there is to do about it. :// All I see is the bottom line cost to the consumer going up if labeling would be required, but the poor and middle class (what's left of it, anyway) don't have the option with oodles of money to buy organic necessarily, so what good does it all do, except to create fear and frustration because they still have to buy what's most economical to feed their families? I really try not to have a fatalistic view of all this, but add that to all the legal drugs in OTC and Rx we put in our bodies that changes our bodies and submits us to nasty side effects to fix one thing by creating other problems, what chance do we really have of absolutely having healthy food and healthy bodies? The more complicated our food source becomes, the less power we seem to have to make healthy choices, in my opinion. I certainly don't have any answers! :=O

Merlins_Own

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW!