Let Consumers Make Their Own Judgments About Eating Genetically Altered Foods

By Charles W. Moore

While the wars over genetically modified (GM) foods have raged in the U.K. and Europe for several years, it has been pretty quiet on the Canadian front until recently.

Last month, geneticist and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki livened up the debate by declaiming that Canadians are unwitting guinea pigs in a massive informal experiment on the effects of GM foods "The results will only be known after millions of people have been exposed to [these foods] for decades," declared Suzuki.

"Any politician or scientist who tells you these products are safe is either very stupid or lying," Suzuki continued. "The experiments have simply not been done."

Also last month, two hundred present and former scientists with the food directorate of Health Canada's health protection branch signed a memo to Health Minister Allan Rock alleging "an imminent threat" to the health of Canadians.

The scientists cited what they characterize as a "conflict of interest" in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's dual role of enforcing food safety legislation while promoting food production and trade, noting that Bill C-80, the proposed Canada food safety and inspection act, would transfer food-safety administration from the health minister to the agriculture minister. One scientist, quoted anonymously by the National Post. said that "Health should never be put in the hands of a department that is supposed to be looking after the producers' interests. Britain recognized that only after mad cow disease."

Health Minister Allan Rock issued a vigorous denial of the scientists' claims, saying that: "Every one of the products that's been approved has been tested by scientists at Health Canada."

"No, they haven't," another of the scientists told the Canadian Press. "We don't test these products ourselves," he continued. "Health Canada doesn't have any researchers devoted to genetically engineered foods."

In Europe, protesters have blockaded docks where American GM soybeans are unloaded, and raided farms that grow GM crops. In England, physicians are demanding government studies to determine whether the altered foods could cause new cancers, birth defects or immune system damage. Even Prince Charles has waded deeply into the debate over genetically modified crops (he's against them).

Now that Canadians' consciousness appears to be rising in the issue, government and agrifoodbiz are mounting a counterattack. A coalition of Ontario farmers has characterized David Suzuki's observations as "misguided and hysterical."

Industry interests have rounded up their own team of scientists to contradict the Health Canada group, using customary debate-chilling rhetoric about "ignorance," "misinformation" and fear-mongering." "There are those in this room who would disagree [with Dr. Suzuki]," Dr. Gord Surgeoner, president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies was quoted commenting. However some might infer that the name of Dr. Surgeoner's outfit denotes a slight objectivity deficit.

Virtually every person in North America is already eating GM corn, soy, and a growing number of other genetically altered foods, which are mixed indiscriminately with non-GM strains. Agrifoodbiz has lobbied strenuously and successfully against labeling genetically altered foods as such -- including pressure to prohibit producers of non-genetically engineered foods from saying so on their labels.

This apparently suits the Consumer's Association of Canada. Last week, the CAC held a joint news conference with the food-growers' advocacy group AG-Care, and stated that mandatory labelling of genetically-altered food might "confuse consumers."

Ah yes, the poor, gormless consumer, too boneheaded to cope with making informed decisions about whether eating GM foods is a sensible idea or not. I think the CAC's choice of partner for the news conference speaks volumes. What scares the daylights out of agrifoodbiz is the prospect of large numbers of consumers making an informed decision NOT to eat GM foodstuffs if they had the product information. The CAC's national vice- president, Jennifer Hilliard, was quoted saying that biotechnologically altered foods can be beneficial and should not be portrayed in a negative light.

That's a value-judgment, Ms. Hilliard. Being of the persuasion that "you are what you eat," this writerÕs comfort level about genetically engineered foods is not high. I would not knowingly eat them, but I probably am eating them anyway, which I find unacceptable. There is no possible way anyone can really know for certain whether these foods are safe or not.

Biochemist John Fagan of Cornell University commented some time ago that genetically engineered foods are "very risky because these genes have never been part of the food supply before. We donÕt know if they are allergenic or toxic... they should test them as vigourously as they test a new drug. They arenÕt doing that."

Vermont businessman and organic gardener Don Mayer argues: "It is again a situation where money, greed and science combine to create subtle Frankensteins. Genetically engineered food is a threat.... Personally, I do not trust a company like Monsanto with our gene pool!"

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