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Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1998 22:18:08 -0500
To: info@natural-law.ca
From: Richard Wolfson <rwolfson@concentric.net>
Subject: GENews
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Thanks to: "NLP Wessex" <nlpwessex@bigfoot.com> for posting this
Subject: Warwickshire introduces GM school dinner ban
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 19:23:36 -0000
The Stratford-Upon-Avon Herald has reported (17 December 1998) that County
Councillors have banned genetically modified food from school dinner halls
across Warwickshire.
Warwickshire is the latest in a string of Local Authorities to introduce
such a ban.
Ann Robinson, client catering manager for the County Council, told the
Herald: "If you look at the progress of BSE there wasn't a problem. It was
empirical research over a long period of time that showed there was a
problem there."
Warwickshire County Council is also writing to the government calling for
clear and simple food labelling. Queries from both councillors and parents
have prompted the County Council's investigation.
............................
Thanks to Michael Hansen <hansmi@consumer.org> at the Consumers Union USA
for posting this.
Australia: All transgenic food to be labelled
http://www.afr.com.au/content/981218/news/news4.html
Australian Financial Review
Dec 18, 1998
All transgenic food to be labelled
By Cathy Bolt
The food industry has suffered a defeat in its bid for a smooth
introduction of transgenic foods in Australia after a ruling by health
ministers yesterday that will require all food containing genetically
modified material to be labelled.
The 6:4 majority decision by the Australia New Zealand Food Standards
Council was immediately branded a politically cheap option by the
Australian Food Council, which claimed it would deliver the most
restrictive labelling regime in the world for such products and could see
Australia challenged under World Trade Organisation rules.
"Even the Europeans haven't gone this far for the very reasons we implored
the ministers to consider," said the council's executive director, Mr Mitch
Hooke.
"It will be meaningless to consumers, unenforceable, impractical -- and
impose unnecessary costs."
But the food policy officer at the Australian Consumers' Association, Mr
Matt O'Neill, said the decision reflected consumers' basic right to know
how the food they ate was produced. Surveys showed more than 80 per cent
of consumers wanted full labelling.
"It's a clear message for food producers that consumers won't be force-fed
new food technology without being able to make a choice," he said.
The Food Standards Council moved last August to fill a vacuum in Australian
food laws governing transgenic products by requiring compulsory labelling
where such foods were substantially different in taste, nutrition or use.
The law is to take effect next year.
But a decision has been deferred on the more controversial issue of
labelling where they are substantially equivalent, for example, products
which have ingredients derived from soy bean or cotton plants genetically
engineered for pest or herbicide resistance but which are otherwise
identical.
Under the majority decision yesterday -- the opponents of which included
the Federal Government, New Zealand and Victoria -- compulsory labelling
will be required where the manufacturer knows the food contains genetically
modified material.
The Australia New Zealand Food Authority -- which also argued against
labelling of substantially equivalent foods -- has been asked to draft an
amendment to the Food Standards Code to put the decision into effect.
But in another decision which continues to blur the issue, the ministers
also asked ANZFA to develop a definition of genetically modified food.
Controversy over the transgenic foods now starting to reach consumers after
decades of development has been building in Australia since late 1996, when
imported soy beans were the first food to arrive which might have contained
transgenic material.
Mr Hooke said there was little benefit to consumers in having the vast
majority of products within the next few years on supermarket shelves
labelled "may contain".
........................
Thanks to Gabrielle Kuiper <Gabrielle.Kuiper@uts.edu.au> for posting this
good news from Australia and New Zealand
UPSET DECISION ON LABELLING GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD
T h e R o y a l S o c i e t y o f N e w Z e a l a n d
Science and Technology Alert 61 23 December 1998
The Australian and New Zealand Governments were outvoted in a surprise move
by a group of Australian states favouring the special labelling of
"substantially equivalent" genetically modified food. The Australia New
Zealand Food Standards Council's controversial decision was taken at a
meeting held in Canberra last Thursday attended by the New Zealand's
Associate Minister of Health, Hon Tuariki Delamere, and his Australian
Federal and State counterparts. Not only did the 6-4 decision go against
the wishes of the two national governments but it was in conflict with the
earlier recommendation of the Australian New Zealand Food Association
(Anzfa).
Good manufacturers are warning that a decision favouring the mandatory
labelling of some genetically-modified food will be unworkable. Labelling
activists are rejoicing at the outcome of the decision. Governments have
the task of deciding whether to accept the Standards Council decision and,
if so, how to implement it. The Royal Society insists that any labelling
requirements imposed must have reasonable validity in scientific terms and
not be capable of misinterpretation by the consumer. Watch this space.
Science and Technology Alert is published by The Royal Society of New
Zealand, which is a statutory body incorporated under The Royal Society of
NZ Act, 1997:
see http://www.rsnz.govt.nz/about/rsnz-act97.html
...........
Thanks to Michael Hansen <hansmi@consumer.org> at the Consumers Union USA
for posting this:
Monsanto prosecuted in UK for GE oilseed rape releases
December 18
News in brief: Monsanto on crop charges
The Guardian
[ MONSANTO ] , the giant multi-national company that specialises in
marketing genetically modified crops, is to be prosecuted by the Health and
Safety Executive following the deliberate releases of modified oilseed rape
into the countryside.
The case, the first of its kind in Britain, is being brought under the
Environmental Protection Act 1990 against Monsanto and Perryfield Holdings
of Worcestershire.
An inspection in June at Rothwell in Lincolnshire showed control measures
to prevent pollen from herbicide-tolerant oil seed rape reaching
neighbouring crops of un-modified rape had been partly removed.
Both companies must appear before Caister magistrates in Lincolnshire in
February accused of breaking the conditions for releasing genetically
modified oil seed rape. Monsanto said it would not contest the prosecution.
Both companies face unlimited fines if convicted.
_________________________________________________________
Richard Wolfson, PhD
Consumer Right to Know Campaign,
for Mandatory Labelling and Long-term
Testing of all Genetically Engineered Foods,
500 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N2
tel. 613-565-8517 fax. 613-565-1596
email: rwolfson@concentric.net
Our website, http://www.natural-law.ca/genetic/geindex.html
contains more information on genetic engineering as well as
previous genetic engineering news items
Subscription fee to genetic engineering news is $35 for 12 months
See website for details.
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
--Dan in Sunny Puerto Rico--
dan.worley@mindless.com
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