Flaws in the food chain
We need a moratorium
The pressure for a moratorium on genetically modified food - at least
until more rigorous testing has been done - is beginning to look like a
tidal wave. It has produced an unholy alliance of William Hague, John
Redwood, leftward-leaning lobbies and the European Parliament (which
yesterday voted for legislation that could make biotech companies legally
responsible for the adverse effects of releasing organisms). Yesterday,
the Consumers Association urged the Government to block further GM
products pending overhaul of the regulatory system - the first call for a
ban in its 40 year history.
There is a case for calling a halt if only to allow time for the fog to
lift. Let's be clear: genetically modified food may turn out to be one of
the great achievements of the twentieth century that will enrich our lives
and bring cheaper, pesticide-free produce. Talk of Frankenstein foods is
completely misleading. In the much longer run it may help to feed the
poorer parts of the world by producing crops that grow in conditions of
drought or salt (though no one yet knows how to do such things). But
because of its very nature - manipulating the life process itself - it
involves a huge leap into the unknown that could have truly fearsome
consequences.
It is for this reason that new products must be tested in a far more
rigorous and independent way even than other food products. The
understandable desire of pioneering corporations to get an early return on
the vast sums they have invested must not stand in the way of protecting
the consumer. Memories of BSE are still too strong for new risks to be
taken with the food chain when doubts remain.
There are several lessons to be drawn from the disturbing reports we
published today of how suppressed research by Dr Arpad Pusztai linking
genetically modified potatoes to health risks led an international group
of 22 scientists to express their concern to the Guardian. The first is
that if the safety of GM foods is a real issue - and it is then the
research on which it is based must be open and beyond contention. The
results of studies on rats of the kind Dr Pusztai has conducted are
notoriously difficult to transfer to humans. If they had been we would
have cured cancer ages ago. But that's not the point. Animal studies are
our first line of defence and if research fails that test there is no
point in pursuing it for humans unless proved otherwise.
Second, we should be doubly on alert when an issue like this is
complicated by the spectre of business, science and government forcing
through an unwelcome and uninvited extension of the run of foods on the
public when the question how dangerous they could be is unanswered.
Protagonists of GM foods would argue that it is a bit ironic that a public
addicted to synthetic or junk foods should start worrying about tiny
genetic alterations to staple crops that have been undergoing genetic
alterations by random mutation, accident and natural selection for
thousands of years. But, again, that's not the point. We can't rewrite the
past, we can affect the future. And we simply don't know. The third lesson
is to underline the necessity of labelling every food product that
currently contains GM constituents in a clear way so people at least know
what they are buying.
Tony Blair may feel that he is a victim of another media bandwagon - on to
which Mr Hague was quick to jump. But that is not true. There is a growing
consensus of people and experts of all persuasion deeply concerned about
this leap into the unknown. Mr Blair should seize the initiative and
declare a moratorium until further research can satisfy the burgeoning
band of doubters.
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