Lawsuit Against U.S. to Force Labels on Genetically Engineered Food

[Guest guest]

Coalition Files Lawsuit Against U.S. to Force

Labels

on Genetically Engineered Food

Lawsuit challenges U.S. agency on gene-altered foods

 

By Julie Vorman

http://www.purefood.org/ge/fdaSuit.htm

 

WASHINGTON, May 27 (Reuters) - Genetically altered tomatoes, corn,

soybeans

and other foods should be pulled off the market until U.S. regulators

have

fully assessed the health risks to consumers, a group of scientists,

religious

leaders and consumer activists claimed in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

 

The lawsuit challenged Food and Drug Administration policies, alleging

that

regulators have been too eager to let companies sell altered foods

without

requiring safety tests, or at the very least, special labels.

 

Green groups in several other countries have demanded that foods

containing

gene-altered DNA or proteins carry a label clearly informing consumers.

But

U.S. trade officials and agribusiness executives have insisted that such

labels are unnecessary because genetic engineering does not affect food

safety.

 

"By failing to require testing and labeling of genetically engineered

foods,

the agency has made consumers unknowing guinea pigs for potentially

harmful,

unregulated food substances," said Andrew Kimbrell, head of the

International

Center for Technology Assessment, a nonprofit group that led the

lawsuit.

 

 

In an unusual coalition, consumer group's lawsuit was also joined by

biologists from the University of California at Berkeley, the

University

of

Minnesota and several other universities, as well as a rabbi, a

Protestant

minister and a prominent New York restaurant chef.

 

"My business is based on trust," said Rick Moonen, chef and partner

of the

Oceana restaurant. "Customers have the right to know about genetically

modified foods so they can make an educated decision about whether to

eat

something."

 

A growing amount of popular consumer foods -- such as soy baby formula

and

corn chips -- contain cooking and processing ingredients from

genetically

altered crops, Kimbrell said.

 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, also asks that some

three

dozen genetically modified commodities already on the market be

remanded

to

the FDA for more study.

 

Food and biotechnology companies maintain that genetic modifications are

simply a new form of traditional breeding techniques to promote

desirable

plant traits and protect crops from pests.

 

"There is no scientifically-valued distinction between the safety

of

genetically enhanced food and food grown by traditional methods,"

said Stephen

Ziller, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America. "It

would be

enormously impractical to label every genetically modified new crop and

would

falsely imply a difference in the foods' safety."

 

The FDA said it was satisfied that companies were providing adequate

scientific studies and documentation of the safety of genetically

altered

foods.

 

"Virtually every food you buy has been altered by traditional breeding

and is

not as nature intended it," said Eric Flamm, a senior policy adviser

at the

FDA. "We have no evidence that any genetically engineered foods on

the market

contain unapproved food additives or are adulterated."

 

The FDA does require food labels to carry information when a product

has

been

substantially altered, such as in the case of canola engineered to

produce

higher levels of certain oils.

 

In another instance, the agency ordered a company to prepare a special

label

for a gene-altered soybean that had Brazil nut protein added to it.

Although

the soybean was intended only for sale as poultry food, the FDA said a

label

was necessary because of the slim chance that a consumer allergic to

Brazil

nuts might consume it.

 

In the end, the company decided not to market the product because of

the

extra

expense of labeling, Flamm said.

 

21:54 05-27-98

 

 

 

Organic Consumers Association (OCA)

6101 Cliff Estate Rd., Little Marais, Minnesota 55614

Activist or Media Inquiries: (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157

Ronnie Cummins E-mail: alliance

http://www.purefood.org

 

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