GMW: MICHAEL MEACHER CONDEMNS 7 YEARS OF SECRECY OVER GM FOOD AND FEED SAFETY

[Guest guest]

GMW: MICHAEL MEACHER CONDEMNS 7 YEARS OF SECRECY OVER GM FOOD

AND FEED SAFETY

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 14:53:05 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

------

From Michael Meacher, 15 August 2005

 

GM Food Safety

 

At the Food Standards Agency Open Board meeting being held today

11am-1pm at the TUC, demands will be made to end the scandal of 7

years of

cover-up about the safety of GM food and feed. Despite the Government's

continuing determination to introduce GM food and GM animal feed into

country in defiance of overwhelming public opinion (as constantly polled)

in both the EU and the UK, there have still been virtually no

independent tests whatever of the health effects of eating GM foods on

human

beings, and no attempt is being made to set up any such controlled

tests -

indeed the Government is determined to ensure that no such tests shall

be undertaken. The only real independent testing ever carried out was

undertaken by Dr. Arpad Pusztai FRSE in 1998, and when his peer-reviewed

work produced the wrong results (from the Government's point of view),

a telephone call from No.10 to the Rowett Institute where Dr. Pusztai

led to his being immediately sacked, his reputation personally vilified

in the media, and his research work closed down and disbanded.

 

Since the issue is the launching of GM products into the nation's food

supply that have never been independently tested, this is a public

scandal of huge proportions. A determined attempt will therefore be

made at

today's FSA meeting to secure freedom of access to the data on which

the Government purports to rely in its approval of GM foods.

 

I attach a press release that sets out the background.

 

Michael Meacher

Former Minister of the Environment 1997-2003

------

NEWS RELEASE

 

Monday 15th August 2005 - For Immediate Release

 

MICHAEL MEACHER CONDEMNS SEVEN YEARS OF SECRECY OVER GM FOOD AND FEED

SAFETY

 

Michael Meacher demands sound science and freedom of information on GM

food and animal feed.

 

On the seventh anniversary of the first disclosure of scientific

concern about GM food safety I am supporting calls for freedom of

access to

the data used by the Government to approve GM foods.

 

Questions will be raised at the Food Standards Agency Open Board

Meeting being held today. [1]

 

On the 10th August 1998, Dr Arpad Pusztai, FRSE, whose research team

had been selected by the Scottish Office from 28 candidates to carry out

its GM safety research, appeared on Granada TV's 'World in Action'

programme to express his alarm about the effects of GM potatoes on rats.

His research was peer-reviewed by six independent scientists and

published in the Lancet. Seven years on, this feeding study still

seems to be

the only one to have been published in an academic journal. [2]

 

Since then there appear to have been no genuinely independent and

long-term feeding studies that have been published in respectable

scientific

journals. The data available to the Government is produced by biotech

companies and remains commercially confidential. The Government has

recently said that it was unnecessary for studies relating to the

approval

of GM animal feed to be peer reviewed and published [3].

 

Does the Government honestly believe that it is ever going to persuade

the people of Britain to eat GM foods or the produce of GM-fed animals

when the public has had virtually no access to data from any long-term

feeding trials?

 

Seven years ago the Government felt it necessary to carry out feeding

trials of GM foods but, when its own research led to alarming

conclusions, they decided that such research was unnecessary and

should not be

repeated.

 

We need both sound science and freedom of information on GM food and

animal feed safety - the Government and the Food Standards Agency is

giving us neither. Farmers and food retailers need to know that their

produce is safe and that their animals are not at risk. Until they and

their

insurers have access to sound scientific research, I think they should

exercise due diligence and avoid using GM animal feed.

 

If farmers and food manufacturers wanted to retain access to supplies

of non-GM feed they needed to put in orders to Brazil before the next

soya crop is planted in mid-September, otherwise next year's entire

harvest could be GM and choice would be eliminated. More GM feed

varieties

are being approved despite the wish of many retailers to phase out its

use. We may only have a month to save our non-GM supplies.

 

In 1998 a GM maize, called T25, was approved in the EU as a cattle

feed. Only one feeding study looked at the effects of eating the whole

maize; a short 10 week trial - on chickens - even though the active

life of

a dairy cow is over six years. 50% more chickens eating GM maize died

than in the control group fed non-GM maize, but the Government felt this

was not significant. The research was not peer-reviewed and was not of

a quality suitable for academic publication, but the crop was approved.

 

The latest GM feed crop to be approved was MON 863 maize in July. This

was despite the eventual disclosure of a secret Monsanto feeding study

on rats that suggested harmful effects on kidneys and levels of white

blood cells. Now, despite these concerns, it is about to be approved for

human consumption.

 

Notes to editors:

[1] 11am-1pm at the Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street, London

WC1B 3LS. For further information about the FSA meeting please contact

Hector Christie on 07967 566 286 or Gerald Miles on 07879 664 703

 

[2] Dr Arpad Pusztai's latest evaluation of GM food safety research

will form a chapter of a forthcoming academic publication.

 

[3] Answer to a Parliamentary Question from Mr Meacher, July 2005

[PQ02083].

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------