GMW: US shockingly unprepared for GM imports - New Scientist

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GMW: US " shockingly unprepared " for GM imports - New Scientist

" GM WATCH " <info

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:06:44 GMT

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Seems CSIRO's lung-damaging GM peas needn't have been scrapped after

all - just grown for export!

 

Successive U.S. admninistrations have been so keen to produce a

regulatory system that suits the need of its biotech corporations

that, as New

Scientist points out below, absolutely any GM product can be brought

into the U.S. and sold for human or animal consumption without any checks

at all being mandatory.

 

EXCERPT: The US is shockingly unprepared. As things stand, anyone

wishing to bring a GM product into the country will need to notify the

authorities only if it is intended for planting on US soil. Anything else

can sail though without any of the mandatory pre-marketing scrutiny

demanded in Europe.

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Export as you would be exported to…

New Scientist, Issue 2526, 19 November 2005

Editorial: page 3

 

THE genetically modified chickens are coming home to roost. Having

spent the past decade insisting that it should be free to export GM crops

and foods derived from them, the US is waking up to the possibility that

it may soon be asked to accept imports of similar GM material from

other countries, such as China and Argentina, which are now producing

more

than they consume.

 

This month, the issues raised by this hitherto remote possibility were

discussed in Washington DC at a seminar held by an independent think

tank, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology. The US is shockingly

unprepared. As things stand, anyone wishing to bring a GM product into

the country will need to notify the authorities only if it is intended

for planting on US soil. Anything else can sail though without any of

the mandatory pre-marketing scrutiny demanded in Europe.

 

Delegates had lots to discuss. How will US consumers react if foreign

farmers start sending shipments of GM rice, soy and other commodities?

Are new regulations needed to safeguard health and the environment? What

if GM seeds intended for consumption rather than planting spill onto US

soil? And what if US consumers do not want to eat foreign GM produce?

 

These and a host of other questions will need some adroit answers from

the politicians and business people who have slammed Europe for its

" irrational " aversion to GM. They will be have to tread a careful path to

avoid accusations of hypocrisy once those chickens start to arrive.

 

 

 

 

 

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