Scientists push for GM labelling

By Jane Bardon
Monday, 27/10/2008
State and Federal food regulation meeting recently in Adelaide are facing renewed calls for all genetically modified food to be labelled.Fifteen Australian and international scientists have written an open letter to the ministers, saying independent studies are raising more concerns about GM food.And the scientists want testing of GM food to be done in Australia.At the moment only GM food with altered protein, for example foods containing GM soy, have to be labelled in Australia.Other foods containing highly processed GM like canola oil, cottonseed oil and corn, and even GM potatoes don't have to be labelled.Professor Jack Heineman is a molecular biologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and he says that has to change so consumers can choose."There is a growing number of independently derived studies that indicate the plausibility of harms that may have been overlooked, and certainly, could currently be overlooked using the types of studies that are available to our regulators now."Independent Australian food nutritionist Dr Rosemary Stanton says labelling is also needed because if health problems do arise with GM foods in future, nutritionists and scientists won't know where the problems have come from because they won't know which foods people have been eating contain Gm material.But the Chief Scientist at the national food regulator Food Standards Australia New Zealand Dr Paul Brent says the state and federal food ministers don't need to change labelling laws.In their letter to the food ministers, the scientists are also calling for an independent review of the safety assessment procedure for GM food.Rosemary Stanton agrees with them it's unacceptable that Food Standards doesn't do its own safety testing.It relies on tests done by the GM companies and peer reviews of that by food authorities in other countries.Paul Brent from Food Standards says its okay to rely on GM company data and international assessments of that."The US FDA and the Health Canada Food Directorate and the Japanese, and the European Food Safety Authority have all looked at the same data, and have all come up with the same independent conclusions that these GM foods are safe."The standard procedure all over the world for chemical and drugs and for foods is for industry to supply the data. This idea that it has to be independently tested is a furphy."The regulator also says in its recent consumer attitudes survey only one on percent of people were worried about eating GM.But Rosemary Stanton says if state and federal governments don't change the law and demand GM food testing by the regulator farmers will suffer.She thinks once the new GM canola crops being grown for the first time in some states start to enter the food chain consumers might start avoiding eating any canola to try not to eat GM.A spokeswoman for the Federal Government Parliamentary secretary for health, Jan McLucas says Australia's processes for assessing and labelling food are based on worlds best practice, and Food Standards is taking a very cautious approach.But GM labelling may be discussed at the meeting.
In this report: Professor Jack Heineman molecular biologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, Dr Paul Brent Chief Scientist Food Standards Australia New Zealand; Dr Rosemary Stanton nutritionist