1.US: Many Won't Buy Genetically Modified Food
2.CANADA: MLA wants labels on potentially toxic food
3.CANADA: Greenpeace in Victoria to protest poor food labelling
EXTRACTS: A new CBS News poll found that 87% of [U.S.] consumers would like GMO ingredients to be labeled, just as they are in Europe, Japan and Australia. Yet the U.S. Congress has never even held a vote on the issue, to give shoppers the opportunity to exercise their most basic right - to make a choice. (item 1)
...more than 40 countries around the world already require mandatory labelling of genetically engineered foods, including the Britain, Germany, Russia, and China, and Canada and the U.S. are the only two countries in the industrialized world without such legislation. (item 3)
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1.Poll: Many Won't Buy Genetically Modified Food
Associated Press, May 11 2008
http://cbs4.com/national/CBS.News.New.2.721469.html
NEW YORK (AP) ― According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, 53 percent of Americans say they won't buy food that has been genetically modified. But CBS News investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that it's not that easy to avoid. While most packaged and processed foods do contain genetically modified ingredients, the labels don't have to say so.
Robyn O'Brien teaches her kids to keep a close eye on the labels of the foods they eat.
"In terms of labeling," she says, "they're not always comprehensive and thorough."
What concerns parents like O'Brien is not what's listed, but what is not. Particularly foods made with genetically modified organisms - or GMOs.
"My concern as a mother is, are these kids part of a human trial that I didn't know that I had signed them up for," O'Brien says.
Today, more than 90 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is genetically modified - had its DNA altered to increase production and withstand chemical weed killers like roundup. Nearly three-quarters of all corn planted in the U.S. genetically modified.
Experts say that means if it comes in a can or a box and the label lists soybean oil or corn syrup as ingredients, odds are that it contains GMOs. Overall, 65 percent of all products in your local grocery store have DNA-altered ingredients...not that you'd know it by looking.
"The industry that makes genetically modified foods fought so hard to make sure that it wasn't labeled," nutritionist Marion Nestle tells Keteyian.
Nestle, a former FDA advisor, says this was a fight that boiled down to one basic fear.
"They didn't want it labeled because they were terrified that if it were labeled, nobody would buy it."
Robert Brackett is spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
"I think that consumers have that information available to them if they want to look for it," says Brackett, "You can find it on websites. You can go directly to the manufacturer."
When pressed by Keteyian to explain his organization's role in providing information to the consumer, Brackett said, "Well, it's our responsibility to make sure that the foods that are put in the grocery store shelves are safe."
The FDA and bio-tech giants like Monsanto say there's no evidence that GMOs are anything but safe, but food safety advocates ask: how would we know, if the food is not labeled?
"Labeling is the only way that health professionals are going to be able to trace if there is a problem," says Andy Kimbrell from the Center for Food Safety. "For example, if you're a mother and you're giving your child soy formula and that child has a toxic or allergic reaction, the only way you'll know if that's a genetically-engineered soy formula is if it's labeled."
The FDA does not require "disclosure of genetic engineering techniques...on the label," calling GMOs the "substantial equivalent" of conventional crops.
Baloney, says Kimbrell.
"There is nothing - nothing, substantially equivalent from a conventional crop to a GMO crop," he says. "And in every cell of these new GMO foods are bacterias we've never seen in food before: viruses, genetic constructs, antibiotic bugs that they put in there, laboratory contructs that they've put into every cell of these foods."
A new CBS News poll found that 87% of consumers would like GMO ingredients to be labeled, just as they are in Europe, Japan and Australia. Yet the U.S. Congress has never even held a vote on the issue, to give shoppers the opportunity to exercise their most basic right - to make a choice.
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2.MLA wants labels on potentially toxic food
Catherine Rolfsen
Vancouver Sun, May 12 2008
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=8c10deca-200 5-455f-ad29-2381ec8cb3c9
Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson [also bidding to become Vancouver's next mayor] s plans to introduce a private member's bill in the legislature today making it mandatory to label genetically engineered food. The Right to Know Act would require producers and suppliers to warn consumers if products contain toxic chemicals or genetically engineered ingredients.
"People have a right to know what is in their food," said Robertson, an NDP MLA who is also seeking the Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination.
In a press release Sunday, Robertson also said he would bring back the Toxics Reduction Act, which bans pesticide use in residences, on public land and in areas frequented by children.
With pesticide poisonings, toxic toys and skyrocketing asthma rates, the devastating impact of toxins clearly requires urgent action from government," Robertson said.
More than 6,000 Canadians are acutely poisoned by pesticides every year, according to the David Suzuki Foundation.
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3.Greenpeace in Victoria to protest poor food labelling
The Province, May 8 2008
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=5f6ce32e-a1f1-4613-b487-b5c a9acf6923
Greenpeace wants to know what's in our food.
Members of the eco-activist group were to gather on the lawn of the B.C. legislature in Victoria Thursday morning to hand the Liberals a petition with 20,000 signatures asking for mandatory labelling of all genetically engineered foods.
NDP MLA Gregor Robertson is also set to table a "Right to Know" bill along the same lines in the legislature early next week.
According to Greenpeace, more than 40 countries around the world already require mandatory labelling of genetically engineered foods, including the Britain, Germany, Russia, and China, and Canada and the U.S. are the only two countries in the industrialized world without such legislation.
The non-profit organization is also constructing a large structure from label-free cans on the lawn to draw attention to the cause, and after it is dismantled all the food will be donated to a local food bank.