Editorial
Genetic modification of our food appears to be the current food concern among consumers today. Hardly a day goes by without GM foods being pilloried in the press or on TV news. There have been a number of opinion polls showing that the majority of the public do not want genetically engineered ingredients in their food. For example, a Gallup poll commissioned by Iceland Foods found that 73 per cent of respondents said they were unlikely to purchase products containing GM ingredients. Yet GM soya has already come to the UK from the USA and it is estimated that 60 per cent of processed foods contain soya. These include bread, cakes, biscuits and baby foods while pigs, poultry, cattle and sheep are fed soya.
A MORI poll commissioned by Genewatch in June 1998 found that support for genetically engineered foods had tumbled from 31 to 22 per cent and 61 per cent of respondents said they would not eat GM food. In the same month, 1,300 schools in six council areas took genetically engineered food out of school dinners.
In September 1998, English Nature, the advisory body to the UK Government on nature, called for a moratorium on release of GMOs containing herbicide tolerant and insect resistant genes. Government funded research has revealed that altering the genetic make-up of plants to resist destructive aphids might have a serious effect on other natural pest killers such as the ladybird. The research showed that ladybirds’life span was reduced by one-half and their fertility and egg laying was significantly reduced when they were fed aphids which in turn had fed on GM potato plants.
Several of our bird species, such as bluetits and warblers, also feed on aphids. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has expressed concern that so much about the effect of GMOs on birdlife still needs to be answered. Because of modern farming methods tree sparrows, the English partridge, corn buntings and sky larks are in decline. Do we want to reduce the beauty and biodiversity of our countryside still further?
Environmentalists have also expressed concern that in the third world countries who traditionally save seed from one year’s harvest to grow the next will be unable to do so with GM crops. Farmers will be forced to buy new seed every year. Sustainable and secure methods of agriculture which have been used for centuries will be destroyed. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology has produced studies which suggest that GM foods do not produce higher yields and decrease the use of pesticides. Yet agrichemical countries would have us believe that genetic engineering is necessary in order to feed the world.
There is still some uncertainty about the research conducted by Dr Arpad Pusztai who fed rats on GM potatoes and found they had weakened immune systems and smaller than normal livers, hearts and brains. Did the GM potaotes contain poisonous lectins which would have produced the same results whether or not the potatoes were genetically modified? A total of 22 prominent scientists from 13 countries have signed a public statement in support of Dr Pusztai and his work.
Most consumers fear genetic modification because it manipulates life processes and this involves a huge leap into the unknown. Genetic modification may turn out to be one of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century. But what is needed is for the new products to be tested thoroughly, rigorously and independently to reassure consumers, consumer organisations, food writers, other media people,environmentalists and the farmers who are at present vigorously campaigning against them.
Dilys Wells
