YOU have no right to know where the food you eat ultimately comes from.
That鈥檚 the ruling of an international body of food experts. It says governments cannot demand that consumers be told their food鈥檚 genetic origins鈥攚hether a cooking oil comes from beans with a genetically modified ancestor, for instance. The only exception would be when a food turns out to be dangerous鈥攁llergenic, for example鈥攁nd the culprit appears to be a modified gene.
Environmentalists have condemned the decision by a task force of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a UN panel that rules on issues about international food trade. After a heated debate to agree global rules on 鈥渞isk analysis of foods derived from biotechnology鈥� at a meeting in Yokohama, Japan, the CAC threw out calls from the European Union to allow governments to demand full genetic 鈥渢raceability鈥� of GM food. But Bruno Heinzer of Greenpeace says that will 鈥渋ncrease the risk of a plant-food equivalent of mad cow disease鈥�.
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Commission secretary Alan Randell explained the decision, saying that foods increasingly have their origins in GM crops, even though the plants themselves are not directly modified. Traceability would require manufacturers to reveal 鈥渢he family tree back to the original modified soybean, or whatever鈥�, says Randell. 鈥淏ut that is not now foreseen.鈥� Instead, some 200 national delegates accepted a much less demanding rule sought by the US, Australia and others. Disclosure of such genetic ancestors will only be necessary 鈥渨hen a risk to human health has been identified鈥�.
鈥淭he US will interpret this as meaning you only do the checks after an accident,鈥� Heinzer claims. But the same meeting did agree to more stringent tests on food to prevent genes for allergenic proteins from being accidentally transferred during genetic modification of crops. The decision follows two recent scares, one when the gene for a protein that causes Brazil nut allergy got into a GM soya bean under development, the other when a suspected allergen was found in StarLink, a brand of GM corn.