April 19, 2006

 

Environmental groups say GM crops approved without adequate safeguards

 

 

The always controversial issue of GM crops have kicked up another storm as environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth accuse the European Commission of arbitrarily approving GM crops when its health and environmental impacts are still suspect.

 

The groups claim they have obtained documents in which the European Commission conceded they had doubts over the safety of GM crops.

 

It is not known the UK Government or other member states had access to the documents when they voted on key GM decisions.

 

In the documents, the Commission argues that there are large areas of uncertainty where GM crops are concerned and that some issues remained to be studied. 

 

The documents further indicate that the European Commission knew there was no way of knowing for sure whether GM crops have a negative effect on human health and no scientific standard exists to determine the safety of a GM product.

 

According to the documents, the European Commission felt that it is reasonable that insect-resistant crops should not be planted until all the effects on the soil are known. The European Commission also understood that a key scientific study used to support the environmental safety of a GM crop was scientifically flawed.

 

The European Commission also adopted a self-conflicting position with regards to GM crops.

 

While approving seven GM foods over the last two years, it wrote to the WTO highlighting safety concerns and gave scientific arguments justifying the bans on GM crops.

 

Current European Commission procedures seem to put the onus of proving the negative effects of approved GM crops on member states. Member states would have to provide scientific evidence that the GM crops did have a negative effect on humans or its surroundings in order to institute a ban.

 

On its website, the European Food Safety Authority, the agency in charge of overseeing GM crops in the EU, said there has been no scientific evidence proving that GM crops pose any risks to humans. The agency also highlighted the fact that some GM crops contain genes which are non-functional and no gene transfer has occurred from GM crops to cultured bacteria in its field experiments. The agency further clarifies that in the event of a spillage for a modified rapeseed, the GM crop would not have a selective advantage and any occurrences otherwise would have been due to the selective nature of the complementary herbicides and not inherent properties in the GM seed itself.