Did you think GM
crops and foods had pretty much gone away in
Europe? Now they’re set to return.
If lobbyists get their
way, new genetically modified (GM) crops, foods,
and farm animals will appear in our fields and
on our dinner plates – with few or no safety
checks and no labelling.
These new GM
crops and foods are produced with so-called
gene-editing techniques. Gene-edited organisms
already developed include super-muscled pigs
(similar to the one in the image above), a
non-browning mushroom, and a soybean that
produces altered fats.
GMO companies are
also planning to market a new generation of
gene-edited herbicide-tolerant crops, including
wheat. These plants are engineered to survive
being sprayed with large amounts of toxic
herbicides, such as those based on
glyphosate.
Gene-editing techniques are
often called “New Breeding Techniques” (NBTs).
But they are not breeding techniques. They are
artificial laboratory GM techniques that result
in the production of GMOs (genetically modified
organisms).
Gene-editing techniques are
not precise and the effects cannot be predicted
or controlled. This means that plants developed
using these methods could contain new toxins or
allergens, or have unexpected effects on
wildlife.
We must act now to demand that
“new GMOs” continue to be strictly regulated and
labelled. Otherwise, farmers and consumers won’t
have a choice about whether to grow or eat the
new GMOs because they won’t know what is and
what is not a GMO.
What can you
do?
* Share links to this
web
page
of FAQs and the accompanying downloadable
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*
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* Write (in the UK
https://www.writetothem.com; in Europe http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home) to your MP and MEPs,
asking them to stand up for citizens’ right to
choose what they eat and to demand that new GMOs
remain strictly regulated and
labelled.
Why
now?
For the past few years the
GMO lobby – agbiotech industry people and lobby
groups, patent-holding scientists, and
researchers from institutions that have invested
heavily in the GMO food venture – has been
trying to get gene-edited crops and animals
exempted from the GMO regulations in the EU and
at national level. The aim is to allow these
“new GMOs” to escape the safety checks currently
required for all GMOs and ensure that they do
not have to carry a GM label.
But in
2018, in an important victory for the public,
the EU Court of Justice ruled that certain
gene-editing techniques (called mutagenesis
techniques in the case) are indeed GM and have
to be subjected to the same safety checks and
labelling as older-style GMOs.
In
response, the GMO lobby is putting pressure on
decision-makers to change the rules to exempt
gene-edited GMOs from the GMO regulations in the
European Union, or to subject them only to
“light-touch” regulation. This is the perfect
time for the lobbyists to push for a change in
the law, as in the wake of the 2019 EU
elections, the new Commission will define its
work programme over the next
months.
What’s at stake in the
de-regulation battle?
The EU’s
current GMO laws regulate approval, safety
checks, traceability, and labelling requirements
for GM seeds, food and feed.
If
new GMOs are removed from the scope of the
regulation, we face the threat of untested and
unlabelled “hidden GMOs” entering our fields and
food supply.
But if new GMOs stay
regulated, GM food will have to be labelled
throughout the European Union under EU law.
Farmers will retain their right to choose
whether to grow GMOs and consumers will be able
to make informed decisions about the food on
their plates.
There is more at stake than
seed and food choice. Despite claims of the
naturalness and safety of gene-editing
techniques, they have been recognised by the US
Intelligence Community as posing a security
threat, since they can be used to engineer
bioweapons. For example, they can be used to
develop viruses that attack people's DNA, or to
engineer "killer mosquitoes". They can also be
used to engineer "gene drives", designed to
eradicate entire species or wipe out a staple
crop. It is irresponsible to de-regulate such
potentially destructive
techniques.
READ ON, ACCESS LINKS
TO SOURCES:
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18984
SHARE LINKS:
FAQs
page
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18984
Downloadable
leaflet:
https://gmwatch.org/en/18990-gmwatch-2019-coming-to-your-dinner-plate-soon-june
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