Pesticide Safety Limit Raised by 200 Times 'To Suit GM Industry'
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Pesticide safety limit raised by 200 times 'to suit GM industry'
DAILY MAIL CAMPAIGN/GENETIC FOOD WATCH
Excerpts from Daily Mail
THE limits on pesticide residues allowed in soya have been
increased 200-fold to help the GM industry, according to one
of the country's leading food safety experts.
Malcolm Kane, who has just taken early retirement as head of
food safety at Sainsbury's, warned that higher levels of pesticide
residues could appear in a range of foods from breakfast cereals to biscuits.
He raised concerns that although the toxin levels are low, there may be
dangers associated with long-term consumption.
The claims were rejected by the Government's GM spin unit but are bound to
fuel hostility to the tainted technology.
The fact that the warning comes from such a respected source is highly
embarrassing for the Government and biotech firms.
Previously, UK and European rules stated that residues of the pesticide
glyphosate left on a crop of soya beans should not be higher than 0.1 parts
per million. But according to Mr Kane, the Government has increased this
figure by 200 times to 20 parts per million specifically to smooth the path
of GM soya into the national diet. The soya has been modified to withstand
spraying by glyphosate which is sold by the giant U.S. biotech firm
[ Monsanto ] under the brand name Roundup. This means it can be sprayed more
heavily without any of the soya plants being harmed. But one
negative result could be that higher residues of the chemical are left on
the plant when it is harvested. Mr Kane believes that rather than force the
industry and farmers to meet the existing safety levels,
officials have instead relaxed the rules to ensure GM crops remain legal.
....
'One does not need to be an activist or overtly anti-GM to point out that
herbicide-resistant crops come at the price of containing significant
chemical residues of theactive chemical in the commercial weedkiller,'
said Mr Kane. 'Conventional food crops will have no such residues.' He
added: 'Consumers are understandably concerned about chemical residues in
the food supply, and it is the responsibility of food industry professionals
to protect and defend their requirements.
....
Government's GM spin unit said that the residue level had been changed in
1997, after GM soya was approved in Europe. 'The change was made because of
a change in farming practice for all soya, both conventional and
GM, it was not done to suit the GM industry,' said the spokesman.
While in the past the crops had been sprayed early in the growing season,
farmers had now decided to spray them before harvest to speed up the drying
process, she said. However, Mr Kane, who now runs his own food safety
consultancy, Cambridge Food Control, described this explanation as a red herring.
'This whole debate has been dogged by misinformation,' he said.
'There is absolutely no good reason for raising the residue limit on soya
other that to satisfy the GM companies.' Friends of the Earth biotech expert
Adrian Bebb said glyphosate was a suspected 'gender bender', adding: 'It is
extremely long lasting in the food chain and has been implicated in changing
hormone levels in humans and reducing sperm counts in men.'
http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/raise.shtml