By Dick Ahlstrom

It is inevitable that EU states will accept genetically modified foods,
despite the fact that 70 per cent of people are opposed to them, the
Government's chief scientific adviser has stated.
Foods containing modified ingredients are already on our supermarket shelves
and livestock here is being fed genetically modified feeds.

Prof Patrick Cunningham answered questions about the safety of genetically
modified (GM) foods yesterday while attending the Oireachtas Committee on
Enterprise, Trade and Employment. He also handled questions on a range of
subjects including future energy supplies, risks posed by overhead power
lines and waste incineration and climate change.

Prof Cunningham issued a formal report to Government on GM foods last
summer. It looked at safety, benefits and risks and, after assessing a range
of studies on the issue, he believed GM was of value to Ireland. "The answer
has to be yes," he told the Committee.

"[ GM] is not going to go away and it is advancing at a hell of a rate," he
said. Countries around the world were growing about 100 million hectares of
GM corn, cotton, soyabean and rice.

Genetic modifications impart resistance to herbicides and insect attack,
providing cost and yield improvement for the farmer, he said. "This has
given a tremendous competitive advantage to those using [ GM]."

We are already consuming foods with GM content, he said. About 60 per cent
of products contain either corn or soya ingredients. "In fact, GM products
are on the supermarket shelves," he said. "We are using approved GM corn in
pig feed in Ireland today."

The safety of these products was a key element of the report, he said.

The results of a survey of the limited literature on the subject suggested
that the consumption of GM foods did not pose a health risk.

www.checkbiotech.org