www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The results of a study showing that soy products in the UK are correctly
labelled with respect to GM contamination have been welcomed by the biotech
industry, March 2006
by Anthony Fletcher.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) study found that all products surveyed
were in compliance with the law.

The biotech industry has interpreted the results as strong evidence that the
food-feed chain is managing to meet labelling requirements and that the
threat of GM (genetically modified) contamination is exaggerated.

"I think this shows that the food industry has got things in place," Simon
Barber, director of the plant biotech unit (PBU) of EuropaBio told
FoodNavigator.

"And I think that organisations such as Greenpeace, by intimating that these
things are bad, are in essence pressuring manufacturers to view GM food as a
bad."

Barber's point is that there has never been any concrete evidence that GM
food is bad for humans, and that the debate over whether products have been
contaminated or not has been twisted to view the technology as a bad thing.

"20 years ago, the OECD agreed rules for safety assessments. Over the next
10 years, a lot of research was carried out, and in the last 10 years, GM
crops have been approved for growing and eating.

"There has never been any firm evidence that eating GM food can cause harm
to humans or the environment."

But the fact remains that consumers within the EU are incredibly wary of GM,
and that therefore the labelling of products is an important issue for both
consumes and food makers. European GM food laws require that foods derived
from GM sources should be labelled to say 'this product contains genetically
modified organisms' or 'produced from genetically modified soy'.

Regulations also allow for the fact that small amounts of GM material, which
have been authorised for use in the European Union, could be present because
of accidental mixing of crop varieties, for example during transport or
storage.

If this accidental presence in the final product is below 0.9 per cent then
the final product does not need to be labelled as containing GM ingredients,
providing that the manufacturer can demonstrate their efforts to avoid GM
content.

The FSA examined a total of 60 samples of soy ingredients, including flour
and textured soy protein. These were collected by 14 local authorities
across the UK between February and April 2005 from a range of manufacturing
premises.

These were analysed for Roundup Ready soy, a GM (genetically modified) soy
that has been in use in food in the UK since 1995.

Out of the 60 samples, 54 (90 per cent) were either negative in a screening
test or did not contain quantifiable levels of GM soy. The remaining six
samples were found to have very low levels of GM soy, which after taking the
uncertainty of the method into account, were all around the lowest levels of
measurement (0.06 per cent - 0.1 per cent).

[www.foodnavigator.com]

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