By Robyn Marshall
Four thousand and five hundred food items that sit today on supermarket shelves around the world are the product of genetic engineering, including many sold in Australia. Most of these contain genetically modified (GM) varieties of soya beans, a food which is added to 60% of processed food either as a fat absorber or to add bulk. Other GM items or ingredients are tomatoes, canola seeds (and their oil and other products), potatoes and corn.
Consumer groups and food manufacturers are battling over the labelling of GM food. Consumers groups want us to know, to some extent, what we are eating.
The food manufacturers, big chemical corporations such as Monsanto, Du Pont and Rhone Poulec, which have spent millions on research in this area and own the genetically modified seeds, argue that GM foods are "substantially equivalent" and do not need any special label.
These corporations are fully aware that there is a consumer backlash against GM foods. They face plummeting sales if consumers are allowed to know that items are GM.
This backlash is so widespread that some supermarket giants are roving the globe looking for food items that can be proven not to contain GM food. The supermarkets then label the food items as containing no GM product.
Australian growers recently sold $26 million worth of canola oil to the European market, their largest sale ever, simply because Australia had the only source proven to be free of genetic modification.
The opening of a specialised market in food that is not GM made the Australian government rethink its opposition to labelling food as GM. In December, the Australia and New Zealand Food Authority rejected the food industry's "no-label" position and recommended that all GM food be labelled.
The industry, however, is lobbying the authority to exempt from labelling all refined food products and those using genetically modified processing agents such as sugars and vegetable oils and enzymes.
This would mean we couldn't be sure if a processed product contains GM food or not. The principle of labelling would be undermined: no label claiming a food item did not include GM ingredients could be trusted.
The frightening aspect of this technological revolution in food production is that there has been almost no research into its implications for human health and the natural environment. Only two or three publicly funded groups in the world are carrying out limited research in this area.
The corporations involved have done some research, but they then own its results and have the right to keep these confidential: the corporation's research results haven't been made public.
The British Guardian Weekly has reported the case of one group of university researchers who, in principle, strongly supported genetic engineering of food. Out of curiosity, they genetically engineered potatoes to contain the genes for certain lectins (a protein binding to specific complex carbohydrate groups normally found in the diet). They then fed these potatoes to rats. To their surprise, the rats' body tissues developed severe problems, apparently due to immunological problems.
The researchers were subsequently forbidden to do any further research for four months by university authorities. An outcry by other scientists forced the authorities to lift the ban. But because there is not enough public funding to pursue this line of research, it is not known if this experiment was a rare result due to the lectins or a common reaction by mammals to introduced genes.
In addition, many GM plants will also contain a "terminator gene" that makes the plant sterile. Farmers will not be able to use the seeds of one crop to grow the next, as many peasants in the Third World do now.
Non-sterile GM plants may, on the other hand, allow the introduced genes to enter the gene pool of other plants. Animals that consume the GM plants could also be harmed, if the plants contain unforeseen toxins.
A British scientist, Tim Lang, who visited Australia recently on behalf of consumer groups concerned about GM food, has also warned that farmers should think carefully before using modified seed. Groups of consumers could sue if their health is damaged as a result.