Arguments over genetically modified ingredients continue to storm the world over and calls for the labelling of GM foods are certainly a common theme.
In Canada this week, anti-GM foods campaigners commented that although Health Canada is studying the safety of genetic engineering, the government refuses to label them. They declared this to be an unacceptable hypocrisy and an absurd double standard.
"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," said Nadege Adam of the Council of Canadians. "Health Canada has gone to great lengths to tryand persuade Canadians of the safety of GMOs, but now the same department is studying their health effects. This is tacit admission there's cause tobe concerned about what we're eating."
"Eat first, ask questions later is a dangerous public health policy," saidPat Venditti of Greenpeace.
"If the government doesn't know the risks, it shouldn't be allowing GM crops into our food supply and into the environment. If they truly want to protect public health, they should labelproducts so Canadians can avoid them in the first place."
CBC Television reported that Health Canada has established a"Biotechnology Surveillance Project" to monitor human health impacts ofGMOs. Meanwhile, according to the lobby groups, theCanadian government has blocked all efforts to establish a mandatory labelling system that would have allowed them to do such monitoring more effectively.
"Ottawa must get its act together before it's too late, starting with a moratorium on new GM products and labels on them all," said Venditti. "The Minister of Health needs to explain how exactly her department canstudy health effects when, without labels, it's impossible to link theimpact to the food source," said Adam