GM Crops: Food Safety Western Australia Style
GMO Pundit
Ian B. Edwards, PhD; D.Sc; FCSSA
Chairman – AgBio Advisory Group – AusBiotech
June 23, 2007
Excerpt…
Australia has one of the most rigorous and transparent gene technology regulation Acts in the world, and is achieving its objective in protecting the health and safety of people and the environment. This was one of the key findings of the Independent Panel Review of the Gene Technology Act 2000, published in 2006. To those involved in the life sciences industry the act is considered almost draconian in its level of rigor, but most accept the fact that if we are to build public confidence in agricultural biotechnology it is both necessary and should be respected. However, this is clearly not the viewpoint of certain NGO’s ideologically opposed to biotech crops, and certainly not the viewpoint of Kim Chance, Western Australia’s Minister for Agriculture.
Under Australia’s Act the areas of human health and safety are a Federal mandate, while the states do have certain marketing rights. However Minister Chance, not content with imposing a state moratorium in April 2004 on the growing of all biotech or GM crops in Western Australia, took it upon himself to openly criticize Food Standards Australia – New Zealand (FSANZ) for not adequately safeguarding human health. In late 2005 he made public his intent to commission an independent feeding trial on GM crops so that supposedly unbiased data would be obtained. He openly expressed a concern shared by Greenpeace that, because the companies submit data to the Gene Technology Regulator it is somehow automatically subject to bias. Lost in all this was the fact that Australia subscribes to the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CODEX), which mandates world’s best practice in food standards, and FSANZ not only uses the information supplied by companies and independent laboratories commissioned to do the specialized animal feeding trials, but also takes account of peer reviewed university studies and the findings of other regulatory systems such as the US, Canada, and the European Union.
The group he selected to conduct the feeding studies was the Institute for Health and Environmental Health in Adelaide, comprising three individuals (led by Dr Judy Carman), none of whom have scientific records in conducting or analyzing long term feeding studies. Dr Carman toured around with UK activist Dr Mae Wan Ho to speak against GM crops and food safety. Ho has a relentlessly anti-science agenda against GM crops (and modern Darwinian theory), while Carman has constantly attacked FSANZ for alleged food regulatory inadequacies, and had two articles (“Health Concerns” and “Threats to our Health”) published in Greenpeace’s True Food Guide 2003. To most rational individuals this would have raised a flag about Dr Carman’s competency to conduct independent trials, but not to Minister Chance….
Full article at GMO Pundit.
