The new EU testing regime for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods is not sufficiently stringent, according to a lawyer mounting a legal challenge to US policy on GM foods.
At present, the policy of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is based on the assessment that GMOs are as safe as their conventional counterparts.
Speaking during a visit to the Republic, Mr Steven Druker of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity said Europe was also mistaken in believing there were relatively small amounts of GM foods in circulation within the EU.
Insufficient account was being taken of the amount of GMOs people were consuming via animals fed on huge amounts of GMO-containing feed, he added. The reality was that most GM soya and maize was being used in animal feed, which indicated, in his opinion, that EU labelling regulations were "weak".
Mr Druker, a public interest attorney, who assembled a coalition of scientists, consumer bodies and religious groups to bring a case against the FDA in a Washington DC court, said he was confident the judge would support the alliance's position. This was because of what he claimed was "unassailable factual evidence", much of which was not contested by the FDA.
Regardless of the outcome, Mr Druker will be noted for exposing a divergence of opinion within the FDA on the risks of GMOs. Since the early 1990s, the FDA's official stance has been strongly supportive of GM foods. But Mr Druker obtained internal documents by court discovery which indicated disagreement among the FDA's own experts in 1992, when the first GM food was due to come on the market. The significance of that divergence of opinion is at the heart of the case, and the judge is now due to give her decision.
Mr Druker has alleged in court briefs that the FDA's position amounted to deception, but the world's most authoritative food safety agency submitted that it was simply examining various points of view before a final determination of safety. The alliance is claiming that "genetically engineered food entails unique risks and cannot be assumed as `substantially equivalent' to other foods".
"In our view, substantial equivalence is a disgraceful sham," he told The Irish Times before a lecture in Dublin hosted by the Natural Law Party. and potentially risk between GM foods and conventional produce.
The alliance is calling for mandatory and rigorous testing and labelling of GM foods, as exists for food additives.
Given the absence of "well-controlled toxological feed studies and broad-based biochemical investigations on GM foods", Mr Druker said, it would be appropriate for the judge in the FDA case to "pull all genetically engineered foods off the market". foods".
Asked what current US consumer thinking was on GM foods, he said public concern there focused on environmental risks. As to food safety, "most Americans believe there are no legitimate concerns" in relation to GM foods, except those being aired by "crazy extremists and uninformed European consumers who . . . have no sound knowledge of science".
The attorney said he believed the Government had "backtracked a lot" from a position of caution on GM foods, and was now supporting the stance of "biotech boosters", who put the burden of proof on those with concerns rather than on the GM food-developers themselves.
