by SANDRA FINNIE
FarmOnline – New Zealand
Excerpts:
International scientists, including Professor Jack Heineman, the director of Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety, have previously raised concerns about GM food approvals, but Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has identified no safety risks with any of the foods it has assessed.
The scientists’ latest concerns relate to GM plants which are being designed to make a new ribonucleic acid molecule which has the ability to silence or activate certain genes in the plant and the impacts this could have on humans, perhaps even turning off human genes.
In an article in The Press newspaper (March 25), Prof Heineman warned that these potentially unsafe genetically modified foods were slipping into our diet because of “systematic neglect” by FSANZ which, he said, was assuming a new type of GM molecule, was safe to eat without requiring proof.
Prof Heineman has peer-reviewed research on the topic with Judy Carmen, of Adelaide’s Flinders University, and Sarah Agapito-Tenfin, of the Federal University of Santa Catarina Brazil, which was published in “Environment International” recently. FSANZ has yet to comment on the research document.
Prof Heineman would like some certainty around FSANZ’s research and some science in the risk assessments. He said that just as there was no evidence such products were unsafe for humans to eat neither was there proof they were safe.