Posted: Apr 10, 2008, 5:36 AM CST
By SEAN POULTER
9th April 2008
Warning: Chinese rice imports will now have to be screened
Watchdogs have issued a national alert over Chinese rice imports thought to be tainted with an illegal genetically modified strain.
The Bt63 experimental variety of rice, which produces an insecticide, has not been approved for human consumption. There are fears it could cause an allergic reaction.
The Food Standards Agency issued an alert to food manufacturers and trading standards departments yesterday afternoon, saying any contaminated rice products must be withdrawn from sale immediately.
And an EU-wide alert means all Chinese rice imports will have to be screened for the strain.
In 2005, a Greenpeace investigation found that research institutes and seed companies in China had been illegally selling unapproved GM rice seeds to farmers.
Further testing indicated that the whole food chain had been contaminated, most recently affecting Heinz baby food in China.
The Chinese government reportedly punished seed companies and destroyed illegally-grown GM crops after the scandal.
But new contaminations were found in the EU last autumn, finally prompting an emergency EC decision on Bt63, set to come into force on April 15.
As early as September 2006, a Friends of the Earth investigation found two contaminated foods on sale in Asian speciality stores in London.
Many other products are likely to have been in the food chain both before and since.
Genetically Modified seeds are of no good value as far as I am concerned. What's wrong with seeds the way Nature intended them to be... Natural???
Do you think they should be modifying seeds and using us for the guinea pigs?
Would you or do you consume foods that you know to have been genetically altered?