Canadians in the dark on GMOs, American activist
WebPosted Fri Feb 16 17:03:02 2001
OTTAWA-- American consumer rights activist
Ralph Nader is warning Canadians they don't know enough about genetically
modified foods.
He joins a growing list of consumer advocates who say corporations aren't
sharing enough information about GMOs.
The conference is organized by the Council of Canadians.
A recent report by the Royal Society of Scientists critized Health Canada and
the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for its "cosy" Relationship with
biotechnology companies.
It called for more transperency in the process and asked the federal
government to do its own research. Most of what is approved in Canada is based
on testing done by biotech companies.
Biotech
companies have proprietary rights
The problem is corporations have legal rights to proprietary information and
are reluctant to expose their patented products to other companies.
The conference comes as a food activist in Montreal awaits trial. Martin
Petit faces charges stemming from an attempt to slap GMO labels on grocery
items.
Petit is with the Citizens' Voluntary Labelling Collective.
He tried to place labels saying "This product may contain genetically
modified organisms" on food in a supermarket. He was arrested.
Petit says his group wants an outright ban on GMOs and says more than 60% of
the processed food in Canadian stores contain GMOs.
"The government is taking a lot of risks because they are not doing
their own research," Petit told CBC Newsworld.
Nader is at a conference in Ottawa on genetically modified organisms.
A genetically modified plant
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