Should Supermarkets Sell
Both GM And Non-GM Foods?

Please find below a representative sampling of comments since this discussion was launched in early April 1999. Some submissions have been edited for length. Submissions which were not accompanied by a name, location, and valid
e-mail address and those that did not pertain to the topic or used profanity were omitted.

It is important to have a choice. Therefore labels are a must. But to use choice as an argument to grow GM food before all the problems (known and anticipated) are solved is not only giving people a choice but also a free hand to do want ever they want.

I do however think that there is a future for GM food, as it has potentially great benefits but it will need more research first. I believe in the cliche "it is better to be safe than sorry".

With regards

Helena Cullen
Lincolnshire
cliff@helena.91.freeserve.co.uk.

Before this question can be addressed, your assumptions of the need for and the safety of genetically modified organisms needs to be suspended so that an honest "scientifically based assessment" of these organisims can be made.

It would seem to any rational person that you have developed products for which there are no markets. For whatever reason, the customer does not want what you produce. Perhaps instead of using government regulatory agencies to manipulate the market, you should reevaluate your core assumptions.

Your arrogance in assuming that this technology is the way, or even a good way, to feed the increasing world population, and your denigration, manipulation, and coercion of people who choose not to grow or eat the fruits of your genetically altered harvest will not work in a truly "free marketplace."

The people have spoken. Perhaps you should listen.

Alice Q. Swanson
America
hhollers@centuryinter.net

Eating Organically grown food puts consumers at risk of the following diseases:

Food poisoning from: Salmonella, E.coli 0157 and Cryptosporidiosis, mycotoxin poisoning, liver cancer and other cancers (e.g oesophageal) and probably new variant CJD.

Why?
Organic farmers use animal wastes as fertiliser. Animal manure is a reservoir of enteric pathogens. Carrier animals are asymptomatic (i.e apparently disease free). Free range chickens carry Salmonella, chicken manure is considered to be an excellent source of nitrogenous fertiliser. A child died and others were left with permanent kidney damage in the USA after eating vegetables and fruit contaminated with manure carrying E.coli 0157 (the one responsible for deaths in Scotland).

BSE was transmitted from sheep to cattle because they ate food containing rendered sheeps carcasses that were carrying the scrapie prion (sheep BSE). Organic farmers use bone meal made by the same rendering companies.

Microscopic relatives of poisonous mushrooms produce equally toxic chemicals called mycotoxins. The fungi invade plants through insect damage, and if not controlled by fungicides grow and produce compounds which are amongst THE MOST TOXIC, CARCINOGENIC, compounds known to man. Pesticieds and fungicides are mothers milk compared to some mycotoxins!!

People die from liver cancer as a result of eating food contaminated with toxins produced by the Aspergillus fungal family. Oesophageal cancer is caused by members of another fungal group. Organic farmers do not control insect damage with insecticides, nor do they protect their crops from fungal infestations with fungicides.

We don't like chemical sprays, organic food isn't a safe alternative, but auto-resistant crops made through GM technology would be. Think about it.

What do organic farmers do to make sure their produce is safe to eat, other than hypnotise us into believing it is? I want evidence of safety no less rigorous than that being demanded of the GM foods producers. While everyone's peering at GM foods down an electron microscope we could be in for the much heralded epidemics of cancer courtesy of the organic farming lobby.

Dr Geraldine Rodgers
Cambridge
geraldine.rodgers@dial.pipex.com

Well personally little is known by most people about GM food and pple are just scared of the unknown .But with time this is going to change.

I am carrying out a research project for my Bsc agri economics degree and i would like to find out the real economic benefits farmers actually save in terms of money saved from the non use of pesticides when they use Bt crop varieties?

t-roy zambuko
Zimbabwe
t-roy40@usa.net

I feel that we are wasting huge amounts of precious time and money on what is effectively messing with nature. Surely, it would be more rewarding, effective and useful to spend our money and the time of our scientists on developing cures for some of the dreadful diseases such as cancer which kill thousands of people in our country every year.

Laura Bates
Taunton, England.
LBATES37@hotmail.com

I think that g.m.food is a bad thing because it is not pure food. It is liable to cause mutations and deformities in children whose parents have been eating G.m foods.

Tim Tregear
R Lander school Truro Cornwall
1ttim@rlander.cornwall.sch.uk

I would be much more impressed with all these assurances about how safe GM foods are if I could find write-ups of the research proving they are. I have been looking for ages and so far all I have found is statements that they are safe, and people saying that we should trust scientists. I thought the whole point of science was that we didn't need to trust scientists since they could prove they were right. Why is it so difficult to find papers on the web? The more I look the more suspicious I am getting.

T Wilkinson
New Zealand
tjw38@student.canterbury.ac.nz

I find your expedient invocatin of 'freedom of choice' to be disingenous at best, and insulting at worst. GM foods have been introduced onto supermarket and grocery shelves in so unobtrusive a way that we have all been eating them unknowingly, whatever may be our preferences.

The BBC has demonstrated that even supermarkets themselves have little knowledge of which products contain GMO's, and are therefore unable to defend consumers' power to choose. Under the circumstances I, like many other people, have turned to organic foods as offering the only way to exercise discretion in this matter, and in the matter of pesticides (which, by the way, are not certain to be reduced by GMO's as claimed, since one of the functions of GM is to make foods more resistant to pesticides, not pests).

The GM corporate enterprise has worked on the assumption that the pubic is ignorant - and worked to make this assumption a reality.

S Couper
Oxfordshire
scouper@hotmail.com

I believe that UK supermarkets will do what is in the interests of their customers and their shareholders. For example, until recently Tesco did not have an anti-GM policy. When it realised that this could be financially damaging (they were losing customers) they decided on an anti GM policy and made public announcments about removing GM content from most of their product range.

As recent announcments such as this have shown, consumer pressure is forcing them to eliminate GM products from their shelves, because customers do not want GM products.

GM Food should be subject to the same level of testing as a new pharmaceutical, which is normally at least 10 years. Until such comprehensive testing is in place, no GM foods should be made available in this country. The government and industry should have learnt from the BSE and Salmonella crises of the past. It appears that no-one has learned...

Regards,

Marcus Williamson
UK
Marcus_Williamson@ibm.net

In Europe we produce an abundance of high quality food. It may be true that large amounts of pesticides and fertilisers are used, and by genetically modifying a crop you can reduce these, but if the end result is similar damage to the insect population, and similar residues in the food chain, then what it the benefit? Any cost benefit will go to the farmer. Therefore there is not much benefit in GM foods in the Western World.

I appreciate that companies like Monsanto wish to protect their investment in GM products, but doing this by causing successive generations to be sterile to prevent replanting would impact a third world country if a natural disaster were to hit. i.e. failed crop = no food or money, and no method of replanting for next year. Therefore despite cost savings in fertiliser and pesticide use for your average third world farmer, there is no fall back. Unless Monsanto will give away free seeds!

The advise I would give to companies like Monsanto is stay away from the food chain in Europe for a little while, because average Joe doesn't trust you, the farmers or the government after recent scares. As the U.S. seem quite happy to eat anything, you'll still have a market.

Consentrate your biotech research in more fruitful and needy areas, such as drugs research.

Tim Rose
London
timrose@reservoirprogs.freeserve.co.uk

I look at a field of grass of uniform green whilst travelling home on the train and think the crop yield must be very high. At the same time there are no birds visible. I live overlooking upland pasture which is mainly flower meadow and see birds. Fewer in number than in previous years and fewer in species.

Now that we have the ability to manipulate nature in an increasingly detailed way have we really thought through where we are going. I have no doubt that a GM crop can be extremely successful in its micro climate. But can it at the same time be very damaging in a variety of subtle ways to the wider environment? The use of Herbicides and Pesticides have been both beneficial and harmful. If removed or replaced with less harmful products, the environment stumbles a bit and continues on its journey.

GM crops interface with the wider environment and subtly and permanently change it. Do we really understand what the long term effect of those changes could be. There is no such thing as a free lunch so lets be really sure we need that meal before we sit down at the table and start eating.

Rodney Lake
Gloucestershire
rllake55@aol.com

GM foods should undergo extensive testing for 80 years, over 3 generations of lives in a limited study using the Monsanto board members' and top executives' familes before distribution to the public.

GM foods should be considered after this study shows safety in the year 2100, and then in clearly labeled packages in clearly demarked sections of stores that choose to sell the GM product.

Kill no more butterflies.

Honest John
USA
john@honest.com

I agree with Jonathan Feran in New Zealand. GMO is the buzz of the moment but what about all the other things that are put in foods?? Have you seen some of the colours of sweeties targeted for kids?

Oh and aren't we so lucky having supermarkets that really care for the people of the UK. I think not. If they were so bloody concerned why don't they stop selling cigarettes for a start.

(PS Is anyone out there doing the Institute of Marketing Diploma case study on Biocatalysts Ltd?)

Fidelma O'Connor
Northern Ireland
fidelmaoconnor@hotmail.com

If GM food is so safe, why all the fuss about not labelling it in ingredients? If Monsanto is so interested in "Freedom of choice", then surely it is reasonable to expect accurate descriptions of ingredients. If it really will have no effect on the environment, health etc, then surely there can be nothing to hide, therefore why not state quite clearly when food prodcuts contain GM food?

I think the answer is, that if it were plastered all over food products, then consumers would not buy it. Supermarkets have to be seen to be doing the right thing and listen to their customers. In todays fiercely competitive retail environment each customer lost, or gained, effects the pounds on the bottom line at the year end.

Why do we need GM foods anyway? And, what was all this crap about feeding the third world? Why not petition the banks to write off the 3rd world debt, if the Multi national biotech companies are so concerned about 3rd world countries?

We used to buy a lot of beanfeasts, but all of a sudden we went off them. We just thought they had changed the flavour. It was months later when we found out about the whole GM crop issue, and that Bean feats contained GM crop. So, what I'm saying is it affects taste, and people won't stand for that anyway.

And what about premature ageing? Ask poor Dolly the sheep about what happens if you mess with Genes. I don't like the idea of GM food. I demand the right as a Citizen to have full and proper tests carried out on it before it is unleashed on me. Like a new drug would have to be, in fact. Which is still not foolproof. I can't see what the rush is. Why not take your time, test it, label it, make us all happy? I await convincing, and in the meantime I have a small shopping list and alot of home cooking to do.

Best regards

David Matthews
Salisbury
david.matthews2@tesco.net

I think that it should be mentioned that when Sainsbury's decided to sell GM tomato paste, there was no interest from the public or from the newspapers. This tomato paste was clearly labeled as being GM, and both GM and non-GM paste was available. The GM paste was twice as popular as the non-GM. So, I think that both GM and non-GM food should be available. The only reason that the current frenzy about GM food exists is because the newspapers decided that it would make good reading.

David Wengraf
Sheffield, UK
dave@bedlam.syol.com

When Da Vinci invented aeroplane, no one could say for sure that it was totally safe and no one was going to get killed. The religious guys said that if God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings. However everybody uses planes nowadays.

If you go to your garden and dont see any birds on the fence it doesn't mean that there wont be any for the next 100 years. What I'm trying to say is that there is no possible way we can secure that there won't be any side effects from the use of genetically modified foods. However, if something is unknown and we are afraid of it, it doesnt mean it is bad.

No one can stop development and science. Every time in history someone had an uncommon idea, the world said he was the devil himself. But it didnt work that way, did it? I'm not saying that we shouldn't test the crops and I'm definitely not saying that GMOs are good and you have to eat them. I'm saying that you shouldn't believe that GMOs are bad. Don't be short-shighted and look further in time.

We dicovered those things and we're just trying to make something good out of it. I'm not talking scientifically here, but if you think my logic is defective just aswer me. Anyway, I'm just a biology student, and maybe I dont have a say, but still the fact history is teaching us is that only few will have new ideas and the many will always be against that. On which side are you?

Lykostratis Konstantinos
Leicester, UK
konly@hotmail.com

I just want to say how pleasantly suprised I am at seeing the views expressed in this discussion. Well done Monsanto for not excluding posts expressing views against GMOs! For my part I have concerns about GMOs. The most worrying aspect, I feel is that there is no second chance should something go horribly wrong with this experiment. We only have one world.

Adrian Hudson
Devon, UK
adrian@nairdah.com

Oh dear, oh dear. Poor old hard done-by Monsanto! We, the consumers have had GM food forced upon us against our will. The mixing of the vast US soya crop has made sourcing non-GM a nightmare. We no longer really know what we are eating. We have no freedom of choice. No one can really fully understand the effect of moving genes from one species to another where it will be out of it's original context. We do not know what the effect will be on the enviroment or health. This is a terrible mis-use of genetic technology. It is wholly unnecessary and unpredictable.

The supermarkets are bowing to a tremendous public response. The people do not want to eat this stuff (as revealed in countless polls). Our government has failed to protect the interests of the people who gave it power, and it has - ironically - fallen to the unelected, profit-motivated supermarkets to take the stand and remove this food from the shelves. At last, we have a choice. We can choose to buy food, safe in the knowledge that it is not GM. Before the supermarkets made this move, we did not have this choice.

When will you at Monsanto and the other "life sciences" companies realise that we do not want this stuff and put a stop to it? Please leave nature alone. You do not know how it works.

Nigel Moss

ps. Re your correspondent in the US who was 'envious of the people in Europe...' All you people in the USA. Don't feel left out! Create your own stink about this and your media will not be able to ignore you for long. You too can have a say in what you eat if enough of you demand it. Take action! Demand GM free food!

Nigel Moss
Derbyshire, UK
nigel_moss@hotmail.com

All GM food should be prominently labeled! Then it's buyer beware instead of no choice!

P. Sabin
USA
sabin-p@webtv.net

I am a Food Marketing Economics Student from The University of Reading. Over the last year I have read many opions and heard many discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of GM crops. I personally feel that GM crops are simply not necessary. Although many are starving in the third world, the world as a whole has a surplus of food. The problem then is simply a matter of distribution.

I understand that GM crops would be fantasically useful in these areas of the world and it is ironic that the countries that really need these technological advances cannot afford them. On the health side of the argument I feel that GM crops should not be made available until the FULL health implications are known. The technology will not go away, it will still be there in 15 years when proper tests have been carried out. The western world has managed without GM in the past and it can manage again until public opinion calms and safety can be assured.

Andrew Reid
Reading, England
andyreid100@hotmail.com

It's simple. ALL gm food must be BANNED!!!!!

P Burton
England
pbu7434922@aol.com

I have listened to, and read about, both sides of the issues, hence my visit to this website. I believe genetically modified food is a huge risk to both the enivironment and to the individual's health -- I also believe conventional pesticides & herbicides pose the same threat. The only difference is that the long term risk from GM foods has not been apparent as they have not been around long enough.

I also think it is appalling that foods containing GM products were not clearly lebelled from when they first came onto the market. I agree with freedom of choice - personally I only eat organic food as much as possible, and have been this way for my adult life. However, as GM foods were not clearly identified when they were initially intriduced, that freedom of choice was denied to me, and thousands fo people like me, who unknowingly ate the garbage. So to talk about freedom of choice just because the foods have been withdrawn from supermarkets is hypocritical, and I suspect based mainly on the fact that Monsanto have consequently lost revenue.

Ellie Kayne
London
Old_Dragon_25@yahoo.com

Dear Monsanto,

I am concerned the British government has declared GM foods are safe to grow and eat. Many chemicals that at some previous time have been declared safe have subsequently been found to be dangerous.

Crops genetically engineered to be herbicide or pesticide resistant mean larger quantities of toxic chemicals are used with resultant damage to wildlife. Some residues may remain on the food or leak into rivers so humans may also intake more of these chemicals. High breast cancer rates, low sperm counts, the increasing numbers of prostate and testicular cancers and males born with malformed genitals are now thought to be due to oestrogenic substances including some agrochemicals. People allergic to peanut oil are more at risk from allergic reactions as peanut genes have been added to additional foods.

One reason given for the need for more food production is the increasing world population. The answer to this is more contraception, not more chemical pollution.

The absurdity is we do not even need to take these risks as we already have plenty of food. The only people that are going to benefit from these evermore intensive farming techniques which are an abuse of nature, are the shareholders of companies such as Monsanto who manufacture GM foods and agrochemicals.

Yours faithfully,

Robin Pearce
UK
namtab@tcp.co.uk

With respect to this ongoing rhetoric, I'd just like to say that monsanto do not care what the effects of gmo's will be (remember tryptophane, USA? How many people died?). Like most of your counterparts, as long as you, Monsanto, are making money, all dialogue is merely your marketing company earning its money. But people who impress such things upon the world usually receive something in return, from the world. It's just sad that we are all affected by the imbecilic actions of those who cannot take money to the grave.

Barry Hickey
Ireland
CUCHULLAINS_SLIOTHAR@yahoo.com

Until further testing has been conducted to establish the effects of GM related products on the environment, no GM food products should be sold, or grown in open fields where their pollen can contaminate other non-GM fields. It is a violation of my human rights that unlabelled GM products are infiltrating the market. Companies such as yours should not be allowed to monopolize the world's food supply and should be brought before a world tribunal, where the ethics of your business practices would be confronted.

L.HAMMOND
Montreal
mortgoth@hotmail.com

Whatever happened to freedom of choice? Geez you guys have got some gall. You now ask Whatever happened to freedom of choice? I can remember just a few years ago that all the GM industries were campaigning hell bent against GM Labelling. You didn't want to allow freedom of choice then but now your screaming for your rights. As I've said before, this argument is not about GM foods -- that's just a smoke screen. It's all about money, greed, and food control cornering the ENTIRE market and ultimately giving the consumers NO CHOICE. This is just another propaganda machine looking for moral support. Unfortunately it's the morals that are lacking.

Den Sue
Australia
Densue@servcomm.net.au

I am a fifty year old lady, with a PhD in Biochemistry. I know something of the science behind GM crops and I have reason to be concerned about the safety of GM foods. I eat a diet high in soya. Soya contains phytoestrogens, which studies in the far east have shown ameliorates menopausal symtoms. I don't want to discontinue eating soya, neither do I want to search for GM free sources unless it's necessary. I have done considerable research into safety aspects of GM soya. I am pleased to say that my conclusions are supported by those, published 17/5/99, of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes which state there is no evidence to show that GM foods are unsafe.

Indeed as a result of my research I have some doubts about the safety of organic foods. Consider the three main food borne infections experienced in the UK: salmonella and E.coli -- agents of enteric disease excreted in large numbers in animal faeces; BSE, considered to have bene transmitted to cattle from sheep carcasses incorporated into meat and bone meal; MBM, previously used in the formulation of ruminant feed, now banned from that use but not from domestic fertilisers.

Now consider organic farming practices and the use of animal wastes for the production of compost to be used as a fertiliser on organically grown food. Animal wastes being described in the Henry Doubleday web site as "farmyard manure" i.e. animal faeces, blood and bone meal! Added to this is the risk of aflatoxin contamination in cereal, oilseed and nut crops -- something that has long concerned me about the prospect of organically grown commodity crops. I'd like to know what documented, audited quality assurance procedures are in place to ensure the following: disease free status of animals whose waste is used in compost production, validation of temperatures reached during the composting process by continuous temperature monitoring, evidence that recommended composting temperatures are adequate to kill bacterial pathogens, and proof of the absence of pathogenic organisms in the resulting compost.

Geraldine Rodgers
Cambridge
geraldine.rodgers@dial.pipex.com

1. The British public don't want to buy genetically modified foods, so why do we need that choice in our supermarkets?

2. If genetically modified crops are grown, wherever it is they are grown they will contaminate GE free and organic crops. Therefore there is no way we can produce both. I would rather have organic, or at least GE free.

3. Genetic Modification only benefits the biotech companies, not the consumer.

4. There is already enough food to feed the world, and GE still won't help with the distribution of it.

5. Just for the record, as I've heard this excuse from so many companies recently - I AM NOT CONFUSED OR MISINFORMED. I am well aware of the facts, and I will not eat GE food. I will not be dictated to by Biotechnology companies, even if our Government will.

Ms C F Wildwood
Bournemouth
carina@wildwoodx.freeserve.co.uk

My concerns are with the possible cross contamination of crops in the field and the effects on insect life. I have no qualms about eating genetically modified food.

R. Simpson
Oldham, Lanc's
simpson@mcmail.com

I think people should have the choice of deciding what to eat. It is up to the consumers, not the supermarkets, who have only stopped selling the GM products due to the pressure of the media. This signifies the supermarket's cowardness to stand up to the media and should leave the choices to the consumers. People have the liberty to choose what they want to eat.

Suzanne Marshall
Foxhills Technology College
94marshallsu@foxhills.lincs.sch.uk

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