Stand your ground, expert tells firms using GMO products as raw materials

Food companies using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their products were told to "stand their ground" in the face of highly emotional campaign being waged against GMO products by Europe-based Greenpeace Foundation in the country and abroad.

At a recent forum on the science-based safetiness of GMO held by the 34-member Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. Dr. Nina Gloriani Barzaga said she has been giving this advice to Novartis, mother company of Nestle International which caters to baby foods and pharmaceuticals, which reportedly pulled out from supermarket shelves abroad its products after virulent attacks by Greenpeace Foundation.

"This is also my advice to all other food manufacturers using GMO ingredients in their products," she said after being informed by PAMPI that many of its members were being asked for health certification on the safetiness of their products following published reports locally about the risks of GMO to humans.

"So what if your product contains GMO. Can they give us science-based evidence to point the ill effects, if any, of GMO or transgenic products on human patients," Barzaga said.

Besides, she added, "practically all that we eat contains GMO or can be traced to GMO ingredients. So why the big fuss and the mindset about GMOs. "Unless Greenpeace can directly trace allergens and carcinogens in GMO products, the group should stop scaring human beings without any scientific evidence to back it up."

PAMPI executive director Francisco Buencamino Jr. said many PAMPI members are being asked by their traders and supermarket owners for a safety certificate on their GMO products.

"Which government agency will give us such a certificate and how should the agency word such a certificate," Buencamino asked as he said that there is currently no regulatory agency that is specifically mandated to do this.

"Despite best efforts of everyone, food will inevitably carry it some risks associated with food-borne diseases," Dr. Barzaga said as she presented slides of insect-laden traditional corn crop that contains harmful bacteria which are more harmful to human health than disease and pest-free (bacillus thuringensis) Bt corn produced by genetic modification.

She added that even world-respected agencies such as the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the national academies of science of Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, USA and the Philippines have conducted scientific risk assessments for GMOs and found them safe for animals and humans.

She also said the Swiss Association for Research and Nutrition have found that organic foods are "neither healthier nor safer than conventional or GM crops."

Some studies, she added, showed that organic foods may contain more fungal toxins than foods produced by conventional methods and that in terms of nutritional composition and effects on animal feedings, there are no significant differences between conventional and GM feeds.

"Meat, milk and eggs from animals given GM foods are just as harmless for human consumption as if they had come from animals fed on conventional feeds," the Swiss Association said.

On the proposal of Greenpeace to segregate the production and shipment of GM crops/products with non GM crops, Barzaga said "we have been opposing this because this would increase the prices of products by 10 to 20 percent and ultimately the consumers have to shoulder this additional costs," she said.

Another proposal of Greenpeace was for proper labeling of GM products, which Barzaga said will add another layer of cost to the ultimate price of the product which is unfair to the consumers.