WTO Forcing Unsafe GE Food on Consumers

Forcing Unsafe GE Food on Consumers Destroys Legitimacy of WTO

The World Trade Organisation- already under pressure for failing to deliver it's trade objectives- could fall apart if it insists on forcing GE foods on countries around the world.

An initial WTO decision backing the US and a handful of countries in their efforts to force European nations to import GE foods is likely to prompt a backlash from consumers, growers and manufacturers as they fight to protect basic rights.

"On the surface the decision is a terrible one for food safety, the consumers' right to choose and national sovereignty," says Jon Carapiet from GE Free NZ.

"But the decision is such a fundamental attack on the integrity of the global food system that the international backlash could result in the collapse of the WTO".

"If governments are suprised by the reaction to publication of cartoons offensive to Islam, they should be prepared to be even more shocked by the reactions of consumers to the WTO forcing them to eat experimental and inadequately tested GE foods", says Mr Carapiet.

Consumers have previously been promised by the Biotech industry and governments that people will have a choice to avoid GE foods.

But the WTO decision sounds alarmingly like a means of enforcing a "New World Order" that literally forces people to eat food they do not want in order to serve the interests of multinational corporations intent on dominating the food suppply.

It is important to remember that the US government's own scientists advised against approval of GE foods under the current regulatory regime but were deliberately ignored.

Evidence continues to mount of harm caused by some GE products already in use.

The absence of a global agreement on testing methodologies for such foods has prompted the British Medical Association and other medical professionals to warn that the young, the elderly, people with reduced immunity, pregnant women, and unborn children are all particularly at risk.

Nor is it only the inadequate testing of GE food for safety that is deeply flawed and makes the WTO decision wrong. The environmental threat from GE crops continues to be a major concern. Recently the US Department of Agriculture was found to have failed to control GE field trials (see below) further confirming the view that the US regulatory system being backed by the WTO is moribund, but through bullying and forced-feeding now puts the rest of the world at risk.

ENDS

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