Environmentalists and activists accused the world’s rich nations of
managing a global conference on genetically modified foods to calm public
fears. Activists said a three-day Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development conference on GM foods which began on Monday in Scotland was little
more than an apology for the global biotechnology industry. A
handful of environmental grofips such as Green Peace and Friends of the Earth
were invited to the conference, as well as one scientist known for his
opposition to GM foods and an outspoken consumer rights group.
(62) But activists said that was not enough to counter dozens of
representatives from biotechnology companies and scientists keen to promote
research and commercialization of GM crops and foods. (63)
"The overall weight of the conference is skewed toward scientists and
industry, officials who are in favor of GM foods." Robin Harper. a Green
Party member of the new Scottish Parliament, told a news conference.
Activists, holding a separate, smaller gathering about GM foods in offices
of the new Scottish parliament, said US and British regulators were not
listening seriously enough to fears about GM foods. (64) The
U. S-based Alliance for Bio-Integrity, a consumer activist group, said a 1998
lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration to obtain mandatory testing
of all GM foods had exposed serious doubts among scientists within the FDA that
GM foods were as safe as their conventional counterparts.
"People are eating these foods daily. We need to face facts that there are
a lot of scientists unsure about the safety of GM foods and we need to
thoroughly test these products before they are approved." Steven Dmker,
coordinator of the lawsuit, told the news conference. (65)
The FDA said its scientists who questioned the safety, of GM foods were doing
their job as part of the agency’s regulatory_ process, and that their views were
taken into account in the FDA’s final policy. Although it is
confident GM foods widely used in the US are safe, the FDA is considering the
labeling of GM foods after three public consultations, said James Maryanski,
biotechnology coordinator at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition.