Retorts

Against GM Foods

In your October issue you published two letters, both deploring the opposition to genetically modified foods, and both misleading.

Dr Savage asserts that these new foods will not need to be treated with so many toxic sprays. He does not mention crops that are resistant to weedkillers, which are intended to be sprayed while they are growing. Such crops require more use of weedkillers, not less. James Tawse believes that genetic modification and cross-breeding, are exactly the same thing. He does not mention the introduction of a toad gene into potatoes. Neither correspondent mentions the crops whose pollen was killing the caterpillars of butterflies five miles distant.

Genetic modification and genetic engineering are not the same as cross-breeding. The techniques, and the range of results, are unprecedented, and the consequences are sometimes unpredictable. Each new product should be treated and tested for what it is -- a completely new, unique species.

Dr Savage is right when he says that it is a significant challenge to test for the unknown, but I am afraid his faith is misplaced when he says that it is in the food industries' interests to make sure that these foods are as safe as possible. History shows that large firms, where there is any divergence of interests between profits and the interests of the customers, will go for the profits.

The firms themselves are interested parties. Testing should be done by some impartial agency. And they should be labelled so that anyone who does not wish to buy them does not have to.

C. J. Craigie, Upper Hutt