Illegal GM ingredients found in supermarkets5 November 2000
Food containing illegal GM ingredients is being sold in the UK, Friends of the Earth and the Mail on Sunday have revealed. Laboratory tests found that Phileas Fogg tortilla chips and own-brand tortilla chips sold by Asda and Safeway contained GM ingredients not licensed for sale in the UK. Illegal GM traces were also found in Tesco and Sainsbury's tortilla chips.
Friends of the Earth bought 20 products - mainly tortilla chips - from a number of supermarkets in the UK. These were sent for analysis at GeneScan in Freiburg, Germany, one of Europe's top laboratories. Three were found to contain a Monsanto GM maize (GA21). Monsanto's Dekalb GM maize (DBT418) traces at close to the detection level were also found in two further products. Neither GM ingredient is approved for use in Europe.
Monsanto is currently seeking safety approval for GA21. Earlier this year a UK Government committee concluded that there was insufficient information on whether the GM maize could provoke allergic reactions. An application for EU safety approval for Dekalb DBT418 was withdrawn last year after concerns were raised about its potential health impact.
This year has seen a number of alarming GM contamination incidents. Millions of taco shells were removed from shop shelves in the US after Friends of the Earth US discovered that they contained a type of GM corn, StarLink, not approved for human consumption. StarLink has Federal approval to be grown as animal feed but cannot be used in human food because it "exhibits some characteristics of known allergens". And in the UK, earlier this year, farmers were forced to destroy their crops after it was discovered that their non-GM oilseed rape had been contaminated with a GM variety which couldn't lawfully be marketed in the UK.
"This shocking discovery is the latest in a growing list of GM blunders. It's becoming increasingly clear that the biotech industry can't control its products and Government regulation is pathetically lax," said Friends of the Earth Real Food Campaigner, Adrian Bebb. "Little wonder that public confidence in the GM industry is so low."
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