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- Illegal GM ingredients found in supermarkets
- 2000
- Advanta admits separation distances in UK far closer than Canada
- Advanta to pay up
- Britain's babies back baby food ban
- Buy it from farmers' markets
- Buy your festive feast from local farmers
- Cadbury's admits its chocolate contains lindane
- Call for new biotech commission to halt spread of GM seeds
- Children get raw deal from Government
- Euro MPs fail GM Test
- Farm scale trials must be called off
- First UK organic beer festival held in Birmingham
- FOE responds to Prince Philip's confidence about GM foods
- Food Standards Agency could do better
- GM farm scale trial is useless
- GM farm scale trials threaten UK honey
- GM farmers pull out of trials
- GM scientist deserves sack says Friends of the Earth
- GM trials are a farce
- Government gambling with countryside
- Government in chaos over GM seeds
- Government in shambles over GM mistake
- Government prepares to decide commercial approval for GM crops before trial ends
- Government proposes to trash GM trials
- Hormone disrupting chemicals found in baby food
- Iceland to stock organic food at non-organic prices
- Illegal GM ingredients found in supermarkets
- Lindane is banned - nearly
- More GM crops set for Wales
- MPs debate new law on GM liability
- New fears over impact of GM crops on birdlife
- Public wants pesticides banned from supermarket food
- Scientists slam GM research
- Supermarket Real Food sham
- Top insurer says no to GM pollution cover
- Wales can ban GM
- Welsh agriculture secretary bottles out of Assembly decision on GM
- Aventis criticised by Government barrister
- Baby Blair greeted with hamper of Real Food
- Biosafety Protocol Agreed
- Biotech giant clams up at GM Seed List Hearing
- Call for pesticide tax
- Church advisers say no to GM crop trials
- Diners still worry about GM food
- FOE slams Krebs over organic food
- GM contamination inevitable admits Meacher
- GM food scare hits US taco lovers
- GM seed fiasco means farmers start to dig up crops
- GM-free diet for Iceland livestock
- Government GM policy in tatters
- Government set to give go-ahead to commercial licensing
- Hold on the milk says top scientist
- Kiss of death for GM seed
- Pesticides level rise in fruit AND veg
- Promising green speech from Blair?
- Shock admission that GM crops are already growing in the UK
- Supermarkets back organic farming bill
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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