WE DEMAND A BAN ON GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
This heading appeared today, october 23, 1996, in Sweden's largest national newspaper, Dagens Nyheter on top of a sharply formulated proclamation against genetically engineered food in general and the unlabelled genetically engineered soy and corn products that now are arriving in Europe in spite of widespread protest from consumers all over the continent. Its heading was:
The proclamation was signed by 15 presidents of Sweden's most important organizations, including the Consumers council and all important consumers organisations, the Labour Union (organizing over 80 % of all labourers), Sweden's Cooperative Food store chain (one of the largest in the country), the two Retired Peoples' Societies (organizing a very large proportion of all retireds), the Nature Protection Society (very influential in Sweden) and others. These represent a very large part of the population of Sweden.
The proclamation urged:
* All food importers and food manufacturers not to buy soy beans from USA until the genetically engineered beans are labelled and segregated from natural beans.
* The Swedish government and the European Union (to which Sweden belongs)
IMMEDIATELY TO CREATE RULES THAT FORBID GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD AND FOOD ADDITIVES AND ALSO RULES THAT FORBID THE RELEASE OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED ORGANISMS INTO THE ENVIRONMENT UNTIL THE PRODUCERS HAVE CLEARLY PROVEN THAT THEY CONSTITUTE NO RISK AT ALL FÖR PEOPLE AND FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
* An absolute minimum requirement that immediately should be satisfied is that the genetically engineered food must be labelled. Also the purpose of the engineering must be declared on the label.
It is pointed out that the soybeans that now are about to be imported Europe are engineered to withstand larger doses of toxic herbicides and that the only ones that benefit from this are the producers, but not the consumers nor the environment.
It is pointed out that there are many potential hazards with genetically engineered organisms and that the scientific knowledge about this is very incomplete. Therefore a thorough evaluation of genetically engineered foods must be done.
* Many potential hazards with genetically engineered foods are enumerated, a o:
* The foods may be toxic.
* Foods normally tolerated may have unexpected allergenic procperties
* The nutritional value may change
* An increased use of herbicides may create herbicide resistant weeds leading to a spiralling use of herbicides
* Genes from engineered plants may spread to weedy realatives that may become resistant to herbicides and impossible to eradicate.
* Imbalances in the natural flora may occur because engineered organism may extinguish natural relatives.
The concluding sentence was:
IT IS NOT WE, THE CONSUMERS, WHO SHALL PROVE THE RISKS. IN STEAD IT IS THE PRODUCERS WHO MUST PROVE THAT THE FOOD IS NOT HAZARDOUS. UNTIL THIS HAS BEEN DONE WE DON'T WANT ANY ENGINEERED GENES IN OUR FOOD NOR IN THE ENVIRONMENT.
_________________________________________________________
(This proclamation was largely based on information material from the Natural Law Party. The medical advisor of the party is also member of the expert council on genetic engineering of the National Consumers Council that took the intitative to write this proclamation).
__________________________________________________________
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
SWEDENS LARGEST FOOD STORE EXPELS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
In september 1996, Sweden's largest food store chain, SABA, with stores in almost every town above 10.000 inhabitants, has declared that it will be very careful not to allow any genetically engineered food or food components to enter the products they sell.
___________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION: There is a strong and opinion against genetically engineered food in Sweden. The indignation is very great among the consumers that the producers do not label the genetically engineered products. There is a clear realization that the knowledge about the hazards is still so incomplete that it is unreasonable and irresponsible to produce such organisms for eating and to release them into nature. It is very clear to the consumers that there exists no evidence proving that the genetically engineered have benefits that justify taking any risks at all with the health of people or with the environment.
The next step, if the producers do not show responsible behaviour will be for the consumers organizations all over the world to boycot other products by the producers. This means for example that the medicines produced by companies owned by for example Ciba and Monsanto will be listed all over the world and doctors and patients are urged not to use them. As the companies are obviously irresponsible, there are good reasons not to trust any other product manufactured by them.
THE SUCCESSFUL LOBBYING OF BIOTECH COMPANIES AGAINST LABELLING OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD HAS GREATLY HELPED TO AWAKEN THE AWARENESS AMONG CONSUMERS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SUCH FOOD. THE RAPIDLY GROWING INDIGATION AND ANGER AMONG CONSUMERS ALL OWER THE WORLD OF BEING FORCED UNWITTINGLY TO EAT POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS FOOD IS NOW INSPIRING FIRM AND INCREASINGLY EFFICIENT ACTIONS THAT PROBABLY WILL CAUSE THE COMPANIES MUCH GREATER LOSSES THAN IF THE FOODS HAD BEEN LABELLED.