Trustworthy food
You can normally tell a substance has become less food and more controversy when it acquires a name such as MON863. That’s the moniker of one of Monsanto’s genetically modified varieties of maize. It struck controversy last year when an independent French study showed that, despite it being approved for human consumption in 2006, it caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats.The Food Safety Authority of New Zealand had approved the corn for use in Australia and New Zealand, in October 2003, based on evidence from Monsanto. FSANZ reports that MON863 is in used in high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and corn flour. Such products are processed into breakfast cereals, baking products, extruded confectionary and corn chips. If you look on the back of most processed foods you will find high fructose corn syrup or corn starch. It’s a fairly common flavour enhancer. However, our labelling laws make it impossible to be certain which foods contain it and which don’t.
Jeanette noted last year:
Since then the Green Party has made several calls to FSANZ for it to withdraw approval for MON863 until an independent assessment of the test results can be carried out. The Greens believe that the Food Standards Authority should not just rely on information provided by applicant companies, but instead should contract independent studies to ensure food safety.
Then today the Sustainability Council said of FSANZ:
New Zealand’s food safety regulator ’shopped’ for alternative advice when a report it had commissioned from ESR questioned the safety of a GM food.
The second report it got replaced an earlier commissioned one which said there were concerns about consumer safety from MON863:
The new document was produced by a different ESR division to the group Gallagher belonged to. However, instead of an “updated” report, NZFSA accepted a letter that carried no clear reference to the Gallagher Report or its scientific conclusions. In place of a formal peer-reviewed report that had answered NZFSA’s brief and was prepared by a scientist with the appropriate expertise, NZFSA accepted a letter that carried just four sentences in response to the original brief, and was signed off by a group that NZFSA knew had originally passed on the work after stating they lacked the appropriate expertise. The letter indicated there was no scientific evidence that MON863 is unsafe to eat.
Sue Kedgley and Jeanette have both said this latest news raises significant concerns about the trust consumers can place in the Food Safety Authority:
If correct, NZFSA will have grossly failed in its trusted position to look after New Zealand’s food supply and public health. I cannot see how NZFSA could remain unchanged in the trusted position they occupy – the guardians of the nation’s food supplies.
The food Minister Lianne Dalziel does have complete trust in the FSANZ but “Isn’t commenting“
