OTTAWA - Health
Canada's much-anticipated action plan on genetically modified foods
has been released — after bureaucrats left their offices and on
a day when the House of Commons was not sitting. The report was made
public late Friday afternoon.
The 31-page scientific
document details the government's response to recommendations on how
genetically modified foods should be regulated.
Last February, the
Royal Society Expert Scientific Panel called on the government to approve
GM foods only after "rigorous scientific assessment of their potential
for causing harm to the environment or to human health."
The report appears
to reject that recommendation. The Health Department report says "substantianal
equivalence" should be used as a safety standard to compare one
food to another.
Last August, a federal
study concluded that a chief safety officer should be appointed to oversee
the safety of genetically modified foods in Canada. The report also
recommended that mandatory labelling should be adopted only if voluntary
standards don't work.
The report said
the role of a GM safety officer would be to separate two sometimes conflicting
roles of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: the promotion and regulation
of Canada's biotech industry. The CFIA operates under the Department
of Health.
According to a 1999
Environics poll, 80 per cent of Canadians want GM foods to be labelled.
Greenpeace Canada says that number is closer to 95 per cent
back
to Genetic Engineering Index
