Pathetic MEPs on GM labelling

The news coming from EU parliament are quite alarming...last week, a majority of MEPs rejected an amendment calling for compulsory labelling of food products that derive from animals raised on genetically-modified feed.

So, the European citizens are banned to have access on some info that is so badly wanted! Does your meat come from a cow fed with GM soya?

Is the EU parliament so bent to pressures? I hope there is something else hidden there... Maybe ...something like that : GM lobby helped draw up crucial report on Britain's food supplies.

Personally, I am 100% against GM foods or food coming from animals fed with GM plants.

In the 1990s, I was studying and teaching in the University of Leeds. Those years were marked by the mad cow disease scandal and the (still) ongoing debate on genetically modified (GM) foods. The scientific community and society now know that by pressing the land and animals to produce more, we are causing many undesired side-effects.

The most comprehensive worldwide study to date on the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) was completed by the UK's Royal Society in 2005. The study of winter oil rapeseed, one of Britain's biggest crops, concluded that wildlife and the environment would suffer if the GM crop was grown in the UK. Large fields were planted half with the GM crop and half with conventional crops. The main finding was that broadleaf weeds, such as chickweed, which birds rely on heavily for food, were far less numerous in GM fields than conventional fields. Some of the grass weeds were more numerous, although this had less of a direct benefit on wildlife and affected the quality of the crops.

These results made it clear that it is not the GM crops that harm wildlife, but the herbicide sprayed on them. Fields containing conventional crops are sprayed with an herbicide that usually kills weeds before the crops emerge, but herbicide-tolerant GM crops can be sprayed later.

The results from the GM crops were that the patented glufosinate-ammonium weedkiller was so effective that there were one-third fewer seeds for birds to eat at the end of the season than in a conventional crop. Two years later, there were still 25 percent fewer seeds, even though the weedkiller had not been applied again. These weeds are effectively the bottom of the food chain, so the seeds are vital for farmland birds, which are already in decline. There were also fewer bees and butterflies in the GM crops.

Up to today, there is nothing else to prove that GM plants are not damaging the biodiversity!