While many scientists are steering their interests towards a new technology called biotechnology, and stock markets are soaring to hail this new technology as some kind of solution to man's problems, consumer groups around the world are concerned, if not alarmed, and for very good reasons. Jeremy Rifkin, of the consumer watchdog group in the U.S., The Pure Food Campaign points out, "This is ecological roulette as well as an attack on public health and consumers' right to know whether their food has been genetically engineered. When you release a genetically engineered plant into the environment, the organisms are alive- they can reproduce, they can mutate, and you cannot recall them back into the laboratory."

According to the geneticist, Dr. Joseph Cummins, biotechnology creates special problems. Food crops which are genetically-altered employ antibiotic resistant genes whose products are bound to be a new class of allergen, adding to the large burden of allergens which we already have today.

Biotechnology or genetic engineering is mixing and matching bits of DNA - cutting a gene from one kind of organism and pasting it into another - hoping to make a new improved plant or animal; corn genes in rice, chicken genes in potatoes, firefly genes in tobacco (yielding a plant that glowed in the dark), human genes in mice, sheep, fish and pigs (producing a pig that was cross-eyed, had crippling arthritis, a strangely wrinkled face and high blood pressure).

Also human genes are now being used in crop plants such as canola. In the US, the biotechnolgy company, Calgene is test-marketing the first genetically engineered whole food -- the MacGregor Flavr Savr™ tomato. According to the Pure Food Campaign, the tomato is having limited acceptance by consumers. The $2.99 per pound price has had to be reduced to move them.

HANS called the Food Protection Inspection Branch of Agriculture and Agri/Food Canada in mid November (1994) and was told that the paper work had not been completed for these tomatoes to be sold in Canada yet. HANS was informed that if and when they are available they will be priced higher than other tomatoes. Consumers who want a truly superior tasting tomato can opt to buy organic instead.

The Pure Food Campaign reports that the FDA has approved seven new biotech foods and agricultural crops: three new genetically engineered tomatoes, a virus-spliced squash, a potato gene-spliced to produce its own pesticide, a canola plant bio-engineered to produce laureate (for soap and shampoo), and cotton and soybeans modified to sustain heavy doses of herbicides.

The FDA will not require labeling or pre-market safety testing for genetically-engineered foods.

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