23 January 2004 03:16
Moscow Shelves Not GM-Free
The food you bring to the dinner table may have been through the hands of more scientists than farmers, a study has
found.
Genetically modified additives were found in almost half of groceries randomly selected in Moscow a week ago,
according to the results of a study commissioned by Greenpeace.
More and more companies are using so-called GM foods without informing consumers, Greenpeace said Thursday.
"GM foods have not been around long enough for us to be able to say if they are harmful. But consumers should be
able to make a choice of whether they want to use GM foods or not," said Greenpeace campaign director Ivan
Blokov.
"There needs to be clearer labels for them to do so."
The study found that the amount of products containing GM additives has increased by 20 percent since a similar study
was conducted in November 2002.
Of 39 products tested, 16 were found to contain genetically modified soybean or vegetable proteins. Only one of the
products containing a GM protein was labeled as such.
Greenpeace will make publicly available a more complete list of foods that contain and don't contain GM
additives in three to four months, Blokov said.
Plants and animals are genetically altered to do anything from making them grow faster, taste better or become more
resistant to pests.
Some scientists says more time and research are needed to determine the health effects of GM foods on human beings.
One complication is that risks are case specific to each manipulated product.
Until more is known, many governments are giving consumers the option of making their own choice by requiring
producers to label GM foods.
In the European Union, any food product containing 0.9 percent of a genetically modified ingredient must be
labeled.
Although not as strict as EU legislation, Russian law also requires food producers to specify on the package if their
product contains a GM ingredient.
But the government is not doing enough to ensure that companies are complying with the law, consumer rights groups
say.
Activists say Russia's 5 percent GM ingredient ceiling is too high.
"Regulators should react to the findings. They should recall the products and make sure they are
relabeled," said Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the International Confederation of Consumer Associations in Moscow.
Greenpeace commissioned the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Cytology to test the food.
Most of the products tested by the institute listed protein additives as one of their ingredients.
But only one specified the use of a GM ingredient, and two companies did not include soy additives in their
ingredients, although testing found genetically altered additives present, according to Greenpeace.
One of the companies, Darya Polufabrikaty, the producer of popular up-market pelmeni, or beef dumplings, denied that
it used GM ingredients in any of its products.
The company provided The Moscow Times with copies of documents certifying that its suppliers do not use GM foods.
Moreover, Darya denied using soy protein in its Klassicheskiye Pelmeni brand, contradicting Greenpeace.
"Greenpeace is just making noise to promote itself," said Dina Vishnya, a Darya spokeswoman.
"We're not excluding the possibility that their study was paid for by one of our competitors."
The sample of products it tested was chosen by a group of journalists at random, Greenpeace said.
There is the possibility that the batch Greenpeace tested was accidentally contaminated by GM soya proteins used in
other Darya products, Vishnya said.
"But it's impossible to know for sure until they say which batch they tested," she said.
"If we find that there were GM foods present, we will have to publicly apologize."
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