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Re: Genetic engineering

Ian,  this is being vigorously opposed by those involved in Organic Food
production, their associations, the local health food stores, and Organic
Gardening Magazine among others.  Part of the problem is that they have a
lot of noise but don't have the dollars that a ADM or Monsanto and others
have that are pushing to not have to label the food.  Part of the issue
came up about a year ago when some of the European countries refused to
accept seed and foodstuffs labelled as GE or similiar.  This cost some
people a lot of money ( and it wasn't us local farmer's market growers). 
How to solve the problem?  Well you could step back and write off the
expense or perhaps it is easie to just change the rules so it isn't
labelled.  

The other issues are sewage sludge and radiation treatment in the same
government document out for review.  The sludge is a disposal issue-why if
we could dump sewage sludge on as a soil amendment, we could eliminate our
problem and make some dollars also. There are a number of issues and heavy
metals is the big one.  You can get a scientist to argue either way as
there is a lot less heavy metal in use in print today than years ago.  But
every source is different and frankly, I don't want them building up in my
garden. And no one wants to have to analyze each point source for whatever
could be there. 

Radiation is a somewhat stickier issue. As a science teacher, I don't have
an issue with it since a lot of the stuff you use today (spices, sterile
hospital kits, etc) are gamma radiated at a large number of sites across
the country.  Gamma has a lot less residual problems than ETO which was the
primary sterilization method that was replaced with gamma.  I worked in
pharmaceuticals for 30+, years and I know that gamma radiation is a lot
safer for the employees than ETO.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions.

Rich Boosey
Purrfleece Farms
Arkansas


----------
> From: Ian Gill <ian@minidata.co.nz>
> To: veggie-list@eskimo.com
> Subject: Genetic engineering
> Date: Sunday, April 19, 1998 3:41 AM
> 
> Some time ago someone in this group expressed concern over US food label
> laws regarding genetic enginnering. I am grateful to that person because
up
> until then I was oblivious to what is happening. Now I am very alarmed as
> New Zealand appears to be gearing up to adopt the same US food label
> standards. I am somewhat amazed to find a general acceptance or
> indifference to the label laws in the US. Can anyone tell me if any
sector
> of the US public are opposing the label law. Forcing people to eat GM
food
> would seem to me to be a hell of a human rights violation.
> 
> 
> Regards  Ian Gill   
>                          Westland
>                          New Zealand
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