MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2001

(OTTAWA) Inadequate testing, regulation and public control of genetically engineered (GE) foods and similar products is putting the interests of the multi-billion-dollar biotechnology industry ahead of public health and environmental safety, says the Council of Canadians.

"The public good is being slowly undermined by powerful corporations and industry lobby groups who want to rush genetically engineered foods to market without either long-term safety tests or even appropriate labeling," says Maude Barlow, Volunteer Chair of the Council of Canadians. "Unfortunately, our government's current policies on health protection, agriculture and trade are designed to help the companies, not citizens."

"This is a technology begging for democratization," says U.S. consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who is in Canada to attend a one-day international conference of scientists, researchers and activists, hosted by the Council of Canadians. "Bio-engineered products are being sold under the process that we call autocratic corporate science. It's not open science, like academic science. It's not peer-reviewed by scientists who don't have a vested interest in the outcome. They are deploying it on millions of acres without being able to answer questions such as the ones that were raised by the Royal Society."

Last week, the Royal Society of Canada released an expert report commissioned by Health Canada, Environment Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that was highly critical of the government's current regulatory system.

"Reading the Royal Society's recommendations, it's easy to see who benefits and who is disenfranchised by the current regulations," says Dr. Ann Clark, a professor of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph.

Today's conference, titled "Science and the Public Good," features many scientists who have placed their careers in jeopardy by publicly exposing the inadequacies of government regulatory and testing regimes. The Council of Canadians is calling for an immediate moratorium on the approval and release of genetically modified organisms.

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