GMO Debate

Things got a little wound up at last week’s Tri-State Grain Growers Convention during a panel discussion where environmentalists and researchers agreed to disagree over whether genetically modified organisms in agriculture present a health threat to consumers. One of the panel members was Ken Cook, CEO of the Environmental Working Group who spoke about the need for more transparency for consumers when it comes to genetically modified foods.

COOK: I think the case is that in a lot of consumers minds they’re not comfortable that there’s been enough health and safety work done, studies done - there’s no government regime that requires health and safety studies with genetically engineered food. There’s no long term monitoring by the Food and Drug Administration or any other federal agency as to what the health effects may be. So we feel that in the absence of that adequate framework we ought to have what consumers have in over fifty other countries around the world - the right to know if food is genetically engineered.

Michael Neff, molecular plant science professor with Washington State University, who was also on the panel, challenged Cook’s statements, stating that “the labeling of genetically modified food would imply there was something inherently dangerous about the fact it is just GMO, and that there is no credible, reproducible, peer-reviewed research demonstrating that eating GM plants because they're GM gives you cancer or any other disease”.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.