Subject: Europe will not label oil from GE soybeans

From: [email-masked] (Tracy Aquilla)
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 96 20:58:13 GMT

Heard recently that the European Union countries and the European Parliament
agreed just last week on requirements for labeling foods from genetically
engineered (GE) organisms. Labels will be required for foods containing "live
genetically modified cells", but only if they differ from conventional foods
"beyond accepted limits of variation" (sounds pretty vague-who knows what
that means?). Apparently soybean oil from GE-beans, or products made from
that oil (many, many), will not require labeling because there are no live
cells in it and it is no different from oil obtained from 'conventional'
soybeans. The agreement is supposed to be incorporated into law some time
next year.
Tracy

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From: Antony Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 21:54:10 GMT

In message <[email-masked]>

> soybeans. The agreement is supposed to be incorporated into law some time

Hello Tracy,

The situation from the  European point of view is that it seems that 
Monsanto has produced a soya bean containing genes from a virus and 
>from  bacteria. there is serious concern that this could lead to 
problems. As I have mentioned in a previous posting we in the U.K. 
have already had experience of the consequences of the possible 
effects of playing around with nature in the form of our B.S.E. 
crisis. This makes us very cautious.

regards,

Antony. 

-- 
Home :-  http://www.swantonfarms.com

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From: [email-masked] (Gerard van Wilgen)
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 20:52:44 GMT

>> agreed just last week on requirements for labeling foods from genetically

<CLIP>

>from bacteria.

>Antony. 

Creating new races of cultivated plants and animals by the traditional
process of selecting and cross-breeding can just as easily be called
"playing around with nature", and here too there are risks involved.
For instance, if you cross a cultivated potato plant with a wild
potato species to improve the resistence against aphids you cannot be
absolutely certain that the new potato race will not contain natural
chemicals that eventually turn out to cause cancer in humans.

But the matter of soya bean oil is something entirely different
because oil is just oil and it does not contain genes. Using oil from
genetically engineered soya beans is probably no more dangerous than
sitting at an oaken table made from genetically altered oak-trees.

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La kreado de novajn rasojn de kulturitaj plantoj kaj animaloj per la
tradicia procezo de selekto kaj bastardigo povas esti nomighata
"ludachi kun la naturo", kaj chi tie ankau riskoj ekzistas. Ekzemple,
se oni bastardigas kuturitan terpomplanton kun savagha terpomspecio
por plibonigi la kontraustaro kontrau afisoj, oni ne povas absolute
certa ke la nova terpomraso ne enhavos naturajn chemikajhojn kiu  
longedaure evidentighos kauzi kancero en homoj.

Sed la afero de sojfaba oleo estas io tute diferenca char oleo estas
nur olea kaj ghi ne enhavas genojn. La uzado de oleo el genetike
modifikitaj sojfaboj estas probable ne pli danghera ol sidi che kverka
tablo farita el genetike shanghitaj kverkoj.

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Gerard van Wilgen