Urgent Action needed!

Our Food regulator, FSANZ, has approved a GM corn crop, Smartstax. FSANZ did not put the crop through a safety assessment, or notifiy the public of the crop’s approval.

Smartstax has 8 GM genes:

  • 6 create toxins to kill insects. Five of these are in every cell of the plant including the corn cob
  • 2 prevent the plant from dying when sprayed with weedkiller

This corn is currently growing in the US and is likely to be imported and used in corn chips, tacos, tortillas, processed foods and even infant formula later this year.

Contact the Parliamentary Secretary for Health the Hon Mark Butler
Mark.Butler.MP@aph.gov.au Tel (02) 6277 4414.

Ask him to:

  • insist that Smartstax undergo a safety assessment with opportunities for full public comment.
  • ensure that all GM foods are fully labelled

Some points you may want to raise are:

  • Our food regulator, FSANZ, has done no safety assessment on this GM corn
  • FSANZ has not notified the public of the approval of this GM corn
  • Current GM labelling laws mean almost no GM ingredients require labelling

For more information read MADGE’s full report in this press release.

Please CC your letter to Peter Dutton, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing.
Email: Peter.Dutton.MP@aph.gov.au or phone (07) 3205 9977 and also CC your email to Senator Nick Xenophon, senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au or phone (02) 6277 3552 | (08) 8232 1144

Please also send a copy of your email to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard or ring her office on Tel: (02) 6277 7700

Remember this is an election year – make GM and food labelling an election issue.

Madge would also like to add that with letters to politicians concerning an issue such as this, the quantity of letters received, rather than the quality of the letter, is of most importance. So even if you just right one line "please ensure GM smartstax corn is tested and all GM fully labelled" this will have an impact if enough people do the same. If you do wish to write a more eleborate response, please do, but a quick one line is better than nothing.

Please email your family and friends with a link to this page.

Here is an example of a longer letter sent by Sustainable Agricuture and Community Alliance Inc.

Mr. Mark Butler, MP,
Parliamentary Secretary For Health,
Parliament House, Canberra, ACT.

Dear Mr Butler,

The members of the Sustainable Agriculture and Communities Alliance are disturbed to learn that the genetically modified maize, “Smartstax” owned by Monsanto and Dow, has been approved by Food Safety Australia and New Zealand without FSANZ doing any testing for safety. Also, contrary to usual practice, the public has not been notified about this imminent addition to our food supplies.

The Smartstax maize is growing in the USA and it is likely to be imported into Australia for use in foods such as tacos, corn chips, and other foods, including baby foods and infant formula.

As this maize contains six genes to create toxins to kill insects, and two genes to prevent the plants from dying from the effects of herbicides, the maize may prove as toxic to some people and animals as it is to insects.

The farmers and community members in our group request that you ensure that FSANZ arrange for the corn variety Smartstax to be independently tested for food safety. Smartstax should not be allowed to enter Australia unless there is a guarantee that none of the eight added genes will cause potentially fatal toxic shock (anaphylaxis) or health problems over a long period from consumption in a wide range of foods.

Such a guarantee of safety will require a lengthy period of rigorous testing and should be done by independent bona fide scientists without links to the Monsanto and Dow corporations or to organizations with interests in promoting GM foods.

We feel that most Australians would be concerned to know that FSANZ does no independent testing for safety of foods that it licenses, and that one of FSANZ’s official objectives is to facilitate the business of GM foods. This is an obvious conflict of interests, and does not inspire confidence in the safe regulation of GM foods by FSANZ.

Like many Australians, we are concerned that the safety of Australian foods is at stake, and we request that you take steps to convert FSANZ from a GM promotion agent into a genuine food safety authority.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding the implementation of rigorous safety testing of Smartstax by independent scientists for a sufficiently lengthy period of time to ensure that there will be no deaths or health problems resulting from its consumption.

Yours truly, Gillian Blair,
Secretary, SACA Inc.

 

 

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