On April 12th, following motion was put to the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Medical Organisation:

In the light of the growing evidence of adverse effects on laboratory animals of genetically engineered food, this AGM requests that a moratorium be placed on the sale and growing of genetically engineered crops in Ireland, and the uncontained release of live genetically engineered organisms until the impacts on human health, and on the biosphere, upon which we all depend, have been fully clarified.

The motion was defeated.

Shane Morris has commented that “Silence can often tell you a lot. A deafening silence has beset the anti-genetically modified (GM) food lobby in Ireland.…. Nowhere do we find journalists reporting that the professional body representing doctors in Ireland don't feel there is an issue with the safety of GM food. Also, those who have been trying to tell us that GM foods are unsafe are now mute on the IMO's position.

What deepens the silence is that this is the second time such a motion has been defeated in recent years as in 2001 a similar motion was defeated by the IMO medics. What makes this year’s defeat yet more damning is that it was the only motion of the 70 IMO general motions that was flatly defended and no amended motion agreed upon.

Blanket statements on food safety, such that all GM food is bad or that all organic food is good, have no merit. Such approaches are fundamentally flawed as there is no perfect food production system; all have risks and benefits depending on the product grown. The fact that three deaths and over 200 illnesses have been linked to organic production of spinach in the US last autumn is testament to the flaws in such an approach ….can one imagine what the Greens would say if it had been GM food!

Maybe what is required now in Ireland on the debate regarding the safety of GM food can be summed up by the theme of this year’s IMO AGM…..Realism, Not Rhetoric.”

Sources:

1. Irish Medical Organisation Annual General Meeting (12th April 2007): General Motion 28 (http://www.imo.ie/agm_motions.php?year=16&catid=141)

2. Irish Medical Organisation refuses to call for GM food ban. GMOIreland (15.4.07) (http://gmoireland.blogspot.com/2007/04/irish-medical-organisation-refuses-to.html)

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