Any genetically modified foods on the market are of no direct benefit to consumers, the chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has said.
The multinationals generating such products could well direct their attention to producing products of direct benefit to consumers if they wanted gene technology to be seen in a better light, Dr Patrick Wall told The Irish Times.
It was wrong to "rubbish the technology", he said, as it had achieved notable success in medicine - such as in the manufacture of genetically engineered insulin - but he had yet to see a GM food "to benefit consumers rather than anybody else in the food chain".
He felt obliged to comment as a spokesman for "a consumer protection agency", he said.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, who has overall responsibility for GMO use in Ireland, has declined to comment on the latest controversy over the safety of GM foods in advance of a series of national debates due to begin next month. In Britain yesterday the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, intervened in the controversy which has followed public support by 22 scientists for preliminary research findings showing immune system damage in rats fed genetically modified potatoes.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said the Prime Minister was "very strongly of the view that this product is safe. He has no hesitation at all about saying that."
Dr Wall said if Monsanto and other biotech companies creating GM crops wished to secure greater public acceptance, they might, for example, develop a non-allergy-causing peanut, wheat genetically modified to produce folic acid (to eliminate risk of spina bifida), or high-fibre wheat to reduce incidence of colon cancer.
This "responding to consumer needs" would enable the public to see the potential of GM foods, rather than exposing consumers to hypothetical risk from the current generation of products without any tangible benefits for them.
According to the FSAI, there is nothing to indicate in published scientific research that GM foods represent a risk to public health. Research, however, published over the past year suggests negative environmental effects may arise in some circumstances, which could lead to genes "jumping" from GM crops to wild species - and in turn creating "superweeds".
Green MEP Ms Nuala Ahern said last week's European Parliament decision to introduce strict rules on liability and labelling GM foods placed a moral obligation on the EU to defend European demands for proper controls and to reflect the scale of consumer concern. She feared the Government would facilitate a weak protocol.
