Foods Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) will meet on 10 September to discuss changes to GMO definitions and labelling in their food code, potentially allowing foods altered by new GMO techniques to be sold without specific labelling...The Ceres Organics website explains more and provides a template to make submissions easy. Listen to Paul Brennan’s interview with Claire Bleakley and Jodi Bruning on RCR for more information on GMOs.
FSANZ (Food Safety Australia New Zealand) is the organization responsible for ensuring that any GM (gene modification) in our food supply is safe for consumption. They are in the process of changing their regulations. The proposed changes are major and will redefine the definition for GMOs. Broad categories of foods that are modified using new breeding techniques (NBT), a misnomer for new genetic engineering techniques, will NO longer be classified as GMOs. In other words, they will feed us a diet of lies.
GM Exempted Foods
For a specific list of what will be classified as non-GM food see https://consultations.foodstandards.gov.au/fsanz/p1055/user_uploads/p1055-2nd-call-for-submissions-report.pdf Table 3. (For definitions see pages 23 & 25). These foods include food from a null segregant; substances used as a food additive, processing aid, nutritive substance; food from a genome edited organism that does not contain novel DNA in its genome; food derived from the part of a grafted plant that does not contain novel DNA or novel protein; substances used to support the growth, viability of cells or process cells in culture as part of the production of cell-cultured food. Other GE foods may also be subject to exemption.
You can listen to what this all means in an enlightening conversation here between three members of the Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility. Highly recommended. Their focus is on these new regulations.
As these genetically modified foods will be exempt from labelling and regulatory safeguards, they are bound to flood the market and also be in every processed food available. The accumulative effects, the long-tern effects will be unknown. Babies, children, their small growing bodies will be subjected to massive amounts of unnatural synthetic 'foods'.
FSANZ proposals are in conflict with their purpose—food safety and consumer confidence. As Jodie Bruning says in this article:
The reason FSANZ is established - the legal purpose of FSANZ, is to protect public health, and maintaining trust in the quality of food consumed here and exported.
Listen to this short clip from the RCR replay mentioned at the beginning of this article. People do not want GM foods—Jodie talks about how solid that evidence is. FSANZ is not looking at critical components of risk assessment. They’ve lost their way.
I’m grateful to The Spectator Australia for publishing this latest piece today. You can get the first month free if you sign up. This is the first article published in mainstream media in Australia or New Zealand discussing the FSANZ proposal to render a large chunk of gene edited foods ‘new breeding techniques’ (NBTs) as non-GMO.
FSANZ has an online submission process with set questions. The closing date for FSANZ online submissions is 8pm, 10th September in New Zealand (or 6pm, Australian Eastern Standard Time).
The set questions imply the FSANZ proposals are a done deal and there are just details to work out.
For instance, here are some of the questions:
Question 1a. Is the new definition for genetically modified food clear? If not, which parts of the definition could be clearer. (See CFS Section 3.2)
Question 1b. Will the new definition for genetically modified food produce the intended regulatory outcomes as described in CFS Section 3.2 and Table 3?
Question 2a. Is the new definition for 'Novel DNA' clear? If not, which parts of the definition could be clearer? (see CFS Section 3.3)
Question 2b. Will the new definition for 'novel DNA' produce the intended regulatory outcomes, as described in CFS Section 3.3 and Table 3?
The FSANZ on-line submission process is time-consuming, restrictive and as Jodie says not easy to navigate. Therefore, the simplest, quickest, and clearest way to voice objections is via email as Ceres Organics and GE Free NZ suggest.
Guy Hatchard pointed out in this Reality Check Radio talk, even under existing regulations, we are getting submerged withbiotechnology without realizing what is happening. For instance, it’s almost impossible to buy a block of GE-free cheese.
The coagulant in cheese is often GE and is brought to you by Pfizer. The coagulant is SO powerful you only need a drop or two. If you indulge in cheese, what does it do to your blood—coagulate that too? Is this another reason clots are on the increase here and around the world?
This should worry everyone: Even under existing FSANZ regulations, FSANZ approved a GE ingredient in baby food, even though human cell lines showed a significant increase in chromosomal aberrations at a low dose, and animal studies showed changes to blood parameters, limb weakness with diarrhoea and low food consumption, which led to weight loss. Read: Babies at risk from Undisclosed GE proteins in Infant Formula. Alison White from the Safe Food Campaign is quoted in the article.
At least, Andrew Hoggard, our Food Safety Minister opted NZ out of having unlabelled infant formula. See above link and here.
Listen to this clip from the RCR Replay mentioned at the beginning of this article. Claire Bleakley talks about her concerns. For instance, since soy was genetically modified and released into the food chain, allergies went up by 88% in the U.S. We need to make our concerns heard.
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The existing rules need tightening NOT relaxing.
What You Can Do
Send an email to FSANZ voicing your concerns. See templates above.
If you miss the deadline or not, send an email to our Ministers. As mentioned above, our Food Safety Minister, Andrew Hoggard, stood up to FSANZ and prevented NZ from having unlabeled GE Baby Formula. Perhaps write to him as well as other MPs.
The proposed deregulation of GM is a huge warning to all of us to AVOID not only food from deregulated countries as much as possible like the U.S. and Australia but also highly processed foods and ultra-processed foods at all costs. Only consumers will sink the GM ship—the GE industry complex and our regulatory bodies are betraying us. I believe their motto is chase WEALTH before HEALTH.
Tell people about FSANZ plans and share ideas to stop this.
The next article will be on the National Party's intention to relax the GM laws in NZ. At the present time in NZ, all our fresh, unprocessed produce are GM-Free. But if the National Party gets their way, that will all change!
This is a key part of the government’s programme for biotechnology deregulation. They are well aware that if GM foods are labelled, the public will not buy them in any quantity.
… without labelling there is little prospect of identifying a cause if adverse health impacts occur….As our post “A Brief Peek into Tomorrow” revealed, the incidence of illness has been rising especially in the USA where gene altered foods have been proliferating.
We have co-evolved over millions of years in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with our natural food sources. Changing the genetic profile of foods means entering uncharted territory.
Single codon mutations out of billions are capable of causing catastrophic illnesses like Huntington’s or sickle cell anaemia. The gene world is very exacting with no safe room for approximations.
