Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Genetically Modified Rice

It has hit Switzerland and came from the US.

What's that? Well according to a report by SwissInfo, the US ships a lot of genetically modified rice. This type of rice is not aloud to be sold in Switzerland either. The shipment was discovered at a port in Rotterdam during a routine inspection. I'm not really sure what the whole strain, a biotech LL 601 rice, is about or what health issues it could cause. According to this report, the LL 601 rice is engineered to resist a herbicide. There is one thing for certain, Tighter Rules are ahead.

What really got me were these few excerps from the article:

In August, the EC tightened requirements on US long-grain rice imports to prove the absence of biotech rice strain LL 601, which it said was marketed by the Bayer company of Germany and produced in the US.

On Monday, environmental group Greenpeace International said a strain of LL 601 rice had been found in branches of discount supermarket Aldi Nord in Germany.

The US Food and Drug Administration says that LL 601 rice poses no risk to human health and does not raise any food, safety or environmental concerns.



And how do they know there isn't a health risk? I certainly wouldn't trust the FDA. They've been wrong before...

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