Delegates to the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada convention have passed a resolution calling for mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically altered ingredients.
“We are not concerned about what we know about genetically modified foods,” said Donna MacPherson, an Ontario delegate at the June 9 meeting.
“We are concerned about what we don’t know.”
MacPherson thinks a Pandora’s box is being opened and she places little faith in those who say GM technology is safe. She is nervous about the science capable of splicing animal traits into plants and vice versa, and she wonders whether the people developing that technology have considered the risks and ethical dilemmas that it creates.
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“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”
During the vote for mandatory labeling, 81 were in favor, 31 were against and four abstained.
Helen Rigby, past-president of the Manitoba Women’s Institute, was among those against the resolution.
“You cannot be led by hysteria,” Rigby said in an interview, noting the benefits of GM technology could be lost if people dwell only on the risks.
“As far as I’m concerned, there is both good and bad and we need to tread very, very carefully.”
The most passionate argument for mandatory labeling came from a British Columbia delegate who said she was caught in the Thalidomide scare 30 years ago.
At that time, she was suffering from morning sickness and her doctor prescribed Thalidomide without her knowledge or consent. The drug was an approved treatment in Canada for morning sickness until its side effects became known. Those effects included physical deformities among children whose mothers took the drug during pregnancy.
“I lived in hell until the boy was born,” said the woman who learned that she had taken Thalidomide only after confronting her doctor.
Her underlying message was that science, pharmaceutical companies and government can make mistakes.
Much of the debate last week centred on the environmental and health risks of genetically altering plants and animals.
What are the health risks, delegates asked, to people allergic to certain proteins in food if those proteins can be genetically transplanted among fish, plants and animals? And what does the technology mean for people who choose to be vegetarians for religious, ethical or health reasons?
“Where do we draw the line between what’s human, what’s animal and what’s vegetable?” asked MacPherson, who raises cattle with her husband Ron at Embro, Ont.
“To me that could be a real hot potato.”
Marg Hancock of Gander, Newfoundland, argued it is morally wrong to tamper with the spark of life.
She said any kind of GM food labeling is a stamp of endorsement for those products. She wants genetically modified foods banned.
“Don’t tell me it’s not in my food. Just tell me it’s not there at all.”
