E.U. Poised to End Five-Year Ban on New GM Foods
A corn product developed by the Anglo-Swiss biotech company Syngenta will likely be approved for sale by the European Union next month, ending a five-year de facto ban on new genetically modified foods on the continent. A number of other GM product approvals are expected to follow. This may mollify the U.S., which has been fighting for GM products to be allowed into Europe and has gone to the World Trade Organization to file a complaint against the E.U. on the matter. But European citizens, some 70 percent of whom say they want nothing to do with GM foods, aren’t likely to be lining up to buy them, and as GM products in Europe have to be labeled, Europeans can easily avoid them. U.S. citizens, who are given no idea which products contain GM ingredients, have no such option.
