Genetically engineered foods vs. the law

Beginning of last month, Greenpeace made an appointment with European Commissioner for Health Markos Kyprianou. The agenda? A small legislative hole allowing Monsanto and such products to enter our daily diet.
The point is we feel 'safe' when it comes to GMOs since it is mandatory that GMO foods are labelled as such. Right. Except for this tiny hole in the law – there's no regulation when it comes to animal products. So animals are fed GMOs, and then we blindly eat their meat, milk, eggs, etc. Whoops? Big whoops!
Hence Greenpeace's visit to the European Commission (initiating the European laws). And why would Health Commissionner Kyprianou listen to them? Well, it seems the European law has its own 'flaws': the European Constitution project mentions the right to anyone to ask the European Commission to consider a new piece of legislation, provided they're backed by about a million signatures from a significant number of countries. OK, Greenpeace has the infrastructure and the will, so they took a year but they did it. Nice to know even though it would be difficult for any given citizen to make himself/herself heard by the powers that are, with the backings of a good organisation it can be done.

Meanwhile, you can check which food products currently contain GMOs in your country on Greenpeace's latest red-orange-green lists.

Speaking about sneaky GMOs taking over the market with the European Union's blessings, the new European requirements specifications project for organic agriculture implies much less restrictions and would allow - among other things - up to 0.9% of the products to be of genetically modified origin. Say hello to GMO organic food!
To make sure this doesn't happen, one way to start is to sign the petition (some 50 thousand signatures already) at Nature et Progrès (couldn't find an English version, sorry).

Picture: © Greenpeace / Jock Fistick