GMO safety under scrutiny in EU

Fortunately, the European Union is coming to grips with safety concerns over genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

EU Commissioner Stavros Dimas brought into question the quality of GMO safety tests and said that risks were present that endangered biodiversity.

They may be a bit of an understatement considering this technology is as unnatural as splicing fish genes into a garbanzo bean using cell-invading viruses.

The EU's Parma-based agency in charge of GMO testing has been criticized over its procedures in handling products destined for the EU market.

Eight EU countries have all-out bans including Austria, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Greece while other countries have partial restrictions on GMOs. The Polish government, for example, has been considering banning planting of GMO crops.

Many states and provinces in the EU are GMO-free zones even if the biotechnology is legal in the respective country as a whole.

If the old adage 'you are, what you eat' holds true, then we must use utmost caution and indeed reject these "Franken-foods" as risks to our health and to the biodiversity of the planet.