SHOULD products that have been altered by genetic engineering carry a
special label? In Britain, we don鈥檛 seem able to make up our minds (see p
10).
Some people argue that a label is misleading because genetic engineering is
no different in principle from conventional breeding, except that it is
faster. Others argue that a label is necessary only when genetic engineering
passes limits that conventional breeding could not overcome, such as
introducing an animal gene into a plant.
And still others say that the consumer has a right to know and so every
genetically-engineered product should be labelled, regardless of what kind of
new genes were introduced.
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Respecting an individual鈥檚 right to knowledge seems a sound principle. The
only problem is that just adding a label saying 鈥済enetically-engineered鈥� might
frighten rather than inform.
Calgene, which created the Flavr Savr tomato, probably has the right
solution. In the US, their tomatoes come with a detailed point-of-sale
brochure describing how they were genetically-engineered. In Britain, Safeway
provides a comprehensive leaflet for their 鈥済enetically modified鈥� tomato
辫耻谤别麓别.
Encouraging companies to tell the public all about their products 鈥� and
show they have nothing to hide 鈥� is surely more effective than a compulsory
label that groups all genetically-engineered products together.