FDA, DOA, EPA: No supervision for GMOS

From a Union of Concerned Scientists e-mail alert. This is one reason why we need a shakeup at the DOA:

Agencies rebuff congressional investigators
on engineered crops

Three federal agencies turned down a recommendation from congressional investigators to monitor genetically engineered (GE) crops after they are commercialized. In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency for allowing unapproved GE crops to enter the food supply and recommended several steps they should take to prevent further contamination. However, the agencies rejected the GAO's most important recommendation—to monitor GE crops after they are approved for commercial production. Unapproved GE crops are known to have contaminated the food supply six times since 2000, not counting the most recent incident in which an experimental GE variety of cottonseed was allowed to contaminate animal feed. Read the GAO report.

"After two decades of regulating agricultural biotechnology, the federal government is still unable to protect the food supply from unapproved GE crops. We urge the incoming administration to overhaul the rules governing agricultural biotechnology and to adopt the GAO's recommendations." ~ Jane Rissler, Senior Scientist/Deputy Director