South Africa: Anti-GM activists target baby food

The following is an edited excerpt of a longer story. Find a link to the full story below.

The African Centre for Biosafety, an anti-GM lobby group, sent seven baby cereals and infant formulas to a university testing facility to establish whether foods many South Africans were feeding their babies contained GM products. The laboratory found that Purity’s Cream of Maize baby food contained 56.2 percent GM maize and Purity Baby First contained 71.4 percent GM maize.

Mariam Mayet, who heads the anti-GM group, has been campaigning for the labelling of South African food containing GM food and said consumers had a right to know what they were eating. “We are seeing the first generation of South Africans who will be fed GM food from the cradle to the grave. We can’t just ignore it.”

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The World Health Organisation has said GMOs are “not likely” to present risks for human health and that no such risks have been shown in populations where these foods have been approved. However, Mayet said the safety of GM food was highly questionable, as no studies had been done on the long-term human health effects.

Read the original article in its entirety here: GM maize in some baby foods