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Consumers should be given enough information about genetically engineered
foods to allow them to make informed choices about what they eat. But unless
foods contain foreign genes they need not be labelled, even if they are
produced with the help of genetic engineering. Sugar made from genetically
modified beet, for example, would be exempt.

These recommendations are made this week in a report by the Committee
on the Ethics of Genetic Modification and Food Use, set up a year ago to
advise Britain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. John Polkinghorne,
president of Queen’s College, Cambridge and the committee’s chairman, says
the group sees no need for an ‘absolute ban’ on genetically engineered foods,
including those that might in future contain genes of human origin.

The committee recommends that any food containing copies of human or
animal genes should be labelled. ‘We felt the responsibility for choice
should be thrown onto the consumer,’ says Arthur Peacocke of the Society
of Ordained Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs, a committee member.

However, Polkinghorne says some organisations would want more information
about foods than could fit on a label, and they would have to question manufacturers.
‘This is a problem the Vegetarian Society has already faced,’ he says. The
society endorses food it has investigated and approved with a ‘V’ badge.

Peacocke says if genetically engineered foods ‘become very widespread,
there may be some need for a central database’ of the genetic engineering
processes that manufacturers use for making particular foods. But Polkinghorne
would not comment on whether manufacturers should be required by law to
reveal this information. He says it is outside the committee’s remit.