顾秀林教授的英文翻译
An Investigation into illegal operation of GMO Food Supervision
I have been a playwright with many well received works including TV series published. However since September 2010, I became a food safety campaigner, the very reason is a report I read under the title “Rats are disappearing”. DuPont Company promoted a GMO corn species under the guide of cross-breeding to China, sowed to millions of hectors and wiped out rats in many places, and it is turn out to be good for abortion!
I stopped my playwright work and devoted into the anti-GMO campaign. This is my vow: fight until the GMO is driven out of China!
I focused on the government supervision regulations on GMO and the implementation of the measures. To my surprise, I found all safety proofs issued by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) to GMO soy bean imports are false and illegal; it is no doubt the biggest scandal in the whole business.
I.The related regulations and their implementation
The 2002-7-1 “Hygiene Regulation Codes on GMO Food" states: nothing of GMO could be produced, imported or processed as food without an official approval by the MOH. However it had never been implemented within the 5 years and 5 months before it was repealed suddenly on 1st December, 2007. .
A New measure, enacted on 1st June 2009, called “Food Safety Law”, ordered that “new source food materials” which includes the GMO, must acquire permit from MOH beforehand. Another regulation, “Health Related Product Hygiene Regulation Procedure” enacted from 1st June 2006 indicated that, new source food must marketed with a permit code as the medicines do. However, the MOH has never issued any permit since.
In another words, none of the GMO foods, no matter marketed in what magnitude, all were illegal.
II.Investigation of illegal operations of GMO supervition
Without an official permit from MOH, the GMO soy beans have been imported in a scale of dozens of million tons per year, and Chinese people are consuming all kinds of domestically developed GMO vegetables and fruits, such as papaya. The Ministry of Agriculture, MOA, has taken over the MOH’s role to decide safety for food, completely exceeded its authority.
1.The MOA issue permit to GMO soy and corn for “processing”
The State Department of China issued “Safety Regulations on Agricultural GMOs” in May 2001, put a 270-day appraisal time duration on GMO. Then in July 2002 the MOH “Hygiene Regulation Codes on GMO Food" was enacted. The US Government was annoyed and pressed Chinese government through public relation tricks.
In 2002 President Bush jr. visited China, required cancelation of the 270-day appraisal period under the excuse that Monsanto Company might suffer economic loss. Right after in March 2002, the MOA issued “Affiche of Temporary Measures on GMO Agricultural Goods”, allowing foreign companies a privilege to export GMO to China with their own safety documents, no need to apply for permit nor safety check. This temporary measure was extended to April 2004.
As a matter of fact, the MOH “Hygiene Regulation Codes on GMO Food" had lost its effectiveness only 4 months after been issued. From then on, the MOH has never again been involved with the safety issues of GMO, giving the MOA the exclusive authority to approve GMO import. According to “Law of Food Hygiene” and “Hygiene Regulation Codes on GMO Food", MOA has no such authority on food safety issues, apart from supervising environmental safety of GMO plants.
The State Department illegally pushed the MOH out of the game.
A worse case is the false safety evaluation on GMO soy beans from Monsanto Company, an approval was issued in Feb. 2004 based on an appraisal by Chinese CDC’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety, which copied all evidence from a Monsanto’s 1996 report: The feeding value of soybeans fed to rats, chicken, catfish and dairy cattle is not altered by genetic incorporation of glyphosate tolerance。
In a word, the MOA’s first safety license was issued based on a totally false condition, and without MOH’s food safety check, importation of Monsanto’s GMO soy bean of GTS40-3-2 trait to China actually violated many laws and was against many related regulations.
Since then, all the granted license to GMO soy bean import to process for human food in China are illegal, which covered every batch of GMO import. All marketed cooking oil in China is in exactly same situation.
MOA has made China the biggest GMO market, and saved the once falling GMO industry in the USA. Monsanto Company has been unexpected rescued from a desperate situation, thanks to the Chinese Government.
2.MOA illegally issued safety license to vegetables and fruits to grow and sell in China
More than 1100 safety licenses have been issued by MOA, by 2012. MOA refuses to release the list of approved items.
Labeling on GMO food stuff is required by law. However only in 2003 the MOA for once released the license of 17 GMO crops, i.e., cotton, soy bean, corn, rapeseed and tomato; and never upgraded it.
An official openly said that it is no need to label anything except the 2003 licensed GMO items. This misconduct has never been addressed.
3.MOA covers up illegal growing of unapproved GMO species and pseudo hybrid crops
A turning point was the 2009 GMO rice and corn safety licenses issued to Chinese GMO developers. The general public started to protest, however GMO rice and corn have been illegally grown and consumed before the year, and was even discovered from exported food items. No actions has been taken on this side, while the EU has been announcing that illegal GMO was found in rice products from China.
Worst is the wide spread illegal GMO maize/corn. According to the leader of GMO corn national project,4 million hectares of DuPont corn species (and some others) have been grown for years, ecological abnormity are shown in the extinction of field rats, and so on. But the MOA has done nothing but cover-up.
The DuPont GMO corn is mostly but not exclusively used as animal feed. No guarantee for human food not get contaminated by it.
The MOH gave up its authority in guarding food safety for Chinese people.
Misconduct of MOA, MOH, and State Department have not been investigated and dealt with by legal means. |