All imports of United States corn have been stopped at British ports following the discovery that the US has been illegally exporting a banned GM maize to Europe for the past four years.
The unprecedented move, which has angered the Bush administration, follows efforts to hush up and play down the scandal on both sides of the Atlantic. For weeks the official food watchdog failed to look for imports of the maize, which is banned on health grounds. It has been forced to take action by the European Commission.
The two main opposition parties yesterday blamed the delay on a pro-GM and pro-US bias in the Food Standards Agency, and pledged to correct it if they came to power.
(Source: The Independent)
Another example of the contempt the US government has for any other nation’s laws or sovereignty.
And what did the Food Standards Agency do about it? Nothing. It refused to even identify any existing imports in Britain. Apparently, it’s totally unconcerned that a banned food may have been smuggled into this country. Perhaps it was even complicit in the import?
Four years. Four years of breaking EU food laws. Four years the agency which is supposed to protect us did nothing. Nice, cushy job that is, innit? Perhaps made cushier with kickbacks from GM firms? How else can you explain four years of failure to alert the British public to this illegal trade?
If a kebab shop serves food deemed legally unfit for human consumption, it’s prosecuted and the lawbreakers punished. If multinational corporations in league with the US government do the same thing but on a vastly greater scale, what happens?
One law for the poor, another for the rich.