The food industry, consumers and politicians in Europe are alive to the sound of three words - genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Barely a day goes by without a reference to this controversial aspect of biotechnology. And the last few days are no exception.
On 8 May 2003 the British science group, the Royal Society, called on all organisations claiming that foodstuffs containing ingredients from genetically modified plants are inherently less safe than their non-GM conventional counterparts to come up with evidence to prove their case.
In two submissions to the UK government-sponsored GM Science Review, the Royal Society points out that the potential for GM ingredients to reduce the nutritional quality of foods or to cause allergic reactions is in principle no different to that for non-GM ingredients.
Professor Patrick Bateson, vice-president and biological secretary of the Royal Society, said: "We conducted a major review of the evidence about GM plants and human health last year, and we have not seen any evidence since then that changes our original conclusions. If credible evidence does exist that GM foods are more harmful to people than non-GM foods, we should like to know why it has not been made public."
As a nod to the very real sensitivities surrounding this issue in the minds of the consumer Professor Bateson added: "Undoubtedly some important questions need to be answered about the potential impact, good or bad, of GM crops on the environment. But these should be addressed without a smokescreen of unfounded claims about their threat to human health."
One day later environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth made the claim that the UK government is asking UK Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to vote "in favour of the GM contamination of our food and against the widespread labelling of food containing traces of GM materials."
The group is making reference to a vote by MEPs in early July on new European legislation that will herald in the end to the moratorium on genetically modified foods with tougher rules on labelling and tracing - opening the way to the sale of the products in Europe's shops.
Currently food containing at least one per cent of GM DNA must be labelled. The new proposals would strengthen the legislation by reducing the GM labelling threshold. MEPs backed a 0.5 per cent labelling threshold at the first reading last year, but the Council of Ministers increased it to 0.9 per cent. Friends of the Earth has been calling for the limit to be set at the lowest detectable level (currently 0.1 per cent).
Moving from European politics to the US, rumours from across the Atlantic hint that the USA may launch a case with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over the EU's current ban (moratorium) on biotech foods. US farmers claim to be losing millions of dollars of trade as a result of the ban.
But according to news reports this week European Commissioner for Consumer Protection David Byrne was cited as saying that any such decision by the US to attack the EU's ban on biotech foods at the WTO would be a strange move as the bloc was taking steps to end the moratorium. "The timing of this seems to be a little eccentric," Byrne told reporters on Monday.
While farmers using biotech crops in the US are up in arms about the EU legislation, 2000 tenant farmers in the UK have been told specifically by their landlord, the National Trust, that they must not grow genetically modified crops on its land - all 250,000 hectares of British countryside.
The charity, which has delighted those groups opposed to the commercialisation of GM crops, described the move as a 'precautionary approach', and said their position could change on the basis of future scientific evidence.
Observers will certainly be avidly following the vote on tough new European GM legislation to be taken by MEPs on 1-3 July. And both opponents and supporters of GM foods continue to arm themselves with hard scientific evidence and armour-plated words on the battleground. But who will be wounded in the end?