SALMON the size of a large shark, apples that don't rot, soya "superbeans" - these, and more, could be coming to a supermarket shelf near you.
"The introduction of genetically engineered food amounts to a dangerous global experiment in which we are the guinea pigs," says microbiologist Dr John Fagan of the Maharishi institute in the United States.
Dr Fagan has been waving the caution flag over the science world's rush to genetically modify everything we eat since 1994. He will be speaking at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin tonight.
The aim of genetic engineering is to manipulate the DNA that controls the characteristics and make up of living organisms. "Scientists want to do this to, for example, make fruit and vegetables last longer or engineer crops that are herbicide resistant," says Dr Fagan.
Genetically modified foods that may soon be sold in Irish shops include tomatoes, corn, yeast and soya (which is used in the manufacture of 60 per cent of processed foods, including bread, ice cream and pasta).
In the UK, Safeway and Sainsbury supermarkets are already selling tomato purees made from tomatoes that have had their "rotting enzymes" switched off, and this year the European Union has approved a hybrid oilseed rape to be grown commercially in Europe.
Genetically "perfect" food seems to promise a world where food need never be thrown outs crop yields are guaranteed famine non existent. However, says Dr Fagan, genetic engineers do not have perfect control over the technology involved and there are unintended side effects.
He cites an example of a Japanese food supplement manufacturer serving the US market that, in 1989, genetically modified a bacteria that produces the enzyme tryptophane. This enzyme is used in the making of the food supplement. There was neither testing nor labelling of the new "genetically modified" product. Thirty seven consumers of the product died and 5,000 became ill before it was withdrawn.
He says: "If we can't control the technology successfully in the simplest bacteria, how can consumers and governments feel safe in trusting the bio chemists in engineering larger organisms?"
The food industry and governments are complacent, he says, assuming that these foods are not really all that different to existing foods. Testing of foods with manipulated genes is not rigorous. Nor do such foods have to be labelled as "genetically modified".
"Consumers will not have the right to know what they are buying as nutritional and taste quality will be sacrificed for shelf life." The effects of biochemists altering plants' and animals' genetic make up will, says Dr Fagan, "have permanent and irreversible effects . . . You can't re call a fish".
Dr Fagan will speak tonight at a public discussion at the RCS on Genetically Modified Food: The Dangers We Should All Know", at 7.30 p.m. Admission is £5.
