Monsanto targeted by anti-GMO activists
Activist groups here have been staging a series of demonstrations against the use of Monsanto’s genetically modified organism (GMO) products.
Forty-six activist groups gathered at Gwanghawmum Plaza in central Seoul, Sunday, to protest the use of the U.S.-based multinational agricultural biotechnology giant’s GMO products.
Similar anti-GMO protests were also staged simultaneously in Sokcho, Cheongju and Changwon, and on Jeju. In the demonstration, the activists demand a GMO-labeling system, school food without GMO products and the suspension of the commercialization of GMO technologies.
“The safety of GMO technologies and products has yet to be scientifically proven. The government should immediately carry out a GMO-labeling system. Customers have the right to know what they are eating,” one activist said.
“Students are the nation’s future. They deserve to eat environment-friendly food at school.”
Ko Eun-young, a progressive opposition Green Party Korea candidate for Jeju governor, also joined the protest.
“GMO products are threatening the wellbeing of mankind. The government should immediately halt sales of Monsanto’s products,” she said during the protest held at Jeju City Hall Plaza.
Monsanto said, however, that the company’s GMO products are approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, stressing they aren’t harmful to people.
“Our products are approved not only by the nation’s authorities but also by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Their fears are a myth,” a Monsanto Korea official said.
“I understand concerns are there. They also have a right to publicly express these. We will continuously do our best to communicate with them as well as customers in a bid to prove the safety of our products.”
Monsanto is a U.S.-based agrochemical and agricultural company headquartered in St. Louis that dominates 90 percent of related patents for GMO products circulating around the world.
It agreed to acquire German pharmaceutical and life science giant Bayer for $66 billion in September 2016.
The possible harmful effects of GMO products first came to light when Caen University molecular biology professor Gilles-Eric Seralini claimed the long-term intake of GMO products could double the risk of cancer in a 2012 study.
His study was, however, suspended as a number of food and drug agencies in major countries pointed to his work lacking in scientific evidence.
The European Food Safety Authority spearheaded their decision by saying his study was of “insufficient scientific quality.”