The genetic manipulation of plants, animals and microbes : the social and ethical issues for consumers : a discussion paper / by Roger Straughan.

  • Straughan, Roger.
Date:
1989
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The genetic manipulation of plants, animals and microbes : the social and ethical issues for consumers : a discussion paper / by Roger Straughan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Genetic manipulation of plants, animals and microbes 2. Consumers are also entitled to infornnation about the likely socio-economic effects of genetic manipulation, as described in section 4, and about the possible social costs involved. 3. They are also entitled to information about what precisely is being done in genetic manipulation work, as they may be unaware that it could conflict with their religious or moral beliefs. 4. As it is possible to object to, or have serious reservations about, genetic manipulation either in itself or in terms of its possible effects, on prudential, social, moral or religious grounds, consumers should have the right to choose not to buy products which result from these techniques and processes. These proposals are deliberately provocative and clearly create more problems then they solve. To conclude this report, two of these will be briefly elaborated: the specific problem of labelling and the general problem of language. (a) Labelling Should some of the information called for in the above proposals be provided on the labels of products? Is the consumer entitled only to information about the contents of the product itself, or also about the processes which helped to produce it? Process information is already provided in the case of some foods - eg. free-range eggs and freeze-dried instant coffee - but the information here is used as a positive selling-point, not as a possible warning. Genetically engineered bst milk again provides a useful example here. If such milk is indistinguishable from other milk in terms of its content, should the consumer be able to distinguish it on the grounds of its means of production? A recent European Parliament resolution has called for all products from livestock intended for human consumption to indicate clearly all treatments used in their production with a view to safeguarding consumers and giving them a choice (1). The Dairy Trade Federation has also called for labelling to allay consumer fears, however ill-founded, while the National Farmers Union and the milk marketing boards are opposed to labelling, unless milk from treated herds is shown to be different (2). As was noted in section 3, the labelling of milk presents particular difficulties, as all 33