An advocacy group of farmers and environmental organizations wants Health Canada to implement mandatory labelling on pork from gene-edited pigs.
Earlier this year, the federal agency approved the sale of gene-edited pigs as food. The pigs are resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus, called PRRSV-resistant pigs.
“It is expected that by addressing PRRSV in pigs, farmers can prevent severe illness and death in their herds, reduce the need for antibiotics, and improve animal welfare,” Health Canada said in an email to The Canadian Press.
In January, Health Canada released a statement saying that the pigs do not “pose a greater risk to human health than pigs currently available,” and added that there are “no differences in the nutritional value of the PRRSV-resistant pigs compared to other pigs.”
“Because Health Canada found no health or safety concerns, no special labelling is required for foods from these PRRSV-resistant pigs,” the agency said.
In fact, aside from deleting one part of the gene susceptible to infection by PRRSV, the pigs are identical to other pigs on Canadian farms now, Health Canada says.
But that is the issue, says Lucy Sharratt, coordinator with the Canadian Biotechnoloy Action Network.
“If (a gene-edited pig) is actually introduced into the market, Canadians won’t know where it is on grocery store shelves,” Sharratt said in an interview.
“Public opinion polls in Canada show that over 80 per cent of Canadians simply want to know where genetically engineered foods are,” Sharratt said. “It’s been 25 years now that genetically engineered foods have been on the market somewhere, and yet people still want labelling.”
Canadian law does not require labels to identify genetically engineered foods, but there is a voluntary standard for companies that choose to label their food.
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