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Article: Dark side of precautionary principle.
- Article from:
- Consumer Comments
- Article date:
- September 22, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Consumer Alert. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The government of Zambia--with three million people facing death by starvation--on October 29 gave its final refusal to distribute U.S. grain already stored there to help feed its starving population. Zambia's Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana invoked the "precautionary principle" as his rationale--that is, since the grain was produced through the use of modern biotechnology, it has not been proven to be perfectly safe and may present some future risks to people or the environment. The Zambian government also said it fears European Union countries would refuse imports from Zambia since their crops might run the risk of "contamination" from the genetically modified ...