Greenpeace issued a letter to Hong Kong's Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Chow Yat-ngok and demanded the government withdraw the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's (AFCD) misleading remark on genetically engineered (GE) papaya.
Oriental Daily News reported that commenting on the GE papaya incident in Hong Kong, AFCD told citizens not to worry or panic if they have eaten these papayas. AFCD further said that the anti-ringspot virus GE papaya had been developed in USA since 1990s and that no evidence showed that these papaya have negative impact on human health.
Greenpeace says it was shocked by AFCD's remark and immediately issued a letter to the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Chow Yat-ngok. Greenpeace states that the GE papaya trees Greenpeace found and cleared in Yuen Long are unknown species and the inserted gene is also not known. This species has not passed any long term food safety assessments. The papaya fruits are different in appearance from the Hawaiian papaya. Even for Hawaiian papayas, they are banned in many regions like Japan and Europe because of food safety reasons.
"Health, Welfare and Food Bureau, as a governmental body responsible for food safety and human health, should not allow its subsidiaries to make people believe that the food is safe by using irrelevant examples and without thorough investigation. This is misleading and irresponsible,"said Fung Ka-keung, Greenpeace food and agriculture campaigner.
Fung demands that the Government withdraws such misleading remark and apologize to the public.
