AN urgent investigation is promised over new fears that genetically modified food - Frankenstein food - could cause long-term damage to human health. Let's hope that the probes are more thorough than those which missed so much vital evidence when mad cow disease first appeared.

The public has a right to be concerned.

How many of us know what food is modified and what it not as we trundle around supermarkets?

We are now in a situation where a handful of major food companies control retailing.

The government would do well to remember that behind every Frankenstein monster there is a Frankenstein.

And it should urgently introduce legislation which forces companies to label their products so that shoppers have an option.

There may be nothing wrong with genetically modified food. But consumers should at least have the right to choose.

Meanwhile, there must be a full scientific evaluation of the genetic manipulation of food.

It is little wonder that we are suspicious following the shambles over mad cow disease.

Food firms must tell us exactly what we are eating - and we don't mean labels containing gobbledegook language that might as well be in Chinese.

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