how nutritious and safe the food is in our shops. Hi Alex, from time to time, you will a headline article that suggests an unknown side effect having been demonstrated with a GM food -- Ricarda has illustrated some. When they arise, there used to be a flurry of activity, frequently accompanied by headlines in the newspaper. The study would be looked at by the regulatory authorities and other scientists to see whether the experiments were valid, the results gathered were realistic and/or the conclusions appropriate. In all the cases that I am aware of, the pieces split into two forms -- when the results were valid, they referred to experimental GM crops that were nowhere near commercialisation and would not have been allowed to be grown, or they were on commercial crops and were found not to be valid, either for experimental reasons or their interpretation. These days when such research, most newspapers are a little less likely to stick them on the front page -- perhaps a case of "crying wolf" being no longer appropriate. Something that I have used a few times now -- the European Commission (which is not known for a pro-GM stance) recently published a report detailing the 120 projects it had funded over the last 25 years with 500 research groups looking at the safety of GM ( http://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/\\... ). It's conclusion? "That biotechnology, and particularly GMOs, are not per se more risky than, eg conventional plant breeding technologies". It may not be