[MADGE/TWN 19 Sept. 2012] -- Recent polling conducted by Newspoll and commissioned by MADGE (Mothers Are Demystifying Genetic Engineering) and Greenpeace reveals that 66% of Australian mothers would prefer to buy food free of genetically modified (GM) wheat. In contrast, only 3 % of Australian mothers would prefer to buy food that contains GM wheat, while another 29% have no preference either way and 3% don’t know. “Why is public research money is being spent to develop GM wheat when the people that do most of the shopping, mothers, don’t want to feed it to their families?” said Fran Murrell from MADGE. CSIRO is currently developing GM wheat that will incorporate a herbicide tolerance gene to be commercialised as soon as 2015. This would make Australia the first country in the world to commercially grow GM wheat. “We know very little about the impact of GM foods on our bodies over the long-term – and we have every right to protect our kids from being part of a nation-wide feeding experiment.” Independent science released last week showed that eating GM wheat could result in progressive fatigue and liver failure. “Wheat is Australia’s most important staple food and most people eat it every day. CSIRO should stop this GM research until the questions about its safety are answered. Mothers are quite right to be wary of feeding their families GM food.” said Fran Murrell. Comment