MEDIA ADVISORY: CONFERENCE ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD TACKLES COMPLEX SAFETY AND FINANCIAL ISSUES TOUCHING EVERY AMERICAN

TV AND PRINT MEDIA INVITED

Friday, Oct. 1 and Saturday, Oct. 2

The Center on Environmental and Land Use Law at New York University School of Law will host a conference that will address the legal, regulatory and policy issues presented by the emerging trade conflicts between the United States and the E.U. over the importation of genetically modified (GM) food products from the U.S.

The Conference, the first of its kind, will provide a dialogue among the key stakeholders in the debate.

Possible Questions For Experts:

· Are genetically modified foods safe? Why are Europeans so concerned? And Americans so unconcerned? What’s really going on?

· Will environmental groups thwart the plans of such corporate giants as Monsanto and DuPont, who hope to revolutionize world agriculture through biotechnology? If so, will the public be deprived of better, cheaper food products?

·Why is the use of biotechnology to make new drugs for human use widely accepted, while its use to make new crops and food products so controversial?

·If there were definitive scientific evidence that there were no risks from genetically modified food, would the controversy cease?

Conference participants include key U.S. policymakers, Frank Loy, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs and Jennifer Haverkamp of U.S.T.R; Greenpeace, the leading opponent of GM foods; key European decisionmakers, including Thofonis Christoforou of the European Commission and officials of E.U. Member States; representatives of the biotechnology industry; representatives of developing countries; and leading academics, including conference co-chairs NYU School of Law Professors Richard Stewart, Philippe Sands and Dorothy Nelkin.

The conference will be held on Friday, Oct. 1, 8:30 AM – 6 PM and Saturday, Oct. 2, 8:30 AM to 1 PM at the NYU School of Law, 40 Washington Square South.

09/30/99