Letter: GM food furore

Sir: I have been following the Government's approach to GM food with puzzlement, especially when one compares it with the "better-safe- than-sorry" approach to the potentially dangerous mentally ill.

The policy on genetically modified food suggests that we should wait until after the worst happens before taking strong action, whereas the policy on the detention of "untreatable" potential psychopathic or paedophiliac offenders requires that, on the contrary, they should be incarcerated before a catastrophe occurs.

It is curious that such a fundamentally different approach should be adopted at the same time towards two similarly unknown quantities.

BRYNMOR JAMES

Knutsford, Cheshire