Texto en ingles de un amigo A. M. politica cientifica
Warnings that GM Crops are Unsafe
ISIS Arrange Special House of Commons Briefings Feb. 10-11, 2000
By special arrangement with Alan Simpson MP, ISIS brought two expert witnesses before the UK Government, to warn of the hazards of GM food and crops, and of the bureaucratic cover up that occurred in the early 1990s when GM foods were first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Professor Terje Traavik, virologist and senior scientific advisor to the Norwegian Government, and Steven Druker. lawyer spearheading the civil lawsuit against the US FDA, gave a private briefing to UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher and his scientific staff in the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR). This was followed, on the next day, by a public briefing for politicians and the press in the House of Commons.
During the private meeting with Meacher, Prof. Traavik did not mince his words. He warned that the first generation of GM crops are dangerous for human health and the environment, and should be banned. The second generation of GM crops will avoid some of the hazards, and may offer the way forward. Adequate risk assessment was impossible because so little research had been done to even characterize the potential risks involved. He emphasized that the preautionary principle must be used to deal with the terrible mess that biotech companies had made by forcing such a potentially hazardous new food science onto the world.
Steven Druker told of how the US FDA had misrepresented and concealed the scientific advice it received from its own scientists. Internal documents, obtained as the result of the civil lawsuit, show how the FDA had ignored repeated warnings that GM foods are not substantially equivalent to conventional foods and involve new risks. He explained that the first GM food approved in the US, the Flavr Savr tomato, actually failed to pass the FDA’s required toxicological feeding trials, and this matter was never resolved by the agency. Instead, FDA eliminated the requirement for feeding trials, and proceeded to approve GM foods on grounds that they were GRAS, generally recognized as safe. FDA scientists were also vigorously opposed to the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes in GM foods and animal feed, on grounds of risks to human and animal health. FDA ignored this advice as well.
Michael Meacher and his staff were reported to be very interested in the presentations and ‘alarmed’ by the legal challenge now under way in the US. The meeting ran over time by half an hour as the speakers were questioned in more detail. The Minister spoke extensively with Prof. Traavik and requested copies of all his reports to the Norwegian Government.
At the public briefing in the House of Commons the next day, Steven Druker repeated his message. He made clear that the FDA are in direct violation of US law, which clearly adopts the precautionary principle and mandates it in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The Act requires new food additives to be demonstrated safe before they are approved for market.
He quoted several FDA scientists, who strongly protested against the approach taken by the agency. "The agency is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by traditional breeding practices." wrote Dr. Linda Kahl, an FDA compliance officer. In summarizing the input from the FDA’s scientists, she stated,"The processses of genetic engineering and traiditonal breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks." Dr. James Maryanski, the FDA’ biotechnology co-ordinator wrote in a letter to a Canadian official, "There is no consensus about the safety of GM foods in the scientific community at large, and FDA scientists advised they should undergo special testing, including toxicological tests."
Steven Druker said, "The FDA have totally misrepresented the scientific facts in order to promote the US biotech industry. The claim that is policy is science-based is completely contradicted by its own scientific experts and is therefore false and amounts to a major deception."
Prof. Traavik began by saying he is a professional genetic engineer and has been for the past 20 years. At first, he was a total ‘believer’ in thinking that there were only benefits. But he changed his mind as the result of discoveries made in his own laboratory. "We have no gene technology!" he said categorically, basically because the so-called technology is uncontrollable and unpredictable, so much so that there is no basis at all for risk assessment. Perhaps the next generation of technology may deserve the label. He emphasized that the gene constructs are the same, and involve the same risks, whether they are used in agriculture or in medicine, such as gene therapy vectors and vaccines. Nature has never seen those sorts of genetic constructs before. They pose huge risks as they can become mixed up with normal viruses and other invasive elements and transfer their traits elsewhere. The potential hazards of artificial constructs are much greater than chemicals. Because, instead of breaking down or diluting out, they are taken up by cells to multiply mutate and recombine indefinitely. It may be "BSE [mad cow disease] in technicolor".
The foreign genes and constructs cannot be targeted and are inserted at random, causing all sorts of genetic disruptions. These can result in the production of new toxins and allergens. All plants contain toxins and allergens but the toxins are produced at very low levels. GM can result in over-production of these toxins and allergens. He repeated his call for banning the first generation of GMOs.
Prof. Traavik also stressed the desperate need for public funding of risk associated research based on the holistic, ecological paradigm rather than the reductionist paradigm now ruling.
During the discussion, Prof. Arpad Pusztai, formerly from Rowett Institute, added that in his experiments (published in The Lancet last year), position effects due to random gene insertion were clearly observed. He worked on two lines of transgenic potato that were deemed to be substantially equivalent. However, after stringent analysis, they were shown to contain very different levels of protein and were certainly not substantially equivalent. The two lines came from one transformation experiment, but had very different compositional profiles.
One journalist questioned, "Surely not all scientists who support GM have got it so badly wrong?" Dr. Mae-Wan Ho replied from the floor that science was in crisis and funding in science is such that scientists are consciously or unconsiously adopting the corporate agenda, which is not the same as the public good.
Dr. Ian Gibson, Chair of the UK Government’s Science and Technology Committee, added that in his view, the whole process of safety assessment for all foods needed to be reviewed and updated.
The meeting was alive with questions from the floor and also ran over time. Reports have appeared in The Express and the Daily Mail, and Steven Druker gave at least two radio interviews to the BBC on the following day.
There was also a report that Steven Druker’s testimony had a major effect on UK prime minister Tony Blair, who was moved to a dramatic U-turn with regard to GM crops in admitting that they may damage both human health and biodiversity.
Steven Druker stayed on to attend the OECD’s intergovernmental meeting on safety in biotechnology in Edinburgh (reported by Dr. Pusztai, this issue). AR
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