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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Scientists slam Brinjal talk bazaar by GS Mudur

Scientists slam Brinjal talk bazaar by GS Mudur

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published Published on Jan 23, 2010   modified Modified on Jan 23, 2010

Senior biotechnology scientists have questioned the rationale for public consultations on genetically modified (GM) brinjal called by the environment ministry to decide the fate of what could be India’s first biotech food crop.

“I think this (public consultation) is absolutely unwarranted,” said Shantu Shantaram, a scientist who was among the world’s first regulators of biotech crops in the US during the 1990s and who says he strongly favours the introduction of GM brinjal.

“Science and technology decisions can’t be decided by popular votes,” Shantaram said.

India’s apex biotech safety regulator — the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the environment ministry — has already approved a GM brinjal modified with a gene designed to resist attack by insect pests for commercial cultivation.

The ministry is currently engaged in a series of public consultations where scientists, non-government organisations and representatives of consumer organisations can contribute to the debate on the GM brinjal. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has said a decision on whether to release the product will be taken by mid-February after the consultations.

But some scientists say the consultations held so far in Calcutta and Ahmedabad are likely to be dominated by those with the highest decibel voices rather than serve as venues for any meaningful debate.

“The consultations aren’t going to help in any way — people opposed to biotechnology will get lorryloads of crowds and shout out scientists,” said G. Padmanabhan, professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

“Truth is getting drowned out by false rhetoric,” said K.K. Narayanan, a plant scientist who had studied the brinjal plant during his postgraduate years and is now the chief executive officer of Meta Helix, a biotechnology company.

“Anti-GM activists come to such venues and issue unsubstantiated statements such as GM crops may make people impotent or may harm immune systems or that such crops are banned in the European Union,” Narayanan said.

Several non-government agencies, including Greenpeace, and Indian biologist P.M. Bhargava, who was founder-director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, have questioned the animal safety tests conducted on the GM brinjal.

They have also raised issues involving the GEAC approval process itself. But biotechnology experts point out that GM maize, soyabean, squash canola and papaya have been consumed for years in the US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, South Korea and China.

“Biotech food crops were commercialised more than a decade ago, but no country has ever reported any adverse health effects of GM crops on humans,” Padmanabhan said.

Biotech crops are also cultivated in seven European countries.

The GEAC has followed international guidelines framed by a panel of experts set up by the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organization in determining which tests need to be done and their evaluation, Shantaram said.

The GM brinjal will increase productivity and reduce the level of pesticides needed to prevent insects from attacking the plants. “No brinjal which is free of holes today is free of pesticides,” said a senior plant biotechnologist.


The Telegraph, 24 January, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100124/jsp/nation/story_12022778.jsp
 

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