What a busy few weeks it s been in the crazy world of genetically modified (GM) food!
On an unprecedented scale, the British media have rowed into the GM debate. Several newspapers including the Independent on Sunday have launched overt campaigns to stop GM foods. The struggle to stop GM food and agriculture has become one of the great democratic movements of our time.
On 12th February last, the fight against biotech food was given massive impetus by a report from a group of twenty scientists hailing from thirteen countries around the world. Their report backs the findings of Dr. Arpad Pusztai, who last year lost his job as researcher at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen when he blew the whistle on the dangers of biotech food in a World In Action documentary. In the documentary, Dr. Pusztai provided the anti-GM lobby with the first hard evidence of damaged health due to the consumption of GM foods. His tests revealed that rats fed on GM potatoes showed unexpected and worrying changes in the size and weight of their body organs. Their liver and heart sizes decreased, their brains got smaller, and they suffered damage to their immune systems. In the programme Dr Pusztai admitted that he himself would not eat GM foods, and said, It is very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs. The following day, there were demands across Britain for a ban of GM foods and crops.
Though initially supported by his employers at the Rowett Institute where Dr. Pusztai carried out the research using public funds within two days of the World In Action programme, the eminent scientist was summarily forced to retire. The Rowett Institute subsequently publicly discredited his research.
The 20 scientists now backing Pusztai s findings say that he was unfairly maligned, and are asking that he be reinstated. They want the British government to fund much more extensive research into the harmful side-effects of GM food. One of the scientists, Dr Kenneth Lough, who worked at the Rowett Institute himself for over 30 years, attacked the draconian way that Dr Pusztai was suspended. Several other scientists expressed concerns about the attack on scientific freedom implied by his dismissal. All believe that much more GM food safety testing needs to be done, and are calling for a moratorium and GM foods until that time.
Other very recent revelations suggest that the Rowett Institute may have been responding to political and corporate pressure in suspending Dr. Pusztai and discrediting his work. Questions about the Institute s partiality were raised when it was revealed that biotech corporation Monsanto paid the organisation #140,000 for research work. Monsanto s public perception was badly damaged by World In Action s airing of Dr Pusztai s research, but the company has described as outrageous any suggestions that it could have influenced Dr Pusztai s departure.
The 20 scientists who have come out in support of Dr Pusztai and his work deserve our thanks. In a world where scientific knowledge is increasingly dependent upon large corporations for its funding, these people have put themselves and their jobs on the line for the sake of the truth. What they have to say is vitally important, and must be put to the top of the agenda. The safety testing of GM foods and GM crops is woefully inadequate. Biotech and government assurances about the safety of GM foods and crops sound more and more empty every day.
Biotech companies and governments say that they approve of debate. But how can the GM debate be fair, when we re already eating GM foods, and when genetically engineered crops are already being planted in the soil? This is a serious case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Genes spread. Genetic pollution cannot be called back.
There must be a moratorium on GM foods and crops until it has been definitively proved that they are safe. Bland assertions about their safety are no longer believable, and a mounting body of scientific research such as that carried out by Dr Pusztai and his colleagues suggest that the GM food experiment may, in fact, be very dangerous.
The world is at a crucial turning point in the history of food production. The safety of our food supply is at stake. Biotech corporations are polluting our environment with GM crops. They are contaminating our processed foods with GM maize, soya and other ingredients.
There has to be a better way.
Remember you are what you eat. Get informed about this issue. Support the call for a ban on biotech foods now. n