Quotes from some members of the Independent Science Panel on GM
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Prof. Miguel Altieri, "Agroecological farming methods are already reaching about nine million small farmers at one-tenth the cost incurred by official international agricultural subventions, and working miracles to increase food production, as well as the physical and social wellbeing of local communities. This must now be up-scaled to bring the benefits to all." Prof. David Bellamy, "At his capital trial, when charged with teaching subversive views to the youth of Athens, Socrates said in his defence, "if in your annoyance, you will finish me off with a single slap, then you will go on sleeping until the end of your days, unless God in his care for you, sends someone to take my place". 2,389 years later the world is still in need of the ethics of true academia". Prof. Joe Cummins, "Commercialization of GM crops seems to have been based on public relations and not on full and truthful scientific reporting. Science has begun to feel the impact of putting commerce ahead of full disclosure and debate." Professor Stanley Ewen, "It is unfortunate that very few animal trials of GM human food are available in the public domain in scientific literature. It follows that GM foods have not been shown to be without risk and, indeed, the available scientific experimental results demonstrate cause for concern." Edward Goldsmith, "Scientists have knowledge in a very limited field of expertise and often have no knowledge at all of all the other areas that are affected by, and impact on their narrow field. This is a very dangerous situation, which is why the public has to have a say on what sort of research should and should not be done." Professor Malcolm Hooper, "The known effects of the herbicide glufosinate ammonium are sufficient to halt all field trials immediately, until critical questions about the metabolism, storage and reconversion of the N-acetylphosphinothricin have been fully answered for all pat gene-containing products." Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, "Many scientists are concerned over the safety of GM. We believe people should have all the evidence in front of them, so they can make the right choice for the future of agriculture and food security. But all they’ve been getting from official sources are hype and propaganda on the supposed benefits of GM crops. We set up the Independent Science Panel because we have lost confidence in the official process. "Genetic engineering is inherently dangerous, because it greatly expands the scope for horizontal gene transfer and recombination, precisely the processes that create new viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics, and trigger cancer in cells." Dr. Vyvyan Howard, "What our regulators have is ‘fact-free’ risk assessment: there’s little or no data, what relevant data that exist are simply ignored and dismissed, so they can conclude the risk is ‘very, very low, effectively zero’. That’s completely counter to the precautionary principle." Dr. Brian John, "Those of us who have looked into the science of GM crops and foods from a community or consumer perspective have been appalled at the apparent abandonment of the precautionary principle and at the control exerted over the scientific agenda by the biotechnology multinationals." Lim Li Ching, "Many farmers around the world already have the knowledge, experience and innovative spirit that enable sustainable approaches to agriculture. Learning from them means rethinking agriculture and associated policy making, and exploring how traditional knowledge and science can work together." Dr Eva Novotny, "Even minor tampering with nature is apt to bring serious consequences, as did the introduction of a single chemical (DDT). Genetic engineering is tampering on a monumental scale, and nature will surely exact a heavy toll for this trespass." Prof. Bob Orskov "When at a recent hearing on GM food I was asked if I would drink milk from cows fed on GM modified maize forage. I said, "not in the present state of knowledge". This greatly disturbed some US colleagues. In my opinion, we need not be in a hurry to increase food production as we have overproduction. Why not make sure that GM intervention is indisputably safe first? "I am very happy to be a member of the ISP. My concern is mainly the relentless push by GM protagonists to pretend to have the solutions for hunger and poverty in Africa and Asia, who think they can by corrupt means get them to grow GM crops. How wrong they are. Having been concerned with poverty alleviation in many countries, I have yet to meet a situation that can be solved by GM. There are so many other solutions that are safe and sustainable." Dr. Arpad Pusztai, formerly of Rowett Institute, Scotland "Many scientists and the lay public hungry for information have been struck by the scarcity of published data relevant to the safety of GM foods. Not only that, the scientific quality of what has been published is, in most instances, not up to the usually expected standards of good science." David Quist, microbial ecologist, University of California, Berkeley, USA (dquist@nature.berkeley.edu): "Contamination has happened despite Mexico’s regulations to protect maize genetic diversity within its centre of origin. There has been no research substantiating the safety of transgenic crops, especially in centres of genetic diversity, as is the case of maize in Mexico. This is risking the future of our food supply." Dr. Peter Rosset, agricultural ecologist, Food First Institute, Oakland, California, USA http://www.foodfirst.org: "There is no pressing for GM crops, as world agriculture is in overproduction, and people go hungry because of poverty, not because of lack of GM seeds, when they are too poor to buy from the plenty around them." Dr. Veljko Veljkovic, AIDS virologist, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (Fax: +381 11 453 686 E-mail: veljko01@hotmail.com): "The problem with genetic engineering is that the development of techniques is much faster than development of knowledge. As a consequence, the experiments cannot be completely controlled, and their outcome could be unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. GMOs are definitely involved in the horizontal gene transfer and, for this reason, represent permanent potential source of new pathogens that could be created accidentally or intentionally. This is so especially for GMOs used in gene therapy, vectored vaccines and edible vaccines." Prof. Oscar Zamora "For every application of genetic engineering in agriculture in developing countries, there are a number of less hazardous and more sustainable approaches and practices with hundreds, if not thousands, of years of safety record behind them." "None of the GE applications in agriculture today are valuable enough to farmers in developing countries to make it reasonable to expose the environment, farmers and the consumers to even the slightest risk." More quotes are available here
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