NAMS distances itself from pro-Bt brinjal report
Nitin Sethi
The Times of India, September 29 2010
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/NAMS-distances-itself-from-pro-Bt-brinjal-report/articleshow/6645035.cms

NEW DELHI: The National Academy of Medical Sciences has distanced itself from the controversial pro Bt-brinjal report that it had co-authored with five other premier national science academies. It also pushed for a fresh report with scientific rigour and not just a reiteration of the existing report with referencing of sourced information.

The move to distance itself from the report came after the NAMS council met to discuss the issue after it was highlighted that important sections had been copied from a pro-GM newsletter.

Council president K K Talwar had, even before the meeting, expressed his disapproval in a letter to other academies pointing out the controversy and the plagiarised parts, sources in NAMS said.

NAMS has now decided that it will not endorse the new report till each section of the report has been cleared by all council members.

Sources said even though an elaborate consultation process was undertaken before the report was finalised, the varied views were not included in the discredited first report.

A source told TOI that almost 90 scientists from six academies were invited for expert comments in the run-up to finalising the report. But, at the end, each academy went on to write the part it had expertise in, the source said.

A key official in the know of the process said the plagiarisation had discredited the academies and even with a new report, it would be difficult to convince policymakers and the general public that what they noted was authentic scientific information.

"There was a lot of scientific information available which was not included and several scientists had contributed different views but this did not find a way into the report," the official said.

Instead, key paragraphs giving a clean chit to Bt-brinjal were cut-paste into the report which was meant to assess the scientific basis for further action on GM food crops.

One of the cut and paste parts noted, " Bt brinjal `Event EE-1' has been subjected to a rigorous biosafety regulatory process encompassing all aspects of toxicity, allergenicity, environmental safety, socio-economic assessment etc."

The paragraph was picked from a non-peer reviewed article written in a pro-GM newsletter of the department of biotechnology called Biotech News in December 2009. The article was authored by P Anand Kumar, director of National Research Centre for Plant Biology and a member of the GEAC that had first passed Bt-brinjal before the environment ministry put a moratorium on its commercial introduction.