This article has been published by a leading British newspaper and is apparently based on evidence the author gave before a parliamentary committee in South Africa.
The author suggests that objections to GM crops are grounded in short-sighted "myths" that arise from "ignorance, pseudo-science or plain propaganda".
As many of the claims the article contains have repeatedly been made by pro-GM lobbyists, we thought it worth looking at in detail. Our comments are given in brackets [].
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A risk worth taking as GM foods could save millions of lives
TEMBA NOLUTSHUNGU The Scotsman, 16 February 2007
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=252852007
EUROPEAN consumer panic and EU regulations about genetically modified foods threaten millions of starving Africans who need cheap and reliable crops.
[The author needs to explain how EU regulations threaten Africans with starvation. What he does instead is simply assert that GM crops are "cheap" and "reliable". GM seeds are typically more expensive and USDA data supports the view that GM crops far from increasing yield potential may reduce yield.
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/usdagmeconomics.htm ]
Greenpeace has just garnered a million signatures around Europe for a petition to the EU demanding labels for traces of GM organisms in food.
This time last year, Zambia banned famine relief containing GM food. Uganda and Kenya are wavering and millions of people are starving in Africa right now.
[Zambia rejected GM food aid not last year but in 2002 - see below for more on this.]
GM food may not solve malnutrition and starvation by itself, but it would make a huge difference.
[The author simply asserts GM "would make a huge difference" without supporting evidence.]
Remember, we are talking about a product eaten by Americans and Canadians for over a decade without harming anybody.
[There are no mechanisms for monitoring the impacts of GM foods and as Ben Miflin, a well known GM supporter and former director of the Institute of Arable Crops Research, has noted, "any unanticipated health impact of such foods would need to be a 'monumental disaster' to be detectable". Miflin told the journal Nature that under those conditions, "a general increase in gastrointestinal disorders, for example, would be difficult to attribute to a particular food, given the diverse possible origins of such symptoms." That's quite apart from the fact that in the States and Canada foods with GM ingredients aren't normally even labelled. (Long-term effect of GM crops serves up food for thought, Nature, Volume 398:651) http://boston.earthsave.org/Nature042299.htm ]
Even the European Union, while applying many restrictions, accepts it is safer than conventional food.
[This claim is made on the basis of the statement by Philippe Busquin below.]
Fifteen years of tests in 400 European laboratories led the EU Research Commissioner, Philippe Busquin, to say in 2001 that they had not found "any new risks to human health or the environment, beyond the usual uncertainties of conventional plant breeding. Indeed, the use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory scrutiny probably make them even safer than conventional plants and foods".
[Philippe Busquin is a keen GM supporter and as Research Commissioner is anxious not to discourage GM research within the EU. That he is acting as a propagandist in this statement is shown by his description of GM as involving "more precise technology". In fact, gene splicing remains a crude approach that has been cpmpared to adjusting an intricate watch with a sledgehammer.
Documents released to Friends of the Earth in 2006 revealed that behind closed doors the European Commission had serious doubts over the health and environmental impacts of GM crops. In the documents, the Commission admitted that there are "large areas of uncertainty" about GM foods and that "some issues have not yet been studied at all".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6457
This brings us on to the claim by Busquin, and other GM proponents, about hundreds of "tests". This is completely misleading because many such tests tell us absolutely nothing about safety, being focussed on issues like the commercial value of GM grain as animal feed.
The reality is that very few studies relating to GM food safety have been completed, peer reviewed and published. In fact, there has only been one published human health study the Newcastle Study, which was published in 2004. And although this research project was very limited in scope, studying the effects of just one GM meal taken by seven individuals, it nonetheless found GM DNA transferring to gut bacteria in the human subjects.
As for tests looking at the effects of GM crops on animals, there are at most only around 20 published studies that look at the health effects of GM food. And several of these studies found potentially negative effects!
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/0/80256cad0046ee0c80256d66005ae0fe?OpenDocument ]
At first sight, the precautionary principle looks reasonable. As children we were warned to "look before you leap". Following that advice will at times have avoided danger. On the other hand, following advice to avoid all risk would keep away a lot of fine opportunities, and carrying out a risk assessment before avoiding an oncoming bus could prove fatal.
[The author dows not explain why this analogy is relevant.]
The precautionary principle requires action to avoid a risk even when there is no evidence of any risk; it demands that new inventions should not be used unless and until they have been shown to be absolutely safe.
When the Zambian government in 2005 turned away famine-relief GM maize because of a theoretical health risk, it created a real risk and turned a disaster into a tragedy. But that same type of GM maize had been consumed by Americans and Canadians for more than a decade.
[The claim of a "tragedy" in Zambia is an outright lie. The Zambian Red Cross is unequivocal about what happened when GM food aid was rejected, "We didn't record a single death arising out of hunger." This was because non-GM food was provided instead. As noted earlier, Zambia rejected GM food aid in 2002 - not 2005! Finally, Americans and Canadians consume GM maize as part of processed foods, not as a dietary staple, which was what was on offer to Zambia.]
Applied to agriculture and food biotechnology, the precautionary principle ignores the real threats of hunger, starvation and malnutrition that can be reduced by new products. Applied to penicillin and aspirin or peanuts and potatoes, with rare fatal allergies, it would have demanded an outright ban. Yet GM foods do not have those rare side-effects.
It is worth repeating that no-one has yet detected any allergy, harm or risk to humans, animals or the environment from commercialised GM crops.
[See comments above on the total absence of monitoring and the fact that in those circumstances only a monumental disaster would be detectable. As EPA toxicologist, Dr Susan Wuerthele, has also pointed out, "It took us 60 years to realize that DDT might have oestrogenic activities and affect humans, but we are now being asked to believe that everything is OK with GM foods because we haven't seen any dead bodies yet." (Long-term effect of GM crops serves up food for thought, Nature, Volume 398:651) http://boston.earthsave.org/Nature042299.htm ]
The "Frankenfood" myths about Terminator genes, contamination and the destruction of species only reflect ignorance, pseudo-science or plain propaganda.
[In fact, it is pro-GM lobbyists like Nolutshungu who rely on ignorance, pseudo-science and propaganda. Terminator genes are no myth, and many GM proponents support their development and use in GM crops. Nor is contamination a myth, as the Starlink corn fiasco proved for all time.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=23&page=1&op=2 ]
For European consumers, GM is a whimsical lifestyle issue. For the poor of the world, this really is a question of life and death.
[This last sentence, at least, may contain some truth. When expensive GM seeds are hyped to poor - sometimes debt-burdened - farmers in the developing world, it can indeed be a matter of life or death. That's why GM crops have been charged with playing a major role in farmer-suicides in India.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7534
The poor also suffer when, as a result of industry spin, valuable development resources are diverted to GM and away from more productive alternatives. What is needed is less hyperbole and more research into what really works sustainably on the small farms where a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7370 ]
* Temba Nolutshungu is a director of the Free Market Foundation, South Africa. This article is based on his evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee hearing on the Genetically Modified Organisms Bill in 2006.