GMW:_South_Africa_to_become_pharma_testing_ground

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> GMW:_South_Africa_to_become_pharma_testing_ground

> " GM_WATCH " <info

> Tue, 13 Jul 2004 09:35:18 +0100

 

>

> GM WATCH daily

> http://www.gmwatch.org

> -------

> Recently we've noted the weak biosafety system in

> South Africa and the extent to which, starting back

> in the apartheid era, South Africa's regulatory

> system has been shaped by industry-backed lobbyists.

>

> A recent court case has also highlighted the

> extraordinary secrecy surrounding GM crops releases

> in South Africa with officals accused of repeatedly

> failing to release information to which the public

> has a statutory right.

>

> Yesterday saw the launch of 'Pharma-Planta' a big EU

> funded project whih is entirely European except for

> one partner - the Council for Scientific and

> Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South

> Africa.

>

> It is beoming clear that the Europeans plan to use

> South Africa as the testing ground for their GM

> pharma crops.

>

> To quote from the article below:

>

> " concerns about direct action by environmentalists

> opposed to GM crops has led to the scientists behind

> the project collaborating with a South African

> research institute that has offered to grow the

> first crop. "

>

> " Philip Dale, a plant technologist at the John Innes

> Centre in Norwich and the project's biosafety

> co-ordinator, said the cost of 24-hour surveillance

> of GM fields in the UK has made it expensive to

> conduct similar trials in Britain. "

>

> Check out GeneWatch UK's report on pharma crops:

>

http://www.genewatch.org/CropsAndFood/Reports/Producing_Drugs_in_GM_Crops.pdf

> -------

> South Africa may test first 'pharming' crop

> Cape Times, July 13 2004

>

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=143 & art_id=vn20040713032524739C\

767287

>

> London - Genetically modified plants are to be used

> to grow vaccines against rabies and Aids, scientists

> have announced.

>

> Europe's first field trial, announced on Monday, is

> likely to be carried out in South Africa because of

> fears over crop vandalism in Britain.

>

> The GM crop could dramatically reduce the cost of

> producing vaccines.

>

> Dubbed " pharming " by its opponents, the announcement

> is the latest step forward in the development of

> technology that allows medicines to be grown in

> plants.

>

> Although this project is concerned with injectable

> vaccines, other trials under consideration could

> extend the research to oral vaccines, which might be

> grown in edible raw food such as bananas.

>

> However, concerns about direct action by

> environmentalists opposed to GM crops has led to the

> scientists behind the project collaborating with a

> South African research institute that has offered to

> grow the first crop.

>

> The EU has awarded €12-million to a pan-European

> consortium of scientists who aim to develop the

> technology for growing GM plants that can be turned

> into vaccines.

>

> Professor Julian Ma of St George's Hospital

> Medical School in London, the scientific

> co-ordinator of the project, said it would take

> about two years to develop the technique.

>

> Clinical trials of the first vaccine derived from GM

> plants are planned to take place in 2009.

>

> " Plants are inexpensive to grow and if we were to

> engineer them to contain a gene for a pharmaceutical

> product, they could produce large quantities of

> drugs or vaccine at low cost, " Ma said.

>

> " The current methods used to generate these types of

> treatments include genetic modification of human

> cells and micro-organisms.

>

> " These techniques are labour intensive, expensive

> and often only produce relatively small amounts of

> pharmaceuticals, " he said.

>

> It is likely that the first pharmaceuticals crop

> will be either GM maize or GM tobacco that will be

> engineered with a set of genes for making prototype

> vaccines against either HIV or rabies.

>

> By purifying the proteins from the harvested crop

> scientists hope to mass-produce vaccines.

>

> South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial

> Research is participating in the research and is

> particularly interested in potential vaccines

> against HIV, the Aids virus.

>

> Friends of the Earth warned the research could have

> " widespread negative impacts " .

>

> The organisation's GM campaigner Clare Oxborrow

> said: " Growing medicines in plants has serious

> implications for both human health and the

> environment. "

>

> Ma said 3,3 million people a year die from

> preventable diseases such as TB and diphtheria yet

> there is not the industrial capacity or funds to

> produce enough vaccines for everyone.

>

> " The cost of doing nothing is measured in hundreds

> of thousands or millions of people who will die from

> preventable diseases, " he said.

>

> " We recognise that this is contentious technology

> but I think many of the fears are unfounded. "

>

> Philip Dale, a plant technologist at the John Innes

> Centre in Norwich and the project's biosafety

> co-ordinator, said the cost of 24-hour surveillance

> of GM fields in the UK has made it expensive to

> conduct similar trials in Britain.

>

> Greenpeace activists led a campaign to target sites

> where GM crops were grown as part of the farm-scale

> trials.

>

> " It is vitally important that this (field trial) is

> not destroyed at the end of it, " Dale said.

>

> Measures for containing the crop both physically

> with fences and by genetic barriers such as the use

> of sterile genes for preventing cross pollination

> are being studied, he added. - The Independent

>

> This article was originally published on page 3 of

> Cape Times on July 13, 2004

>

>

>