GM foods debate captures student interest in California

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GM foods debate captures student interest in California

" GM WATCH " <info

 

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 10:23:26 +0100

 

 

GM foods debate captures student interest in California

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Focus on the Americas

 

8 years after the introduction of GM crops into US agriculture, some

debate is starting to take place!

 

1.GM foods debate captures student interest

2.Rick Roush - a GM watch profile

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1.GM foods debate captures student interest

Participants spar over genetically modified foods

JESSICA KNOX

The California Aggie, Monday October 11, 2004

http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=5652

 

There was standing room only in King Hall's Moot Court Room at a debate

covering the legal and scientific issues of genetically modified foods

on Friday.

 

The debate marked the end of a weeklong series of events put on by the

Agricultural Law Society, a student organization interested in

agricultural legal issues.

 

Professor Rick Roush, director of the statewide Integrated Pest

Management Program, presented evidence for the safety and value of GM

foods.

Steven Drucker, director of the Alliance for Bio-Integrity, presented

legal and scientific concerns associated with GM foods.

 

Roush argued that GM foods involve " tested technology, " and are safe

for human consumption. Roush said GM foods will reduce pesticide use,

thus reducing risks to farm workers and the impact on the environment.

 

" The benefits have been enormous, " Roush said. He claimed that

pesticide use has been reduced in eight GM crops by a total of 46 million

pounds in the U.S. alone since 2001. Incidences of human pesticide

poisonings in China have also been reduced by 75 percent due to the

use of

insect-resistant cotton.

 

Drucker countered these arguments, saying that while Roush seemed to

make a strong case, there is another side.

 

" Many of these benefits are still hypothetical, " Drucker said. He

claimed that the main beneficiaries of GM foods are bio-technical

companies,

not farmers. Drucker argued that this was evident in his home state of

Iowa. He said that even though 40 percent of all crops planted are

genetically engineered, there has not been a significant increase in

profits for farmers.

 

" There needs to be a positive demonstration of safety, " said Drucker,

who contends that this has yet to occur. Drucker expressed concern for

the safety of the public and the environment, arguing that new

substances in GM foods could be poisonous, allergenic, and generally

harmful.

 

Both spectators and participants called the debate a success. While an

average of 50 people attended each event earlier in the week, the

debate attracted well over 90 people.

 

" This is obviously an issue that strikes a lot of people, " said Chris

Butcher, co-chair of the Agricultural Law Society. Butcher said that

there is a substantial amount of genetic research taking place at UC

Davis, but the campus offers no class on agricultural ethics. He hopes

that

by making students more aware and interested in the issues, the UCD

School of Law will be able to offer a class covering agricultural law.

 

Jessica Knox can be reached at campus

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2.Rick Roush - a GM watch profile

 

American entomologist, Professor Rick Roush, is currently Director of

the Statewide IPM Programme at Davis, University of California. He was

formerly former chief executive officer of the Cooperative Research

Centre (CRC) for Australian Weed Management in Adelaide. He is a former

member of Australia's Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee.

 

Roush is also a pro-GM activist who has left his mark on many e-mail

lists, from several of which he has been banned or has 'retired' in the

face of complaint.

 

In 2002 a study by Roush and his CRC colleagues was published in the

American journal Science. The team had studied GM canola (oilseed rape)

pollen drift on trial fields in southern Australia and claimed to have

found that unwanted gene transfer occurred in such minute quantities

that they believed non-GM crops were 'not in any danger' ( (M. A. Rieger,

M. Lamond, C. Preston, S. B. Powles and R. T. Roush, Science 296,

2386-2388; 2002).

 

However, as the journal Nature has noted, Roush and his co-authors

failed to 'mention that two biotech corporations - Monsanto and Aventis

Crop Sciences (now owned by Bayer) - paid nearly 20% of the costs of the

trials. Science requires contributors to declare financial ties that

might be construed as influencing the outcome of their research.'

 

As a result of this incident Science has now revised its disclosure

policy so that all funding sources must be revealed in the paper's

reference section. The scientific evidence shows that any financial

relationship with a relevant industry is likely to be associated with the

expression of a more positive attitude towards the safety of that

industry's products. For instance, a January 1998 study in The New

England Journal of Medicine (vol. 338, no.2) showed a strong association

between authors' published positions on product safety and their

financial relationships with the relevant industry. More recently a study

published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (J. E.

Bekelman, Y. Li & C. P. Gross, J. Am. Med. Assoc.

289, 454-465; 2003) concluded that industry-sponsored studies are

nearly four times more likely to reach pro-industry conclusions than are

studies that are not industry-sponsored. (see Nature 424, 369 (24 July

2003); doi:10.1038/424369c)

 

 

 

 

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