GMW: REVEALED - THE PRIVATE INTERESTS BEHIND THE PUBLIC RESEARCH AND REGULATION

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GMW: REVEALED - THE PRIVATE INTERESTS BEHIND THE PUBLIC

RESEARCH AND REGULATION INITIATIVE

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 24 May 2005 23:32:14 +0100

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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THE PRIVATE INTERESTS BEHIND THE PUBLIC RESEARCH AND REGULATION

INITIATIVE

 

1.Public Research and Regulation - a profile

2.Public Research and Regulation at the CPB Liability meeting and the

CPB-MOP2

 

COMMENT

 

In 1997, in the midst of the Biosafety Protocol negotiations, the

Global Industry Coalition flew in a panel of ''public researchers'' to

lend

support to the industry''s case.

 

The biotech industry''s attempt to influence the negotiations, although

unsuccessful at the time, seems to have provided the model for the new

Public Research and Regulation Initiative, whose supporters will be

active in Montreal in the coming days (see item 2), seeking to make sure

their voice is heard at MOP2 and beyond by promoting GM research and

opposing strict regulation.

 

Our new GM Watch profile (item 1) makes clear the dubious backgrounds

and behaviour of those driving forward this new initiative, and exposes

the truth about their claims to being independent of the biotech

industry.

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1.Public Research and Regulation

- a GM Watch profile

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=316

[for links to sources etc.]

 

Established in December 2004 in the Netherlands, Public Research and

Regulation is a foundation with the stated aim of involving ''the public

research sector in regulations relevant to the development and

application of biotechnology''. The implicit concern is that the

''development

and application'' of genetically modified organisms will be obstructed

if regulations are too extensive, too complex or too stringent.

 

The foundation''s focus is not just on national regulations, and how

they are implemented, but on the international agreements that influence

them, particularly the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which controls

the trade in genetically modified organisms. It is the view of the

foundation that while industry and non-governmental organisations (NGOs)

were well represented both at the the negotiations that led to the

adoption of the Protocol and at the first Meeting of Parties to the

Protocol

(MOP1 in February 2004), a third group ''the public research sector

involved in developing biotechnological applications'' should also have

been given a voice. The aim of the foundation is to make sure this sector

has a bigger say on the Protocol at MOP2 (May-June 2005) and beyond.

 

The foundation also wants to talk up the benefits of public research

into genetically modified crops and, in particular, to counter the

''misconception'' that GM crops are ''the exclusive domain of a

handful of

big, western multinationals.'' The foundation contrasts this handful of

big companies with a ''public research sector involved in developing

biotechnological applications, which includes over a hundred thousand

researchers in thousands of governmental, academic and international

research institutions in developing and developed countries.''

 

It is unclear how reliable these figures are, however, particularly as

the foundation uses the vague term ''biotechnological applications'',

which could have relevance to a whole variety of fields (medical,

industrial, environmental and agricultural) and to a wide range of

biological

processes. It seems likely that the number of researchers involved

specifically in developing GM crops - the foundation''s main point of

concern - is a small fraction of the figure the foundation quotes.

Moreover,

following the launch of the initiative, and in the run up to MOP2, the

''list of public sector scientists and others who support the

initiative and wish to be actively involved in the activities'' of the

foundation amounted to just 113 scientists (as at 19 May 2005).

 

The list of those supporting the initiative also undermines the

foundation''s clear cut separation of public research and private

companies.

The list includes, for instance, Dr. Andrew Bennett of the Syngenta

Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture. Yet, 3 of the 5 seats on the

Syngenta Foundation''s board are occupied by directors of Syngenta, the

world''s largest biotech corporation, and Syngenta''s Chairman is the

Foundation''s President. The Syngenta Foundation has been accused, by

Aaron

deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies, of conducting showcase

projects that are more about generating useful public relations for GM

crops than meeting the real needs of poor farmers in the developing

world. DeGrassi writes, ''The Syngenta Foundation - has a poor record of

supporting client-driven public agricultural research institutes''.

 

The call for increased leverage for ''nonprofit'' ''public sector''

players, in fact, belies the heavy industrial-alignment of most public

sector agricultural biotechnology, where there is a long history of

involvement with intensive agricultural R & D, of collaboration with

agribusiness multinationals and of significant dependence on

commercial funding.

The effect of this has inevitably been to generate a convergence of

interests, views and even personnel, between private sector and public

sector operators.

 

Other supporters of the initiative also point to this interpenetration

of public and private. Dr. Gerard Barry, for instance, although now an

employee of the International Rice Research Institute was formerly a

research director at Monsanto. The Chairman of the Public Research and

Regulation foundation, Prof. Phil Dale, works at an institute, the John

Innes Centre, which has benefitted from tens of millions of pounds in

funding from big biotechnology corporations.

 

This public-private convergence can also be seen in the way in which

the initiative was launched. The formal launch took place at the Danforth

Center in St. Louis, Missouri (3-4 March, 2005), hosted by Roger

Beachy, the Center''s founding president. St Louis is the home town of

Monsanto, and the Danforth Center was, in fact, established by

Monsanto ''and

academic partners'' with a $70-million pledge from the company.

Monsanto also donated the 40-acre tract of land, valued at $11.4

million, on

which the Center is built.

 

Similarly, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies have helped to

fund the research of the Center''s founding president, Roger Beachy. As

well as being on the Public Research and Regulation foundation''s

Steering Committee, Beachy is also co-Chair of the scientific advisory

board

of the Akkadix Corporation, a global agricultural biotechnology

company. He is also on the scientific advisory board of Spacehab, Inc.

Beachy

is also a consultant to the United Soybean Board which works to ''make

U.S. soybeans the world leader'' . This clearly illustrates the extent

to which a public sector biotechnologist can be enmeshed in a series of

private sector interests.

 

The activities of the foundation are similarly enmeshed. Prior to the

formal launch of the foundation, a number of ''awareness raising

activities'' at events involving public sector scientists were

undertaken with

the financial support of the private sector. The private sector is also

contributing to the running costs of the foundation. The foundation is

even administered via a private sector company - Cambridge Biomedical

Consultants Ltd.

 

Conflicting interests also enmesh the prime movers behind the

initiative, Willy de Greef and Piet van der Meer, who are on the

Foundation''s

four-member Board as well as being the Vice-Chairs of its Steering

Committee. De Greef is currently the Executive Director of his own

private

consultancy - International Biotech Regulatory Services - but until the

end of 2002 he was the Global Head of Regulatory Affairs -

Biotechnology for Syngenta.

 

Syngenta has been a key player in the Global Industry Coalition which

has represented the biotechnology industry throughout the Biosafety

Protocol negotiations. Although it has been claimed in relation to the

initiative that, ''nobody has mobilized these [public sector] scientists

before'', this is not in fact the case. In 1997 de Greef was part of a

panel of ''public researchers'' brought in to support the industry''s

case by the Global Industry Coalition during the course of the Biosafety

Protocol negotiations. Although unsuccessful at the time, this attempt

to influence the negotiations appears to have provided the model for the

Public Research and Regulation initiative - with the crucial difference

that the ''public researchers'' are now presented as a third party,

wholly independent of industry.

 

De Greef has also been Chairman of the ICC Commission on Biosociety,

which has sought to project a positive vision of biotechnology to

government and international policy-makers in order to counter what de

Greef

calls the ''uncoordinated proliferation of international policies and

regulations affecting the life sciences''. ''Everybody seems to feel the

need to make laws about the life sciences,'' de Greef was quoted as

saying and this ''threatens the survival of the innovative wave.'' From

this, it seems that what de Greef was trying to achieve as head of a

Commission of ''40 senior executives from companies and business

associations involved in agriculture, food processing and

pharmaceuticals'' was

strikingly similar to what he is now trying to achieve via the Public

Research and Regulation foundation. The critical difference is that there

is no ambiguity about whom the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce)

represents. (Companies form group to champion biotechnology)

 

The other main mover behind the Public Research and Regulation

foundation, Piet van der Meer, is married to a lobbyist for the Global

Industry

Coalition. As Laura Reifschneider, Laura van der Meer won notoriety

during the Protocol negotiations for the fervour of her lobbying on

behalf

of the Coalition.

 

Laura Reifschneider''s husband-to-be was also involved in the

negotiations, ostensibly as a non-partisan expert chairing the

technical terms

subworking group in the Protocol negotiations throughout their duration.

However, Dr Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, Director General of the

Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia and Chair of the Africa

Group at the Protocol negotiations, found Piet van der Meer to be very

far

from impartial. ''Piet was the most unfair of the chairs in the

negotiations. Many of our delegates were, understandably, not very

fluent in

English. He used to make them sound as ridiculous as he could by finding

fault with how they said what they said, instead of focusing on the

content. He often blatantly disregarded them when they wanted to make

interventions. Sometimes he championed ideas, disregarding the fact

that he

was chairing. For example, he made the issue of protoplastic fusion

almost useless by championing that it be considered as a biosafety issue

only when the fusion happend accross a taxonomic level above the

family.'' (personal communication)

 

Piet van der Meer is also said to have shown a similar bias in the post

he subsequently took up in December 2002 as Programme Manager of the

United Nations Environmental Program-GEF Projects on Implementation of

National Biosafety Frameworks. The aim of these projects was to assist

countries to develop national biosafety regulations in line with the

Biosafety Protocol but Juan López Villar of Friends of the Earth

International, who observed Piet van der Meer in action at a UNEP

workshop in

Turkey in December 2003, says van der Meer used his UNEP role to

implicitely promote ''a fast-track process of creating minimalist

biosafety

frameworks''. (personal communication)

 

Some of van der Meer''s critics in developing countries accuse him of

''letting industry in to biosafety development'' via the UNEP-GEF

initiative. They point to the UNEP-GEF Workshop on the Implementation

of the

National Biosafety Framework of Kenya (April 2003) as a classic

example. Here the international panel of ''independent experts'' -

''Resouce

Persons'' - who addressed the Kenyan bureaucrats and others on the

issues of GM crops and their regulation at the start of the workshop,

consisted of:

 

*Dr S. Wakhusama of ISAAA, an industry-backed body which has had

leading executives from Monsanto and Syngenta on its board;

*Dr C.S. Prakash, who has acted as a GM ambassador for the US State

Dept and whose controversial pro-GM Internet campaign was co-founded with

the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute;

*Dr Marceline Egnin, a colleague of Dr Prakash''s;

*Dr Florence Wambugu, a Monsanto-trained scientist whose controversial

communications activities are funded by CropLife International;

*Dr Eugene Terry, the Implementing Director of AATF, a ''public-private

partnership designed to remove many of the barriers'' to the uptake of

GM crops by Kenyan farmers;

*Dr Silas Obukosia of USAID Kenya; USAID''s ''training'' and

''awareness raising programmes'' provide companies such as Syngenta,

Pioneer

Hi-Bred and Monsanto with opportunities for ''technology transfer''.

Monsanto, in turn, provides financial support for USAID.

 

Amidst considerable criticism, Van de Meer quit UNEP for private

consultancy.

 

Willy de Greef has also been in the firing line over what is seen as an

extreme bias in the way he has sought to promote GMOs. In February 2005

de Greef was invited to address an audience of ''producers and

agribusiness representatives from across the United States'' at a U.S.

Grain

Council''s Meeting in California. According to a press report, de Greef

told his audience that the ''failure of developing countries to accept

genetically enhanced crops is a tragedy''.

 

Referring indirectly to the rejection of GM food aid by Zambia, he is

reported to have talked about the need to identify those responsible for

the ''outrage'' and ''tragedy'' of having ''children starve'' rather

than eat ''genetically enhanced foods'': ''How did we get that far; who

was responsible for whispering (those) messages to those policy makers…

That is something that I would rather sooner or later want to find out,

because you''re talking about literally crimes against humanity.'' In

fact, not a single person is known to have died as a result of the

Zambian government''s decision to reject GM grain. Alternative non-GM

supplies were found and there does not appear to have been any kind of

''tragedy'', let alone ''crimes against humanity''. In short, de Greef

appears to have rewritten history in order to create a compelling

argument

for GM crop adoption. (Biotech Rejection a ''Tragedy'')

 

The backgrounds and behaviour of those supporting this initiative

suggest it would be unwise to take at face value their demands that they

should be allowed to ''weigh in'' at meetings that help determine

biosafety rules on the grounds that they represent a large group of

disenfranchised experts who are independent of industry.

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2.Side events of the Public Research and Regulation Initiative at the

CPB Liability meeting and the CPB-MOP2

Draft note – version 21 May 2005

 

The Public Research and Regulation Initiative aims to involve the

public research sector in regulations and International agreements

that are

relevant for biotechnology, such as the Cartagena Protocol on

Biosafety.

 

The Public Research and Regulation Initiative will participate as an

observer in:

 

- The first meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Liability

and Redress under the Biosafety Protocol (Montreal, Canada, 25 - 27 May

2005)

 

- The Second meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the

meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Montreal,

Canada, 30 May - 3 June 2005).

 

For more information about the participation of the Public Research and

Regulation Initiative in MOP2, see www.pubresreg.org, under ''events''

 

The Public Research and Regulation Initiative will hold a lunch-time

side event at the liability meeting and two lunch time side events during

MOP2. The main purpose of these side events is to inform the

negotiators what kind of activities are being carried out in public

research

institutions world wide, and for which purposes that work is initiated.

 

The following side events are scheduled:

 

- May 26, " Liability and public research " .

 

- 30 May: Public research in agricultural biotechnology in developing

countries.

 

- 31 May: Public research in agricultural biotechnology through

collaborations between developed countries and developing countries

 

The side event on May 26, will have the following topics:

 

1. Overview of the public research in agricultural biotechnology for

use developing countries (Dr. Christian Fatokun) 20 minutes

 

2. The impact of liability regimes on public research (Shawn Sullivan,

CIMMYT) –20 minutes

 

3. Facts and misconceptions about liability and GMOs (prof. Julian

Kinderlerer). – 20 minutes

 

4. Questions and discussion (30 minutes)

 

The side event on May 30 will have the following topics:

 

1. Overview of the public research in agricultural biotechnology for

use developing countries (Machuka) 15 minutes

 

2. Public research in agricultural biotechnology in developing

countries:

 

a. Africa (Dr. Charles Mugoya) 15 minutes

 

b. Asia (Dr. Desiree Hautea) 15 minutes

 

c. Central and Eastern Europe (Prof. Yaroslav Blume) 15 minutes

 

3. Questions and discussion (30 minutes)

 

The side event on May 31 will have the following topics:

 

1. Overview of the public research in agricultural biotechnology for

use developing countries (Dr. Zaida Lentini.) 15 minutes

 

2. Public research in agricultural biotechnology in developing

countries:

 

a. Latin America (Dr. Maria Jose Sampaio) 15 minutes

 

3. Examples of Public research in agricultural biotechnology through

collaborations

between developed countries and developing countries:

 

a. Golden Rice Project, Danforth Centre, IPBO, (Dr. Gerard Barry) 30

minutes

 

4. Questions and discussion (30 minutes).

 

The presentation with the overview of the public research in

agricultural biotechnology for use developing countries will give a

general

overview of the main areas of agricultural R & D activities and the broader

context of those activities, such as crops of interest, annual loss of

yield, annual pesticide use etc. Table 1 gives an example.

 

The presentations by colleagues from Africa, Asia, CEE and Latin

America will present a similar matrix, worked out per country Table 2

gives

an example.

 

 

 

 

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