The bottom line is, who stands to benefit most from GM crops?

It also says that he serves as an ‘‘adjunct’’ at the Hudson Institute’s Centre for Global Food Issues. The Hudson Institute is a right-wing thinktank with a political agenda and which has been funded by a number of major agrochemical and biotechnology companies.

Far from having an ‘‘enviable safety record’’, genetic modification (GM) technology has already shown some disturbing warning signs, such as the Showa Denko L-tryptophan disaster which killed about 100 people and made thousands more ill. Rats fed GM potatoes developed suppressed immune function.

These are just some immediate and obvious effects. It is because some health effects can take years or decades to develop (such as the link between smoking and lung cancer) that the precautionary principle must apply to the release of the GM organisms.

Mr. Durham’s comparison with drug development is not valid, because if a drug proves to have dangerous unforeseen effects, it can simply be withdrawn from the market. With GM organisms, once the genie is out of the bottle it can never be put back.
Professor of Genetics at the University of California, Doctor Norman Ellstrand, is one of the world’s leading experts in genetic engineering. He had said regarding the likelihood of a major GM disaster: ‘‘It will probably happen in far less than one per cent of the products . . . but within 10 years we will have a moderate to large scale ecological or economic catastrophe, because there will be so many products being released.’’

Many eminent scientists are opposed to the release of the GM plants, bacteria and other organisms.

It is sheer hubris to think that we even begin to understand the intricate interconnections of the biosphere and that we can predict the long-term effects of this technology.

Allergenicity is also an issue. If you have a nut allergy, you avoid nuts, or a life-threatening reaction can ensue. It is now proposed to put brazil nut genes in soybeans. Nordlee et al (1996) showed that allergenic nut protein is present in the GM beans.

People have a right to know what they are eating, especially when their life is at stake.

So far, GM crops have not lived up to the hype about greater productivity, lower pesticide use, etc. (Roundup Ready soybeans and canola promote the use of more herbicide, which just happens to be made by the company which provides the GM seed.
The bottom line is, who stands to benefit most from GM crops? The industry is in business to make money (nothing wrong with that). In its desperation to recoup the billions it had already invested in GM technology it has shown a deplorable lack of honesty with the true pros and cons, and unethical bullying and prosecution of farmers whose crops have been contaminated with wind-blown GM pollen.

Proponents of GM claim it is the answer to third world hunger, but this hunger is more a result of poverty, politics and economics than inadequate world food production.

GM crops are not the answer, and could even make the problem worse as poor farmers become beholden to big agribusiness companies for supply of expensive seed and chemicals which do not deliver the expected results.
As for the risks of GM, these are shared by us all.

Finally, the many thousands of ethical, concerned, informed scientists, doctors and lay people who have grave misgivings about GM technology would probably find, as I did, the heading on the article deeply offensive. You may not agree with us, but you have no right to accuse us of ‘‘unprincipled fear.’’
Kester Baines
Rotary Club of Highton Kardinia, Vic.

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