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EDINBURGH (AFP) - An international forum, this Monday on the safety of genetically modified (GM) food appealed for caution but also for reasoned assessment about these revolutionary yet controversial products.
Opening the conference, British Cabinet Minister Mo Mowlam stated, "The public reaction to GM foods in the UK and, I think, many other countries represented here today, shows that there is a degree of concern and confusion. We want to ensure (the food's) potential benefits are fully researched and examined. But it is genuinely too early to be definitive."
Scottish Health Minister Susan Deacon added that the public has very real and legitimate concerns about transgenic food. "There could be tremendous advantage for all of us if science can deliver these benefits. We need to keep an open mind. But equally, we have a responsibility to ensure that it does not put human health or environmental safety at risk."
Genetically modified food is derived from plants or animals that have had material spliced into their genes that, for instance, cuts the need for pesticides or care by the farmer, boosts their shelf life or adds nutrition.
The foods – the product of corporate biotech behemoths – present no known danger to health, drive down agricultural costs and may be an environmental boon by reducing the need for farm chemicals, say supporters.
However, critics say it is far too early to make that conclusion. They worry that biotechnology may imperil health or the environment by contaminating plants with genes that, for example, may cause them to proliferate out of control, mutate or die prematurely, with huge repercussions for the food chain.
The three-day conference in Edinburgh, staged by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), gathered more than 400 biotechnologists, ecologists and government regulators from 21 countries with the goal of clarifying the risks and advantages.
Scientists at the forum pleaded for the heat to be taken out of the subject, fearing that uninformed, angry opposition may destroy the potential bounty of transgenic crops. "Agricultural researchers worldwide have kept pace with a burgeoning population," said Charles Arntzen, chief executive of a US biotechnology organization, the Boyce Institute for Plant Research. "We've made it possible by introducing new technology to produce more food on existing amounts of arable land."
OECD Secretary-General Don Johnston pointed out that farmers have been by far the biggest destroyers of biodiversity by introducing foreign species, chopping down vegetation, watering the soil or dosing it with insecticides and fertilizers.
But Indian environmental campaigner Suman Sahai said engineered crops were "primarily designed for corporate profit" that did not take into account the livelihoods of small farming or the goal of sustainable agriculture. "There will have to be a public debate on risks and benefits, or else there will be a backlash," she warned.
Mowlam's comments came on the heels of remarks published Sunday by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who appeared to take a step back from his previously warm embrace of the new technology.
Mowlam insisted, however, that Britain had not changed its position. "Our position has always remained constant... there is potential – potential is the important word, (for) harmful effects and potential benefits, and what the scientific research is crucially doing is looking at that. Scientific evidence alone cannot prove 100%, there is always an element of risk," she said.
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