7.5.2010 von admin.

A report of a discussion during the BIO convention at Chicago
By Jens Katzek

No-one seriously doubts that global trade is an essential of the wealth created over the last forty years in countries we used to number in the “third world.” They are today some of the most powerful economies on earth. And 10 percent of all merchandise traits are agricultural products.  Agricultural innovations are also without doubt essential to address the demands and challenges of the future.

How do we bring these facts in line with national sovereignty, to decide which products should be on a country’s markets according to national regulation? One way is through harmonization of regulation. But the kind and amount of regulation is not only based on science, it is also a question of culture, tradition, vested interests and readiness to take risks.  The U.S. government would not authorize a product just because it is approved in Brazil. Countries will defend and assert their sovereignty.

When the European Union needs 13 years to finally permit growing the Amflora potato, a plant in which the expression of only a single and naturally occurring gene was blocked, we have a problem.  One can imagine the challenges when stacking different genes and traits becomes more popular.  Today we have nine crops authorized for planting. There will be some 25 in four years. The theoretical number of possible combination is then 250.000! Even if only one percent of these stacked traits will be of interest for the market we still have 250 products. No regulatory system in the world is ready for this.

The only answer therefore seems to be tolerance thresholds. What we request from our neighbors and in our family can be also the guidance for international trade. In concrete terms this means, that a realistic threshold for low level presence (LLP) of GMOs in non-GM seeds and commodities is imperative as long as we have disharmonized authorization systems in different countries. The Global Adventitious Presence Coalition and the International Grain Trade Coalition encouraged countries to utilize the Codex Alimentarius Annex of Food Safety Assessment in situations of low level presence. Codex decided recently on recommend standards for these thresholds.  The EU, however, has not yet approved the Codex position.

How urgent such a tolerance is, becomes obvious when we have a look at the quantity of agricultural products traded on a global scale. We talk about more than a billion tons! If simply considering the size of the necessary infrastructure everyone understands why zero tolerance is not possible in a global economy. Today we have already tolerance for almost everything in our seeds and feed and food – but not for GMOs.

Sometimes practical things show that theoretical discussions will not help. In only one Panamax vessel on a ship you will find corn from some 1900 trucks. How could one implement here a zero tolerance? Painful, practical experience has shown again and again that this is simply impossible. Just recently corn dust was found in soy imports in the EU. Because of microscopic dust on the soy the entire vessel load was rejected. The EU feeding industry calculated that it lost 5 Mrd. € because they were obliged to use sub optimal feed during the last year.

An anecdote reported during the meeting was that the European Commission and some Member States are funding the same organizations which are attacking any adaptation of the existing regulation to face the challenges described above. Don’t ask for the logic behind this.

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1.5.2010 von admin.

Genauso so sicher wie die Unruhen zum 1. Mai in Berlin mit Straßenschlachten zwischen Autonomen und der Polizei enden, genauso sicher kann man sein, alle paar Monate eine neue Horrorgeschichte über die unkalkulierbaren Gefahren der Gentechnik zu lesen. Viele seriöse Wissenschaftler haben es mittlerweile aufgegeben, sich zu Wort zu melden, weil sie das Gefühl haben, es interessiert sowieso niemand.

Ernesto Bustamante ist da anders. Er will einfach nicht hinnehmen, dass selbsternannte Propheten das Land in dem er lebt, Peru, auf der Basis von Gerüchten herunterwirtschaften.

Deshalb hat er es gewagt, in einem Zeitungsinterview Horrorszenarien über das illegale Auftreten von gentechnisch verändertem Mais in Peru kritisch zu hinterfragen (s. die Übersetzung des Artikel unten).

Bereits vor einigen Monaten wurde er deshalb angeklagt - wegen Diffamierung! Nur weil er es gewagt hat, Antonietta Gutiérrez Rosati öffentlich zu widersprechen. Sein Verbrechen? Genauso wie Frau Rosati auf eine Veröffentlichung in einem wissenschaftlichen Journal verzichtete, gab auch Bustamante einer Tageszeitung ein Interview, in dem er auf die methodischen Fehler ihrer Arbeit einging.

Vor wenigen Tagen wurde Ernesto Bustamante nun „schuldig“ gesprochen und darf Lima ohne die Erlaubnis des Gerichts nicht mehr verlassen, muss sich wie ein auf Bewährung Verurteilter regelmäßig beim Gericht melden und eine Geldstrafe von 1800 $ zahlen.

Es ist schier unglaublich, welche Qualitäten die Debatte mittlerweile erreicht haben. Vor kurzem noch hatte der Bolivianischen Präsidenten Morales allen Ernstes behauptet, der Verzehr von Gen-Mais mache schwul und führt zu Glatzenbildung. Normalerweise würde man über solch einen Unsinn lachen. Aber wenn es ein Staatspräsident sagt, sieht die Sache schon anders aus. Offensichtlich schürt er damit eine Stimmung, in der kritische Gegenstimmen auch gleich mundtot gemacht werden können.

Derzeit läuft eine Unterschriftenaktion um gegen die Verurteilung von Ernesto Bustamante zu protestieren. Ich möchte alle bitten, sich an dieser Aktion zu beteiligen unter:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHJ3T2stY3VKZk5YUVhZNFd3UWdfc1E6MA&ifq

ANHANG

Übersetzung des Artikels (den Orginalartikel in Spanisch stelle ich auf Nachfrage gerne zur Verfügung (katzek@biomittelkdeutschland.de)):

Are transgenics already being grown in our country?

El Comercio, 23.3.2008

Ernesto Bustamante, Dean, College of Biology

In November, a journalist exposed in El Comercio, that a biologist from the National Agricultural University of La Molina had realized laboratory tests which ‘proved’ the existence of illegal transgenic maize in the valley of Barranca. This journal report did not show results nor referenced any article published in a scientific journal (which is an ethical requirement for any scientist who will divulge their results via the media). Rather, as any the only support provided was that an ecologist from the same university stated, ‘if she said so, then it is true, especially if she has done the analysis.” That is, the principle of authority was used, instead of the Aristotelian scientific karma– I am a friend of Plato, but I am a better friend of Truth.

Weeks after the article was published in the paper, the researcher made her results public via a technical-political report. This lacked the strict standards of all scientific publications (materials and methods, results and discussion, bibliography, coauthors, source of funds, declaration of conflicts of interest) and was received by the Conam [National Enviromental council] and INIA [National Institute for Agricultural Research] for study, and it passed on to scientists who studied it independently. A month ago, INIA issued its findings on the study, and Conam had it reviewed by three experts. These institutions have not published their conclusions.

Some weeks ago, I spoke with a journalist responsible for the evaluation of the materials used for the original newspaper article, and a colleague of mine let me know that our evaluation had made it to the Rector’s office of the National Agricultural University of La Molina. The author had two absurdly improbable conclusions a) the simultaneous presence of three transgenic events from two different companies (a gene for resistance to the herbicide glyphosate; a gene for resistance to another herbicide glufosinate, and a Bt gene for resistance to a lepidopteran insect. b) having found transgenics in 30% of the crops. This is even more serious, given that one of the two companies has not commercialized its seeds.

These false and incoherent conclusions can be explained by the fact that the report has grave errors in procedure and quality control (absence of positive standards, wrong interpretation of the amplicons, etc.). I do not know if transgenic maize is being grown in Peru; maybe yes, maybe no. It is also possible that Martians are alive and well in Barranca; maybe yes, maybe no. What is certain is that no one has proven that there are transgenic crops in Barranca or in any part of Peru (except for experimentals). Not yet. Given this sequence of personal and institutional ineptitude, a false truth has been generated and disseminated internationally. This should have been corrected by the investigator, the reporter, the ecologist, the politicized Conam, INIA, or the University. Nevertheless, I see with unease that each time a false truth is promulgated as a done deed, it gets used as a tool by those ideological and pseudoenvironmental groups that use their anticorporate stances to torpedo the important role that modern biotech should play as a developmental tool for Peru. This is a clear example of why the proposed ministry to which we pretend to entrust the cares of the environment must be free of political influence, and must depend on scientists of a free mind that can evaluate, from a strict technical view point, the environmental impact of the projects underway.

(Dank an Wayne Parrott für die Übersetzung !)

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