Misplaced GM fears are `holding up' technology

Leading European geneticists and molecular biologists have said consumers are mistaken in believing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) pose "unusual dangers". This public perception is holding up the application of biotechnology, especially in agriculture, they warned in a statement issued through the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).

The scientists said problems due to medical contamination of blood, and BSE, have led to the belief that GMOs, viruses, bacteria and even DNA were "all somehow infective agents and therefore dangerous".

Such perception of GMOs was among the more specific reasons Europeans fear food derived from GMOs, and oppose their release into fields, they concluded. More generally, they noted a profound resistance to global agri-business. EMBO has 900 members in 24 countries.

Their statement strongly endorsing GM food nonetheless acknowledges that public concerns must be addressed, and scientists must be sensitive to their worries, particularly in light of the "horrible ways ideas borrowed from genetics were contorted and misused earlier this century".

The scientists, who have been advising European governments on biotechnology since the 1960s, accepted the risk that some GMOs might have detrimental environmental consequences (despite being designed to reduce environmental damage). But this needed to be balanced against the certainty that more conventional methods would continue to damage the environment seriously.

Consumers incorrectly attributing unusual dangers to GMOs was "holding up the application of GM technology, especially in agriculture where it can do a great deal of good, both for developed and developing countries". The technology had revolutionised the pharmaceutical industry since the early 1970s, and was now having a similar effect on agriculture, added Prof David McConnell of Trinity College Dublin, an Irish EMBO member. "The technology has a perfect safety record within the limits imposed; a good omen for the future but by no means a guarantee that there will be no harmful effects."