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| Sunday, 11 September 2005 |
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Educating public on GM foods vital by Surekha Galagoda The government is not trying to create a monster by the proposed regulations in controlling import, sale and labelling of Genetically Modified (GM) foods. Therefore it is necessary to educate the public before it is implemented to counter non science based publicity said committee member GM Food Interest Group Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) Delano Dias. He was addressing a briefing session on regulations for the control of Import, sale and labelling GM foods organised by the CCC. Dias advocated more time and interaction towards drafting the regulations, to be more user friendly, provide adequate infrastructure facilities well in advance of the date of enforcement, an interim period for bulk crop approvals prior to formal enforcement and efficient implementation to ensure that no delay or trade blockage takes place. He called upon the authorities to simplify documentation needs to make testing and processing charges affordable to all persons and to communicate the labelling rules to the public. National Project Coordinator National biosafety framework development project Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Prof. Athula Perera said that our ancestors did not damage the environment and instead protected it. But with development we started to manipulate the environment to suit our needs and the development of technology has helped to manipulate everything. For instance today pigs act as human blood banks. Now characters can be transferred across species as scientists have been able to identify genes available in them. In rice they have identified 50,000 genes which has helped them to isolate them and transfer them to other sources. Two genes from daffodils and one bacterial gene has been transferred to rice to make it more gold in colour which has been named golden rice. Also fish genes have been transferred to strawberries to grow them in the winter while scientists have been able to change the colour, or size of roses by transferring the genes. The best news for people who have to take injections daily is that India is developing edible vaccines. Scientists have been able to transfer the genes to tomatoes and potatoes. He said that there are some risks to human health including toxic effects. A new protein can become allergic and GM crops can destroy traditional varieties. But no one has real answers as no long term research has been conducted by anybody. Prof. Perera said that he is neither supporting or opposing GM technology and added that ethical and moral issues such as patents bio thefts and bio piracy is a concern for the country. |
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