[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[SANET-MG] No safety regulation for GM crops and trees



The authors of the article below seem to be trying to get on board the
gravey train of government funding by showing the "right" stuff. The
conservative right in USA and Canada really dig deregulation. The
project will have the ear of the fundamentalist in Congress and will
likely be imposed to the damage of the global environment.
The authors of the article are advocates for pharm crops and for trees
with terminators. They are carrying the grotesque concept "substantial
equivalence" to the extreme and they have been given lax control over
their experiments. I think they represent the "Taliban" of crop
biotechnology and they will have their way with the right wing
politicians. In spite of what sane farmers and the public demand , they
will have their way with the fundamentalist politicians and bureaucrats.
Nature Biotechnology  23, 439 - 444 (2005)
Published online: 6 April 2005; | doi:10.1038/nbt1084
Regulating transgenic crops sensibly: lessons from plant breeding,
biotechnology and genomics
Kent J Bradford1, Allen Van Deynze1, Neal Gutterson2, Wayne Parrott3 &
Steven H Strauss4
1  Seed Biotechnology Center, One Shields Avenue, University of
California, Davis, California, USA 95616.

2  Mendel Biotechnology, Inc., 21375 Cabot Boulevard, Hayward,
California, USA 94545.

3  Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens,
Georgia, USA 30602.

4  Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis,
Oregon USA 97331-5752.

Correspondence should be addressed to Steven H Strauss
steve.strauss@oregonstate.edu
The costs of meeting regulatory requirements and market restrictions
guided by regulatory criteria are substantial impediments to the
commercialization of transgenic crops. Although a cautious approach may
have been prudent initially, we argue that some regulatory requirements
can now be modified to reduce costs and uncertainty without compromising
safety. Long-accepted plant breeding methods for incorporating new
diversity into crop varieties, experience from two decades of research
on and commercialization of transgenic crops, and expanding knowledge of
plant genome structure and dynamics all indicate that if a gene or trait
is safe, the genetic engineering process itself presents little
potential for unexpected consequences that would not be identified or
eliminated in the variety development process before commercialization.
We propose that as in conventional breeding, regulatory emphasis should
be on phenotypic rather than genomic characteristics once a gene or
trait has been shown to be safe.

********************************************************
To unsubscribe from SANET-MG:
1- Visit http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html to unsubscribe or;
2- Send a message to <listserv@sare.org> from the address subscribed to the list. Type "unsubscribe sanet-mg" in the body of the message.

Visit the SANET-MG archives at: http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html
For more information on grants and other resources available through the SARE program, please visit http://www.sare.org.