Public 'guinea pigs' for genetically modified foods
Firm admits using bully tactics in plugging products

Nick Nuttall Times of London

A scathing attack on the way governments are approving genetically modified foods was launched Wednesday by scientists who say that the public are being used as guinea pigs to prove whether the foods are safe or not.

The attack came as the head of Monsanto admitted that his company had been using bully-boy tactics, high-handedness and "arrogance" in promoting GM crops and foods across the world.

British scientists claimed Wednesday that current safety stamps were almost meaningless and should be abandoned in favour of rigorous toxicological studies such as those used to approve drugs and pesticides.

Until these are carried out, no one can safely say that GM foods are not harming peoples' health, the scientists claim. They say the government is sacrificing public health to the interests of the biotechnology industry.

At the heart of the scientists' concerns is a system known as "substantial equivalence." Governments, under pressure from the biotechnology companies in the early 1990s to give the foods the green light, chose this method for approving GM foods as safe to eat. The system is based on the notion that the current wave of GM crops is scarcely different from traditional crops and that the proteins produced will also be similar.

But the researchers, led by Erik Millstone of the University of Sussex, say in the journal Nature that "substantial equivalence is a pseudo-scientific concept because it is a commercial and political judgment masquerading as if it were a scientific one."

"It fails to take into account that when you insert a new gene into a plant it may interact with other genes in unpredictable ways," Dr. Millstone, of the university's Science and Technology Policy Research Unit, said. "At first sight, the approach might seem plausible and attractively simple. But we believe that it is misguided and should be abandonded in favour of one that includes biological, toxicological and immunological tests," the team says.

The scientists admit that such rigorous tests will increase the costs of developing GM crops but believe it is essential to allay public health fears.

The call came as Robert Shapiro, the chief executive of Monsanto, was accused of being a "bully." Lord Melchett, the head of Greenpeace, made the claim at special debate in London organized by the environmental group.

Shapiro conceded that his company had "irritated and antagonized more people than we have persuaded." He said his company's confidence in GM crops had come across as "condescending and arrogant."

But he signalled a more conciliatory approach in which dialogue with farmers and Green groups would rule at his corporation. "If I am a bully I do not feel a very successful bully," he said on a live video link from the U.S.

Lord Melchett said that just as the countryside and its wildlife were recovering from years of intensive agriculture, companies such as Monsanto were poised to wreck the renaissance with technology that no one wanted. He urged Shapiro to join Greenpeace in creating a "true life science company" where organic agriculture rather than GM ruled.