GMW: 'Bizarre' GMO law helps firms, not consumers

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GMW: 'Bizarre' GMO law helps firms, not consumers

" GM WATCH " <info

Wed, 1 Jun 2005 19:43:28 +0100

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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EXCERPT: Bishop Geoff Davies of the South African Council of Churches

said the patenting of life by corporations was " immoral " . It was clear

the consequences of genetic tampering were unknown.

 

" If we are going to play God, let us know what is going to happen. "

 

It verged on the criminal that GMO food didn't have to be labelled.

" Without being told, South Africans became the first people in the world

to eat genetically engineered white maize. The public has a right to

know what we are buying and eating. "

 

COMMENT

 

A key part of the US-industry campaign involves locking African

countries into weak biosafety regimes like that introduced under the old

apartheid regime in South Africa, a country where the uptake of GM

crops has

been amongst the most rapid anywhere in the world and where the line

between corporate lobbyists and regulators often seems hard to draw.

 

Just how weak and even " bizarre " the South African system is, is

highlighted in the article below in which a specialist in

environmental law

points out that South Africa has liability provisions that mean users -

not producers - will be liable for any untoward consequences of

consuming genetically modified organisms. (see below)

 

How could such a ludicrously unjust situation have come about?

 

As the lawyer Cormac Cullinan told South African parliamentarians, " A

provision like that looks like the fingerprint " of industry.

 

And, indeed, there are " experts " in South Africa who are up to their

ears in industry interests and yet who have been allowed to play a

leading role in developing regulatory protocols and legislation

governing GM

crops.

 

It's because of this that South Africa's become the industry's open

door to Africa with one South African lobbyist even quoted as saying, " If

the activists don't get their way, we're going to see biotech crops

spread right up through Africa " .

 

see FOCUS ON AFRICA

http://www.gmwatch.org/africa.asp

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'Bizarre' GMO law helps firms, not consumers

Wendell Roelf

Cape Times, June 01 2005

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1 & click_id=14 & art_id=vn20050601070016502C2\

38220

 

South Africa is in the " bizarre " position of having liability

provisions in law that mean users - not producers - will be liable for

any

consequences of consuming genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

 

" A provision like that looks like the fingerprint " of industry and

multinational companies, an attorney specialising in environmental law,

Cormac Cullinan, said on Wednesday.

 

He was a member of a delegation who spoke to members of the portfolio

committee on science and technology on the safety and regulation of

GMOs.

 

Cullinan said he had not encountered a provision like South Africa's in

any other law and he believed it was not in the country's interests.

 

'Information is skewed in favour of large companies'

He appealed for more transparency and a fundamental " re-look " at the

regulatory framework of GMOs in the country, which companies were using

as " a giant laboratory " .

 

The regulations made it difficult, " if not impossible " , for civil

society to participate in decision-making.

 

" I don't believe the regulatory system complies and conforms with the

constitution. "

 

Decisions were taken behind closed doors, with available risk

assessments of GMOs based on information gathered outside the country

and on

species not even found in South Africa.

 

" Information is skewed in favour of large companies, " Cullinan said,

adding that scientists here remained silent for fear of losing research

grants.

 

'The public has a right to know what we are buying'

Earlier, Glenn Ashton of environmental lobbyist group SAFeAGE, said

South Africa stood almost alone in its failure to adhere to the African

Model Law on Biological Resources. The GMO Act and its amendments

" completely failed " to maintain the most minimal standards of the African

Model Law or the United Nations-sponsored Cartagena biosafety protocol.

 

" We, with the rest of Africa, are calling for the regulation of these

technologies to be enacted in a transparent, meaningful, inclusive

manner that upholds mutually agreed scientific, ethical, legal and moral

standards. "

 

The regulation of science had to be in the public interest and could

not be slanted towards vested interests, Ashton said. He implored MPs to

ensure there was a meaningful biosafety regime.

 

Bishop Geoff Davies of the South African Council of Churches said the

patenting of life by corporations was " immoral " . It was clear the

consequences of genetic tampering were unknown.

 

" If we are going to play God, let us know what is going to happen. "

 

It verged on the criminal that GMO food didn't have to be labelled.

" Without being told, South Africans became the first people in the world

to eat genetically engineered white maize. The public has a right to

know what we are buying and eating. "

 

 

 

 

 

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