04.12.98
GM Industry Conference 2/3/4 March 1999
Sender: nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
A major conference for the agricultural Biotechnology industry is
being
organised 2/3/4 March 1999, to be held at the Brussels Hilton,
Belgium.
Speakers from Europe and the USA include AgrEvo, Monsanto,
Zeneca, Pioneer,
Nestle and the UK Government's Department of the Environment,
Transport and
the Regions.
The title of the conference is: "Proactive Approaches to
Commercialising GMOs".
Themes include:
"From Politics to Profits: Commercialising GMOs"
"Transform GMOs from a planning and profit paralysing
political problem into
profitable products"
Conference literature informs delegates that:
"The expert speakers at this event will provide you with the
skills to
access people's minds and change even very strong convictions. A
comparison
between the US and Europe will show you possible solutions and
whether they
can be applied to Europe."
"Attend this event and you will meet members of the European
Parliament who
will vote for or against the progress in GMO trade and
development and
journalists from mainstream European newspapers who write for the
public you
try to access."
"This is your chance to bend the ear of people who can
influence your
market, for good or for ill: the press and the politicians. We
have invited
members of the European Parliament Committees for Consumer
Protection,
Agriculture and Science as well as journalists from mainstream
newspapers
such as Frankfurter Allegemeine, Le Monde, Le Soir, The Guardian,
and the
Financial Times."
Cost of the conference is £1,498. It is being organised by
Vision in
Business (www.visibis.com). Applications can be made to Sabine
Roettgen,
Programme Manager, Pharmaceutical Sector, Vision in Business, 41
Whitcomb
St, London WC2H 7BT. 0171 839 8391, Fax 0171 839 3777/5111.
Subjects covered at the conference include:
- clarifying whether European agriculture will be more or less
intensive and
the impact this will have on the use of biotechnology
- global harmonisation is needed to distribute the benefits of
biotechnology
equally, including reaching these goals by involving
organisations like OECD
and WTO to align the international regulatory framework and
remove trade
barriers
- minimising the threat of insect resistance to Bt plants
- ways to assess and minimise the risk of outcrossing and other
ways of gene
dispersal - is biological containment possible?
- preventing gene transfer via pollen, by inserting the DNA into
the
chloroplasts of the plant, by constructing male sterile plants,
by
preventing the plant from flowering
- assessing the risk of horizontal gene transfer, in soil, in the
digestive
system, following the way of DNA through uptaking and digestion,
how stable
is DNA - are micro-organisms able to use free DNA?, possible ways
to
minimise the risk of gene transfer e.g by using specific
promoters
- developing a conception for communications with different
target groups in
different countries
- building a persuasive and effective message based on public
opinion
findings, testing your message in another focus group
- improving the negative impact of the link between regulatory
issues and
public opinion, breaking the circle of negative regulator
attitudes
reinforcing public opinion which then feeds back on regulator
attitudes
- researching the likelihood of gene transfer of plant genomic
DNA into
microbes in gut and soil, summarising the latest research on
horizontal gene
transfer in gut and soil, estimates on the frequency of gene
tranfer to
occur
- prevelance of antibiotic resistance traits in natural microbial
populations and their frequency of transfer, assessing the
frequency of
occurrence, are they present on mobile genetic elements such as
conjugative
plasmids and transpoons?
- how can the food industry further the image and acceptance of
GM products?
(Natural Law Party Wessex)