GREENPEACE WARNS OVER GENETIC ENGINEERING
PA 14.10.97 02:54
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By Jo Butler, Consumer Affairs Correspondent, PA News
Mistakes in genetic engineering experiments should be sounding
the alarm against tampering with nature, environment campaigners
warned today.
Publishing a list of 12 genetic engineering trials which have
produced unexpected and sometimes alarming results, Greenpeace
said the brakes must be put on the release of modified organisms
into the environment.
It cited genetically-engineered bacteria which have unexpectedly
killed soil fungi, escaped into sewers and become toxic to
plants.
Genetically engineered crop are said to have created new allergy
problems. Farm animals with genetically engineered growth
hormones have developed illnesses such as ulcers, kidney failure
and heart disease.
The report said: "If genetic engineering were just another
manufacturing industry, this prospect of problems and errors
might give little cause for concern.
"But it is not. Because genetic engineering deals with
living organisms which can reproduce, these `mistakes' cannot be
rectified."
It said Government should resist pressure from scientists and the
biotechnology industry to release genetically engineered
organisms into the environment as they simply could not predict
accurately what the full effect will be.
Public distaste for "unnatural" practises in farms -
fuelled by the BSE crisis - should also be encouraging the
Government to proceed with greater caution, it added.
The first genetically modified crop could be sown in this country
next year if French authorities give approval for a new variety
of oil seed rape.
Report author Dr Doug Parr said: "It's like the genie in the
bottle: once it's out, you cannot put it back.
"In a few years' time, it will be easy to say, `We shouldn't
have done it'. Do we have to have a disaster on the scale of BSE
before the Government finally wakes up and bans genetic
experiments in our agriculture and our food?"
The report has been published during a fortnight of global
campaigning to raise awareness about the issue of genetic
engineering.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said any
applications to trial genetically modified organisms were closely
scrutinised by a panel of scientific experts before being given
the go ahead.
They were also examined by similar experts in all EU member
states as an added precaution.