GM Crops: Dr Shantharam's tirade
GM Watch
May 20, 2007
Here’s the excerpt from an article published by GM Watch on GM crops…
The scientific ignorance and competence of anti-biotech activists is appalling, but they keep on getting press and have been able to delay, if not stop agbiotech in India through their street level tactics.
Scientists have gone into hiding and they have the field day. This latest case by Aruna Rodriguez should have been dismissed the moment it opened in the courts, had the Ministry of Environment sent in a well trained lawyer and two scientific experts to give witness. The Supreme Court case that delayed GM crops so long had no basis at all, but there was no one to inform the courts. All these scientific concerns that have been visited upon by hundreds of research scientists and health expert's decades ago in the west are being dredged up by Indian activists to scare people. Bt brinjal is as safe any brinjal on the market, may be more safe than those pesticide lased vegetables that are in the market, and for heaven sake don't listen to these activists whose sole aim is to scare and mislead the public to establish their political agenda. Their activism is simply based on anti-science, anti-MNC, anti-capitalist and anti-American agenda. This activism is nothing about the safety of GM crops or the environment.
This report propagates several pieces of scientific nonsense by suggesting that Bt protein binds to mammalian gut cells and that aad and nptII genes code for antibiotics resistance. So what? These resistance genes work only when there is a selection pressure of antibiotics. This issue has been settled more than a decade ago by world class scientists working in the field and many health organizations have given a clean bill of health for these genes.
Somebody is reading up all sorts of nonsense that has been published by a lunatic called Dr, Mae Wan-Ho who is rewriting molecular biology as we all know it. I have argued that her alma mater should take back her PhD for professional misconduct in science by repeatedly writing scientific nonsense about GM crops. CaMV is a plant virus and does not infect animals. I have told her as much to her face when she came to speak at the World Bank and the US senate. I recall at a high class scientific meeting of NABC in South Carolina in early 90s, she was chased off from the stage when challenged about her assertions. That woman has absolutely no shame left in her. By the she is a buddy of India's own great agricultural scientist and a biotech expert called Vandana Shiva. They are like twin sisters.
CaMV 35S promoter is a eukaryotic promoter very useful to express alien genes in artificial constructs and it has been drafted ingenuously to construct transgenic plants. It has been in safe use for almost three decades now. Dr. Ho could not get her paper published in any self respecting scientific journal, but goes on feeding this nonsense which is lapped up by anti-GM activists in countries like India to make their case. Nobody takes Dr. Ho's claims seriously and has been pushed to the margins but Indian activists are now rediscovering her writings and coach their lawyers to represent such scientific nonsense and mislead the courts. It is a pity that the Indian scientific community does not go to the court get these time wasting court cases dismissed out of hand. These activists are wasting valuable court time and the time of the government regulators.
By using the scientific jargons like promoters, antibiotic resistance markers with non-scientific people like lawyers' judges and journalists, these activists might get publicity, but they are not going to win at the end, because they are talking of scientific nonsense. Those who are complaining about CaMV promoter must stop to wonder next time they bite a piece of brinjal or any other healthy vegetable. They are all loaded with multitude of viruses and those vegetables don't show symptoms of disease only because of eatable's resistance to viruses. But viruses are there. Billions of people vegetables everyday that are loaded with viruses and has anyone heard of a plant virus causing diseases in humans? People should have common sense which often is not so common. When scientific ignoramuses get top activism not fully understanding science, they make a laughing stock of themselves. Unfortunately, our courts, our politicians and bureaucrats cannot tell pseudo-scientists from a real one. They all get easily mislead once they are told that poor that farmers are being taken for ride. This is the tragedy of India….
Full article at GM Watch.
