GSO, znanstveniki in aktivisti

Dear Take the Flour Back,
We have learned that you are planning to attack our research test site on 27th May. Please read the  following in the spirit of openness and dialogue – we know we cannot stop you from taking the action  you plan, nor would we wish to see force used against you. …
You seem to think, even before we have had a chance to test it, that our new wheat variety is bad.  How do you know this? Clearly it is not through scientific enquiry, as the tests have not yet been  performed.  ou state on your website: “There is serious doubt that the aphid alarm pheromone as  found in this GM crop would even work.” You could be right – but if you destroy our test, you and we  will never know. Is that what you want? Our research is trying to shed light on questions about the safety and the usefulness of new varieties of the staple food crops on which all of us depend. As  activists you might prefer never to know whether our new wheat variety would work, but we believe  you are in a minority  – in a democratic society most people do value factual knowledge and  understand that it is necessary for sensible decision making.
You have described genetically modified crops as “not properly tested”. Yet when tests are carried  out you are planning to destroy them before any useful information can be obtained. We do not see  how preventing the acquisition of knowledge is a defensible position in an age of reason – what you are planning to do is reminiscent of clearing books from a library because you wish to stop other  people finding out what they contain.

Dear Rothamsted Research,
Many thanks for your letter dated 27th April. We would welcome the opportunity to engage with you in a public debate over the forth coming weeks, so that both sides of the debate have an equal chance to hear and understand each others’ perspectives.
We are not in a minority with our fears over this trial and the potential commercial introduction of GM wheat that could follow. Recent EU surveys show that the majority of the public still don’t trust GM food…. In planting the GM wheat, you have shown total disregard for the reasonable concerns of the public at large, who say they don’t want to eat GM, and do not want to be treated as guinea pigs….
When a powerful minority threatens democratically expressed wishes of the majority, direct action becomes necessary. The suffragettes’ campaign of direct action helped women get the vote. The vast numbers of people who pulled up crops when the bio-tech industry tried to introduce GM into this country 15 years ago is the reason why our countryside has not been contaminated.

Je pa mojo pozornost pritegnila kampanja okoli te oznake, predvsem način reklamiranja in akterji te kampanje. Oznako ‘brez GSO’ namreč propagirajo z najbolj podlimi prijemi – z izkoriščanjem neznanja ljudi in s strašenjem javnosti s popolnoma neutemeljenimi in skrajno zavajajočimi navedbami v povezavi z našim zdravjem.
Tatjana Pihlar: Na kaj konkretno mislite?
Da na primer gensko spremenjena (GS) hrana povzroča neplodnost, da je alergena itd. To počno v korist nekega obskurnega inštituta, Inštituta za kontrolo in certifikacijo Univerze v Mariboru (IKC UM), ki mu očitno manjka naročil. IKC UM namreč ponuja neko “zasebno shemo brez GSO”. Kaj pa je to zasebna shema standarda? In kdo je ta IKC? Na svoji domači stani imajo animacijo s strašilom proti GSO in navajajo, da je GS-soja tisočkrat bolj strupena kot navadna soja – in to ob dejstvu, da se danes z GS-sojo prehranjuje vsaj pet milijard ljudi in da kljub zagrizenemu iskanju škodljivih vplivov v zadnjih petnajstih letih niti Greenpeaceu ni uspelo najti kaj prepričljivega. Vendar ne, za IKC so izmišljotine dejstva in jih ljubko predstavlja na svoji strani ter reklamira svoje storitve o kontroli nad uporabo GSO.

Moje mnenje: pro- ali kontra-GSO je danes napačna in neproduktivna dilema.  Pomembno je, kdo in kako s tehnologijo razpolaga. Patentiranje, monopoliziranje in vsiljevanje GSO kultur  iz strani agronomskih multinacionalk je praksa, ki terja odpor. Ampak ne primarno zato, ker gre za GSO – iste multinacionalke to enako počnejo tudi z “konvencionalnimi” kmetijskimi produkti – temveč ravno zato, kolikor gre za monopoliziranje in vsiljevanje. Temu se lahko zoperstavi država in javni interes. Zdi se mi, da je prevladujoče  proti-GSO občutje v Evropi v tem smislu zgrešeno in paradoksno igra v prid velikih agronomskih multinacionalk. Če bi Evropa sistematično, v javnem interesu in v skladu s svojimi standardi varnosti razvijala GSO tehnologije, bi bila to najboljša obramba proti “zlobnim” multinacionalkam.