Its all Greek to me!!

It has been busy here in Ottawa.....with the snow gone a lot of work has to be done to get the back yard in shape for spring, organically of course.

Regarding getting things into shape it is time that the EU Environment Commissioner Stravos Dimas (in picture), got his logic into shape......as a Greek I'm sure his ancestors who invented logic are turning in their graves.

His recent STATEMENT made in Vienna on April 5, 2006 of:
"First, it is not hard to see that GMOs have more opponents in the EU, than friends...... We must, therefore, persist in looking at the means to continually improve these varieties. Biological techniques may in fact play an important role in this respect. Indeed, marker-assisted-selection or 'MAS-technology' is attracting considerable attention in conventional plant breeding programmes as a 'genetic' tool to ensure that improved characteristics are reliably introduced into new varieties. We should not ignore the use of 'upgraded' conventional varieties as an alternative to GM crops, particularly where similar characteristics can be introduced without genetic modification."

emmm hang on a second!!!!!??????

Who exactly is advising Mr. Dimas from an environmental risk assessment perspective??? Are there EU officals or scientists that have missed courses in basic logic or simple science.

How are these so called 'upgraded' varieties any safer from an environmental perspective?

Lets try to examine the logic in this.

Take two canola crop plants, one gmo and one NON gmo:
1: BASF Clearfield herbicide (weed killer) resistant canola but a NON-GMO('upgraded' conventional variety)
2: Monsanto Roundup Ready canola, also herbicide tolerant but a GMO

Now lets take a risk situation: the so called creation of superweeds
This risk in theory can increase by
1. potential gene transfer to weedy relatives and/or
2. increase selection pressure due to changes in herbicide use.

Between the two crop examples given above the risks for the creation of "superweeds" are no more or no less.

Mr. Dimas seems to miss the point that from an environmental perspective the NON GMO or "upgraded" varieties he promotes offer no extra protection from the risk enhancement threats of gene transfer or herbicide usage change. A novel triat is a novel trait irrespective of the how it was introduced (be it via Agrobacterium tumefaciens transformation, non GMO mutation or by magic by Harry Potter!!). They both technically carry the same environmental impact risk.

Actually the GMO versions of these crop varieties may actually be considered less risky because at least there is some regulatory oversight of these crops by the EU (Directive 2001/18/EC). For the non-GM varieties there is no oversight whatsoever yet the genes conferring resistance to a weed killer present in these non GMO "upgraded" crops could be transferred as equally as easily to wild weedy relatives. Maybe Mr. Dimas should consider more carefully the equally environmentally risky NON-GMO upgraded crops he speaks about.
If he had the EU's environment truly at heart he would ensure these crops would be regulated also. This should also be said of the US!

Oh well this is not the first time an EU Environment Commissioner favoured biopolitics over sound risk assessment.....see Evolving European GM regulation: An Example of biopolitics at work”, Trends In Biotechnology, Vol. 18: 325-326.

If the senior folks at the EU Commission cannot get their logic straight of course there is confusion in the public sphere in Europe.

As an aside, I was explaining to someone recently the difference between the radical ANTI gmo groups/PRO gmo folks and reasonable science folks. To study something scientifically one should use the concept of testing and modifying hypotheses by, and in the light of, experiment.
I, for one, am always willing to change my opinion based on this concept. Any scientist that is not willing to do so cannot be called a scientist but a lobbyest. The ANTI GMOers or the PRO GMOers are not always willing to entertain this concept.

GM Watch Chicken Counter: 24 days since GM watch was asked to formally and outrightly accuse me of "fraud"!
Status: No claim of fraud (just more spin and ignoring Greenpeace Canada's review of work!)