[escepticos] Aportación científico-económica

[Josep Català <tecpress@...>]

Smith's, Keyne's, Cantillon's, Saint-Simon's, etcétera:

Visto lo visto, a la corrala le ha dado fuerte por la teoria económica,
precisamente en unos dias en que la genómica/biotecnologia/transgenia
ocupa buena parte de los medios de incomunicación. Así que me
atrevo a meter más leña al fuego en forma de informaciones que son
puente entre genética/transgenia y economia.

GENOMA HUMANO
El paso dado (y del que os supongo conocedores) es muy importante,
aunque no se
trate todavía de saber "cómo estamos formados". A destacar que,
como hace muy pocos dias en el caso del genoma del arroz (Monsanto),
el hallazgo lo ha realizado una compañía privada (Celera) dejando en
ridículo a los organismos públicos, sobre todo norteamericanos, que
aún se encuentran en la tarea y van muy retrasados.

Al respecto, destaco tres cosas:

---he contactado con altos dirigentes de Monsanto para que nos
escriba algunos de ellos (posiblemente será el director técnico) unas
líneas en torno al hecho de por qué, en su opinión, son las empresas privadas, en
detrimento de las organizaciones públicas, las que van más avanzadas
en investigaciones que son trascendentales para el futuro de la
humanidad, desde alimentación hasta medicina. Tan pronto reciba el
"encargo" lo pasaré a la lista, para que sea defendido/atacado/destrozado
por los corraleros. Al menos así tendremos información/opinión de
primera mano....

---al comentar los avances sobre el genoma humano, los medios de
incomunicación hablan de "Celera", la compañía que ha anunciado
el avance. Olvidan que, en realidad, la empresa se llama "PE Celera".
Y PE Celera porque es una filial -al 100%- de PE Corporation,
nuevo nombre de Perkin Elmer, conocida por ser uno de las primeros
fabricantes (¿el primero?) de sofisticado utillaje de laboratorio. Quiero
decir que, en mi opinión, a Celera le importa un pimiento el genoma,
pero si le importa el hecho de que a raiz de su/sus descubrimientos,
serán muchos los grupos científicos que comenzarán a investigar sobre
los resultados que Celera pondrá a disposición pública (tampoco va
a patentar nada, como Monsanto....). Y eso significa que tales grupos
deberán disponer de máquinas adecuadas, sobre todo de secunciadores
de ADN, que fabrica -¡qué casualidad!- PC Corporation. Por cierto:
supongo que habreis leido que tras anunciar su descubrimiento, las
acciones de Celera se revalorizaron un 28% en la bolsa de Nueva
York....

---algo que a mi me parece importante y que se está olvidando: no fué
ninguna empresa privada la que, en su momento, insinuó la posibilidad
de patentar todo/parte del genoma humano, sino un organismo público:
los Institutos Nacionales de Salud de los EUA. Supongo que por aquello
de que en los EUA ya no debe quedar claro, casi, la diferencia entre
público y privado. El caso es que esa decisión, que el final no llegó a
materializarse, provocó la sonada dimisión del propio director
del Proyecto Genoma llevado adelante por los referidos Institutos,
el Nobel James Watson (el del doblete Watson y Crick), decididamente
contrario a todo tipo de patentes en esas cosas..


MAIZ TRANSGÉNICO
A las noticias que ya envié según las cuales se observa una "vuelta atrás"
por parte de los científicos (al menos en estos) que inicialmente se
opusieron a los vegetales/animales/alimentos transgénicos, de manera
que ahora van posicionándose a su favor, añado la siguiente, procedente
de Alemania:


> El pasado 31 de marzo el Instituto Robert Koch, hizo pública una corrección a su
> anterior informe. Esta corrección autoriza  la

> siembra de 500 has de maíz Bt (la misma cantidad que se había venido sembrando en
> años anteriores)
>
> Historia: dos días antes de ser aprobada una variedad de maíz Bt por el Ministerio
> de Agricultura (ministro del SPD), el Ministerio de Sanidad (ministro del  Partido
> Verde) impidió tanto el registro como la
> experimentación en campo de esta variedad. La nueva posición del Instituto Robert
> Koch cambia
> la situación y se permite de nuevo el cultivo de 500 has, como ha venido
> haciéndose desde 1998.
>
> Se adjunta un informe de la FBCI explicando en detalle todo el asunto.
>
> Bt-corn can be planted again - The government's slaloms
> On the 20th of February the green party controlled Ministry of health withdrew
> the authorisation of non-objection issued by the Robert Koch Institute for
> Novartis Bt-corn by the use of a directive upon the Institute. This move was
> forced because Bt-corn (Novartis) was about to be recognised as a variety by the
> Bundessortenamt (Federal Plant Varieties Agency). Through this decision not only
> the judicial ground for the cultivar recognition was removed, but the absolutely
> necessary small area plantings for biological safety research were also
> therefore considered illegal. If this decision had been made during the growing
> season all of the Bt-corn in the fields would have had to be immediately
> destroyed.
>
> Judicial Status from the 19th of February 2000
> Until the 19th of February 2000 the planting of large unlimited areas of Bt-corn
> (Novartis) was allowed in Germany under the "Gentechnikgesetz" (the national
> transfer of the European Directive 90/220). As long as the cultivar is not
> recognised as a variety under the German law of variety authorisation the
> planting of the crop is limited to small areas - independent of the breeding
> method used for the variety - whereby nation wide a size of approximately 500
> hectares is allowed (12 t of seeds). The Bundes-sortenamt had, in the last few
> years, tested Novartis's petition to recognise Bt-corn as a variety using the
> usual criteria for the judicial decision. In the case of a transgenic variety
> the testings by the Bun-dessortenamt is based on a safety authorisation for
> humans, animals, and the environment, in accor-dance with the Gentechnikgesetz
> by the Robert Koch Institute.
>
> Judicial status between the 19th of February and the 31st of March 2000.
> Two days before the recognition of Bt-corn as a variety the Federal Ministry of
> Health withdrew the authorisation of non-objection that had been issued by the
> Robert Koch Institute on the basis of Para-graph 16 of the Gentechnikgesetz,
> whereby a variety recognition was made judicially impossible. This decision was
> officially justified with new scientific results from a summarised literature
> study pub-lished by the Freiburger Ökoinstitut (Institute for Ecology,
> Freiburg), and two older laboratory studies that had been published in Nature,
> that reported on a questionable link between Bt-corn and harm to non-target
> insects. These data allowed, in the opinion of the Health Ministry, the
> application of para-graph 16 and therefore the removal of the authorisation of
> non-objection. A further, openly hardly discussed argument was that through the
> cultivar recognition there was the possibility of large area plantings which
> could increase the problems that had not yet been fully studied and identified.
> The only judicial possibility to stop the variety recognition was the use of the
> emergency paragraph of the gene technology law.
>
> Judicial Situation since the 31st of March 2000.
> In the end however the cultivation of small area test plantings of Bt-corn lay
> in the interest of the gov-ernment, especially the SPD controlled Research and
> Trade Ministries. It was known that since the middle of March the government
> began to search for ways to allow the cultivation of experimental plots.
> However, the presupposition for these plantings is the issuance of a new
> authorisation of non-objection from the Robert Koch Institute. Last Friday (31st
> of March) the Robert Koch Institute pub-lished an amendment that allowed the
> planting of 12 t of Bt-corn seed (which means around 500 ha) in Germany for
> experimental purposes.
>
> Therefore is everything back to the way it was, although the judicial basis has
> been changed. Until February the cultivar recognition was the limiting factor,
> now it is the Gentechnikgesetz. In the end the European Commission has to decide
> if the position of the German government has judicial right and then and should
> the occasion arise request the government to countermand the decision that was
> made in February. In reality this will most likely occur differently, as could
> be seen from the examples of Austria and Luxembourg. In 1997 these countries
> also put an import ban upon Bt-corn, that the Com-mission deemed judicially
> unfounded and issued a directive that this import prohibition be counter-manded.
> To date nothing has happened. The Committee for Environment, Natural Protection
> and Re-actor safety, with the vote of the federal government's coalition
> partners recommended in 1999 that the European Commission should tolerate the
> Austrian and Luxembourg national bans upon the use and sale of genetically
> engineered corn". It can therefore be expected that the Commission will accept
> the slalom tactics of the German government as well. The scientific facts have
> nevertheless been lost among the politic manoeuvrings.
>

Saludos leñeros.

Josep Català