[escepticos] La ONU y los transgénicos

[Josep Català Medina <tecpress@...>]

Recibo de fuente fiable el siguiente mensaje.

Saludos.- Josep Català

>  An Open Letter to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
>
>  April 24, 2000
>
>  Delegates to the Eighth Session of the United Nations Commission on
> Sustainable Development Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable
> Agriculture
>
>  Dear Sirs and Madams:
>
>  As you gather this week to discuss the global need for sustainable
> agricultural practices, we as members of the scientific community applaud
> your goals of relieving hunger and malnutrition and conserving the natural
> world. However, we urge you to consider the very real threat that an
> overly-strict adherence to precautionary regulation could pose to both the
> environment and to the well being of human populations around the world.
>
>  In the coming days, you will be bombarded with calls to increase the
> strength of precautionary regulation and to restrict the use of many new
> agricultural technologies. In particular, some advocates of precaution will
> oppose the introduction of crop plants developed with recombinant DNA
> techniques. However, the view that the present day recombinant
> DNA-engineered organisms pose new or greater dangers to the environment or
> human health are neither supported by the weight of scientific research nor
> by a great majority of the scientific community. On April 5, the U.S.
> National Academy of Sciences issued a report, which stated that there is no
> evidence suggesting foods produced through biotechnology are any less safe
> than conventional crops. In fact, the scientific panel concluded, growing
> such crops could have environmental advantages over other crops. Another
> recent report from a US Congress Committee on Science summarizing
> testimonies from leading scientists makes a very strong case for the safety
> of biotechnology and warns against needless over-regulation, which could
> delay development of a technology with great potential for public good.
>
>  More than one billion people around the world live on less than one dollar
> each day. Millions of people go hungry, and hundreds of millions more
> receive inadequate levels of dietary nutrients. But agricultural
> researchers around the globe are now using recombinant DNA techniques to
> improve many important plant varieties useful in impoverished regions. Such
> new products can for the first time give small farmers the ability to grow
> more robust and more nutritious foods. Furthermore, by increasing
> productivity we can reduce the need for additional croplands and
> agricultural chemicals. Thus, rDNA-engineered plants can themselves be a
> major contributor to environmental protection and to the overall goal of
> sustainable agriculture. By insisting upon an unachievable standard of zero
> risk, though, advocates of precaution could endanger our ability to use
> these techniques to help improve peoples' lives and protect the
> environment.
>
>  Attached below, you will find a copy of a 'Declaration of Scientists in
> Support of Agricultural Biotechnology' which has now been endorsed by more
> than 2,100 scientists from around the world including Norman Borlaug, James
> Watson, and Gurdev Khush. You will note that the vast majority of
> signatories are from the agricultural and biological science communities,
> and are well informed of the relative risks and benefits of biotechnology.
> This document is just one testament to the overwhelming support which rDNA
> techniques command from the scientific community. Again, we urge you not to
> view recombinant DNA techniques as a threat to environmental stewardship or
> human health. Rather, we urge you to view this new technology as a powerful
> and safe means for the modification of organisms that can contribute
> substantially in enhancing agriculture and protecting the environment.
>
>  Yours truly,
>
> C. S. Prakash Tuskegee University, USA
> Klaus Ammann University of Bern, Switzerland
> Michael Horn Society for In-Vitro Biology, USA
> Roger N. Beachy Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, USA
> Martina McGloughlin University of California at Davis, USA
> Richard Braun University of Bern, Switzerland
> David McConnell Trinity College, Ireland
> R. James Cook Washington State University, USA
> Wayne Parrott University of Georgia, USA
>
> http://www.agbioworld.com/articles/uncom.html