FoE says Governments GM advisors must go

09 July 1998

FoE says Governments GM advisors must go

By FWi staff

TOO MANY Government advisors on genetically modified crops have close links to the biotech industry and should be sacked, environmentalists have claimed.

Friends of the Earth is worried that six members of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) has granted about 150 licences for GM crop trials without one rejection.

The pressure group claims six of ACREs thirteen members have vested interests in the commercial development of GM crops.

But Philip Dale, an ACRE member who is also a senior research scientist at the John Innes Centre, said the Governments advisory body received no funding from the biotech industry.

Ingrid Williams, of the Institute of Arable Crop Research, said it was difficult to find experts in the field who had no involvement with commercial research.