GM adviser voices consumer concern
5 June 2000
GM adviser voices consumer concern
by FWi staff
CONSUMER concerns about genetically modified technology will take priority over science in a new independent body set up to advise the government.
Cabinet Office Minister Mo Mowlam pledged the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) will be a powerful body with strong consumer representation
The commission will look beyond the science and beyond the regulatory framework, and explore the issues that matter most to people, claimed the minister at its launch on Monday (05 June)..
The AEBC will consider the impact of GM technology on agriculture and the environment and surrounding ethical and acceptability issues.
Dr Mowlam said the AEBC would provide ministers with an over-arching strategic advice on this controversial issue.
Microbiologist Howard Slater of CropGen, a biotech company funded organisation making the scientific case for GM crops, welcomed the committees emphasis on the consumer.
At the end of the day it is consumers who will have to use GM products and they have every right to have a view, said Prof Slater.
My major concern is that views are expressed in relation to scientific points and not scaremongering from politically hostile groups.
The commission will work alongside the Food Standards Agency and the Human Genetics Commission advising the government.
The Cabinet Office said these new bodies did not replace existing regulatory and advisory bodies.
In the past, environmentalists complained that too many members of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) had close links to the biotech industry
AEBC members come from a wide range of backgrounds with experience in consumer and environmental issues, farming, ethics and science.
The AEBC is chaired by Professor Malcolm Grant, professor of land economy at Cambridge University. His deputy is Julie Hill, programme advisor of Green Alliance.
The 18 committee members include organic farmer and commissioner with the Meat and Livestock Commission, Helen Browning OBE.
Dr David Carmichael, National Farmers Union representative on pro-GM industry body the Supply Chain Initiative for Modified Arable Crop (SCIMAC), is another member.
They are joined by SCIMAC chairman Roger Turner, former English Nature chief executive Dr Derek Langslow and farmer and broadcaster Judith Hann, who presented Tomorrows World.
Prof Slater said it remained to be seen whether the disparate committee could work together.