Top scientist backs GM food…

14 August 1998

Top scientist backs GM food…

ONE of the worlds leading authorities on evolutionary genetics hascome out in support of genetically modified (GM) food.

Richard Dawkins, a professor at Oxford University, says that modifying food by genetic engineering is no different to the selective breeding carried out by farmers for thousands of years.

He also says, in a letter to The Independent, that the toxins and poisons which occur in natural, “unengineered” food are just as dangerous as anything that could result from genetic engineering.

Prof Dawkins accepts there are still risks attached to GM crops. But he says that these are more likely to be environmental rather than nutritional or medical.

He says: “The fact that you are importing them [genes] from another species does not inherently make it bad or good.”

• The Independent 14/08/98 page 1, page 2 (Letters)