As Russian MPs ponder over a draft bill that could see GMOs outlawed, the country’s chief genetic safety activist tells RT she is skeptical about the legislative initiative and urges ‘long-overdue’ independent international research.
GMO production and distribution is likened to terrorism by the authors of a draft bill submitted to the Russian parliament earlier this week. It’s not the first comparison of the kind, according to Elena Sharoykina, director of the National Association for Genetic Safety (NAGS), a 10-year-old NGO in Moscow, Russia’s major campaigner for GM-free food and agriculture.
In an interview to RT, Sharoykina recalled a statement made by
the NATO Committee on the Challenges to Modern Society in the
Belgian city of Liege in 2004, in which it warned that GMOs may
be used as a genetic weapon.
“If serious international experts on security who have close
ties with the scientific community say this is possible then
there’s no smoke without fire,” Sharoykina said.
The NAGS director is still skeptical about the draft bill, as she
sees no way in which the legislation could be enforced in
practice, as it would be hard to prove a direct link between
certain GMOs and health or environmental problems.
The activist however cites some disturbing experiment results,
like the one NAGS conducted with the help of the A.N. Severtsev
Institute of Ecology and Evolution in 2010.
“We conducted an experiment on hamsters taken from the
natural environment,” Sharoykina said. “We had a group
that was given standard feed-stuff plus pure soy and another
group which had their standard feed-stuff combined with GM soy.
The animals which were eating GMO did not have their third
generation born.”
The NAGS director confesses it was a modest, underfunded
experiment and a more serious and comprehensive one is needed and
is going to be conducted in Russia. The NGO has already enrolled
a team of researchers from the US, France, the UK, China and
Russia and will make sure the experiment will comply with all
international standards. It’s also going to be available for
everyone to follow online.
The NAGS is raising funds from as many sources as possible for
the experiment to come up to the group’s claims – the first-ever
independent international research on GMO.
Until results of this kind of experiment become available, Russia
should abstain from opening its market to GMOs, despite economic
losses the step might incur, the expert says.
“How can we think about money when we’re talking about the
health of our close ones?” Sharoykina asks. “Russia has
huge territories and doesn’t need GM foods. Moreover, we have all
the chances of dominating the clean, unmodified food
market.”
After entering the World Trade Organization, Russia was expected
to allow GM foods production and distribution. However, in March
Russia’s president said the country was able stay GM-free without
violating its obligations to the WTO.
In April, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told MPs that Russia
will not plant GM seeds for at least three more
years due to delays in creating the necessary infrastructure.
Earlier Russia had expected to allow planting such seeds from
June 2014.