Total review of experience with Bt cotton sought

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New Delhi, Jun 23: Fresh troubles are brewing for the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), which is slated to meet on June 25, to take a decision on the approval of several Bt cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation in this season. The Supreme Court’s appointed invitee to the committee, Pushpa M Bhargava has not only called for a three or four years total moratorium on GM crops but has also called for ‘a total review of India’s experience with Bt cotton’.

Greenpeace India has brought to the fore cases of illegal imports of GM food, which is also the agenda for discussion.

Bhargava, who is the founder director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Microbiology, has alleged, “there is substantial evidence which calls for a total review of the approval of Bt cotton in India.”

He said that the GEAC relied on biosafety studies by the developer which included that on pollen flow, seed germination, soil microbial activity, toxicity and allergenicity. “Any study done by the developer is of no value. The GEAC has no mechanism to verify with the experimental and control groups nor the data is confirmed by a third party,” he said.

According to Bhargava, chronic toxicity studies should be conducted, particularly in reference to aflatoxin. For soil microbial studies it was not enough to have total number of organisms determined as the bacterial profile and the effect on soil micro-nutrient were far more important. All toxicity studies should be done on the protein in the GMOs. Toxicity studies done with the surrogate protein made, for example, in E.coli should not be accepted.