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Biblioteca No scientific consensus on GMO safety

No scientific consensus on GMO safety

No scientific consensus on GMO safety

Resource information

Date of publication
Diciembre 2015
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
AGRIS:US201500211815
Pages
34

A broad community of independent scientific researchers and scholars challenges recent claims of a consensus over the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the following joint statement, the claimed consensus is shown to be an artificial construct that has been falsely perpetuated through diverse fora. Irrespective of contradictory evidence in the refereed literature, as documented below, the claim that there is now a consensus on the safety of GMOs continues to be widely and often uncritically aired. For decades, the safety of GMOs has been a hotly controversial topic that has been much debated around the world. Published results are contradictory, in part due to the range of different research methods employed, an inadequacy of available procedures, and differences in the analysis and interpretation of data. Such a lack of consensus on safety is also evidenced by the agreement of policymakers from over 160 countries - in the UN’s Cartagena Biosafety Protocol and the Guidelines of the Codex Alimentarius - to authorize careful case-by-case assessment of each GMO by national authorities to determine whether the particular construct satisfies the national criteria for ‘safe’. Rigorous assessment of GMO safety has been hampered by the lack of funding independent of proprietary interests. Research for the public good has been further constrained by property rights issues, and by denial of access to research material for researchers unwilling to sign contractual agreements with the developers, which confer unacceptable control over publication to the proprietary interests.The joint statement developed and signed by over 300 independent researchers, and reproduced and published below, does not assert that GMOs are unsafe or safe. Rather, the statement concludes that the scarcity and contradictory nature of the scientific evidence published to date prevents conclusive claims of safety, or of lack of safety, of GMOs. Claims of consensus on the safety of GMOs are not supported by an objective analysis of the refereed literature.

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Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s)

Hilbeck, Angelika
Binimelis, Rosa
Defarge, Nicolas
Steinbrecher, Ricarda
Székács, András
Wickson, Fern
Antoniou, Michael
Bereano, Philip L
Clark, Ethel Ann
Hansen, Michael
Novotny, Eva
Heinemann, Jack
Meyer, Hartmut
Shiva, Vandana
Wynne, Brian

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