Letters to the Editor
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on patenting and GM crops
Are environmentalists hypocritical when we point out these conflicts of interest?
I would treat that as a separate question. "Should we allow people to patent genes?" is a separate question from "Should we allow genetic manipulation in food crops?". The answer to the first question is much more difficult. The answer to the second is "yes, but carefully".
In terms of patenting, my position has always been, if you built it, you should patent it. It costs a *lot* of money to produce a GM-plant, and that money has to come from somewhere. Patents protect those folks (for 17 years - and I would tend to argue this should be shorter, but again, that's another debate) and allow them to get their money back. That said, as readers of HTWW are discovering, in India, enforcing patent protection on seeds is a lot more difficult than even patent protection on software. However, if you discover a gene, you should not be able to patent it (currently, you are allowed to). To me, patenting a gene you have discovered is rather a little like patenting the liver. Just because you saw it first, doesn't mean you get to own it.
Are we Luddites when we want serious and honest scientific inquiry into the real effects of GM products on lives?
Yes. The "serious and honest" inquiry that you are asking for has been done. Just because you have only become aware of GM-crops doesn't mean that they've only been around for 2 years. Most of the GM-crops that are currently being grown commercially were developed 10-15 years ago. They've been undergoing testing ever since. People who are demanding "more safety tests" would do better to ask which safety test they would like done that hasn't been done. The current generation of GM plants are safe* (and it is extremely difficult to imagine how they wouldn't be). Prior to GM crops, you have eaten every component in the GM-crops. Molecular biologists are just putting them together in the same package.
*I hate to use the word safe as an absolute. As I've posted elsewhere here, safe is a relative term, as everything is dangerous in the wrong dose. Even water. Even oxygen.