Biotech Updates

Lobby Groups Threatening Public Acceptance of GM Technology

October 7, 2011

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Warwick University say that Europe's regulation of genetically modified (GM) crops has become less democratic and less evidence-based since the 1980s. In addition, powerful lobby groups opposed to GM food are threatening public acceptance of the technology. Findings of the Economic and Social Research Council-funded project were published in EMBO Reports.

"At a time when an increasing number of people are living in hunger and climate change threatens crops, the system that regulates GM food sources ought to become more based on evidence and less subject to the influence of politically motivated NGOs," said Professor Joyce Tait of the University of Edinburgh's ESRC Innogen Centre and member of the research team.

Based on 10-year evidence, the study also noted that Europe's response to the global challenge of food security was being hampered by these developments.

See the press release at http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-gm-food-solutions-lobbyists.html.