Integrity in gene editing/GMO debate?
Trust thought for today is about integrity??
Sensible stuff from citizens as usual in new report from the FSA on responses to Gene Editing in plants and animals. But unfortunately the starting point is to me wrong.
“Consumers tended to have low awareness and very low knowledge of genome edited food. Most had not heard of genome edited food or confused it with GM food. Workshop participants were surprised that they had not heard about genome edited foods before.”
No wonder. Because this definition is entirely artificial, made up by DEFRA in the last year or so to get around the ECJ ruling post-Brexit and help with Boris’s acceptance speech 'commitment' on the steps of Downing St that he was going to ditch the EU regs and ‘feed the world with GMO’s” I was in a government synthetic biology meeting at the time and we were all gobsmacked by that statement!
For the record, the ECJ ruling is to me is ill-thought through and unhelpful and we have an opportunity in the UK to take a proactive, inclusive, open and reflective approach to this. This is not a great start.
The questions here seem to suggest these are well established distinctions that citizens don’t know but should if they were properly informed. Not that DEFRA is making things up on the fly for reasons of their own. At least say it's a new distinction we are thinking of, waddaya think?
GE is GMO or a GMO is GE, the difference is the transgenic aspect. The other consequence of this, is to continue to demonise GMOs, which like gene editing can be slight or profound and may, or may not have significant added risk or benefit.
The companies and the hard core sustainability folks who feel that we should be using all the skills at our disposal to combat climate change may be infuriated that the government has chosen to go this way.
Of course regulation is considered important and as in my trust report, much more openness, impartial information seen as essential. With, rightly, the trustworthiness of the FSA being an important component.
But if they are seeking trust here, this rather dubious approach doesn’t signal trustworthiness to me in pretty much any of the categories - intent, competence, integrity, openness, fairness or respect. Even inclusion, which this is, is marred by shortcomings in the others.
I pitched the government, and had some interest from the Cabinet office, for a much more inclusive well-thought through approach last year. Will dig it out and post sometime.
Julian Hitchcock, Peter Mills, Joyce Tait, Lionel Clarke and others in this area, love your candid thoughts if feasible!