comments to Down to Earth regarding updated/revised Inter-academy report on GM crops

Published on Down To Earth (http://www.downtoearth.org.in)
Scientifically invalid
Author(s):
Latha Jishnu
Issue Date:
2011-1-31
Inter-Academy update on GM crops does little to redeem Indian science THREE months after the country’s top science academies released their controversial report backing genetically modified (GM) crops and hastily withdrew it after it was panned by the scientific community, they are back with an updated report—and the verdict is that it is worse than the original.
The Inter-Academy Report on GM crops [1] has been put together by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), Indian National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences (India)—the bodies to which the cream of India’s scientists belongs.
Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh and Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan had commissioned the academies to assess the safety and viability of growing GM crops in the wake of countrywide protests over the approval for Bt brinjal, the first GM food crop that would have been commercialised in India.
The report, first released in September 2010, became notorious for having plagiarised a paper written by a crop developer (see ‘Sham Science [2]’, Down To Earth, October 16-31, 2010). It was also shoddy—there were no citations or references. Nor did it say who were consulted and how the report arrived at its conclusions. Ramesh had dismissed the 25-page report, saying “it does not appear to be the product of rigorous scientific evaluation”.
The updated report has been tidied up. There are references (119 of them) and a list of those who attended the June 1, 2010, meeting, the only one held to discuss this important issue. In addition, eight presentations that were made at the meeting have been put up on the INSA website but have not been annexed to the report. That’s as far as the changes go; the content remains more or less the same. Far from having redeemed themselves, the academies appear in even poorer light because the report is rife with “sweeping, unsubstantiated and superficial statements” according to many of the scientists that Down To Earth spoke to. Some described the new report as “juvenile and trivial”.
“For the most part, it is still onesided, strongly favouring vested interests and seed companies rather than accepting valid scientific, environmental and health considerations against Bt brinjal,” said P C Kesavan, distinguished fellow of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation of Chennai. “Many inconvenient references have either been omitted or explained away.” Kesavan was one of the 46 scientists present at the June 1 meeting, and he is scathing about the “scientific imprecision that characterises the report”. Here is one example from several that he cited from the report: “‘Hybrids of organisms contain genomes derived from both parents’. Does it mean that pure line crops and breeds do not contain genomes derived from both parents? I wrote to the Academy but it has not responded.” Kesavan has a distinguished career including stints with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Jawaharlal Nehru University as the dean of its School of Life Sciences.
Amateur and amusing is how he dismissed the updated report, as did P M Bhargava, former director of the Centre of Cellular and Molecular Biology. “The revised report is even more hilarious, scientifically invalid and socially sterile than the original one,” according to Bhargava who is currently one of two experts nominated to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, now renamed the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC). Among the many instances he cited from the report is the statement that “Chemically, however, all DNA are the same”. This is absurd and hilarious, said the noted scientist who added: “I would like to see anyone anywhere in the world defend that statement in the presence of even a group of scientists who are pro-GM.” But such goof-ups apart, the import of the report remains unchanged: a clean chit for GM technology and a recommendation that Bt brinjal should be released commercially. This despite a series of reports by internationally renowned scientists showing significant flaws in the test data on Bt brinjal (see ‘Holes in risk analysis of Bt brinjal [3]’, Down To Earth, October 16-31, 2010) submitted by crop developer Mahyco, a company part owned by the agriculture biotech giant Monsanto of the US. The academies have simply paid no heed to the serious concerns raised about Mahyco’s data that was supplied to Indian regulators.
Should one have expected a better, more balanced report? In September, soon after widespread criticism of
the report, INSA president Mamannamama Vijayan, who is coordinating the interacademy exercise, had declared that although the report would be reviewed, “it is very unlikely that the recommendations will change”. Indeed, these have not, although some passages in praise of transgenic technology have been excised. S Krishnaswamy, president of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, points out that even where biased statements from the earlier report have been expunged and replaced by a more balanced approach, the recommendations inexplicably remain the same.
A telling passage that was deleted is the following: “After a critical analysis, the Expert Committee II concluded that all the concerns raised by various persons /experts and organisations before and after the ‘Public Consultations’ have been adequately addressed. It is possible to add more and more tests for field assessment, but all the data generated so far confirm the safety and utility of Bt brinjal, especially considering the fact that his (sic) gene has been in use globally for over 15 years.” Apparently, a three-month reflection has changed this absolute view to a more nuanced tone in the updated report: “Thus a balanced approach is
required, keeping in view and learning from the evolution of agriculture which sustains human life on earth, the present day knowledge, prevailing crop production practices and the need of food in the future.”
All the same, the recommendations relating to Bt brinjal remain in place. “The overwhelming view is that the available evidence has shown, adequately and beyond reasonable doubt, that Bt brinjal is safe for human consumption and that its environmental effects are negligible,” the academies declare while calling for its limited commercial release. “One would expect from the revised conclusion that there would be a revision in the recommendations. This just shows lack of sincerity,” alleged Krishnaswamy. It also reflects lack of clarity on the issue since many recommendations are contradictory (see ‘What are they recommending? [4]’).
Bhargava is particularly scathing about the recommendation about post-introduction monitoring.
“The academies seem to be equating GM plants with drugs. Post-introduction monitoring in the case of the latter is fine as you can always withdraw a drug if it is found unsuitable. We, however, cannot withdraw a plant or animal once it is released in the open.”
Bhargava’s point is if there was “overwhelming” support for GM crops as the report claims “why would 90 percent of the member-countries of the UN oppose them? And why would so many states in our country representing some half of the population and cutting across political affiliations, oppose Bt brinjal? And why would virtually the entire body of well-known scientists around the world who have no vested interest, be sounding a note of caution on GM crops?”
According to him, there is a deliberate attempt to mislead by hiding facts. The charge of bias comes up repeatedly. This could have a great deal to do with who among those present at the June 1 brainstorming session were leading the discussions and making the presentations, thinks Kavitha Kuruganti, convenor of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), a network campaigning for an agriculture policy that is farmer-centric and not corporate-oriented. Eight presentations have been put up on the INSA website but four of these are from people involved closely in regulation of GM crops (see ‘Conflict of interest [5]’).
“The presentations were not based on any scientific evidence cited; in a couple of cases, they consisted of a reiteration of the biosafety studies done on Bt brinjal and the conclusions of the crop developer and the regulators. In at least two presentations, industry data for GM crop adoption is used as evidence for bio-safety,” said Kuruganti who was earlier with the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. Suman Sahai, convenor, Gene Campaign, is forthright that the report is “juvenile, platitudinous, trivialises issues and makes fallacious arguments.” One such fallacy is that the yield of major food grain crops is reaching a plateau. “The genetic potential for yield of most crop varieties has not been realised because most small farmers are not able to apply adequate inputs to ‘extract’  the most out of the variety’s potential. For this reason, they will not get the potential out of a GM variety either,” pointed out Sahai. Gene Campaign is a research and advocacy organisation which works to empower communities to retain control over their genetic resources.
Krishnaswamy said there are many problems with the updated report, including the appropriateness of the citations. For instance, two references about benefits to farmers are based on data collected by Mahyco in 2002-03. Here is what the report claims: “It is, however, evident that the farmer could benefit due to improved yield, better protection against yield loss, premium for quality, reduction in pesticide, insecticide or fertilizer use...”. The reference is to a consumer survey done by IIM-Ahmedabad which says nothing about the farmer. Later, the report makes an even bigger claim: “A few studies conducted in developed as well as developing nations have shown net benefit to the farmer, but this may depend on the prevailing conditions (e.g. high infestation)”.
Krishnaswamy pointed out there is no analysis with respect to infestation as mentioned. Nor, shockingly, does the data refer to any country apart from India. “More importantly, the papers cited make a case for further data collection and research in order to ascertain if there is truly a benefit for farmers. They also raise the question of sustainability even if there is a likely benefit.” With analysts pointing out the report’s propensity to hide facts and use partial truths to make a case for GM crops, Indian science has not been served well with a report that lacks balance, rigour and depth. Kesavan believes there is a clear need for a forum to critically evaluate the updated document. Ironically, the INSA website carries an article published in Nature by Andy Stirling [6], research director and head of the Centre for Social, Technological & Environmental Pathways to
Sustainability at Sussex University. The essence of the article is: “When knowledge is uncertain, experts should avoid pressures to simplify their advice. Render decision-makers accountable for their decisions.” If only the top scientists who prepared the update had followed Stirling’s dictum.

1/30/2011 Scientifically invalid
Source URL: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/32901

comments to Down to Earth regarding Inter-academy report on GM crops

Published on Down To Earth (http://www.downtoearth.org.in)

How competent is Indian science?

Author(s):

Latha Jishnu

Issue Date:

2010-10-31

A shoddy inter-academy report on GM crops casts a shadow on the integrity and competence of Indian science, while a US expert finds approval for Bt brinjal deeply flawed six of India’s top scientific academies were asked by Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh in March to assess the feasibility and safety of genetically modified (GM) crops and their regulation, it was expected their evaluation would help resolve the highly contentious question of growing GM food crops in the country. Instead, their report released September end has turned into a scandal for Indian science.
For starters, the Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops [1] has no references or attributions—not a single citation. It makes sweeping statements, unsubstantiated claims and has lifted passages wholesale from a government newsletter. And for good measure, it puts forward the view of the global biotech industry as its own. Although everyone from Ramesh to assorted scientists has trashed the report, the cream of Indian science, represented by the country’s apex organisations —Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy (INSA), National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS) and National Academy of Sciences (India)— remains unfazed.
Their recommendations will not change, say the academies. Here is the crux of the recommendations: “The issue of Bt brinjal deserves special attention… The overwhelming view is that the Bt brinjal is safe for human consumption and that its environmental effects are negligible.” This is in direct conflict with a just released report on the same Bt brinjal EE-1 Event by David Andow [2], one of the best known experts on the environmental safety of GM crops. His report—Bt Brinjal: The scope and adequacy of the GEAC enviro nmental risk assessment—is a clear ind ictment of the Indian regulator. Most of the major adverse effects of this GM crop on biodiversity and ecosystems have not been evaluated sufficiently, he said.
Andow is with the department of entomology, University of Minnesota, US, and his 63-page report (crammed with eight pages of references) demolishes the arguments put forward by GEAC (Genetic Engineering Approvals Com mittee) and its Expert Committee II (see: Holes in risk analysis of Bt brinjal [3]). In fact, the US entomologist warns that the EE-1 Bt brinjal is unlikely to fit into India’s scenario of resource-poor small farmers and may be more suitable for largescale commercial production.
The report of the academies, which ignores the mass of scientific literature on the risks of GM crops, has fuelled the Bt brinjal controversy further. Approval for the commercial release of Bt brinjal in 2009 had led to countrywide protests and charges that the regulatory authorities, along with certain politicians, were in bed with the biotech industry. Following public consultations, Ramesh had, in February this year, announced an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal. A month later, he asked the academies to give a report on the use of biotechnology in food crops.
This was necessary because of the far-from-transparent working of the regulatory bodies, specially GEAC, which had approved Bt brinjal. The GM vegetable has been developed by the Jalnabased Mahyco, a leading seed company part-owned by the controversial global biotech giant, Monsanto. In many instances there was conflict of interest among the GEAC members. This led to pointed questions about the impartiality of the scientific establishment. Far from clearing the air, the Inter- Academy report has only confirmed such suspicions by liberally lifting passages— without attribution—from industry-sponsored documents and citing the conclusions offered by these lobbies to recommend lifting the moratorium on Bt brinjal. It has in the process shown Indian science in poor light and highlighted the lack of transparency in the way academies function.
It transpires that the academies held just one meeting, on June 1, before the report was compiled. In their own words it was “a brain storming meeting which was attended by a cross section of Fellows and nominees of the Academies”. The report does not list who was present but says the document is based on “a few introductory presentations”, the written comments by Fellows “and the documents brought to the attention of the meeting by different Fellows.” According to one insider, it was a meeting “where the decision had already been taken to push the case of Bt brinjal”. It is not as if there was no dissent.
Some half a dozen scientists did raise concerns about safety and environment impact of GM crops but they were outnumbered by the pro-GM lobby of around 50 scientists. Papers that highlighted risks, such as the one on “the dangers of uncontrolled, random insertion of the transgene and the unsatisfactory, inappropriate and highly inadequate biosafety tests” by an eminent scientist, were not considered at all, said a participant.
How badly does it reflect on Indian science? “The integrity of scientific studies in India is not uniformly good or bad; it varies. There is greater integrity where commercial gain is not the sole goal,” emphasised P C Kesavan, distinguished fellow of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai. That might explain why the report did a cut-and-paste exercise instead of holding wider consultations to arrive at a more honest formulation of the conclusions. Among the passages it lifted is the following: “Bt brinjal Event EE-1 has been subjected to a rigorous biosafety regulatory pro cess enco mpassing all aspects of toxicity, allergenicity, environmental safety, socio-economic assessment, etc.” This was ta ken from an article by P Anand Kumar, director of the National Research Cen tre for Plant Biology and member of GEAC, which approved Mahyco’s Bt brinjal.
The plagiarisation was spotted by the Coalition for GM Free India, a collective of activists, which is outraged that a GM plant breeder’s views have been used to justify the lifting of the moratorium. What is worse is that critical parts of Kumar’s article in the Department of Biotechnology’s journal Biotech News are themselves a straight lift from a report prepared by the International Service for the Acqui sition of Agri-biotech Appli cations (ISAAA), the lobbying organisation for the biotech industry that is funded among others by Monsanto and Mahyco.
In any case, the strong nexus between India’s regulatory bodies and the global industry is hardly hidden. At one time, C D Mayee, the co-chair of GEAC, was also a member of the board of ISAAA. Even Prithviraj Chavan, science and technology minister, has been quoting from ISAAA documents to push GM crops. The Coalition said it was “appalled not just at the lack of rigour but by the braz en bias” shown by the apex institutions. However, INSA president Mamanna mama Vijayan, who is coordinating the inter-academy exercise, dismissed the charges. In a statement released by PTI news agency, Vijayan was quoted as saying, “The report was an attempt to formulate a set of conclusions and recommendations based on the sp oken and written comments of the Fellows of the Academies. In doing so, we did not make attributions and references…”
Such a cavalier attitude raises fundamental questions about the rigour applied by India’s top scientific bodies to research findings. Said S Krishnaswamy, president of the Tamil Nadu Science Forum: “This is part of a larger social issue of feudalism, lack of democracy, corruption and absence of accountability that plagues our sociopolitical landscape. It is evident in our scientific establishment, too.”
Like other critics, Krishnaswamy, a biotechnologist, believes the inter-academy “report is biased towards preparing the ground for commercial release of Bt brinjal”. He said the report is rife with “sweeping, unsubstantiated and superficial statements”. One example: “Safety aspects and possible health hazards of GM crops have been studied and discussed in detail. The evidences so far suggest that they are no more deleterious than ordinary crops.”

So how is it that the inter-academy report and Andow take such diametrically opposed views? “Even a cursory reading shows it is slanted to placate the funding agencies and the multinational lobbies,” said Krishnaswamy. For Kesavan, the troubling question is the haste with which Bt-brinjal is being pushed into the market without knowing for certain the genetic toxicological consequences, if any.  Kesavan, who has had stints at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), recalled that it took 16 years for irradiated wheat to get safety clearance.
It is an example worth recounting in this context. In 1972, BARC had sought permission from the health ministry to trade in the irradiated food items after elaborate safety evaluation using the most appropriate genetic toxicological tests. It was then that the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, produced data claiming that irradiated wheat induces dominant lethal mutations and chromosomal aberrations in the cells of mice, rat, monkeys and malnourished children fed with such grain. Following this, the ministry app ointed a two-man committee of Kesavan, who was then dean of the School of Life Sciences at JNU, and P V Sukhatme to evaluate the studies of NIN and BARC.
Kesavan, with two of his students, rescored the NIN and BARC slides and submitted a report that irradiated wheat was safe for human consumption. The tests were repeated by two international agencies and it was only in 1986 that the Food and Drugs Administration of the US gave clearance for irradiated wheat. Yet, the approval for trade in irradiated food was given by the Indian government only in June 1994 when Kesavan was the director of Bio-Medical Group of BARC. “So, my question is why such haste with Bt brinjal?” he asked.
As Sujatha Byravan, a molecular biologist in Chennai, sees it, the academies have dealt with critical issues—those related to yield, environmental safety and health—in a superficial way. “This is dangerous in a country with diverse socio-economic factors. India is very different from the US or Argentina,” warned Byravan, who was till recently the president of the Council for Responsible Genetics in the US.
So what should have been a careful scientific study ends up being a political document—a shoddy one at that, according to the US-educated scientist. “In this case it looks like they created a bottom line with which everyone had to agree.” That appears to be a widespread perception. “Undemocratic and socially and intellectually sterile,” is how Pushpa M Bhargava, former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyde rabad, described the academies. He said the report—“a product of massive intellectual corruption, where scientists have knowingly and deliberately compromised their academic integrity”—vindicates his decision in January 1994 to resign from the fellowship of three of the academies. India’s scientific reputation might take a while to recover from this blot.

Source URL: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/2069

1/30/2011 How competent is Indian science?

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