A recent controversy surrounding Kickstarter’s decision to ban GMOs from future fund-raising campaigns has left users wondering. Last week, Kickstarter finally revealed why it made the decision, citing uncertainty in the scientific community. Antony Evans, one of the co-founders of the project, responded:
[Kickstarter] is saying that the scientific community has not yet reached a consensus on how GMOs/synthetic organisms should be released to the environment. In general, this is true, and I think one of the most important things we have done with this project is triggered a debate about how this technology should be developed and released.APHIS/USDA uses information submitted by the applicant related to plant pest risk characteristics, disease and pest susceptibilities, expression of the gene product, new enzymes, or changes to plant metabolism, weediness of the regulated article, any impacts on the weediness of any other plant with which it can interbreed, and the transfer of genetic information to organisms with which it cannot interbreed.
While we don’t expect to have to go through USDA approval, we are still doing the same kinds of tests.
Read the full, original story here: “Kickstarter responds to explain why they banned GMOs”
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