140+ Mexican scientists urge president not to issue decree pushed by ‘activists, painters and chefs’ banning GMO research

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Migrant Worker Harvesting California Strawberries (Photo by David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images)

Members of the academic community related to biotechnology, bioengineering, genomics and related disciplines express their concern about the possibility of a presidential decree that would prevent scientists from working with GMOs to the detriment of the population’s health and the alleged food self-sufficiency that the current government says it is seeking.

“We oppose the petition, which is uninformed, undemocratic and impractical, released on June 27 in the newspaper La Jornada, that encourages a presidential decree that would cancel the design, development, evaluation and exploitation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), including transgenics of any kind, in our country,” the group wrote in a letter delivered to the National Palace.

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“The purported prohibitive decree has no basis in any of the current regulations related to biosecurity, nor those related to sustainable development or food self-sufficiency and has nothing to do with social rights that are supposed to be violated,” they wrote.

The note to which they refer, published on June 27, said: “To establish the prohibition of the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country and to deepen biosafety measures, dozens of people and organizations asked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issues a decree, as it is a priority to protect the public commons, seeds and biocultural diversity. ”

Among those “dozens” of people are the painter Francisco Toledo and Chef Monica Patiño, who lack any kind of scientific credentials.

“It is dangerous that in this country, complete areas of knowledge are vetoed, which is the decree seeks to prohibit the development of transgenics and biotechnology,” said Enrique Galindo, a researcher at theNational Institute of Biotechnology (UNAM) and one of the awards National science signatories.”Not only does the proposal worry us, but more the attitude behind the proposed the veto, which is that this government establish a policy against transgenics.”

[Note: This article is translated from the original Spanish using Google Translate]

Read full, original article: +140 científicos mexicanos piden al Presidente NO prohibir transgénicos: iría contra la seguridad alimentaria

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