The Kenyan government banned the importation and growing of GMO crops and products following a 2012 study by Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen in France that linked GMOs to cancer.
But peer reviews by different scientists faulted his methodology after Prof Seralini fed GMO maize to rats already predisposed to developing cancer, research that was later discredited.
Dr Sheila Ochugboju, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Science, notes that people have unfounded fears about GMOs yet it has been proven safe in the last 20-30 years and consumers should be given the right information to make the right choices as “people have an innate visceral fear of anything that they eat, much more than injections.”
Dr Ochugboju reckons much of the misinformation and miscommunication was done during the initial stages of GMOs they were all about quickening their ripening, and improving their taste or nutritive value.
Yet GMOs are about responding to the consumers’ needs including eradicating some diseases or pests besides reducing the effect of drought on the amount of produce from a particular crop grown in an area.
