Soft Spoken Scientist Offers Fierce Defense
of the Biotechnology Industry
R S Shankar
C S Prakash has heard about what the organizers say is the largest demonstration ever held in the United States to protest genetic engineering of foods. He has read there were more than 3,500 people in the march in Boston on Sunday at the opening of Bio2000 conference.
Many of the demonstrators were dressed as mutant vegetables and animals. They complained of the lack of testing and information available to consumers about genetically modified foods, especially soybean, a key component of many processed foods.
Prakash watched as the demonstrators marched by the conference buildings screaming 'shame on you' at the scientists who were watching the demonstration from behind glass windows.
He was among the 8,000 scientists and researchers and CEOs of major firms at the biotechnology conference.
But he wasn't just another accomplished scientist. He had won accolades even before the conference began for what the organizers described as rare foresight.
For, it was the soft-spoken Prakash who had organized the pre-emptive salvo against the demonstrators. He had organized a Declaration in Support of Agricultural Biotechnology which was signed by 2,000 scientists including two Nobel Laureates worldwide.
Prakash, a professor at Tuskegee University in Alabama and the director of its Center for Plant Biotechnology Research, is angry that the protesters are distorting the view about the biotech industry.
He is convinced that biotech crops allow farmers to grow more food on less land with less synthetic pesticides and herbicides.
He is also convinced that the opponents have a "vested interest" in latching onto new controversies.
An admirer of Indian agro-scientist M S Swaminathan, Prakash has published over 100 scientific papers on such subjects as 'Do Plants Talk to Each Other'?
The protesters just cannot win, says Prakash.
"They need to promote new evils, new fears because that's what brings in their money," he warns. "They peddle fear. Today it's biotechnology. Three years ago it was global warming. Five years before that it was nuclear power."
In an article distributed to the scientists and researchers in Boston, Prakash observed: "The antis are planning a public rally, parade and street theater to counter the exchange of scientific ideas that will go on inside the convention. If you happen to see any of these people -- they will be the ones dressed as butterflies, Frankenstein monsters of ears of corn -- here are some questions you might please consider asking them:
** Why do you people build opposition on simple laboratory studies, but pay no attention to extensive field studies that disprove the laboratory study?
"For example, a laboratory study showed that pollen from genetically modified corn could harm Monarch butterfly larvae if the larvae ate enough pollen. But actual field studies conducted last summer by about 20 researchers from several universities showed that Monarch larvae are rarely exposed to the pollen, and when it does fall on their favorite food, milkwood, it occurs at concentrations too low to cause harm. This confirms the assumption the Environmental Protection Agency made in approving the corn for commercial use."
** Why do activist organizations, which paid for expensive full-page ads in The New York Times, never fund any research of their own?
"The answer is obvious. Legitimate scientific research would produce results they don't want to hear. There is much more job security in criticizing the research of others. Before there was biotechnology to bash, you folks used to be opposed to pesticides. Why do you now oppose a technology that can greatly reduce the use of pesticides?"
Activists claim 'not enough is known' about agricultural bio-technology, he complains, but they continue to destroy the research trials that could provide the information they claim to want.
"Recently, some Australian activists destroyed a field trial that was seeking to produce pineapples with greater levels of proteins, vitamins and sugars," Prakash notes and adds, "the aim of such activists is clearly to stop the technology. There should be no pretence about wanting more information.
Finally, he asks the activists if they honestly believe that low-yield, high-cost, labor-intensive organic agriculture can begin to feed the global population that is expected to increase by at least 50 per cent in the next 50 years?
"If modern agriculture had not increased yields to keep pace with global population during the past 50 years, hundreds of millions of additional acres would have been plowed up to produce low-yielding crops," he says.
"The technologies that allowed this yield increase -- fertilizers, pesticides and hybrids have reached a plateau, but population continues to increase. In developing nations, especially in Africa, millions of people struggle to provide food for themselves and could greatly benefit from biotechnology. By
simply planting a genetically improved seed, people could protect their crop against loss to disease and insects."
Is there no limit to your zealotry? he asks the protesters.
The protesters dismiss the arguments as devilish dribble. They point out that scientists had vehemently and passionately defended Thalidomide, a drug prescribed for morning sickness that caused deformities in thousands of children in the 1960s.
"We are not impressed by the arguments that Nobel scientists backed up a genetically altered plant, says one activist. We see the reality on the ground -- and we fear a terrible future."
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