Protests hit BIO meeting

SAN FRANCISCO—Dressed in tomato costumes and sporting hats festooned with grapes, a band of protestors assailed participants in the 2004 Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) meeting here on Tuesday (June 8).The Reclaim the Commons demonstration convened just after dawn and marched to the city's Moscone Center, where protestors caused meeting attendees some discomfort and delays. "Diseases and starvation will not be solved by corporations," protestors chanted. "The enemy is profit."Inside the center, the Council for Biotechnology Information, a nonprofit industry organization, escorted farmers from India, Romania, and the Philippines to media interviews to tout the benefits of GM crops. Edwin Paraluman, 46, from the Philippines, said that after he planted pesticide-resistant Bt corn in 2003, his yield grew from 3.5 to 7.2 tons a hectare. "I'm trying to get other farmers to see," he told The Scientist, "we increased our income by 50% in 1 year."As protestors and industry spokesmen waged their rhetorical battle, conference participants wrung their hands over public fears that hinder the development of GM crops, particularly in the European Union (EU).The EU maintained a de facto moratorium on GM foods from mid 1998 until May 19 this year, when the European Commission approved the use of Bt-11 sweet corn grown elsewhere.The European Commission did not approve cultivation of the crops. As a result, although 7 million farmers in 18 countries grow GM crops, "virtually nothing" is grown in Europe, said Richard Braun, chairman of the European Federation of Biotechnology's task group on public perceptions of biotechnology. "Europe is faced with a key decision," Braun said. "Will we develop biotechnology or depend on [others]?"Even if Europe did allow cultivation of GM crops, several BIO participants noted, the European public would not buy the products—today, many retail stores boast that their shelves are GM free. A distinguished panel of scientists agreed on Monday (June 7) that scientists themselves must educate the public about GM foods and organisms. "As we see the protesters, we must be forced to recognize how remiss we have been in taking science to the public," said Leroy Hood, president of the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle. But Braun cautioned Tuesday that education alone would not change the European public's perception of GM organisms. He pointed to the 2002 Eurobarometer on Biotechnology, a public opinion survey that showed that people expressed more trust in new medical approaches than in GM foods.The European Federation of Biotechnology held GM focus groups in four cities and, in a subsequent report, recommended an arbitration model involving professional mediators, the media, farmers, educators, religious leaders, environmental organizations, and others. Sabine Louet, news editor of Nature Biotechnology, pointed to a study with somewhat different results. She said that the European Commission's Public Perception of Biotechnology in Europe report suggests the public is neither for nor against biotechnology. Instead, the public wants to know why GM organisms are needed and who will benefit from their use. They also want to understand who will decide how they are developed and who will be accountable should problems occur. "These questions have not been answered to this day," Louet added.Many BIO participants said GM products such as Bt corn and golden rice—which is modified to increase beta carotene content—were advantageous to poor and hungry people around the world. But some members of the Reclaim the Commons demonstration questioned such assertions. "Hunger is not caused by a deficit of food production," said Anuradha Mital. "It is a deficit of morality. It is a deficit of distribution."Mital said that the industry is using the poverty of the Third World farmers to promote agricultural developments meant solely to improve the profits of corporations.As Mital spoke, police surrounded a group of protestors who had stationed themselves at an intersection and linked arms under a covering of plastic tubes, making it difficult for police to unlink them.The police picked up the linked protestors, put them on rollers, and wheeled them to a street that had already been blocked for the BIO meeting. Later, the fire department sawed off the plastic tubes and carted the protestors to jail.Neville Gittens, public information officer for the San Francisco Police Department, reported that officers had arrested 25 people, 14 of them linked. He would not say how many protestors or police had attended the demonstration, but he did say that the department suspended time off for all uniformed officers.Most BIO participants were sanguine about the protest and police presence. "People have the right to provide their opinion," said Wayne Bryant, president of Spectrum Medical Marketing Consultants, based in Montreal. "The biotechnology industry should provide a little more communication to help people understand what we're doing."

Protests hit BIO meeting

Protestors and industry wage rhetorical battles over the pros and cons of GM crops

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